Do direct-democratic procedures lead to higher acceptance than political representation? Experimental survey evidence from Germany

Are direct-democratic decisions more acceptable to voters than decisions arrived at through representative procedures? We conduct an experimental online vignette study with a German sample to investigate how voters’ acceptance of a political decision depends on the process through which it is reache...

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Veröffentlicht in:Public choice Jg. 167; H. 1/2; S. 47 - 65
Hauptverfasser: Towfigh, Emanuel V., Goerg, Sebastian J., Glöckner, Andreas, Leifeld, Philip, Llorente-Saguer, Aniol, Bade, Sophie, Kurschilgen, Carlos
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: New York Springer Science + Business Media 01.04.2016
Springer US
Schlagworte:
Economics
Economics and Finance
Political Science
Public Finance
Acceptance
Legitimacy
Representative procedures
Direct democracy
Political parties
D72
ISSN:0048-5829, 1573-7101
Online-Zugang:Volltext
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Zusammenfassung:Are direct-democratic decisions more acceptable to voters than decisions arrived at through representative procedures? We conduct an experimental online vignette study with a German sample to investigate how voters’ acceptance of a political decision depends on the process through which it is reached. For a set of different issues, we investigate how acceptance varies depending on whether the decision is the result of a direct-democratic institution, a party in a representative democracy, or an expert committee. Our results show that for important issues, direct democracy generates greater acceptance; this finding holds particularly for those voters who do not agree with a collectively chosen outcome. However, if the topic is of limited importance to the voters, acceptance does not differ between the mechanisms. Our results imply that a combination of representative democracy and direct democracy, conditional on the distribution of issue importance among the electorate, may be optimal with regard to acceptance of political decisions.
ISSN:0048-5829
1573-7101
DOI:10.1007/s11127-016-0330-y