TY - JOUR
T1 - Do direct-democratic procedures lead to higher acceptance than political representation?
AU - Towfigh, Emanuel
AU - Goerg, Sebastian
AU - Gloeckner, Andreas
AU - Leifeld, Philip
AU - Llorente-Sauger, Aniol
AU - Bade, Sophie
AU - Kurschilgen, Carlos
PY - 2016/5/11
Y1 - 2016/5/11
N2 - Do direct-democratic decisions meet more acceptance 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 decision-making procedure. For a set of different topics, 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 topics, a direct-democratic decision results in higher acceptance; this finding particularly holds for those who have a different opinion than the decision outcome. However, if the topic is of limited importance to the voters, their 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.
AB - Do direct-democratic decisions meet more acceptance 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 decision-making procedure. For a set of different topics, 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 topics, a direct-democratic decision results in higher acceptance; this finding particularly holds for those who have a different opinion than the decision outcome. However, if the topic is of limited importance to the voters, their 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.
U2 - 10.1007/s11127-016-0330-y
DO - 10.1007/s11127-016-0330-y
M3 - Article
SN - 0048-5829
VL - 167
SP - 47
EP - 65
JO - Public Choice
JF - Public Choice
IS - 1-2
ER -