Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Direct democracy: Direct democracy is a system where citizens participate directly in decision-making, bypassing elected representatives. It allows individuals to vote on policies, laws, or issues directly, often through initiatives, referendums, or town hall meetings. See also Democracy, Deliberative Democracy, Delegative Democracy, Participation, Community, Politics._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Constitutional Economics on Direct Democracy - Dictionary of Arguments
Parisi I 213 Direct democracy/Constitutional economics/Voigt: It has been hypothesized that direct democratic institutions make politicians more accountable and result in policy choices that more closely match citizen preferences. In real-world societies of a size too large to efficiently vote directly on all issues, representative and direct democracy are complementary institutions. Referendums: With regard to direct democratic institutions, referendums are usually distinguished from initiatives. The constitution can prescribe the use of referendums for passing certain types of legislation, in which case agenda-setting power remains with parliament, but citizen consent is required. Initiatives: Initiatives, in contrast, allow citizens to become agenda setters: the citizens propose a piece of legislation that will then be decided upon, given that they manage to secure a certain quorum of votes in favor of the initiative. Government spending: Potentially, reducing the principal-agent problem by way of direct democratic institutions could affect quite a few variables: If citizens prefer an expenditure level that is higher/lower than that preferred by the government, they should be able to achieve it via direct democratic institutions. It is often assumed that governments prefer higher expenditure levels than do citizens; in this case, we would expect expenditure levels to Parisi I 214 decrease with the increasing importance of direct democratic institutions in the country. USA: Matsusaka (1995(1), 2004(2)) estimates the effects of the right to an initiative on fiscal policy among all U.S. states except Alaska. States with the right to an initiative have lower expenditures and lower revenues than states without that institution. Switzerland: With regard to Switzerland, Feld and Kirchgässner (2001)(3) deal with the effects of a mandatory fiscal referendum on the same variables. They find that in cantons with the mandatory referendum, both expenditure and revenue are lower by about 7-11 % compared to cantons without mandatory referendums. Initiatives: Matsusaka (2004(2), ch. 4) also deals with the question of whether initiatives have any effect on the distribution of government spending between the state and the local level and finds that initiative states spend 13% less per capita at the state level than non-initiative states, but spend 4% more on the local level. Direct democracy: Feld, Schaltegger, and Schnellenbach (2008)(4) ask whether government spend- ing really is more in line with citizen preferences in a direct democracy and answer it by analyzing the Swiss case. Drawing on panel data for Swiss cantons for the years from 1980 to 1998, they find that fiscal referendums at the cantonal level lead to less centralization of both cantonal spending and revenue. However, citizen fiscal preferences are not necessarily always more conservative than those of their representatives. Corruption: With regard to U.S. states, Alt and Lassen (2003)(5) find that initiative states have significantly lower levels of perceived corruption than non-initiative states. Efficiency: Blomberg, Hess, and Weerapana (2004)(6) ask whether there is any significant difference in the effective provision of public capital between initiative and non-initiative states among the forty-eight continental U.S. states during the period 1969 to 1986. They find that non-initiative states are some 20% less effective in providing public capital than are initiative states. >Corruption. 1. Matsusaka, J. (1995). "Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative: Evidence from the last 30 years." Journal of Political Economy 102(2):587-623. 2. Matsusaka, J. (2004). For the Many or the Few. The Initiative, Public Policy, and American Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 3. Feld, L. P. and G. Kirchgässner (2001). "The Political Economy of Direct Legislation: Direct Democracy and Local Decision-Making." Economic Policy 33:329-363. 4. Feld, L. P., C. Schaltegger, and J. Schnellenbach (2008). "On government centralization and fiscal referendums." European Economic Review 52: 611-645. 5. Alt, J. and D. Lassen (2003); The Political Economy of Institutions and Corruption in American States. Journal of Theoretical Politics 5(3):341-365. 6. Blomberg, S., G. Hess, and A. Weerapana (2004). "The Impact of Voter Initiatives on Economic Activity." European Journal of Political Economy 20(1):207-226. Voigt, Stefan. “Constitutional Economics and the Law”. In: Parisi, Francesco (ed) (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics. Vol 1: Methodology and Concepts. NY: Oxford University_____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Constitutional Economics Parisi I Francesco Parisi (Ed) The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics: Volume 1: Methodology and Concepts New York 2017 |
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