Effects of Direct Democracy

During the last decades direct democracy (DD) has surpassed the frontiers of the well-known and most frequent of its users such as Switzerland or the states of the USA. DD became a regular practice in several countries worldwide. However, most scholars in the field have mainly focused on the differences between the institutional designs (bottom up or top down; consultative or binding; active or reactive) of DD rather than trying to tackle the more difficult task of studying its effects. We therefore suggest to focus on the consequences of direct democracy on the quality of living, the legitimacy of political actors, institutional stability, the party system or the resolution of political blockage, particularly for so called “moral politics” (death penalty, illicit drugs, artificial reproduction) or big infrastructure projects, as well as all NIMBY phenomena. Some of the questions whose assessment is expected are: Are issues such as the death penalty, gay marriage, genetically modified food or embryo donation solved through decisions taken by referendum votes or do the votes tend to reinforce polarization? Do referendum decisions open the door for new reforms once the equilibrium of political power changes? What about mid versus long term effects of decisions taken in political systems with strong DD mechanisms? All kinds of papers, be they theoretical or empirical, and methodological approaches, such as case studies, process tracing, comparative, large N, are welcome.