The ballot initiative process does not make people moregenerally knowledgeable about politics

Do ballot initiatives help to improve people’s knowledge about politics? In new research which uses election survey data from more than 120,000 voters across 48 states Nicholas R. Seabrook, Joshua J. Dyck and Edward L. Lascher, Jr. find that ballot initiatives have no positive effect on general political knowledge. They write that these results hold no matter how often ballot initiatives are used, how many initiatives are on the ballot during an election, and how much money was spent by the initiative’s supporters and opponents

American State Ballot Initiatives and Income Inequality

Some have argued that the ballot initiative process prevalent in many American states might lower inequality. We contend this is improbable based on what is known about whether expansion of democracy leads to redistribution, the attitudes of citizens, and the characteristics of the initiative process. Nevertheless, the proposition needs testing. We examine three types of evidence. First, we analyze the content and passage of all post-World War II initiatives going to voters in California, a state that makes heavy use of ballot propositions. Second, we model institutional factors influencing differences in inequality at the state-level from 1976-2014 to test the aggregate-level effect of ballot initiatives on income inequality. Third, we use individual level data to evaluate the claim that frequent initiative use makes lower income people happier because it helps to reduce inequality. Our analyses consistently indicate that the ballot initiative process fails to reduce income inequality