When Does Government Limit the Impact of Voter Initiatives?

Citizens use the initiative process to make new laws. Many winning initiatives, however, are altered or ignored after Election Day. We examine why this is, paying particular attention to several widely-ignored properties of the post-election phase of the initiative process. One such property is the fact that initiative implementation can require numerous governmental actors to comply with an initiative’s policy instructions. Knowing such properties, the question then becomes: When do governmental actors comply with winning initiatives? We clarify when compliance is full, partial, or not at all. Our findings provide a template for scholars and observers to better distinguish cases where governmental actors\u27 policy preferences replace initiative content as a determinant of a winning initiative\u27s policy impact from cases where an initiative’s content affects policy despite powerful opponents’ objections. Our work implies that the consequences of this form of democracy are more predictable, but less direct, than often presumed

Legislatures, Initiatives, and Representation: Comparing the Effects of Institutions on Policy Outcomes

This research compares policy outcome resulting from the legislative process and the direct ballot process to estimate the effect of political institutions on preference aggregation and policy outcomes. Using data from California statewide elections, we analyzing policies which were considered in both processes and for which the two processes led to different outcomes. We conclude that features of the legislature, especially party, may lead legislators to vote against their district majority preference, and therefore lead legislative and direct ballot outcomes to diverge

When Do Campaigns Matter? Informed Votes, the Heteroscedastic Logit and the Responsiveness of Electoral Outcomes

Previous research suggests that voters in mass elections tend to be badly informed. If these voters do not know enough about the relationship between the policy consequences of electoral outcomes and their own interests, then electoral outcomes may not provide meaningful expressions of voter interests. Can campaign activity affect the relationship between voter interests and electoral outcomes? To answer this question, we use survey data from 35 comparable elections and a new empirical methodology (Dubin and Zeng's [1991] heteroscedastic logit). The new methodology allows us to estimate the joint effect of voter information and interests on voting behavior in a way that is both theoretically justifiable and better at explaining the available data than traditional methods. We find that campaign activity increases the likelihood that electoral outcomes are responsive to (perhaps, otherwise badly informed) voter interests, when campaigners are able to exert costly and observable effort, are able to make credible statements and have the opportunity to engage in a vigorous and competitive campaign

Patterns of Voting on Ballot Propositions: A Mixture Model of Voter Types

In this paper we analyze the patterns of behavior voters exhibit over a set of votes. We explore a set of structural estimation problems that involve analyzing several votes at one time and develop estimation techniques for identifying and analyzing patterns. Using the information in these patterns, we introduce a method for studying voter heterogeneity based on a finite mixture model. Finally, we employ data containing actual micro-level vote returns to estimate the mixture model parameters

Cooperative Municipal Service Provision: A Political-Economy Framework for Understanding Intergovernmental Cooperation

We develop and apply a theoretical framework for understanding how local governments respond to the perceived costs and benefits of intergovernmental cooperation. Our theory connects local government decisions to economic and political costs and benefits at both the local and regional levels, as well as the institutional context in which collaborative decisions take place. We develop and test hypotheses with data from a sample of regional councils. We find preliminary support for our institutional, local, and regional hypothese

Are Legislators Afraid of Initiatives? Anticipation and Reaction in the Policy Process

This research considers how and when the popular initiative constrains legislative behavior and policy. I develop a spatial model of the policy process in which legislators anticipate the possibility that an initiative may be proposed in response to laws they pass. I use the model to identify conditions under which the initiative forces legislators to respond to citizen preferences. I conclude that features of the initiative process, especially electoral laws that affect the costs of proposing initiatives, as well as the preferences of political actors, largely determine whether legislators will be constrained

Legislatures, Initiatives, and Representation: Comparing the Effects of Institutions on Policy Outcomes

This research compares policy outcome resulting from the legislative process and the direct ballot process to estimate the effect of political institutions on preference aggregation and policy outcomes. Using data from California statewide elections, we analyzing policies which were considered in both processes and for which the two processes led to different outcomes. We conclude that features of the legislature, especially party, may lead legislators to vote against their district majority preference, and therefore lead legislative and direct ballot outcomes to diverge

The Political Logic of Local Collaboration in Regional Planning in California

We study the effects of ideological polarization on regional planning networks. Over the last several decades, Americans have sorted themselves into local communities that are increasingly homogenous in their partisan and ideological make-up (Bishop 2008). Local governments from these communities face immense pressures to engage in regional planning; however, we hypothesize that differences in the political composition of local constituencies will render such intergovernmental cooperation difficult. Using data from a recent survey of California planners and government officials, we map regional planning networks in five California regions in real geographic space and test hypotheses about the factors that lead local governments to engage in regional planning activities. We find that, after controlling for physical distance and similarity of planning preferences, local governments whose constituents are similar politically are more likely to cooperate with one another in regional planning efforts than those whose constituents hold disparate political views

Explaining Horizontal and Vertical Cooperation on Public Services in Michigan: The Role of Local Fiscal Capacity

Michigan local governments engage in a wide range of cooperative activities. Little is known, however, about what factors motivate local governments to engage in intergovernmental cooperation and how local government officials choose among various forms of collaboration. We develop and test a theory of intergovernmental cooperation that explains differences in the factors that lead local governments to engage in horizontal cooperation with other local units versus vertical cooperation with county or state governments. Our primary focus is on fiscal capacity: we hypothesize that limited fiscal capacity leads many local governments, especially townships, to work collaboratively with state or county actors to provide government services. Local governments with greater fiscal capacity, especially cities, are stronger potential partners and so are more likely to collaborate with other local governments using horizontal arrangements. We expect other factors, such as population characteristics, local and regional economic factors, federal or state mandates, and the existence of collaborative partners, to matter as well. We test these hypotheses with survey data collected in 2005 by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan on the mode of service provision employed by 460 Michigan local governments across 115 service categories. We find strong support for our propositions about the linkage between local fiscal capacity and intergovernmental cooperation on public services