Political activism when voters have a limited attention span

Iwan Barankay

No 15089, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We discuss the relationship between two forms of political activism and openness. We focus on direct democratic institutions and measure political activism by the number of direct democratic ballots and voter participation in those ballots. Openness is measured by the signature requirement that has to be met in order to qualify for a ballot. We show that in models where the status quo policy that elicits the political activity is invariant to changes in openness, more openness leads to more political activism results. However, looking at the empirical evidence on the frequency of ballots in Swiss Cantons, we find no relationship between openness and the number of ballots. This can be explained by allowing voters to have a limited attention span or that the status quo policy adapts to the more acute threat. We also find empirical evidence that more openness increases voter participation, which is due to the information externalities of signature collections.

Keywords: Political openness; Direct democracy; Limited attention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-mic and nep-pol
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