The Potential of Direct Democracy: A Global Measure (1900–2014)
David Altman (daltman@uc.cl)
Additional contact information
David Altman: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2017, vol. 133, issue 3, No 19, 1207-1227
Abstract:
Abstract To what extent is direct democracy achieved in current polities? To answer this question, I develop an index, Direct Democracy Practice Potential, which is applied to 200 polities worldwide. This index results from the aggregation of the scores of four types of mechanisms of direct democracy: popular initiatives, popular referendums, obligatory referendums, and authorities’ plebiscites. This index measures: (1) how easy it is to initiate and approve each type of popular vote, and (2) how consequential that vote is (if approved). Ease of initiation is measured by: (a) the existence of a direct democracy process, (b) the number of signatures needed, and (c) time limits to collect signatures. Ease of approval is measured by quorums pertaining to: (a) participation, (b) approval, (c) supermajority, and (d) district majority. Regarding how consequential the vote is, it considers its decisiveness (whether the decision is binding), and the threat capability of citizen-initiated mechanisms of direct democracy as measured by the frequency with which direct popular votes have been used and approved in the past. Finally, the study tests the validity of the new measure, discussing its strengths and limitations.
Keywords: Direct democracy; Referendums; Popular initiatives; Democracy; Quality of democracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)
Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-016-1408-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:soinre:v:133:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s11205-016-1408-0
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135
DOI: 10.1007/s11205-016-1408-0
Access Statistics for this article
Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement is currently edited by Filomena Maggino
More articles in Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla (sonal.shukla@springer.com) and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (indexing@springernature.com).