Direct Democracy
• Pure Democracy vs. Representative
• Progressive Movement: Advocated measures to
destroy political machines and instead have direct
participation by voters in the nomination of
candidates and the establishment of public policy.
• Initiative: A process in which a proposal for legislation
is placed on the ballot and voters can either enact or
reject the proposal without further action by the
governor or legislature.
• Recall: A process in which voters can petition for a
vote to remove officials between elections.
Direct Democracy
• Direct initiative: A process in which voters can
place a proposal on a ballot and enact it into law
without involving the legislature or governor.
• Indirect initiative: A process in which the
legislature places a proposal on a ballot and allows
voters to enact it into law, without involving the
governor or further action by the legislature.
• Popular referendum: A process by which voters
can veto a bill recently passed in the legislature by
placing the issue on a ballot and expressing
disapproval. Also called direct referendum.
Direct Democracy
• Bond referendum: A process of seeking voter
approval before a government borrows money by
issuing bonds to investors.
• Advisory referendum: A process in which voters
cast nonbinding ballots on an issue or proposal.
Benefits of Direct Democracy
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Benefits?
Gives citizens veto power (referendum)
Gives citizens ability to circumvent legislature
Bypass gridlock, special interests
Citizen satisfaction
Increased Voter turnout
Costs Direct Democracy
• Costs?
• Laws poorly written
• No deliberation during the writing of
proposition
– Only on whether to accept proposition
• Expensive
– Qualification, signature gathering have high costs
– Special interest tend to dominate process
• Complexity:
– counter-initiatives, long ballots
Voters are not well informed
Can they make good decisions?
Need cues: Political Parties, endorcements
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
“The general will is always right, but the
judgment that guides it is not always
enlightened.”
TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY: RACIAL AND ETHNIC
MINORITIES IN DIRECT DEMOCRACY by Hajnal,
Gerber, and Louch
Ballot initiative/referendum: most democratic means
of enacting legislation or is direct democracy being
used by white groups to dominate nonwhite
minorities?
The referendum has been a most effective
facilitator of voter racial bias, fear and
prejudice and has marred American democracy
form its earliest days (Bell 1978).
Research Question and Methods
• Research question: are minorities more likely to
be on the losing side (as a voter) on
propositions?
• Data: LA Times exit polls from 1978 to 2000.
– Primary and general elections
– Why California?
– N = 195,019
• Dependent variable
– Whether respondent voted on winning side
• Logistic regression
Findings
• Findings for all proposition during that time:
blacks, Latinos and Asians are less likely to
vote on the winning side of a ballot initiative.
• Authors' note: although statistically
significant, they are substantively weak. less
than 3 percent difference in probability.
• Statistical artifact:
– Statistical significance is a function of the
standard error (t-score)
– Size of standard error is a function of sample size
Findings
Finding for propositions that are important or draw
cohesive voting blocs: Latinos are less likely to vote
for the winning side. still substantively weak. still
have over a 50% chance of voting for the winning
side (except for minority targeted propositions 39.5%).
Note: Several of the high profile anti-minority
initiatives in California have been overturned by the
courts
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LATINO VOTING BEHAVIOR IN AN ANTI-LATINO
POLITICAL CONTEXT by Matt Barreto and Nathan
Woods
Even though the Latino community has been
growing fast during the twentieth century it has
been difficult for Latinos to win state wide office.
First Latinos elected to CA assembly in 1962
This seems to be changing:
1996 Cruz Bustamante, speaker of the assembly,
lieutenant governor, 1998.
The term Latino and California will soon become
redundant.
Political Context
• Proposition 187, 209, 227
• Proposition 187 (1994)
– Prohibit undocumented immigrants from using
public services (e.g., health care, education)
• Proposition 209 (1996)
– Prohibit public institutions from considering race,
gender, ethnicity
• Proposition 227 (1998)
– Requires all public school instruction to be
conducted in English
Research Question and Methods
• Research Question:
• Has Latino registration and voting increased in
response to the negative, minority targeted
propositions? Awaking the "sleeping giant“
• Data 1994 & 1998 LA County elections data
– Uses surnames and probabilities
• Dependent variables
– Change in Latino turnout
– GOP & Democratic detachment
Findings
• In LA County Latino Democrats are the most
likely group to turn out.
• Latinos are registering with GOP in lower rates
than before. Democrats are also losing Latinos
to Independent and third party groups.
EXPLORING MINORITY POLITICAL EFFICACY:
CONSIDERING THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL
INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT. By Rodney Hero
and Caroline Tolbert
• There has been much political science literature
supporting the negative effects of ballot
initiatives.
• Do minority targeted initiatives stigmatize
minority groups, alienate them and shut them
out of the political process by decreasing the
trust and political efficacy?
Research Question, Methodology
• Research questions: do frequent use of the
ballot initiative increase or decrease political
efficacy?
• Data: Pooled NES 1988 to 1998
– N = 8783
• Dependent variable
– Political efficacy (two survey items combined)
• Ordered Logit
Findings
• ballot use increases political efficacy; blacks
have lower levels of efficacy than other groups
• Counters some prior studies that initiatives are
bad for minorities
• Minorities may support direct democracy even
if they are frequent targets of ballot initiatives
Redistricting
EFFECTS OF MINORITY REPRESENATION ON POLITICAL
ATTITUDES AND PARTICIPATION by Banducci, Donovan
and Karp
• Descriptive representation empowers minority
groups, increases likelihood to vote. Why?
• Changes how people perceive the costs and
BENEFITS of voting. Feel that responsiveness
is more likely to occur.
Politics of Redistricting
• Thornburg v. Gingles (1986): challenge by black
voters to five multi-member legislative districts
in the redistricting plan of the North Carolina
General Assembly. Gingles confirmed that
under amended section 2 vote dilution could be
proven by an “effects” test without regard to
intent.
• Shaw v. Reno (1993): Race should not be the
major determinant in redrawing district lines
• Many scholars have warned about the trade offs
between Descriptive v. Substantive
representation. In addition, safe majorityminority districts might suppress minority
turnout. why?
• Less competitive.
• Research question: does descriptive
representation increase efficacy
• Data ANES 1990-1998
Findings
• Results: African American representation in
congress does not seem to lower cynicism, but
it does seem to increase feelings of
empowerment and likelihood of voting.
A Portrait of the People: "Descriptive Representation
and its impact on U.S. House Members Ratings by
Katherine Tate and Sarah Harsh
• John Adams, conceived of the U.S.
Congress as a "portrait of the people at
large in miniature"
• 3 types of representation: Descriptive,
symbolic, substantive
• Research question: Does a match in race
between legislator and constituent increase a
constituents rating of the legislator? also look
at gender, chairmanship, seniority, party.
• Data: 130 legislators/ANES data
• Findings: race and party match matters
• Gender, committee chair, and seniority don't
matter
Asian Pacific Americans and the New Minority Politics
• Why the limited political participation?
• 60% of Asian Americans are foreign born, compared to
38% Latino (1998 data)
• Fragmented by ethnicity and language: Hawaiian
Americans wanted separate category or categorized in
Native American group
• But increasing turnout and representation: 2200
elected or appointed officials in 33 states and federal
level