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Institutional Threat and Partisan Outcomes: Legislative Candidates' Attitudes toward Direct Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Shaun Bowler ,
Todd Donovan ,
Max Neiman  and
Johnny Peel
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Abstract

This study uses a three-state survey to examine how state legislators and legislative candidates view the ballot initiative process. We hypothesize that state legislators see the initiative as a rival to the legislature, and that the initiative is evaluated in terms of expectations about policy outcomes. We test whether opinions about the initiative are related to legislative incumbency, partisan interests, or both. We find that incumbents, regardless of party, are more interested in constraining the initiative than non-incumbents. We also find an independent effect of partisanship, with Republicans having a more positive view of the initiative than Democrats.

Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , Winter 2001 , pp. 364 - 379
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 The American Political Science Association

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