The Effect of Direct Democracy on Turnout

• DOI: 10.1177/1065912917698043
• Date: 01 June 2017
• Published date: 01 June 2017
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912917698043

Political Research Quarterly

2017, Vol. 70(2) 433 –448

© 2017 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912917698043

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Article

Introduction

The expansion of direct democracy has taken place at

local as well as national levels in many western democra-

cies over recent decades (Altman 2010; LeDuc 2003;

Matsusaka 2005). This has given rise to important ques-

tions about the policy and nonpolicy consequences of

direct democracy. These debates have often revolved

around issues of voter competence (Hobolt 2007; Lupia

1992, 1994), the effect of direct democracy on fiscal poli-

cies/economic performance (Feld and Kirchgässner

2000; Matsusaka 2005), or minority rights oppression

(Haider-Markel, Querze, and Lindaman 2007).

The question of whether direct democracy has a posi-

tive effect on voter turnout is potentially one of the key

nonpolicy consequences of direct democracy and has

been the subject of some debate. The idea that direct

democracy should bring about increased participation in

electoral processes originally stems from participatory

theories of democracy (Barber 1984; Pateman 1970).

Direct experience with effective political decision-mak-

ing, unmediated by political parties, should be an educa-

tive experience for citizens, leading to an increased

interest in politics and an increase in political efficacy, as

well as higher electoral turnout.

However, the debate on this issue in the United States

is rather inconclusive, and the empirical evidence is

somewhat contradictory. Although there is general agree-

ment that direct democracy increases turnout at least in

some types of elections, the so-called “midterms” in par-

ticular (Schlozman and Yohai 2008),1 it is not clear

exactly what it is about direct democracy that leads to

enhanced turnout.

Two general explanations are conceivable. First, the

process of direct political participation in itself causes

long-term increased turnout by educating voters and

increasing their interest in political institutions and pro-

cesses (Bowler and Donovan 2002; Tolbert, McNeal, and

Smith 2003; Tolbert and Smith 2005, 290–91). Second,

certain campaigns or certain underlying issues lead to

voter mobilization and cause short-term and election-

specific effects (Biggers 2011; Childers and Binder 2012;

698043PRQXXX10.1177/1065912917698043Political Research QuarterlyDvoák et al.

research-article2017

1Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

2University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic

Corresponding Author:

Tomáš Dvořák, Institute of Sociological Studies, Faculty of Social

Sciences, Charles University, U Kříže 8, 158 00, Prague 5, Jinonice,

Czech Republic.

Email: dvoraktom@atlas.cz

The Effect of Direct Democracy

on Turnout: Voter Mobilization or

Participatory Momentum?

Tomáš Dvořák1, Jan Zouhar2, and Jakub Novák1

Abstract

Does direct democracy lead to increased electoral turnout? Research in the United States has demonstrated this effect

and proposed two reasons for it: (1) the process of being involved in direct political participation may educate citizens

and lead to their increased long-term political engagement (this explanation draws on the theory of participatory

democracy) and/or (2) underlying issues and competitive campaigning draw public interest and cause higher turnout,

although this effect is election-specific and short term. Recent empirical findings overwhelmingly favor the latter

hypothesis although both mechanisms seem to apply. However, research on this topic is made difficult by the fact that

direct democracy and elections take place simultaneously in the United States, which makes it hard to disentangle

the effects of each. We present a study from the Czech Republic where direct democracy is not tied to elections.

We analyze the effects of local/municipality direct democracy and demonstrate that it leads to increased turnout in

upcoming local and national elections. We demonstrate a strong effect sparked by competitive direct democracy

campaigns as well as a relatively weak long-term institutional effect of direct democracy.

Keywords

direct democracy, turnout, voting behavior, participatory theory

434 Political Research Quarterly 70(2)

Schlozman and Yohai 2008; Smith 2001). The former

explanation emphasizes the process itself, and is more

akin to the logic of participatory theories of democracy,

which suggest that direct democracy institutions trans-

form the long-term attitudes of citizens to politics. The

latter explanation argues that the forces driving increased

turnout are election- or issue-specific and affect turnout

in the immediate elections only, with no long-lasting

effects beyond these elections. It has been proposed that

this short-term mobilizing effect can occur as a result of

either competitive campaigns that surround citizen initia-

tives (Childers and Binder 2012) or of controversial

social/moral issues that underlie the ballot (Biggers 2011;

Grummel 2008).

Importantly, it has also been suggested (Smith and

Tolbert 2009, 138; Tolbert and Smith 2005, 304) that

increased turnout may result from both long-term and

short-term mechanisms working simultaneously together

to increase turnout: when the direct democracy process is

salient, it mobilizes voters and also facilitates citizen edu-

cation and learning. However, low-profile direct democ-

racy campaigns unrelated to citizen concerns are unlikely

to draw popular interest and will lead neither to public

deliberation nor educative effects. Dyck and Seabrook

(2010, 205) claimed that both mechanisms contribute to

increased turnout, with the long-term educative effect

being much weaker than stronger short-term mobilization

factors.

As empirical research has been largely unable to estab-

lish a clear causal effect of direct democracy on political

efficacy (Dyck and Lascher 2009; Schlozman and Yohai

2008), and because recent research strongly favors expla-

nations based on controversial issues or competitive cam-

paigns in citizen initiatives (Childers and Binder 2012;

Dyck and Seabrook 2010; Schlozman and Yohai 2008),

the explanation based on participatory theory and institu-

tional effects seems less relevant than the short-term elec-

tion-specific effects in explaining the influence of direct

democracy on turnout in elections. However, as argued

by Schlozman and Yohai (2008, 472), direct democracy

in the United States is not really the best example to use

to examine the participatory hypothesis, because for

direct political participation to have a permanent attitude-

changing impact, it should involve smaller democratic

arrangements, enabling face-to-face contact and public

deliberation.

Last, there is some evidence for a negative effect of

direct democracy on electoral turnout. Research from

Switzerland, a country where direct democracy is used as

an essential and common part of the political process,

showed that the frequent use of direct democratic proce-

dures is associated, due to voter fatigue, with a decreased

probability of voter turnout in local and national elections

(Freitag and Stadelmann-Steffen 2010).

We herein intend to reexamine the link between direct

democracy and subsequent turnout for the case of the

Czech Republic. We focus on local direct democracy,

namely, citizen initiatives and referenda in Czech munici-

palities, and examine the effects of direct democracy in a

comparative setting. We test not only the tenets of partici-

patory theory in the search for long-term and general

institutional effects of direct democracy but also whether

support can be found for alternative hypotheses empha-

sizing the role of competitive campaigns and controver-

sial issues on the ballot. Over the past decade, there have

been about two hundred local referenda and citizen initia-

tives in Czech municipalities, which constitute a suffi-

cient basis for an empirical analysis.

The first aim of the present article is then to ascertain

whether local direct democracy in the Czech Republic

has a positive effect on turnout in upcoming and subse-

quent local as well as national elections. Given that previ-

ous research was almost exclusively concerned with the

U.S. and Swiss cases, we investigate the link between

direct democracy and turnout in the completely different

cultural and institutional setting of a post-Communist

country. A significant advantage of the Czech case is the

fact that local direct democracy is not tied to elections

because it takes place between local and national elec-

tions. This makes it possible to isolate the unique effect of

direct democracy on turnout in upcoming elections. The

second aim of the article is to further explore the factors

explaining the effect of direct democracy on turnout. We

assess whether there is evidence to support participatory

theory in the context of local direct democracy in the

Czech Republic and investigate the long-term institu-

tional effects of direct democracy. In addition, we also

examine whether there is a mobilization effect caused by

competitive campaigns or controversial issues on the bal-

lot as the alternative hypotheses suggest. We focus our

analysis on the level of the municipality, unlike studies of

ballot measures from the United States, which relate to

large states.

The first incidence of direct democracy in the Czech

Republic at local level only took place after 2000. We

work with the time frame 1998 to 2010 and analyze

whether direct democracy led to increased turnout in

national and local elections during this time; local and

national elections took place in 1998, 2002, 2006, and

2010.

The remainder of the paper proceeds as follows. First,

we explain why the theory of participatory democracy

suggests that direct political participation leads to greater

political engagement, and we also include critiques of

this theory. In the following section, we summarize the

existing empirical evidence about the effect of direct

democracy on electoral turnout. Next, we formulate our

hypotheses and explain the institutional setup of local