Wasserfallen Leemann Gilardi
Fakultäten » Philosophische Fakultät » Politikwissenschaft, Institut für » Prof. Dr. Fabrizio Gilardi » Wasserfallen Leemann Gilardi
Completed research project
| Title / Titel | Direct Democracy, Popular Majorities and Policy Choice: The Impact of Institutional Settings on Democratic Legitimacy | ||||||
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| Abstract (PDF, 14 KB) | |||||||
| Summary / Zusammenfassung | There is a general understanding that direct democratic institutions can enrich the representative character of a democratic system. However, a number of recent studies challenge this view and argue that the effect lies only in the greater legitimacy of the process itself. This project takes advantage of the unique variation in direct democratic institutions in Swiss cantons and explores whether policies in cantons with more extensive direct democratic institutions are more aligned with citizens’ preferences. Policy congruence is measured over a wide range of issues in Swiss cantons by looking at how often voter preferences match policy outcomes. We are asking for very modest financial support in order to conduct a survey to obtain unique data on 20 policy issues. Using multilevel regression and poststratification, a novel technique that has yet to be applied to this topic, we investigate to what extent the strength of direct democratic institutions relates to congruence. The resulting dataset, which we will make publicly available, and the method are of interest for the study of Swiss politics beyond this project’s particular research question. | ||||||
| Project leadership and contacts / Projektleitung und Kontakte |
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| Other links to external web pages | http://www.fabriziogilardi.org/ http://www.fabiowasserfallen.ch/ |
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| Funding source(s) / Unterstützt durch |
Universität Zürich (position pursuing an academic career), SNF (Personen- und Projektförderung) |
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| Duration of Project / Projektdauer | Nov 2011 to Apr 2013 |