Hug
Fakultäten » Philosophische Fakultät » Politikwissenschaft, Institut für » Prof. Dr. Simon Hug (ausgetreten) » Hug
Completed research project
| Title / Titel | The Political Effects of Referendums. A Systematic Cross-National Study | ||||
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| Abstract (PDF, 14 KB) | |||||
| Summary / Zusammenfassung | The project focuses on the policy effects of referendums in a cross-national perspective (the EU, Switzerland, Norway). The central research question is whether the presence of direct-democratic institutions leads to a closer correspondence between public preferences (i.e., the median voter) and policy outcomes than what is otherwise the case; and, if so, whether different types of direct-democratic institutions have different effect in this respect. Our a priori assumption is that direct democracy does make policies more public-preference oriented, the more so the easier it is for citizens to launch a vote on a given issue. We use three types of information: measurements of policy outcomes (gleaned from Blanpain's /International Encyclopaedia for Labour Law and Industrial Relations/ analysed with 'Wordscores'); measurements of public opinion (taken from various cross-sectional surveys); and detailed information on existing direct-democratic institutional provisions. | ||||
| Keywords / Suchbegriffe | referendums, political institutions, policy effects | ||||
| Project leadership and contacts / Projektleitung und Kontakte |
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| Funding source(s) / Unterstützt durch |
SNF (Personen- und Projektförderung), Other Public Sources (e.g. Federal or Cantonal Agencies) |
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| In collaboration with / In Zusammenarbeit mit |
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| Duration of Project / Projektdauer | Mar 2005 to Feb 2007 |