Direct Democracy and Public Policies: Understanding Motivations and Consequences

In direct democracy the choice and the nature of a policy to be changed or maintained are important since they play a role in the initiation process (parties’ motives), how it is received by the electorate (including signatories in a citizens’ initiative), saliency within the public, intensity of a campaign, participation and the timing of adoption. Despite this, there is limited systematic and comparative research analyzing the relationship between direct democracy and policy in terms of motivations, implementation, and consequences. Although the finality of a direct democratic practice is policy-related, we know very little about why some policies are initiated and implemented, while others are ignored, modified or abandoned. In the attempt to fill this gap in the literature, this workshop seeks to address theoretically the relationship between direct democracy and policy implementation, to analyze and explain the ways in which political parties and citizens initiate direct democracy on certain policies, to identify the determinants of a successful policy outcome at several levels, and to illustrate how the relationship between a direct democratic output and policy implementation can be approached systematically. It welcomes theoretical, empirical and methodological papers. Contributions from a wide range of disciplines including but not limited to democratic theory, comparative politics, public policy, public administration are welcome.