The Devil is in the Details: Legal design choices of direct democracy instruments and their effect on use

During the third wave of democratization, a large number of countries introduced direct democratic instruments in their constitutions (Altman 2010). However, their fortune has been unequal: in some countries they are regularly used by citizens, in others they remain unused. While political culture and social determinants could partly explain these differences, some qualitative and legal approaches have focused on the legal devises themselves. Some legal design choices are largely responsible for the use of the instrument (Welp 2020). However, so far, no systematic statistical analysis has identified which rules enhance or reduce the use of direct democracy instruments. The effect on use of extreme examples with e.g. unreachable quorums and/or thresholds are quite obvious, however it becomes blurrier the closer one looks into them, and the existing literature often looks at thresholds and quorums too superficially. For example, geographical requirements have major differences for feasibility depending on population size and density. In order to fill this gap in the literature, this paper systematises the legal basis of the instruments beyond the common yes/no dichotomy of design elements and links them with the actual use of the tools. We contribute to the literature in two ways: (1) by going beyond the usual operationalisation of direct democracy instruments, we offer a more insightful interpretation of the effect of design choices on actual use, and (2) the research illustrates possible confounding and reinforcing effects between the design specifications. This research uses information on legal designs of direct democracy instruments in close to 100 countries from the Direct Democracy Navigator, data on use-cases collected within the Referendum Datenbank from the Centre for Research on Direct Democracy, as well as supplemental data on initiatives and referendums which did not attain the necessary signatures to be voted upon.