American Politics Commons^™

Direct Democracy And Minority Rights: Same-Sex Marriage Bans In The American States, Daniel Lewis

Daniel Lewis

Objectives: A common critique of direct democracy posits that minority rights are endangered by citizen legislative institutions. By allowing citizens to directly create public policy, these institutions avoid the filtering mechanisms of representative democracy that provide a check on the power of the majority. Empirical research, however, has produced conflicting results that leave the question of direct democracy's effect on minority rights open to debate. This article seeks to empirically test this critique using a comparative, dynamic approach.

Methods: I examine the diffusion of same-sex marriage bans in the United States using event-history analysis, comparing direct-democracy states to non-direct-democracy states. …

Bypassing The Representational Filter? Minority Rights Policies Under Direct Democracy Institutions, Daniel Lewis

Daniel Lewis

One common critique of direct democracy posits that minority rights are endangered by institutions like ballot initiatives and referenda. Empirical research testing this claim, however, has produced conflicting results that leave the question of direct democracy’s effect on minority rights open to debate. This study extends previous research by providing a more direct test of this criticism—it compares anti-minority policy proposals from direct democracy states to similar proposals from states without direct democracy institutions. The author examines both ballot proposals and traditional legislative bills to account for both the direct and indirect effects of direct democracy. Analyzing anti-minority proposals from …