Abstract
This paper explores the connection between quality of life and direct democracy. Using state level data for participation and quality of life, we find that those states with a high quality of life see higher participation in direct democracy than those with lower quality of life. However, the passage of direct democracy measures has the inverse relationship indicating the importance of maintaining the status quo for states with higher quality of life measurements.
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Notes
Electoral ballots in the United States are arranged so that offices that represent the largest geographic areas appear first on the ballot. The top office on any ballot is then the office for which the largest number of citizens is geographically eligible to vote.
Implementation of the policies chosen by direct democracy is a separate issue entirely, one that deserves far greater attention that the extant literature has given the subject
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Authors are listed alphabetically in reverse and are not reflective of work contributed to this project. Authorship is equal.
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Yonk, R.M., Reilly, S. Citizen Involvement & Quality of Life: Exit, Voice and Loyalty in a Time of Direct Democracy. Applied Research Quality Life 7, 1–16 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-011-9142-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-011-9142-x