Helfer, Luzia; Wäspi, Flurina; Varone, Frédéric (2021). Does Direct Democracy Enhance Politicians’ Perceptions of Constituents’ Opinions? Evidence from Switzerland Swiss Political Science Review, 27(4), pp. 695-711. Wiley 10.1111/spsr.12495
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Elected members of parliament (MPs) are supposed to represent their constituents and, thus, to have an accurate perception of citizens’ policy preferences. It is often assumed that direct democracy instruments, such as the popular initiative and the referendum, have a positive impact on MPs’ perceptual accuracy. This study assesses whether direct democracy has the expected positive effect in Switzerland. It measures how accurately MPs perceive their constituents’ opinions on a variety of policy proposals through a parallel survey of 97 national MPs and 4677 citizens. Empirical evidence shows that MPs perceive policy proposals that have been subjected to a direct democracy vote more accurately. Furthermore, MPs have a higher perceptual accuracy if the policy proposal submitted to a popular vote was conflictual with a narrow ballot outcome. Direct democracy thus fosters political representation as popular votes constitute an important source of information and sustain MPs’ ability to accurately assess citizens’ preferences.
Item Type: |
Journal Article (Original Article) |
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Division/Institute: |
Business School |
Name: |
Helfer, Luzia; Wäspi, Flurina  0000-0003-4196-3455 and Varone, Frédéric |
Subjects: |
J Political Science > JA Political science (General) J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) |
ISSN: |
1424-7755 |
Publisher: |
Wiley |
Funders: |
[UNSPECIFIED] Swiss National Science Foundation under Grant 100017_172559 |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Flurina Wäspi |
Date Deposited: |
14 Feb 2022 14:35 |
Last Modified: |
02 Mar 2022 21:46 |
Publisher DOI: |
10.1111/spsr.12495 |
ARBOR DOI: |
10.24451/arbor.16368 |
URI: |
https://arbor.bfh.ch/id/eprint/16368 |
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