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Parties and Voter Mobilization in Direct Democracy
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Paper to be presented at the 2005 APSA Annual Meeting
Washington DC, 1-5 September 2005
Parties and voter mobilization in direct
democracy
Georg Lutz
Institute of Political Science, University of Berne, Switzerland
georg.## email not listed ##
________________________________________________________
Abstract
Representation means that elected representatives and voters should some-how be connected. Although there is no agreement about the nature of this connection we can expect that representatives should reflect the preferences of the people on major policies. This paper examines the congruence of rep-resentatives and voters in direct democracy where we have possibility to study real voter decisions and how well parties manage to mobilize voters to vote in favour or their position. The analysis of the popular votes on about 150 issues shows that the representative system in Switzerland reflects the preferences of the voters fairly well. Governments and parliaments have a high approval rate in popular votes in general. At a party level, voters of a party very often follow the position of the party leadership too. Nevertheless direct democracy can have an impact on the legislative process, likely mak-ing legislative processes more responsive to the peoples needs and closer to the median voter preference. ________________________________________________________
Keywords: direct democracy, political elites, parties, voter mobilization, representation
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1
Paper to be presented at the 2005 APSA Annual Meeting
Washington DC, 1-5 September 2005
Parties and voter mobilization in direct
democracy
Georg Lutz
Institute of Political Science, University of Berne, Switzerland
georg.## email not listed ##
________________________________________________________
Abstract
Representation means that elected representatives and voters should some-
how be connected. Although there is no agreement about the nature of this
connection we can expect that representatives should reflect the preferences
of the people on major policies. This paper examines the congruence of rep-
resentatives and voters in direct democracy where we have possibility to
study real voter decisions and how well parties manage to mobilize voters to
vote in favour or their position. The analysis of the popular votes on about
150 issues shows that the representative system in Switzerland reflects the
preferences of the voters fairly well. Governments and parliaments have a
high approval rate in popular votes in general. At a party level, voters of a
party very often follow the position of the party leadership too. Nevertheless
direct democracy can have an impact on the legislative process, likely mak-
ing legislative processes more responsive to the peoples needs and closer to
the median voter preference.
________________________________________________________
Keywords: direct democracy, political elites, parties, voter mobilization, representation
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