Ballot Initiatives and the Democratic Citizen

ABSTRACT

Citizens' political attitudes are critically shaped by government institutions. Initiatives and referenda are one such institutional arrangement that may encourage the development of dispositions and skills that make for better citizens. Building upon tenets of participatory democratic theory, I hypothesize that voters who make choices on ballot measures will gain in civic abilities, but non–voters in the same states will see no increases. Moreover, the gains for voters should occur over multiple years rather than during any single election. Using the 1992 Senate Election Study, which contains samples of approximately equal size from each state, I estimate the relationship between initiative use and political knowledge. The findings indicate that voters from states that heavily use initiatives show an increased capacity over the long term to correctly answer factual questions about politics.