caa a22 4500 605455031 CHVBK 20210128100210.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20151201xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10602-015-9194-2 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10602-015-9194-2 Does direct democracy make for better citizens? A cautionary warning based on cross-country evidence [Elektronische Daten] [Stefan Voigt, Lorenz Blume] It has been shown that both formal existence and actual use of direct democratic institutions have effects on a number of variables such as fiscal policies, quality of governance but also economic growth. Further, it has been argued that direct democratic institutions would not only have an impact on policy outcomes but influence citizen participation and attitudes toward politics. For the first time, these conjectures are tested in a large cross-country sample here. Overall, we do not find strong effects and some of the significant correlations are rather small substantially. In contrast to previous studies, voter turnout is not higher when direct democracy is available or used. Further, and also in contrast to previous studies, citizens do not express a greater interest in politics in countries with direct democracy institutions. Finally, they display lower trust in government and parties but not in parliament. These results shed some doubt on the hope that direct democracy would make for better citizens. Springer Science+Business Media New York, 2015 Direct democracy nationallicence Political process nationallicence Voter turnout nationallicence Trust in political system nationallicence Legitimacy nationallicence Voigt Stefan Institute of Law and Economics, University of Hamburg, Johnsallee 35, 20148, Hamburg, Germany aut Blume Lorenz Economics Department, Philipps University Marburg, Barfüßer Tor 2, 35032, Marburg, Germany aut Constitutional Political Economy Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 26/4(2015-12-01), 391-420 1043-4062 26:4<391 2015 26 10602 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-015-9194-2 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-015-9194-2 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Voigt Stefan Institute of Law and Economics, University of Hamburg, Johnsallee 35, 20148, Hamburg, Germany aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Blume Lorenz Economics Department, Philipps University Marburg, Barfüßer Tor 2, 35032, Marburg, Germany aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Constitutional Political Economy Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 26/4(2015-12-01), 391-420 1043-4062 26:4<391 2015 26 10602