Assisting voters, improving knowledge: The effects of a mini-public voting aid in a Swiss popular vote (Abstract)

Abstract

The Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) is a randomly selected mini-public discussing popular votes in direct democracy that has been applied seventeen times across three countries. Studies attesting a tangible causal impact on non-participating voters’ convictions prior to popular initiative votes by means of the CIR’s final output, a statement on the vote proposal, remain sparse beyond the context of US state-level direct democracy. The article addresses this opportunity, hypothesizing the randomly assigned statement’s effect on potential voters’ vote position and choice after an actual CIR pilot held prior to a 2020 Swiss popular initiative on affordable housing. A sample among the Swiss municipality of Sion’s eligible voters (N=1159) completed an online survey field experiment where they were randomly assigned reading different versions of the statement or a short article describing that a local pilot CIR convened on the vote. Logit, OLS and instrumental variable regressions estimate substantial increases in initiative-relevant knowledge and changes in both vote position and choice when comparing treated and control groups. Differentiated effects emerge between participants’ information about the CIR’s proceedings and their possession of knowledge taken up by reading the statement in addition. The study concludes that the CIR lives up to its purported potential effects on the larger public in the case of Swiss direct democracy.

Alexander M. Geisler

Postdoctoral researcher

I do research on the theory and practice of political communicatio and participatory innovations.