Direct democracy and equality: A global perspective
| Published date | 01 September 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/01925121211058660 |
| Author | Anna Krämling,Brigitte Geißel,Jonathan R. Rinne,Lars Paulus |
| Date | 01 September 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Research Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/01925121211058660
International Political Science Review
2023, Vol. 44(4) 507 –522
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/01925121211058660
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Direct democracy and equality:
A global perspective
Anna Krämling
Brigitte Geißel
Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany
Jonathan R. Rinne
Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Germany
Lars Paulus
Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany
Abstract
Direct democracy is seen as a potential cure to the malaise of representative democracy. It is increasingly
used worldwide. However, research on the effects of direct democracy on important indicators like socio-
economic, legal, and political equality is scarce, and mainly limited to Europe and the US. The global perspective
is missing. This article starts to close this gap. It presents descriptive findings on direct democratic votes at
the national level in the (partly) free countries of the Global South and Oceania between 1990 and 2015. It
performs the first comparative analysis of direct democracy on these continents. Contradicting concerns
that direct democracy may be a threat to equality, we found more bills aimed at increasing equality. Likewise,
these votes produced more pro- than contra-equality outputs. This held for all continents as well as for all
dimensions of equality.
Keywords
Direct democracy, equality, Global South, comparative analysis
Introduction
Direct democracy is on the rise worldwide. It promises to cure some of the malaise of representa-
tive democracy – or, in case of partly free democracies, to give people at least some influence over
political decisions. Given the problematic levels of inequality in many democracies – be it regard-
ing socio-economic, political, or legal status – the utility of introducing direct democratic votes
Corresponding author:
Anna Krämling, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 6, Frankfurt am Main, 60323, Germany.
Email: kraemling@soz.uni-frankfurt.de
1058660IPS0010.1177/01925121211058660International Political Science ReviewKrämling et al.
research-article2022
Original Research Article
508 International Political Science Review 44(4)
crucially depends on whether they can mitigate inequalities.1 Yet, research on the effects of direct
democratic votes has mainly been limited to Switzerland and the US states,2 including the impor-
tant issue of their impact on equality. Crucial questions remain open: Is direct democracy a threat
to political and legal equality? Does it also endanger socio-economic equality, as mainly the well-
off seem to vote, thereby enlarging their privileges? Or do politically, legally or socio-economi-
cally disadvantaged groups utilize direct democracy to achieve more equality?
Political scientists have come up with ambiguous answers to these questions. Often, results are
anecdotal and case-specific. Moreover, while findings are not straightforward for direct democracy
in Europe or the US, research on other continents is almost non-existent. There are analyses of
direct democratic votes in Latin America, but these mostly focus on presidential use, implying a
negative effect on political equality. Legal or socio-economic equality dimensions are neglected.
Likewise, studies mostly ignore the question of direct democratic outputs in relation to equality in
Africa, Asia or Oceania.
This article takes the first step towards closing this gap. First, it asks which direct democratic
bills have been voted on at the national level on these continents. Did these bills relate to socio-
economic, legal, or political equality, and did they aim to increase or decrease it? Second, what
were the outputs of these votes that is, which bills succeeded at the ballot? Were pro-equality bills
more or less likely to win compared with contra-equality ones? And are there any differences
between equality dimensions or distinct continents?
To answer these questions, we will proceed as follows: first, we define the two concepts central
to this article – direct democracy and equality – and give theoretical reasons why we expected the
first to influence the second. In addition, we explain why we analysed the continents separately.
Afterwards, we provide an overview of the options for, and the numbers of direct democratic
votes in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, and Oceania during our period of analysis
(1990–2015). Third, we outline our dataset, our procedure for coding pro- and contra-equality
bills and the methods we employed. In the subsequent section, we present descriptive results on
the numbers of pro- and contra-equality bills and outputs, differentiated by equality dimension
and continent. We conclude the article by summarizing our results in light of theory and the state
of the art in direct democracy research, and providing ideas for future research.
We are aware that descriptive results are no substitute for in-depth analyses of the causal link
between direct democracy and equality or the investigation of potentially influential contextual
factors. Nevertheless, our results have already offered some interesting insights. For example, two-
thirds of direct democratic bills between 1990 and 2015 were pro-equality, and this positive ratio
held for all continents under investigation. The results were also positive for all three dimensions
of equality. Furthermore, pro-equality bills were not less likely to succeed at the ballot than contra-
equality ones, diverging from findings on European direct democratic votes (Geißel et al., 2019a,
2019b). This contradicts claims of direct democracy being a threat to equality in general.
Theoretical considerations: Direct democracy, equality, and their
connection
We begin by defining direct democracy and equality. In addition, we argue theoretically why we
assumed the former to influence the latter, and why regional context should be important.
First, we consider direct democracy to be popular votes on issues – excluding direct elections or
recalls of politicians (e.g. Svensson, 2011). Connecting to existing research on the equality effects
of direct democracy, we differentiate between two levels of analysis: the bill level and the output
level (Geißel et al., 2019a). The former includes all direct democratic bills up to a vote. The latter
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