Databases for (empirical) research on “direct democracy”

Abstract

In recent decades there has been a progressive improvement in the methodology of research into the subject of “direct democracy”, in particular in relation to direct-democratic practice in Switzerland and the US federal states (especially California), and to the 44 individual cases of popular votes on the issue of European integration. Empirical research into direct democracy has also generated a number of extensive academic databases on the subject. In addition to the data collated by C2D (including that collected by Beat Müller) and by the Initiative and Referendum Institute (University of Southern California), the relevant collections of Butler/Ranney (1994), Hans-Urs Wili (e.g. 1997) and the yearbooks of IRI Europe (2002, 2003) are sources of important data. Background information on Swiss politics, the Swiss political system and their connection with popular votes is always included in the yearbook of Swiss politics (published in French and German by the Institute of Political Science at the University of Berne as Année politique suisse and Jahrbuch für schweizerische Politik). There is thus a basic foundation of data normally available for research on the subject. But in the context of an increasing geographic spread of direct-democratic procedures, a growing institutional diversification and an increasing use of popular referendums worldwide, academic research on this subject acquires a growing importance. The increasing diversification also of academic approaches to the subject makes it appropriate to ask whether and to what extent the informational foundation for new and extended research programs can be expanded and perhaps made accessible for secondary analyses from a variety of methodical approaches.