Direct Democracy and Institutional Realignment in the American States

Scholars who study institutions recognize that political structures shape the context in which actors make choices that lead to policy outcomes.1 While much progress has been made in understanding how institutions affect political actors, preferences, and public policy, we have little understanding of the process of institutional change.2 How and why do American political institutions change over time? One window into understanding institutional change may be the study of procedural public policy, which alters government rules, structures, and organization. My research attempts to explain the adoption of procedural policy at the state level that shapes representative institutions of government, especially state legislatures and election systems. Citizen ballot initiatives at the state level are proposed as a catalyst for the adoption of procedural policy and in turn institutional change of representative democracy. While relatively understudied compared to other electoral institutions, this research places the increased use of direct democracy at the state level as a component of a larger reform movement in American politics at the end of the twentieth century.