This paper analyzes the problem that an incumbent faces during the legislature when deciding how to react to popular initiatives or policy proposals coming from different sources. We argue that this potential source of electoral disadvantage that the incumbent obtains after being elected can...

Participatory Democracy is a process of collective decision making that combines elements from both Direct and Representative Democracy: Citizens have the ultimate power to decide on policy and politicians assume the role of policy implementation. The aim of this paper is to understand how...

This paper analyses the problem that an incumbent faces during the legislature when deciding how to react to citizen proposals such as the outcome of referenda or popular initiatives. We argue that these proposals constitute a potential source of electoral disadvantage when citizens factor in...