The differences in transition performance among the former socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe have sometimes been traced back to specific historical or cultural legacies without sufficiently taking into account the impact of EU conditionality. In this context the cases of Bulgaria...

Do minorities fare worse under direct democracy than under representative democracy? We provide new evidence by studying naturalization requests of immigrants in Switzerland that were typically decided with referendums in each municipality. Using panel data from about $1,400$ municipalities for...