This paper explores the benefits and costs of the voter initiative, a direct democracy device that allows voters to make policy decisions without involving their elected representatives. Previous research suggests that by introducing quot;competitionquot; into the proposal process, the...

The idea of America as politically polarized—that there is an unbridgeable divide between right and left, red and blue states—has become a cliché. What commentators miss, however, is that increasing polarization in recent decades has been closely accompanied by fundamental social and...

During the past two generations, democratic forms have coexisted with massive increases in economic inequality in the United States and many other advanced democracies. Moreover, these new inequalities have primarily benefited the top 1 percent and even the top .01 percent. These groups seem...

This paper develops a dynamic model of the bargaining between a legislature and an executive with veto power. The dynamic nature of the model provides the executive with incentives to use the veto as a reputation building device in order to gain more favorable legislative outcomes. The model...