more say in politics at the local level through a constitutional initiative at the state level. This institutional setting …

excluded from the voters' right of the initiative? I study this question by extending the analysis to German direct democracy …, nor the responsibility of voting on the implied costs of these initiatives. By exploiting a novel dataset containing … government size by up to 8% in annual per capita expenditure and revenue per observed initiative (on economic projects). The main …

recommendations. We find that voting recommendations do indeed matter, implying that even in a secularized world, religion plays a … crucial role in voting decisions. …

We use a change in the voting procedures of one of the two chambers of the Swiss parliament to explore how transparency … affects the voting behavior of its members. Until 2013, the Council of States (Ständerat) had voted by a show of hands. While …-consuming screening of online videos. In 2014, halfway through the legislative period, the chamber switched to electronic voting. Since …

for the local incumbent is heterogeneous for the different political parties and varies with characteristics of the …

politicians who vote against the party line in roll-call votes. The results do not show that parties account for the voting … from actions regarding budget consolidation and the German debt brake. Chapter 6 examines whether parties punish …

uncertainty both about the preferences of the future electorate and the future polarization of political parties, and politicians …

In this paper, I analyze the voting outcomes of two very similar Swiss referendum ballots concerning the federal … 1971, and the other shortly thereafter. I estimate the impact of introducing female voting on the difference in acceptance … population. I provide additional evidence from post-ballot surveys after similar ballots to overcome potential strategic voting …