Reverse Mortgages and Aircraft Parts: The Uses and Abuses of Referenda in Constitutional Change

• In Event: New Research on Direct Democracy in American Politics

Brief Overview

Referenda are regularly used to ratify constitutional change. Using survey experiments, we demonstrate the hazards of this practice, showing that voters have little understanding of the issues, and can be easily induced to change their vote.

Authors

• Joseph F Cozza, University of Texas at Austin

• Zachary Elkins, The University of Texas at Austin

• Alexander Hudson, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity