Research
Topic Map
Initiatives and Referenda
In By Popular Demand: Revitalizing Representative Democracy through Deliberative Elections I focused mostly on helping people vote among competing candidates, but offered a proposal suggesting a kind of citizen panel to improve referenda and initiative elections. A version of that reform became the Citizens' Initiative Review process, which began in Oregon in 2010 and has since been piloted in other states. For details, see Citizens' Initiative Review Research Project.
Also see:
Reedy, J., Wells, C., & Gastil, J. (2014). How voters become misinformed: An investigation of the emergence and consequences of false factual beliefs. Social Science Quarterly, 95, 1399-1418.
Gastil, J., & Richards, R. (2013). Making direct democracy deliberative through random assemblies. Politics & Society, 41, 253-281.
Wells, C., Reedy, J., Gastil, J., & Lee, C. (2009). Information distortion and voting choices: Assessing the origins and effects of factual beliefs in an initiative election. Political Psychology, 30, 953-969.
Gastil, J., Reedy, J., & Wells, C. (2007). When good voters make bad policies: Assessing and improving the deliberative quality of initiative elections. University of Colorado Law Review, 78, 1435-1488.
Forehand, M., Gastil, J., & Smith, M. A. (2004). Endorsements as voting cues: Heuristic and systematic processing in initiative elections. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 34, 2215-2234.
Gastil, J., Smith, M. A., & Simmons, C. (2001).There’s more than one way to legislate: An integration of representative, direct, and deliberative approaches to democratic governance. University of Colorado Law Review, 72, 1005-1028.
