Direct Democracy and Political Parties in America
Abstract
We examine the origins of direct democracy in the American states and assess how direct democracy has affected American political parties. We find adoption of the most directly democratic forms of the initiative in states where Populist forces were strongest in the 1890s. Use of the initiative throughout the twentieth century led to more restrictive state legal environments for parties and was associated with weaker traditional party organizations. American parties have subsequently challenged restrictions placed on their organizations and on their ability to engage in campaigns. By the end of the twentieth century, American party organizations were visible actors in direct democracy campaigns, however their role is different from that of parties in Europe.
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Bowler and Donovan are equal co-authors of this article. We thank the Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West for the opportunity to present sections of this article at Stanford, and thank participants in the UC Irvine/University of Southern California conference on direct democracy, and panelists at the 2005 Social Science History Association, for their comments. We also thank Alyse Douglas of WWU for research assistance.
1.
1 Each state regulates ballot access in presidential elections. Bryan thus ran under a variety of party labels in 1896. In most states (36) he used the Democratic Party line. In others there was no Democratic Party line, with Bryan listed as a ‘Fusion’, ‘Democrat and People’s’, or ‘Populist’.
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2 Arizona (1911) and Oklahoma (1907) adopted the initiative as part of their Constitution when admitted to the Union.
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3 For example, Bryan received 81 percent support in Nevada in 1896 under the Democratic line, with considerable support from former People’s Party voters, ‘silver Republicans’ and other pro-reform supporters. The 1904 establishment Democrat candidate Parker received just 33 percent in Nevada. Conversely, Bryan received 91 percent in Mississippi in 1896, and Parker also received 91 percent in Mississippi in 1904. Since Bryan ran again as the Democratic nominee in 1900, we use 1904 as a baseline to gauge support for establishment Democrats.
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4 There were no southern states where Weaver received more than 36 percent support.
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5 Eight states are misclassified by a (Bryan 1896 - Parker 1904 > 0) = adopt criteria. These are (in descending order of predicted most likely to adopt by this criteria) Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Indiana and West Virginia (all non-adopters predicted to adopt) and Massachusetts (predicted to not adopt).
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6 Dozens of denominations were used to construct the scores, with Moralistic culture represented by several Lutheran denominations, Quakers, Latter Day Saints and others; Individualistic represented by Catholics and others; and Traditionalistic represented by most Baptist denominations and others.
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7 These contribution data were accessed at http://cal-access.ss.ca.gov on 10 September 2005.
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8 Prior to BCRA, there were fewer regulations on how elected officials could participate in raising soft money for themselves and their parties.
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Article first published: September 2006
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