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Electing the House: The Adoption and Performance of the U.S. Single-Member District Electoral System. By Jay K. Dow. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2017. 332p. $50.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.

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quently voting on certain types of issues (in this case taxation/budget and environmental matters) generates a stronger relationship between one’s party identification and attitudes on that issue, because voters better… Click to show full abstract

quently voting on certain types of issues (in this case taxation/budget and environmental matters) generates a stronger relationship between one’s party identification and attitudes on that issue, because voters better sort themselves (or align their preference with that of their party). Finally, Dyck and Lascher show that long-term use of the initiative process does reduce trust in state government, a relationship that crucially remains significant even after controlling for regime trust (to ensure that the finding is not driven by attitudes toward the current party in power). One constant debate in the initiative literature with direct bearing on the interpretation of these results is how to operationalize the process so as to accurately capture its (potential) impact on political attitudes or behavior. Because of this uncertainty, the authors employ four distinct measurements: whether a state has the process, the number of initiatives in a state in a given election, the yearly average of initiatives in a state from 1970 to the present, and per capita initiative spending in a state in a given election. Those empirical measures are in line with many prior studies, but admittedly leave open the prospect of potentially heterogeneous effects across, say, initiative salience (as some studies argue). In addition, that it is longterm initiative usage that most consistently produces results in line with their theory suggests that the process’s negative consequences they cite may be somewhat limited outside the most active direct democracy states. That a small subset of specific initiatives might be able to engender educative effects, however, or that the explicitly negative effects of the institution (rather than the more generalized null effects) may only occur after heavy usage over time, does not detract from the larger narrative that the process does not appear to be regularly facilitating the type of engagement and citizen development once hypothesized. Overall, this insightful volume is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of how the citizen-legislating process affects those who participate in it and a strong challenge to how scholars should conceptualize this relationship moving forward. More broadly (as the authors note), it raises important questions about the trade-offs of extending and expanding such opportunities in light of the initiative process’s failure to consistently enhance citizens’ capacities for engagement.

Keywords: performance single; state; adoption performance; process; electing house; house adoption

Journal Title: Perspectives on Politics
Year Published: 2019

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