Citizens as Legislators: Direct Democracy in the United States

Citizens as Legislators: Direct Democracy in the United States. Edited by Shaun Bowler, Todd Donovan, and Caroline J. Tolbert. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998. 316p. $39.95 cloth, $19.95 paper.

Like direct democracy itself, scholarly interest in the American version of the plebiscite has waxed and waned since South Dakota adopted the initiative and referendum nearly a century ago. Recently, several scholars have turned their attention to citizen-initiated ballot initiatives. Not coincidentally, "citizen" initiatives-often referred to by just their designated number on the ballot, such as 13 or 209increasingly are shaping public policy in critical ways and are contributing to campaign-related businesses in the 24 states that permit the process. In 1998, for example, almost $200 million was spent to promote or oppose the eight California initiatives on the general election ballot, more than double the amount spent by all the political candidates running for statewide office. There is much left to explain about the politics and the process of what some observers term the "Initiative Industrial Complex," but Shaun Bowler, Todd Donovan, and Caroline Tolbert have assembled a timely collection of essays in Citizens as Legislators.

At the outset, Bowler and Donovan provide a comprehensive survey of the scholarship on and the major developments of direct democracy in the American context. They pose the primary question driving their inquiry: "What difference does direct democracy make" (p. 13)? To answer such an important question, the editors divide the volume into three sections, one for each "stage" (p. 25) of the initiative process. The first section probes the structural parameters and the actors involved in placing initiatives on the ballot. The second focuses on voter behavior and the success and failure of initiatives. The final section examines the policy outcomes and societal ramifications of successful ballot initiatives.

After a thorough and critical essay by Tolbert, Daniel Lowenstein, and Donovan on election law as it pertains to the initiative process, the remaining two essays in the first section analyze the major players in the initiative process. In a fascinating chapter tracing the development of ballot initiative campaign professionals in California, Bowler, Donovan, David McCuan, and Kenneth...