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A former British colony, Somaliland proclaimed its independence from Somalia in 1991. Although it has been largely peaceful since 1997, Somaliland’s sovereignty remains entirely unrecognized. It is a paradigmatic example of what IUPUI Political Science Professor Scott Pegg terms “de facto states” – political entities that control territory, provide governance, secure popular legitimacy and yet …

The goal of the paper is to connect the dots between direct democracy and feelings of political efficacy. Current scholarly work has not yet been able to show a clear link between these two things. We argue that this is because current work does not take into account the differences in ballot initiative process from state to state, nor the differences between internal and external efficacy. Our research provides a more comprehensive look at the influence direct democracy has on political efficacy, and hopefully a launching pad for more scholarly work regarding the secondary effects of direct democracy.

Prof. Amanda Friesen is spending her first sabbatical at IUPUI as a Visiting Scholar at the Amsterdam Research Centre for Gender & Sexuality and University of Amsterdam Challenges to Democratic Representation group.