Signature requirements and citizen initiatives: Quasi-experimental evidence from Germany

摘要: Signature requirements are often used as hurdles to prevent overuse of direct democratic instruments such citizen initiatives. We evaluate the causal effect lowering signature on number observed initiative petitions. Based municipal-level data for Germany, we make use changes in that occur at specific population thresholds build an identification strategy using a regression discontinuity design. find reducing requirement by 1 % point increases probability observing petition given city-year 8–10 % points.