The biggest contemporary challenge to democratic legitimacy gravitates around the crisis of democratic representation. To tackle this problem, a growing number of established and new democracies included direct democratic instruments in their constitutions, enabling citizens to have direct influence on democratic decision-making. However, there are many different empirical manifestations of direct democracy, and their diverse consequences for representative democracy remain an understudied topic. Let the People Rule? aims to fill this gap, analysing the multifaceted consequences of direct democracy on constitutional reforms and issues of independence, democratic accountability mechanisms, and political outcomes. Chapters apply different methodological approaches to study the consequences of direct democracy on democratic legitimacy. These range from single in-depth case studies, like the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, to cross-national comparative studies, such as the direct democratic experience within the European Union.

Since the Third Wave of democratization research on clientelism has experienced a revival. The puzzling persistence of clientelism in new and old democracies inspired researchers to investigate the micro-foundations and causes of this phenomenon. Though the decline of clientelistic practices - such as vote buying and patronage - in democratic contexts has often been predicted, they have proven to be highly adaptive strategies of electoral mobilization and party building. This volume seeks to contribute to this new line of research and develops a theoretical framework to study the consequences of clientelism for democratic governance. Under governance we understand "all processes of governing, whether undertaken by a government, market, or network, whether over a family, tribe, formal or informal organization, or territory, and whether through laws, norms, power or language".

Since the Third Wave of democratization research on clientelism has experienced a revival. The puzzling persistence of clientelism in new and old democracies inspired researchers to investigate the micro-foundations and causes of this phenomenon. Though the decline of clientelistic practices - such as vote buying and patronage - in democratic contexts has often been predicted, they have proven to be highly adaptive strategies of electoral mobilization and party building. This volume seeks to contribute to this new line of research and develops a theoretical framework to study the consequences of clientelism for democratic governance. Under governance we understand "all processes of governing, whether undertaken by a government, market, or network, whether over a family, tribe, formal or informal organization, or territory, and whether through laws, norms, power or language".

The biggest contemporary challenge to democratic legitimacy gravitates around the crisis of democratic representation. To tackle this problem, a growing number of established and new democracies included direct democratic instruments in their constitutions, enabling citizens to have direct influence on democratic decision-making. However, there are many different empirical manifestations of direct democracy, and their diverse consequences for representative democracy remain an understudied topic. Let the People Rule? aims to fill this gap, analysing the multifaceted consequences of direct democracy on constitutional reforms and issues of independence, democratic accountability mechanisms, and political outcomes. Chapters apply different methodological approaches to study the consequences of direct democracy on democratic legitimacy. These range from single in-depth case studies, like the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, to cross-national comparative studies, such as the direct democratic experience within the European Union.