Product Description: Michigan at the Millennium provides objective background and analysis on a wide variety of key economic and fiscal issues. The chapters are written by economists and policy analysts at leading universities and other institutions in Michigan...read more

Product Description: California's adoption of the blanket primary in 1996 presented a unique natural experiment on the impact that election rules have on politics. Billed as a measure that would increase voter participation and end ideological polarization, Proposition 198 placed California voters once again on the frontier of political reform...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Product Description: Do small but wealthy interest groups influence referendums, ballot initiatives, and other forms of direct legislation at the expense of the broader public interest? Many observers argue that they do, often lamenting that direct legislation has, paradoxically, been captured by the very same wealthy interests whose power it was designed to curb...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Perhaps the most dramatic change in the California political system over the past two decades has been the increasing use of the initiative process. Between 1976 and 1996, Californians voted on 106 statewide ballot initiatives. Spending on initiative campaigns has grown commensurately, peaking in 1996 at an all-time high of $140 million...read more