One interesting result of the paper is that neglectedness seems is key to whether a policy change matters for a long time. For policies that can be expected to attract more interest after the referendum passes, I see less persistence. It is not a hugely dramatic effect, but it could make a difference on the margin or in extreme cases. This seems to lend some support to the EA practice of paying attention to neglectedness.
This is probably me being stupid, but I’m not sure I understand this. Are you saying more neglected areas are those that would typically see less interest after a referendum and, according to your findings, are therefore those that have more persistent effects? So the takeaway is to focus on more neglected policy areas?
If that’s the correct interpretation, can we reasonably be sure that more neglectedness = less interest after a referendum? Presumably if there is a referendum, at that point the policy area may no longer be that neglected?
I interpreted this in the same way as you. Presumably the referendum will lead to a short-term uptick in popular interest, but maybe our model could be that there is some baseline ‘interestingness’ of an issue that public interest reverts to soon after the referendum? It perhaps depends on what the process for getting something on a referendum is. If it is hard and requires very many people to already endorse the proposed policy, then almost by definition referendums aren’t very neglected. But if a few actors can get a referendum, then the topic may still be quite neglected.
Yeah, Jack, I think you’re capturing my thinking here (which is an informal point for this audience rather than something formal in the paper). I look at measures of how much people were interested in a policy well before the referendum or how much we should expect them to be interested after the referendum. It looks like both of these predict less persistence. So the thought is that things that generally are less salient when not on the ballot are more persistent.
Nice paper!
This is probably me being stupid, but I’m not sure I understand this. Are you saying more neglected areas are those that would typically see less interest after a referendum and, according to your findings, are therefore those that have more persistent effects? So the takeaway is to focus on more neglected policy areas?
If that’s the correct interpretation, can we reasonably be sure that more neglectedness = less interest after a referendum? Presumably if there is a referendum, at that point the policy area may no longer be that neglected?
I interpreted this in the same way as you. Presumably the referendum will lead to a short-term uptick in popular interest, but maybe our model could be that there is some baseline ‘interestingness’ of an issue that public interest reverts to soon after the referendum? It perhaps depends on what the process for getting something on a referendum is. If it is hard and requires very many people to already endorse the proposed policy, then almost by definition referendums aren’t very neglected. But if a few actors can get a referendum, then the topic may still be quite neglected.
Yeah, Jack, I think you’re capturing my thinking here (which is an informal point for this audience rather than something formal in the paper). I look at measures of how much people were interested in a policy well before the referendum or how much we should expect them to be interested after the referendum. It looks like both of these predict less persistence. So the thought is that things that generally are less salient when not on the ballot are more persistent.