Citizens as veto players: climate change policy and the constraints of direct democracy

The search for and implementation of effective climate change policies is one of the crucial challenges of policy-makers. One strand of literature argues that domestic factors and in particular institutional prerequisites or veto points strongly influence the quality and pace of a country's policy innovation and adaptation. Focusing on a particular institutional veto point – direct democracy – how does direct democracy influence a country's adaptive capacity in the areas of climate change and, more precisely, what kind of climate change policies have the best chances to be accepted in citizen's direct decision-making? The analyses demonstrate that direct democracy makes it difficult to implement far-reaching, but probably most effective climate change policies, while its direct and indirect impact on the policy-making process rather produces politics of small steps that are supported by a broad political elite.