Higher education policy making, from representative democracy to direct democracy: A case study (Florida)

In the past two decades, higher education has found itself directly or indirectly on the state ballot in those states that use the citizen-led initiative. Over 160 initiatives have had consequences that affected higher education. Because few research efforts have been conducted to explain this phenomenon, the purpose of this study was to examine a specific citizen-led initiative in order to begin to understand what issues are present when state-ballot policy making is occurring with higher education as the centerpiece.; Using Florida constitutional amendment 11 of 2002 as a single case study, I sought to determine the factors and conditions that led to the emergence of the amendment on the 2002 Florida state ballot and to examine the effectiveness of Mazzoni's (1991) arena shift model in explaining how an issue moves from representative democracy to direct democracy. In a qualitative research strategy, interviews with individuals who were either directly involved with the amendment or who were close observers of the process were conducted and a review of relevant archival data was completed. By triangulating the data gathered, I was able to make several conclusions about the process in the state of Florida.; The most influential factors and conditions that led to the emergence of Florida's amendment 11 include: (a) legislative and partisan politics, (b) the presence of a policy entrepreneur in U.S. Senator Bob Graham, (c) the historical context of the initiative in Florida, (d) the historical context of the use and passage rate of the constitutional amendment process in the state of Florida, and (e) the convergence of a series of events at one time. Further, I identified secondary factors that affected the emergence of this amendment. I found that Mazzoni's model does not fully reflect the experience of Florida amendment 11 of 2002. I offered a revised model and suggestions for future research.