How Political Parties Use Referendums: An Analytical Framework

Introduction

The process of political representation in democratic countries faces a series of major challenges. Among them, the most important are the erosion of citizens’ confidence in institutions, growing public dissatisfaction with the system of representative democracy, ¹ impatient citizens with intermediaries between their opinions and public policies, ² and limited involvement in traditional forms of politics. ³ These developments affect the framework within which politics operates and the legitimacy of policy makers to act. The adoption of regulations and use of referendums have been seen in some theories as a potential cure for this malaise. ⁴ The basic argument is that the tools of direct democracy adapt to the changing demands of the citizenry from the political system and may help to cure democratic malaise, link citizens’ preferences to political decisions, and increase regime legitimacy. ⁵

However, recent real-life examples illustrate how referendums may be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they may undermine the advantages of representation by giving voice to oversimplified, so-called popular ideas (e.g., Brexit in 2016) or to the authoritarian tendencies of leaders who wish to legitimize their decisions (e.g., the 2017 Turkish constitutional referendum). On the other hand, referendums control the extreme tendencies of political elites (e.g., the 2016 referendum in Hungary against the EU quota for refugees). Both sides of the medal are illustrative of the ways in which political parties may use referendums to reach their ends. So far, research has shown that the instrumental use of referendums may occur in different political settings, with various goals. ⁶ Most studies have analyzed particular cases to reveal the sources, mechanisms, and consequences of this process. Little attention has been paid to the elaboration of a framework that could foster the systematic assessment of the instrumental use of referendums across different settings. To address this void in the literature and to foster understanding about the instrumental use of referendums, this article provides a typology applicable across contexts, with broader implications for the use of referendums in contemporary representative systems. This typology has two analytical dimensions—the initiators’ type of action and the character of intended goals—which incorporate the arguments according to which referendums have gradually become useful tools to promote policies preferred by particular political elites and potential strategies for actors on the political arena. ⁷ At the same time, while much discussion in the literature about referendums and their hijacking by political parties has focused on policies, this typology introduces an institutional component as a potential driver for steering the public will.

The remainder of this article proceeds as follows. The first section summarizes the most common arguments provided in the literature about the vices and virtues of referendums. The second section discusses the ways in which political parties may approach referendums in an instrumental way and suggests a broadly applicable typology. Next, the article focuses on the relevance of this typology from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. The final section provides an overview of the special section introduced by this article and explains how each of the five countries brings empirical evidence to apply the typology to various political contexts.

The Vices and Virtues of Referendums

Referendums are controversial decision-making processes in contemporary politics. An extensive body of literature has been dedicated to their advantages and disadvantages, how far they can go in terms of decisions and how many decisions should be reached through referendums, the (in)competence of voters, and the reasoning behind the call for a referendum. The following lines will provide a brief summary of the main arguments used by the opponents and supporters of referendums. Opponents have referred primarily to placing too much responsibility on the shoulders of average citizens who are not competent, lack time and information, or have a low interest in many issues. ⁸ The most common critique is that citizens are unable to take wise decisions ⁹ and they are manipulable and easy to influence by those who pursue narrow interests. Under these circumstances, representatives appear to be the most appropriate to take decisions since they have sufficient time, resources, and access to relevant information, all of which enables them to engage in political deliberation. ¹⁰ The result of this situation is a relative asymmetry between political institutions and citizens in which the former are likely to influence the latter. Empirical evidence indicates that voters generally follow the recommendations of the government, and political elites have a strong influence on voters.

A second major critique is the under-representation of minorities and the possible outcomes of a majority policy towards these minorities. Uneven participation across social groups has a stronger bias towards the majority and a more significant impact on society when particular groups turn out to vote. For example, “in situations of low voter turnout, such as in California, this means that the referendum may amplify the opinion of those most likely to actually vote: white, middle class, suburban voters.” ¹¹ This reflects a clear under-representation of citizens with low education and an over-representation of graduates and senior managers. Related to this, a third criticism about referendums focuses on its problematic legitimacy. Low voter turnout in referendums, often rooted in low citizen interest and involvement in politics, has an important influence on the outcomes of a vote. When the average turnout in many Swiss referendums is below 50 percent or in California and other American states below 40 percent, there is a danger that only a minority of the entire electorate actually decides on an issue that affects the entire community or society. ¹² When less well educated and informed people abstain from voting, referendums become an instrument for the already politically privileged. ¹³

Another concern is the tendency of referendums to focus attention on single issues. When deciding on particular policies, citizens are not required to observe and analyze the complexity of contemporary processes. The result can be an irrational policy in which citizens approve new spending programs and at the same time cut their taxes. ¹⁴ This weakness of referendums is reflected in the cases when voters are asked to cast votes on the adoption of a new constitution (making many changes to the previous one) or on large-scale decisions with implications on several levels (e.g., referendums about human rights). This simplifying process is also problematic because it lacks a mechanism to reflect voter priorities among issues. ¹⁵ Citizens are pushed to agree or disagree with a policy that may be more nuanced in reality or they have to adopt a change that does not have to be a radical shift from existence to nonexistence (or the other way around), but may be a matter of degree.

The supporters of referendums claim that its procedures make democratic ideals come true and allow for real participation of citizens beyond representatives. In their view, the referendum complements the existing mechanisms of representation and corrects some of its flaws, providing a cure for this malaise. ¹⁶ While it is true that citizens are sometimes not informed enough, not sufficiently competent and not interested in all state matters or policies, earlier research indicates that voters have been cautious and have often rejected extreme proposals. ¹⁷ They are not as easy to manipulate by populists as asserted by critics, and quite often their reactions go against those of the initiators. For example, the referendum to impeach the Romanian president in 2012 did not enjoy popular support although the parliamentary majority against the president was very high. This example illustrates that although citizens voted for their representatives and those elected officials wanted to oust the elected president from office through a radical measure, voters opposed this in a referendum. In Switzerland, citizens who participate are significantly more competent than the overall electorate; self-selection takes place, which reduces the possibility of unreasonable decisions. ¹⁸

The delegation of power can lead to citizens’ alienation from politics and decrease responsibility for collective decisions. In representative democracies, elections are the crucial mechanism that guarantees citizens’ involvement. However, elections rarely provide effective opportunities for citizens to influence policy making. In the context of growing public dissatisfaction with the system of representative democracy ¹⁹ and citizens impatient with intermediaries between their opinions and public policies, ²⁰ referendums may compensate for these shortcomings and link citizens’ preferences to political decisions. They can accommodate the demands of an increasingly educated public that rejects the guidance of representative institutions. In this sense, educated citizens are likely to “take the promise of democracy seriously and seek to get their preferences directly enacted into public policy.” ²¹

Another major virtue of referendums is that they foster the emergence of a (partial) system of self-government. The latter allows the pursuit of interests and preferences that may be (for various reasons) squeezed out of representative politics. One possible consequence is a better and more responsible decision-making process from both representative institutions—that will feel the pressure of alternative policy making—and citizens who will have no one to blame for poor decisions. In brief, the openness of the regime towards direct democracy tools, such as referendums, is likely to boost popular evaluations of legitimacy. ²² Furthermore, representative democracy has been considered too hierarchical, bureaucratic, and partisan to be able to deal effectively with questions of popular sovereignty or social exclusion. For example, some voters see their preferences discarded when the parties for which they voted for, fail to gain access to Parliament. The disappointment may end up in exclusion from participation in the next elections. Referendums reduce the likelihood of such situations by allowing citizens to express their preferences even though they may be in minority.

The Instrumentalization of Referendums

This brief account of the debate in the literature illustrates the complex nature of referendums and their role in the framework of contemporary representative democracies. The continuous increase in the use of referendums in the recent decades ²³ is partly supported by the implementation of direct democracy mechanisms by newly established democracies. ²⁴ Within this framework there is great emphasis on the consequences of referendums on the functioning of the political system. ²⁵ Referendums have been analyzed as tools designed to allow citizens to influence public policy outcomes or to shift the focus to referendum initiators looking for greater legitimation of their position by citizens. ²⁶

Nevertheless, this approach has both theoretical and empirical limitations. From a theoretical perspective, there are several motivations of the political actors that do not exclude the role of the citizenry but can influence it. Studies have shown that politicians and political parties may use referendums in an attempt to solve internal disputes, advance the legislative agenda, gain legitimacy for fundamental changes, or extend their public electoral support. ²⁷ Political parties are likely to use referendums as a tool to pursue their own interests and achieve particular goals ²⁸ either as a means to mobilize their own supporters for upcoming national elections—while the topic of referendum has only minor importance—or as a means to harm their opponents in government or parliament.

From an empirical perspective, political parties provide cues to their voters irrespective of the topic. ²⁹ There are several types of referendums, and the expected consequences of referendums are more nuanced in practice. To use two examples that have already been mentioned in the introduction, recent national-level referendums in member states of the European Union (EU) sparked different debates about their importance. On the one hand, the June 2016 referendum in Great Britain resulted in a vote in favor of leaving the EU. Opponents of this result contested vehemently the competence of ordinary citizens to make difficult decisions, their degree of information, and the tyranny of a narrow majority. On the other hand, the result of the November 2016 referendum called by the Hungarian government against the EU quotas for refugees was seen as a balance to the narrow interests of political elites, a potential avenue to pursue a greater good, and an indicator that the voice of the people is often driven more by reason and less by emotions as often argued.

Consequently, referendums may have an ambivalent function: They undermine the advantages of representation by giving voice to oversimplified “popular” ideas, and they control the extreme tendencies of political elites. The common practice illustrates that the role of political parties is prominent in referendums that are mandatory (required by the constitution or special laws for a change in the political system) or initiated from the top down (i.e., by parliament, government, president). At the same time, even citizen-initiated referendums are subject to involvement of political parties since the collection of signatures requires organization and costs that can rarely be rarely supported by civil society. In spite of these theoretical arguments and empirical observations, it remains unclear how political parties—as key institutions of representation—use referendums to their own advantage at present.

Two Dimensions for Analysis

The argument about the instrumental use of referendums is not new and rests on concerns regarding the boundaries, competence, and reasoning behind the citizens’ involvement in decision making. This argument has been covered in the previous section and reveals the existence of an asymmetry in which political parties seek to control the public.

They make the referendum an instrument that helps them to rationally pursue their own interests. ³⁰ When discussing the strategic use of referendums, the existing literature focuses either on policy or institutional gains. To begin with policy-oriented goals, Gallagher and Uleri differentiate between decision-promoting and decision-controlling referendums to illustrate how referendums may be used both in support of an initiative and to prevent a change of the status quo. ³¹ Scarrow shows how the policy-oriented approach of the parties towards referendums is not limited to their own interests. ³² In response to the increasingly observed political alienation of citizens, German political parties adopted direct democracy regulations meant to encourage public decision making and specific types of political activity. Their goal was to ensure the legitimacy of the system. At the same time, the parties favoring the introduction of such procedures hoped to enhance their popularity and boost their vote share by showing responsiveness towards new participation preferences. In the case of the 2003 Czech referendum for EU accession, the agenda pursued by the political parties was also quite broad. The referendum enjoyed cross-party support, which reflected a general elite consensus regarding the importance of the European future of the country. ³³ The pro-EU stances of the mainstream parties shaped the domestic debates and decisively influenced the outcome of the referendum.

Referendums provide political parties the opportunity to advance their own ideas and promote their political agenda. ³⁴ Such a possibility comes with free publicity and higher visibility for political parties when taking stances on controversial issues. To this end, elites use referendums to foster their legitimacy and to win a policy debate when they believe that the people favor their position. ³⁵ For example, the 2015 referendum in Greece against accepting the EU and IMF financial bailout was used by the prime minister and governing parties to strengthen their agenda and legitimize their position. ³⁶ In addition, when incumbents win a referendum they can attribute it to their skill and competence in handling the entire issue, thus improving their popularity. ³⁷ When playing this card, there is also a major risk of losing a great deal if failing to win the referendum: the image of parties and politicians can be severely damaged. ³⁸ This usually happens when parties are internally divided over referendum topics. ³⁹

When referring to institutional gains, Walker argues that through referendums political elites will seek “to change the distribution of power between their respective institutions if they believe the people support the strengthening of their institution to the detriment of their opponents’ institutions.” ⁴⁰ Referendums are used to handle conflicts outside the parliamentary arena and to avoid the political debate that usually surrounds controversial issues. For example, they may address deadlocks that occur in democratizing countries because either political parties lack negotiation experience and are not inclined to compromise or the political polarization is large. Moller explains that the referendums in Lithuania and Latvia were driven by incentive structures derived from the different degrees of party system polarization. ⁴¹ In Lithuania, the polarization between two major parties opened the door to the use of referendums as an election weapon used by each of them in the fierce competition. In the fragmented Latvian party system, the referendum was an instrument of pressure used by the periphery parties against the center parties. In this context, the referendums were not sought as solutions to existing problems, but rather as a tool to avoid deadlocks, put pressure on opponents, and increase their own share of votes. Research conducted in Switzerland showed that parties with small organizations can benefit from the use of referendums. They allow party leaders to mobilize a large number of supporters because they provide a framework in which elites can address the public directly on controversial issues. ⁴² Thus, mobilization takes place without requiring a strong organization that might be costly for the party.

All these findings indicate that political parties pursue policy and institutional goals when making use of referendums. The two are not exclusive and there are spillover effects. It is quite rare for a political party to strive solely for a policy or an institutional-oriented goal. For example, when a referendum is called to solve an institutional deadlock (i.e., institutional goal), it usually seeks to promote a certain policy—different than that belonging to its opponents—and to increase the popularity and legitimacy of the initiator. At the same time, the type of action appears to be an important distinction that has not been made so far in the literature. The existing separation between offensive/proactive and defensive/reactive strategies with respect to policies does not cover institutional goals and fails to account for the different behavior of parties. ⁴³ In their instrumental use of referendums, political parties appear to pursue two types of actions: favoring themselves and/or oriented against their opponents. When parties undertake actions that primarily bring an advantage to themselves they are centripetal, oriented to themselves; as a corollary, when their actions target opponents and seek to enhance their own position in competition with other actors, the action is centrifugal. The resulting typology (Figure 1) is a two-by-two matrix in which the two criteria are intended goals and type of action.

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Figure 1

How political parties use referendums: a typology.

The approaches presented in the four cells of the figure reflect empirical evidence from previous research (reviewed above) and available in the articles gathered in this special section. The following section briefly describes the content of each contribution and explains how the instrumental use of referendums fits the analytical dimensions in Figure 1.

Relevance of the Typology

The typology is a parsimonious analytical tool with broad applicability. It is not country or region (e.g., Eastern Europe) sensitive, and the general mechanisms presented in the cells are recognizable throughout political processes in many democracies or democratizing countries. The typology cuts across the issue of parties’ position in the system of governance and is not immune to its potential effect. In many areas of politics, parties in government have more access to resources than parties in opposition. This influences the way they act and the efficiency of their actions. Since the analytical framework focuses on the goals of these parties, one can easily claim that the goals parties try to achieve through a referendum depend on their incumbency. Access to more resources may facilitate access to more agents that can initiate referendums, for example, parliamentary majority, government, and president. This perspective is quite limited in the case of referendums because government status does not grant access necessarily to more but to different resources. While parties in government have a slightly easier task in initiating top–down referendums with the help of state institutions, opposition parties can usually count more on agents of bottom–up mobilization, such as the citizenry or civil society. At the same time, when presidents do not belong to the government parties, the political opposition has a fair chance of influencing their willingness to initiate a referendum.

The typology helps to refine the arguments and empirical evidence about the linkage between referendums and populism. It does so by distinguishing between centrifugal and centripetal types of actions, which remain occluded in previous research. For example, earlier research on Germany shows that popular support for direct democracy can be found among citizens at the periphery of politics. ⁴⁴ These citizens are usually targeted by radical right-wing populists who rely extensively on their ability to address the concerns of ordinary people—with the language of ordinary people—to increase their electoral base and legitimacy. ⁴⁵ While such political actors favor the use of referendums, they do so both for party-oriented goals (agenda-setting, popularity, and legitimacy) and against other competitors (popular mobilization). This nuance is important to understand the interests of populists in supporting referendums. In essence, this can have implications for the normative assessment of political action as it reveals whether political parties claiming to speak for the people pursue party-oriented or competition-related actions. The distinction between the two types of actions is important because it allows us to observe whether political parties seek to increase the loyalty of their voters in the short, medium, or long run. ⁴⁶ Moreover, the distinction made between policies and institutional goals sheds light upon the intentions and long-term prospects of these parties when using referendums.

Overall, this analytical framework and its applicability throughout the articles in this special section bear important theoretical, methodological, and empirical implications. At the theoretical level, the types indicate the necessity of drawing attention to what occurs at the policy and institutional levels, but also within these levels. The policy and institutional dimensions are crucial arenas for participation and decision-making processes that affect the broader democratic and representative process. For example, this typology can reveal how political actors seek to cultivate a demagogic relationship with the masses and mask through the instrumental use of referendums an attempt to bypass the institutions of representative democracy. ⁴⁷ At the methodological level, this conceptualization makes measurement easier, enhances the comparative study of instrumental use of referendums, and helps develop empirical tools to grasp its dynamism. So far, most research on the relationship between parties and referendums has focused on single-case studies where contextual matters could not allow for a comparison. The application of this typology makes the concept of instrumentalization less vague and subject to contextual interpretation, increasing its comparability across various settings. At the empirical level, with this typology one could, for example, question and examine the (causal) relationship between several dimensions of instrumentalization in and between the different types of referendums or political parties, common or diverging causes, and the potential consequences for political representation and decision making.

Content of This Special Section

The use of referendums gains momentum in Europe, and an increasing number of policies is subject to popular decision. In this context, it is crucial to understand the extent to which political parties initiate, guide, or control these processes. This special section explores the ways in which political parties make instrumental use of national-level referendums in Eastern Europe. The contributions focus on the ways in which political parties have initiated and used referendums, outlining the aim and type of action pursued by political parties. It gathers single case studies on individual countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Romania) that differ in terms of party systems, political stability, and use of referendums at the national level. The articles serve three objectives that are the equivalent of three ways to advance our knowledge about the topic. First, they elaborate on the theoretical reasons and mechanisms through which political parties and their leaders initiate, coordinate, and use referendums to their benefit. Second, the articles provide solid empirical evidence of instrumental use of referendums by political parties in different political systems. Each article covers one country; some have a longitudinal perspective, and this allows for a broader comparison of party behavior towards referendums across Eastern Europe. Third, they use primary data to tell a story that has not been covered in the literature so far.

The common definition of a referendum, as used in the contributions to this special section is that it corresponds to a single question on a ballot. This methodological choice rests on the grounds that referendums are decisions made by citizens abut particular policies; One policy decision is captured by one question, a collective set of questions refers to more policies, and thus we count as many referendums as questions. In the case of multiple questions, some countries ask them on different ballots although the voting is organized at the same time, so that voters can even decide if they want to abstain on some issues while voting on others.

To better illustrate the instrumental use of referendums in their countries, the articles use one of the following two approaches. On the one hand, the studies about Poland, Romania, and Slovakia have a comprehensive approach that covers all referendums organized in the country in their post-communist history. The relatively small number of referendums organized in each of these countries allows the authors to apply the typology presented in this introduction to the entire universe of cases. On the other hand, the analyses of Bulgaria and Hungary use a snapshot approach and focus on particular referendums that clearly illustrate the mechanisms presented in the typology. This perspective has the advantage of an in-depth analysis aiming to reveal the ways in which political actors use specific resources to achieve their goals. Some of these processes are symptomatic for several national referendums (e.g., Hungary), while others are unique (e.g., Bulgaria). With this combination of approaches towards the use of referendums, the special section indicates the reliability of the analytical framework. More precisely, it shows how the typology can be applied to various settings, encompassing both broad and narrow implications.

The article about the Bulgarian 2013 referendum looks at how one political party in opposition sought to achieve two different policy-oriented goals, both of a centripetal nature. On the one hand, it tried to augment its image in the eyes of the public by supporting a policy that seemed to be quite popular with the electorate. On the other hand, it pursued its previous political agenda by picking up as a topic of the referendum a legacy of its time in government. The analysis reveals how the Bulgarian Socialists channeled a citizens’ initiative to reach a favorable decision about the building of a new nuclear plant initiated when the party was in office a few years before. The contribution analyzing the instrumental use of the 2004, 2008, and 2016 initiatives and referendums nuances this picture. While the importance of party-centered policy approaches in which the initiator pursued agenda-setting and popular legitimacy must be acknowledged, at the same time such actions are institutional and centrifugal, aiming to by-pass parliament in the decision-making process.

The article focusing on Poland compares the instrumental use of five nationwide referendums. The analysis combines a close look at the circumstances and reasons behind the initiation of the referendum with a description of six methods employed by political parties to use the institution of nationwide referendum to their own benefit. The vast majority of the goals were policy oriented, being either centered around the initiator (i.e., legitimacy) or oriented against other competitors (e.g., electoral gains). In one instance, the referendum was used as a combination of agenda-setting and institutional conflict in which it was called to shed negative light on the initiative of the country’s president. A similar combination of ways to instrumentalize the referendum is revealed by the article on Romania. The study focuses on seven national level referendums (out of which four were mandatory) and indicates a combination of policy- and institutional-oriented goals. In terms of policy, as in the Polish case, legitimacy and electoral gain are the policy centripetal and centrifugal types of action for the Romanian political parties. The institutional reason was centrifugal in two referendums and was meant to solve an institutional deadlock between the legislature and the executive. In one of these instances, the institutional dimension was combined with a legitimacy-oriented goal. In Slovakia, the institution of referendum served as a tool to expand the power of political parties rather than as a way to increase the public engagement of citizens in the democratic system. The article dedicated to Slovakia in this special section shows how political parties use referendums either as a way to mobilize their supporters for national elections or to harm their opponents. The analysis of seven referendums reveals the importance of a centrifugal strategy.

The empirical evidence presented in all five countries strengthens the idea that the instrumental use of referendums can be seen along the analytical dimensions presented in Figure 1. The combination of goals and types of action is frequent and reflects a complex reality in which political parties seek to gain several advantages by using a tool that is in theory designed to provide citizens a relevant say in the decision-making process. In this sense, the parties do not behave only as gate keepers willing to preserve the status quo, but their actions move far beyond such a role.