Referendums in the European Union: Defective by Birth?

Cheneval, Francis; Ferrín, Mónica

doi:10.1111/jcms.12727

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…We can wish that they are informed to cast their ballot in both cases, and that they learn how to develop an opinion by participating iteratively in such votes; but we cannot restrict their right to vote if they are not. Second, this objection ignores the context in which popular votes take place (Cheneval and Ferrín ). In democratic systems, parties and other political actors structure the public debate preceding these votes and provide voters with cues and arguments that facilitate their decision‐making, just as in electoral campaigns.…”

Section: Referendum Processes Within Democratic Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Institutional Design of Referendums: Bottom‐Up and Binding

Cheneval

el-Wakil

2018

Swiss Political Sci Review

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Democratic theorists generally ignore that the institutional design of popular vote processes varies in important ways. However, these differences in design influence the kind of role that these processes play in and their impact on democratic systems. We intend to remedy this situation by launching a normative discussion about the institutional design of popular vote processes in the Debate “Do Referendums Enhance or Threaten Democracy?” In this introductory essay, we first insist on the necessity to adopt a differentiated conception of popular vote processes. We then highlight some aspects of our normative approach to the institutional design of popular vote processes. We finally argue that referendum processes can positively contribute to democratic systems when they are 1) launched bottom‐up and 2) legally binding.

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Section: Referendum Processes Within Democratic Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Institutional Design of Referendums: Bottom‐Up and Binding

Cheneval

el-Wakil

2018

Swiss Political Sci Review

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“…A referendum was the most frequently proposed solutions for the lack of EU legitimacy. However, more EU referenda would not be an optimal solution, since complex and controversial issues are rarely resolved by binary outcomes, and sporadic referenda in a few member states could deepen the inequality in influence between national constituencies, exacerbating the EU democratic deficit [79].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Online EU Contestation in Times of Crisis: Towards a European Digital Demos?

Pejovic

2022

Societies

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Crises, as critical moments in the process of European integration, are particularly conducive to the increased politicisation of the European Union (EU) and its contestation. The year 2015 saw the peaks of the Greek and the refugee crises, the two crises that put the two flagships of the European project—the Euro and the Schengen zone—into imminent peril, causing a prolonged EU legitimacy crisis. Building on the literature that considers Euroscepticism as a context-dependent and discursive phenomenon, this study analyses Facebook debates that emerged in response to the Greek and refugee crises, trying to identify how the EU was evaluated and how these evaluations were justified. To answer this question, this study involved the qualitative content analysis of over 7000 Facebook comments related to the Greek and migration crises published in 2015 on the pages of the European Parliament and the European Commission. Contrary to the literature that explains popular Euroscepticism by utilitarian or cultural factors, the findings of this study show that the most recurrent justification for negative EU polity evaluations is the lack of democratic credentials. Furthermore, the commentators mostly assessed the EU’s current set-up and, to a much lesser extent, the principle and the future of European integration. Moreover, the Facebook public extensively commented on the level of inclusiveness, particularly bemoaning the lack of inclusiveness of “ordinary” people in EU decision making. Nevertheless, the commentators frequently referred to themselves as “we Europeans” or “we people”, opposing themselves to EU, national, or financial “elites”. Despite its populist elements, this sense of “we-ness” incepted in social media suggests the capacity of transnational online discussion to foster European digital demos.

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“…While there are many reasons for governments to hold these plebiscites, a frequently hypothesized key motivation is to improve a state's bargaining leverage. According to this logic, the prospect of a national referendum enhances the credibility of a government's commitment, elevates its clout at the negotiation table, and thereby increases its capacity to extract concessions (Cheneval and Ferrín, 2018). While the argument is intuitive, the empirical evidence for it is mixed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Referenda as commitment devices – an experimental approach

Justwan

Fisher

Kerr

et al. 2020

Research & Politics

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This research note evaluates the claim that referenda can serve as useful commitment devices in international negotiations. More specifically, we relied on individual-level survey data to test the claim that governments can successfully “tie their hands” to policy choices by calling referenda on political issues. Our empirical analysis relied on original survey data collected in April 2019 in Belize. In so doing, we took advantage of an unusual political event. On 8 May (shortly after our survey), Belizean citizens participated in a countrywide plebiscite. During this vote, they decided to send their country’s territorial dispute with Guatemala for adjudication to the International Court of Justice. From a research perspective, this event allowed us to assess the effect of disregarded referendum results in a highly salient political environment. Our experimental analysis suggested that individuals do reprimand their governments for failing to implement a majority vote (a) even if this choice precipitates a person’s favored substantive outcome, and (b) irrespective of an individual’s preferred party.

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Referendums in the European Union: Defective by Birth?

Cited by 11 publications

References 28 publications

The Institutional Design of Referendums: Bottom‐Up and Binding

The Institutional Design of Referendums: Bottom‐Up and Binding

Online EU Contestation in Times of Crisis: Towards a European Digital Demos?

Referenda as commitment devices – an experimental approach

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