Are Populists Sore Losers? Explaining Populist Citizens' Preferences for and Reactions to Referendums

Hannah Werner,Kristof Jacobs

doi:10.1017/s0007123421000314

Hannah Werner, Kristof Jacobs

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007123421000314

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Abstract

AbstractCan referendums help increase perceived legitimacy among citizens with populist attitudes? Indeed, public opinion surveys show that populist citizens are especially in favour of referendums. However, we do not know whether this support reflects a principled desire for different decision-making procedures or an instrumental one (that is, because they expect referendums to yield favourable outcomes). We study this question on a real-life case: the Dutch 2018 referendum on the Intelligence and Security Services Act 2017. Using high-quality survey data from both before and after the referendum, we find that, counter to conventional wisdom and our hypotheses, populists' support for referendums is less driven by instrumental motives compared to that of non-populists, and that populists are more likely than non-populists to accept the outcome of a referendum, even when this outcome is unfavourable.

Highlights

Populism is on the rise and the feeling that politicians do not listen to citizens is widely shared
Even if we find such a positive relationship between populist attitudes and referendum support, this need not necessarily mean that support for referendums is based on normative considerations about how democratic decisions ought to be made
H1 predicted that citizens with high levels of populist attitudes would be more supportive of the referendum on the information law than citizens with low levels of populist attitudes

Summary

Introduction

Populism is on the rise and the feeling that politicians do not listen to citizens is widely shared (see Rooduijn 2019). A limited number of studies has examined the relationship between citizens with a higher degree of populist attitudes and preference for decision-making via referendums These studies suggest that citizens with a higher degree of populist attitudes (for ease of formulation, ‘populist citizens’) are especially supportive of decision-making via referendums (Bjånesøy and Ivarsflaten 2016; Jacobs, Akkerman, and Zaslove 2018; Mohrenberg, Huber, and Freyburg 2019). Does this mean that they consider the outcomes of these referendums as more legitimate? Populist citizens may hold different values regarding the structure and legitimacy of democratic decision-making (Mohrenberg, Huber, and Freyburg 2019)

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