The misuse of referendums in post-communist Europe

Abstract

Referendums can be an efflective device of popular control only if a broad issue of principle is at stake, if the people clearly understand the issue, if they have strong and enduring views about it, and if the options on the ballot correspond to those views. In the early 1990s, referendums on the ‘civilizational choice’ facing Eastern Europe might have met those conditions. But by 2003, referendums on EU accession did not. The issue was no longer an issue of principle: it was about ‘deals not ideals’. For the public, the key criterion was the likely costs or benefits to their families – but almost half could not guess what the impact on their families would be. And the options on the ballot excluded the choice of the majority, which was to join later when the deal might be better, and the costs or benefits clearer.