Referendum Campaign Research Articles

International reputation and the Voice to Parliament referendum

ABSTRACT During the Voice to Parliament referendum campaign, ‘yes' advocates argued that a failed referendum would harm Australia's international reputation. To what extent did this occur? This article examines how the Voice to Parliament spoke to Australia's international reputation and why it matters for foreign policy. It maps the global producers of reputation narratives and theorises about which, when and why specific audiences might matter for how reputation affects foreign policy. Using a unique combination of materials collected from Meltwater and Global NewsBank databases, it tracks how the Voice to Parliament campaign and its results were interpreted by various international audiences, with a specific focus on global media. The implications for foreign policy are likely to be mixed while the result may be weaponised by other states and limit Australia's ability to make credible moral claims in international fora, geopolitical considerations are likely to reduce its overall effect on Australia’s international agenda.

Information and campaign effects in the 2023 Australian Voice referendum

ABSTRACT Referendums differ from general elections in the choices that are offered to voters and in the cues that are available to them to reach a decision. This difference makes the quantity and quality of the information that is available during a referendum campaign crucial to the outcome. This paper uses a unique panel survey to examine the role of the campaign in shaping the outcome of the October 2023 Voice to Parliament referendum. We find that the political cues offered to voters – reflected most prominently in voters’ views about the major party leaders – were the most important campaign effects shaping the result. Interpersonal communication also mattered, but government-supplied information and mass media exposure had no effect. The findings highlight the central role that a campaign driven by elites plays in shaping the outcome of a referendum.

Scaring for the greater good? Discursive construction of fear appeals in the brexit referendum campaign

Scaring for the greater good? Discursive construction of fear appeals in the brexit referendum campaign

Direct democracy and party behaviour in the Republic of Ireland: a campaign finance perspective

ABSTRACT Studies on the Irish referendum experience have generally accepted that political parties play a fundamental role in the direct democratic process. While this is rarely problematised, parties often campaign in referendums in order to steer them towards outcomes that are strategically beneficial. Contemporary research on Irish referendums has delved into how parties shape their campaigns to achieve these goals, but a more preliminary question is still to be addressed: to what extent do parties participate in referendum campaigns? This paper attempts to do so by examining campaign expenditure, which offers a concrete quantitative indicator for party engagement vis-à-vis referendums. Departing from theory on party behaviour and referendum instrumentalization, the article takes into account Irish regulations on campaign finance before offering a descriptive and explorative comparison of the expenditure of Irish political parties in recent referendum campaigns. Several patterns within the data are then discussed in light of potential influential factors identified in previous scholarly work. Results suggest that a referendum’s topic and its salience in the public sphere, as well as a party’s financial resources and government status, could explain party behaviour in Irish referendum campaigns, and a set of congruent hypotheses for future research are formulated in the conclusion.

Travel for women rights: social movements and the construction of travel as activism in social media

ABSTRACT Globalized social movements often require travel, but travel as a symbolic form of transnational activism has only been examined in certain instances. This paper employs the notion of political travel and, through a qualitative content analysis of social media posts during the 2018 pro-choice Irish referendum campaign, it shows how travel can be approached as a form of activism and resistance from a critical feminist angle in the context of a global campaign mediated by social media. Inspired by assemblage theory [De Landa, M. (2016). Assemblage theory. Edinburgh University Press.], our findings show how different elements; people, spaces, objects are assembled to construct the framing and narrative of a social movement that fights for women rights. The individual accounts of travel experiences in social media contributed to the overall ‘aestheticization’ of the social movement. Also, the study offered insights into the meanings that, predominantly female, travellers, assign to their political travel, which are in turn shaped by personal and historical concerns.

Transforming anger into resilience: The Zagreb Pride LGBTIQ NGO and stigmatized youth in Croatia

After an intensive marriage referendum campaign in 2013, organized by the ‘In the Name of Family’ organisation (Cro. U ime obitelji), the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman was included in the Croatian constitution. At the time of the campaign, the participants in this research were young people, most of whom were in elementary or secondary school. Considering most of them had not come out to their immediate social circle, they were particularly vulnerable because of the visibility that was imposed on them.This article will introduce the results of ethnographic research on the Zagreb Pride LGBTIQ non-governmental organisation, as part of which we conducted 31 semi-structured interviews with former and (at the time) current members of the organisation. We focused on three different issues: 1. How the marriage referendum campaign affected young LGBTQ individuals and their social engagement; 2. Why they saw their identity as an expression of political activism; 3. How they transformed their initial negative feelings into resilience and political activism.The results show that the marriage referendum campaign had a significant impact on young LGBTQ people, transforming their initial feelings of anger and fear into resilience. Considering the political and social context in Croatian society at the time, our participants noted that they thought about their coming out as a political act. Consequently, this inspired them to further mobilise and take part in political activism.

Business as usual like never before! Continuity, rupture and anxiety management in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum campaign

Ontological security-seeking has traditionally been considered to rest upon the stability and continuity of core auto-biographical narratives and everyday routines. ‘Critical situations’ which fundamentally destabilise these foundations of ontological security have thus hitherto carried a negative valence. Constitutional referenda proposing a radical re-organisation of collective political identities and daily life, therefore, are intriguing. A source of severe consternation for some, for others, potential change is positive, even thrilling. This article investigates this puzzling contrast, drawing on Ontological Security Studies’ (OSS) recent recentring of Existentialist thought and debates exploring the heterogenous potential of anxiety, and utilising the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence and the strategies for anxiety management embedded in the pro-independence ‘Yes’ campaign. Through analysis of dominant discourses grounding the argument for independence, findings demonstrate the simultaneous deployment of contradictory anxiety management strategies: independence was framed as a pathway to escape the instability and uncertainty of the status quo; as a pathway to continuity; and as a chance to embrace anxiety, to relish the opportunity and excitement of change. This article thus contributes to the prevailing critique of OSS’ over-privileging of stability and continuity in ontological security-seeking, yet problematises ‘either/or’ approaches to understanding anxiety management in critical situations and beyond.

Ethnic politics and party realignment in African constitutional referendums: Understanding Kenya’s ‘industry of insults’

Abstract Kenya’s constitutional referendums in 2005 and 2010 stand out for their continuity with the national elections that followed both polls. During campaigns for and against the draft constitutions, politicians attempted to leverage their popularity amongst co-ethnics to signal their viability as coalition partners or ‘formateurs’ in subsequent general elections: rather than nuanced debates on constitutional issues, the campaigns became personal contests that one observer dubbed an ‘industry of insults’. A decade later, this process was repeated as the country’s political class considered further revisions to the constitution. Kenya’s referendum campaigns thus reflect a layer of strategic behaviour that has not been recognized in much of the contemporary literature on democratization and constitutional change in Africa. While the substance of the country’s constitution matters to Kenyan elites, referendum campaigns have added value to leaders independently of the outcomes of the polls themselves. The prominence of ethnicity as an organizing feature in Kenyan politics combined with high levels of party volatility produces an environment in which referendum campaigns serve as opportunities for Kenyan politicians to renegotiate political coalitions and realign party politics in between election cycles. In this way, the country’s referendum politics are a distinct byproduct of its historical and political circumstances.

Être libre et sans roi ? Nationalisme et antimonarchisme au Québec et en Écosse

Independence, as a political quest for nationhood, does not sit well with the existence of a monarch in whom such sovereignty resides. The Scottish reality, however, is more nuanced in this respect. This article analyses anti-monarchist arguments in the Quebec (1980 and 1995) and Scottish (2014) referendum campaigns, through the prism of the functions associated with the monarchy as a symbol of unity, as the embodiment of a national history, as the guardian of liberal democracy and a certain notion of equality, of a moral and religious order redefined as a collective ethos to better suit the course of modernity. The analysis shows every function of the monarchy is targeted by nationalists. This is true of its symbolic dimension, seen as a mere accessory, but also of its position in the institutional architecture, where its role as guardian of social unity in the face of the division inherent in democracy is turned against it. It is then described as fundamentally inegalitarian and responsible for the injustices perpetrated against Francophones in Canada. However, the monarchy is treated very differently in the two territories, ranging from indifference and disdain in Quebec to an intimate relationship that is difficult to question in Scotland.

Être libre et sans roi ? Nationalisme et antimonarchisme au Québec et en Écosse

Independence, as a political quest for nationhood, does not sit well with the existence of a monarch in whom such sovereignty resides. The Scottish reality, however, is more nuanced in this respect. This article analyses anti-monarchist arguments in the Quebec (1980 and 1995) and Scottish (2014) referendum campaigns, through the prism of the functions associated with the monarchy as a symbol of unity, as the embodiment of a national history, as the guardian of liberal democracy and a certain notion of equality, of a moral and religious order redefined as a collective ethos to better suit the course of modernity. The analysis shows every function of the monarchy is targeted by nationalists. This is true of its symbolic dimension, seen as a mere accessory, but also of its position in the institutional architecture, where its role as guardian of social unity in the face of the division inherent in democracy is turned against it. It is then described as fundamentally inegalitarian and responsible for the injustices perpetrated against Francophones in Canada. However, the monarchy is treated very differently in the two territories, ranging from indifference and disdain in Quebec to an intimate relationship that is difficult to question in Scotland.

Brexit as a constitutive force in the Commonwealth: Constitutional identities and the withering Sovereign

Britain’s accession in 1973 to what is now the European Union marked a decisive turn in the British Commonwealth of Nations. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the status and value of the Commonwealth in global affairs was firmly reduced to the fostering of Britain’s soft power: common democratic values, championing civil society, and maintaining historic ties – the carefully preserved ruins of the British Empire. Yet, in 2016 the Commonwealth took on added significance during the European Union referendum campaign. Under the banner of “Global Britain”, the prospect of bringing a formal end to Britain’s membership of the European Union became much more certain after the Brexit wing of the Tory party won a large majority in the general election on December 12, 2019. For some Brexiteers, the Commonwealth is an important plank in Britain’s reassertion of its place in the world through trade and selective migration. To the extent that Brexit instantiates a crisis of constitutional identities in Europe, this is but a more recent episode in the narrative of Europe and her Other, a Europe to which Britain took refuge to reconstitute her relationship with her former colonies, which now make up the bulk of the Commonwealth. This essay centres the intellectual synergies of James Bryce, Jawaharlal Nehru, Kwame Nkrumah, and Shridath Ramphal to assess the constitutive force of Brexit in the Commonwealth. It is argued that, as a matter of constitutional identity, Britain’s anxiety about the constitutional order of the European Union has its current constitutive ground in the British Empire-turned-Commonwealth. Further, as precipitated by radical decolonial republicanism, this persistent constitutive force defines the British Crown’s imaginary exercise of sovereign power in the Commonwealth through a peculiar kind of presence, one that is performed through strategic absence.

Irish English and national identity in the linguistic landscape of Ireland’s 2018 abortion referendum

Abstract Ireland’s 2018 referendum on the Eighth Amendment, in which a majority of the Irish electorate voted to repeal the state’s quasi-total ban on abortion, saw important public discussions regarding Irish national identity in the twenty-first century. From a linguistic perspective, this begs the question of what role language played in the construction of national identity during the referendum campaign. This paper will examine Irish English features in the referendum campaign’s linguistic landscape and the extent to which they were used to index national identity. While there has been a significant amount of research on language ideologies connected to Irish, there has been little attention paid to Irish English and its relationship with national identity in the linguistic landscape literature. Drawing on a dataset of 1680 LL items collected from the 2018 referendum campaign (including campaign posters, placards, banners and stickers), this paper examines signs containing distinctive Irish English features, employing a qualitative, multimodal approach to the indexing of national identity. Specifically, it asks whether and under what conditions it is possible to claim that the use of Irish English features can be taken to index national identity.

Business power, right-wing populism, and noisy politics: lessons from Brexit and Swiss referendums

This article contributes to debates on business power, noisy politics, and right-wing populism. The populist right weakens strategies of quiet politics, which many suggest has led to a steep decline of business power. I challenge this view and argue that a combination of innovative strategies and ample financial resources allow business associations to exercise power in this environment. Drawing on new empirical evidence, the article makes three central contributions. First, I suggest that the failure of Remain business advocacy in the 2016 Brexit referendum resulted from the constraints of administrative legislation (the PPERA), weaknesses in campaigning strategies, and the CBI leadership’s decision to not register as a campaign organization. Second, while my regression analysis provides some support for Culpepper’s quiet politics argument, the Swiss business federation Economiesuisse has won 90% of the referendum campaigns it has led, including many referendums with high issue salience against right-wing populists. Third, Economiesuisse shows that business strategies of ‘loud voice’ can be successful. With money and innovative public-facing campaigning strategies, business organizations can win in noisy environments and against right-wing populists.

Who supports liberal policies? A tale of two referendums in Italy

We leverage a unique dataset at the municipality level in Italy to examine the factors that drive support for two separate referendum campaigns — one on the decriminalization of cannabis cultivation and the other on physician-assisted suicide. Using machine learning techniques, we identify key predictors of support for both referendums, including income, population density, and political leaning of the municipality. Our analysis also highlights that local economic conditions, such as the number of firms, and educational attainment, along with exposure to organized crime, are critical factors driving mobilization in favor of the cannabis referendum. In contrast, support for legalizing assisted suicide is more likely to be explained by religiosity.

No, It Is Not All About Selective Exposure: Information Selection Strategies in Referendums

This article presents an in-depth understanding of information selection strategies in referendums. It builds on the theories of motivated reasoning, cognitive dissonance, information utility, and social identity to examine selective exposure in the context of referendums, and highlights how individuals select information, opting for either congruent and partisan (selective choice) or balanced and discrepant (enlightened choice) sources of information. Empirically, our study relies on two cross-sectional online surveys (N = 2,245; N = 735) that took place in a real referendum campaign on an Energy Act in Switzerland. We exposed respondents to different information contexts and measured whether they chose selectively or in an enlightened way. We conclude that individuals choose balanced or discrepant sources of information more frequently than the literature on selective exposure suggests. Moreover, attitude strength plays a twofold role: In a pre-campaign context, attitude strength motivates individuals’ enlightened choice; mid-campaign, however, it strengthens voters’ selective choice.

Analyzing image-based political propaganda in referendum campaigns: from elements to strategies

Due to the increasing prominence of social network services, political communication has experienced a paradigm shift. To communicate with internet users, politicians, candidates, and political organizations create fan pages. Initially, they provide text-only material on their pages; later, to increase engagement, they include photos, images, and videos. This paper investigates image-based political images in Taiwan for the first time during a nationwide referendum. Unlike an election, a referendum is a policy-based vote. We evaluate over 2000 Facebook images shared by the two most prominent political parties in order to comprehend the aspects of images and the tactics of political organizations. In addition, we examine the textual content, objects, and colors of the collected data. We find that the characteristics of propaganda materials vary between political groups. Nonetheless, the color strategies employed by both sides are equivalent, with each side utilizing its own representative colors for consolidation and the opponent’s colors for attacking.

Brexit as an Identity: Political Identities and Policy Norms

The decision by a narrow majority of British voters to leave the European Union (EU) in 2016 was a political earthquake that few had seen coming. It produced new political divisions, not only between the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe but also within the United Kingdom. In particular, the referendum campaign and the outcome generated two new political identities: “Leavers” and “Remainers.” These Brexit identities crosscut partisan identities and voters formed deep emotional attachments to them (Curtice 2018; Evans and Schaffner 2019). Moreover, this Brexit divide led to affective polarization in the form of out-group animosity and discrimination (Hobolt, Leeper, and Tilley 2021). It also shaped perceptions of the economy (Sorace and Hobolt 2021), attitudes toward immigration (Pickup et al. 2021), vote choices (Hobolt and Rodon 2020), and losers’ consent (Schaffner 2021; Tilley and Hobolt 2023a). Brexit identities have been shown to be salient and politically consequential. Yet, we know much less about whether these new identities are rooted in policy norms that go beyond preferences about the desirability of leaving the EU. In this article, we thus explore the nature of Brexit identities and how they relate to policy norms.

Moral framing and referendum politics: Navigating the empathy battlefield

AbstractFrames enable individuals to locate and label occurrences within their life space and the world at large. In this article, we study the framing of moral issues with the help of Moral Foundations Theory and by relying on rich qualitative data. Existing studies are primarily based on laboratory experiments, without a focus on how such processes are shaped in a real‐life setting. Through a detailed study of the 2018 Irish referendum on abortion, we ask: How is moral framing used in a referendum setting? This case is important not only because referendum campaigns may have higher chances of influencing public opinion than election campaigns but also because of the highly contentious nature of abortion and the recent societal changes in the Irish context. Based on in‐depth semi‐structured interviews with campaigners and politicians, as well as focus groups with voters, we find that the campaigners from opposing sides used moral foundations (the Care foundation) deliberately in their campaign to appeal to undecided voters, focusing on the health of women or the plight of unborn babies. Our findings also show that not every moral foundation is relevant for the campaigners due to the national and historical context.

Antyeuropejski wymiar referendów szwajcarskich. Casus Szwajcarskiej Partii Ludowej

THE ANTI-EUROPEAN DIMENSION OF THE SWISS REFERENDA: THE CASE OF THE SWISS PEOPLE’S PARTY The aim of the article is to analyze the impact of referenda on the increase in the popularity of anti-European sentiments in Switzerland on the example of the activity, in particular during selected referendum campaigns, of the Swiss People’s Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei, SVP). Two research hypotheses will be examined in the article: leading – H1: The Swiss People’s Party uses anti-European slogans to build its position on the political scene; and auxiliary – H2: the Swiss anti-European narrative is primarily related to migration issues. In order to verify or falsify the hypotheses, the following research questions were posed: Q1: Which dimensions of Europeanization arouse the greatest controversy and political disputes in Switzerland?; Q2: What are the programmatic and organizational specifics of the Swiss People’s Party?; Q3: What means does the Swiss People’s Party use in referendum campaigns?; Q4: Are there, and if so, what, specific features of the Swiss anti-European narrative? The answers to the research questions will be contained in the following parts of the text. In the summary, research hypotheses will be resolved and conclusions will be presented.

Campaigning or Not in the 2016 Referendum? UK Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations and European Union Membership

Environmental non-governmental organisations stood out during the 2016 European Union referendum campaign. Despite clear reputational and regulatory risks, they participated in this fraught political debate in sharp contrast to other civil society sectors. This challenges common assumptions that material concerns, and ultimately survival, prevail in campaigning choices. We argue that campaigning choices reflect commitments to values that underpin these organisations’ raison d’être. Drawing on a pragmatist view of organisations, we analyse how external (media, regulatory) and internal (competence, governance processes) pressures shaped the campaigning choices of nine UK environmental organisations. We find that most environmental non-governmental organisations chose to engage, some even officially registering for Remain. Those active at the European Union level were most likely to engage – but also most open to criticism. Overall, environmental non-governmental organisations struggled to adapt their usual expertise-based, elite-focused campaigning style to the referendum which raises questions for civil society’s ability to speak for Europe, and contribute to controversial democratic debates, beyond the United Kingdom.