Referendum Campaign Research Articles

Understanding attitudes towards social media segregation: spatial metaphors in the discussion of Twitter blocklists

ABSTRACT Blocking other users is a common act on Twitter but one which is underexplored from a scholarly perspective, particularly the analysis of mass blocklists. Although traditionally associated with harassment, blocklists are increasingly engaged to create individualised environments that align with users’ personal convictions and exclude apparent transgressors. This study uses a pro-choice blocklist (Repeal Shield) created during the 2018 Irish abortion referendum campaign to explore how users interpret these altered boundaries and blocklists’ influence on the Twitter landscape. A metaphor analysis of more than 2,000 tweets discussing the blocklist highlights the dominant concepts in how users visualise Twitter as both a personal space and a battlefield, in which mental health is a key factor. By drawing on discussions of spatiality, agency, gender and online interactions, we can see how these blocking affordances allow users to exist in spaces in which they construct their own parameters to feel safer, raising questions about how harm, health and risk are understood. The article explores how users make sense of conflicting images like ‘safe spaces’ or ‘echo chambers’, highlighting the apparent policing role held by blocklists. Users are negotiating the type of civic space in which they want to exist as norms of engagement versus avoidance collide; although digital spaces have always accommodated fragmented interests, the technological affordances of blocklists provide more rigid boundaries, highlighting how the evolving architecture of social media allows users to redefine the parameters of their own online spaces.

Who Follows the Referendum Campaign? The Effect of Political Interest and Media Use in Bulgaria

ABSTRACT The content of referendum campaigns and their effects on voters has been broadly covered in the literature. However, there is little information about who follows the campaigns. To address this gap in the literature our article analyzes what determines the people who vote in referendums to pay attention to the political campaign. The analysis focuses on the 2016 referendum in Bulgaria and uses individual-level data from an original survey. The findings indicate that high interest in politics and the use of traditional media increased the level of campaign following. Online news consumption and political participation had a lower positive effect.

Brexit as heredity redux: Imperialism, biomedicine and the NHS in Britain

What is the relationship between Brexit and biomedicine? Here we investigate the Vote Leave official campaign slogan ‘We send the EU £350 million a week. Let’s fund our NHS instead’ in order to shed new light on the nationalist stakes of Brexit. We argue that the Brexit referendum campaign must be situated within biomedical policy and practice in Britain. We propose a re-thinking of Brexit through a cultural politics of heredity to capture how biomedicine is structured around genetic understandings of ancestry and health, along with the forms of racial inheritance that structure the state and its welfare system. We explore this in three domains: the NHS and health tourism, data sharing policies between the NHS and the Home Office, and the NHS as an imperially resourced public service. Looking beyond the Brexit referendum campaign, we argue for renewed sociological attention to the relationships between racism, biology, health and inheritance in British society.

Brexit and the Everyday Politics of Emotion: Methodological Lessons from History

The 2016 European Union referendum campaign has been depicted as a battle between ‘heads’ and ‘hearts’, reason and emotion. Voters’ propensity to trust their feelings over expert knowledge has sparked debate about the future of democratic politics in what is increasingly believed to be an ‘age of emotion’. In this article, we argue that we can learn from the ways that historians have approached the study of emotions and everyday politics to help us make sense of this present moment. Drawing on William Reddy’s concept of ‘emotional regimes’, we analyse the position of emotion in qualitative, ‘everyday narratives’ about the 2016 European Union referendum. Using new evidence from the Mass Observation Archive, we argue that while reason and emotion are inextricable facets of political decision-making, citizens themselves understand the two processes as distinct and competing.

Politycy Partii Pracy na rzecz Leave w referendum 2016 r.

The article presents the analysis of activities of politicians associated with the Labour Party undertaken in favour of leaving the European Union by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the context of the June 2016 referendum campaign. There are presented the historical roots of the critique of European Communities drawn from this ideological-political perspective (the opposition towards the European Economic Community in 1975 referendum), but above all the argumentation used more than four decades later by the opponents of staying in the EU. On the basis of conducted analysis, the specific elements of the main ideological poles that shape left-wing critique of the EU with regard to the British example have been distinguished.

The post-referendum reconfigurations of conservative cleavages around black and Asian minority ethnic MPs

ABSTRACT At the level of the Conservative parliamentary party, one of the main effects of Brexit has been a realignment of party cleavages. While the old cleavage between Europhiles and Eurosceptics is no longer relevant and a new cleavage has appeared between soft and hard Brexiteers, this political upheaval has thus restructured Conservative ideological pluralism in the parliamentary party. Following a study of the 2015 intake of MPs who were supposedly ‘less stale, male and pale’ and their attitudes to the 2016 British referendum on the EU, this article will take a specific interest in all Conservative Black and Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) MPs who turned out to be more active on the ‘leave’ side of the referendum campaign. They arguably embody a new feature of Conservative pluralism by operating a synthesis between inclusive modernisation and hard Brexit. Although the party should capitalise on this group of MPs to rid itself of its persistent image of a ‘nasty’ party pervaded with anti-immigration sentiment and hard Eurosceptic populism – an expression used by Theresa May in 2002 -, the strategy of ‘detoxifying’ the Brexit brand did not seem to have ever been part of her priorities as Prime Minister.

A tale of three tribes: UK MPs, Twitter and the EU Referendum campaign1

This paper examines the structure of Twitter communication networks between MPs during the 2016 EU Referendum campaign. In particular, the research examines the impact of Twitter in two dimensions: (1) how far social media might facilitate inter-party linkages thus eroding traditional partisan relations between MPs? This was given added potential by the supposedly cross-party nature of the Referendum campaign and, therefore, we specifically examined the collective communicative networks that formed around Leave and Remain amongst MPs; (2) Given the potential of social media to provide a platform for individual politicians to personalize campaigns, we asked how far social media might disrupt traditional formal intra-party hierarchies? Did, for example, backbench or relatively unknown figures come to the fore in the EU debate? Our results indicate that whilst there existed a high degree of partisanship, interestingly, Remainer MPs tended to adhere to party networks resulting in a divided remain network. By contrast, the Leave network was more unified but also more porous. Within the networks themselves, the centrality of individual MPs did not always reflect their formal status.

Pooling, Gaining or Losing Sovereignty? Conflicting Definitions of Irish Sovereignty in the Political Discourse on European Integration

This article aims at using the multi-faceted dimensions of the concept of sovereignty as a theoretical framework to better understand the Irish political discourse on European integration and to clarify the changing positions of various actors on the issue, notably in relation to the 2008 financial crisis. First, the article reminds the reader of the various definitions of sovereignty and how the old Westphalian definition has been recently challenged by international law and international relations scholars who consider the impact of globalisation and interdependence on state relations and who therefore question the mere existence of absolute sovereignty in today’s world. In a second part, the study analyses and categorises the arguments used during the referendum campaigns between 1972 and the financial crisis, in order to show how the concept of sovereignty contributed to fostering both pro- and anti-EU treaty positions. The third part will address the consequences of the financial crisis on the positioning of political actors. The debate on Ireland’s sovereignty was reinvigorated by the developments relating to the country’s economic situation and the EU/IMF bail-out package which considerably limited the ability of the government to determine its own economic policies. We will show that the ‘loss of sovereignty’ arguments gained ground among the traditionally pro-integration parties and groups. It reassessed the role of the citizen in legitimizing the decision-making process.

Spontaneity, Coalition Structure, and Strategic Choice

Following the Great Recession, austerity programs and restrictions on the public sector were introduced worldwide. In this article, I ask how and why labor coalitions in two states used differing organizational structures to respond to “shock politics” that severely restricted public-sector unions in 2011. I find the availability or lack of a citizen-initiated veto referendum shaped but did not completely explain differences in strategic choices between unions in Wisconsin and Ohio. Rather, tensions among allies and lack of time for strategic planning also contributed to a nonhierarchical coalition in Wisconsin, while Ohio unions had ample time to create a bureaucratic coalition and plan a successful veto referendum campaign. I argue that given sufficient time to respond to political threats, hierarchical organizations can promote efficient, effective deployment of some political tactics.

EU nationals’ vulnerability in the context of Brexit: the case of Polish nationals

ABSTRACT Since the late 1990s, populist discourse based on anti-immigration sentiments has been on the rise in Britain. This phenomenon reached a peak during the EU Referendum (ER) campaign and shortly thereafter. The ER has been linked to the upsurge in racially and religiously aggravated offences recorded post-July 2016. Polish nationals, who constitute the largest group of EU nationals in the UK, were targeted by many of these incidents. It could therefore be argued that, in the last years, and particularly, since the ER, EU nationals living in the UK have become more ‘vulnerable’. To test this hypothesis, this contribution is based on an interdisciplinary project that collected socio-legal evidence to compare the vulnerability of the Polish community in Southampton before and after the ER. The paper draws on vulnerability and psychology literature to differentiate between ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ vulnerability. Our study deploys mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) to test changes in objective and subjective vulnerability among Southampton-based Poles before and after the ER. Our findings suggest that, following the ER, Poles felt significantly more vulnerable, especially in terms of subjective vulnerability, even if they had never experienced overt hate incidents or discrimination (objective vulnerability) before.

Who Follows the Referendum Campaign? The Effect of Political Interest and Media Use in Bulgaria

Who Follows the Referendum Campaign? The Effect of Political Interest and Media Use in Bulgaria

The Risks of Referendums: 'Referendum Culture' in Ireland as a Solution?

Referendums, in the aftermath of Brexit and with the rise of populist movements worldwide, are viewed with great skepticism, seen as a means for populist leaders and elites to manipulate or mislead voters rather than any positive exercise in democracy. Ireland tells a somewhat different story. In Ireland, referendums to change the constitution are, increasingly, regularly held and, surveys suggests, extremely popular. They also do not display many of the worst traits that critics fear. Experts are generally respected and their views are embraced. There have not been widespread problems of fake news and manipulation of the referendum process. Prominent roles have been given to civil society groups and, more recently, citizens’ assemblies in initiation of referendums and, in the former case, in campaigning. There is evidence of voters adopting very nuanced views of the issues they are voting on. There is evidence of people being wary of uncertain and unclear proposals, even if they favor the change in principle. These are remarkably positive features, by and large avoiding the major problems suggested by critics of referendums This is probably in spite of, not because of, Ireland’s formal referendum regulation, which is skeletal at best. It is, I suggest, primarily a function of a “referendum culture” which has developed over time and from experience, and exists and a set of unspoken cultural assumptions that guide people, politicians and campaigners and seemingly produce positive results. In this paper, I seek to illustrate certain aspects of this culture that are apparent from recent referendum campaigns, and also to point out its limitations and drawbacks. The Irish experience may suggest that some of the core critique of referendums are contingent, not fundamental: that you can have a functional referendum process with the development of a culture of referendums. But it also suggests that it might be difficult to achieve, probably requires long experience and development of culture, and is always a precarious achievement. The efficacy of this culture in Ireland may be threatened by the rise of social media, where there is, as yet, no formal rules and no effective culture around it. In this, Ireland affirms one of the core critiques of referendums: that they are poor mechanisms for occasional or ad hoc use, and should only be deployed where there is time and opportunity for distinctive political cultures around referendums to develop. Even then, there is no guaranteed recipe for success.

Brexit: Hatred, lies and UK democracy

This article analyses the Brexit debate within the UK. It examines the historical roots of the debate from 1973 when the UK joined the European Economic Community, but focuses primarily on the debates that occurred between 2013 when David Cameron pledged to hold a referendum up and the 2019 UK General Election. Section one briefly introduces the topic. Section two examines the rise of social hatred during the referendum campaign. It focuses on the history of British euro-scepticism, the immediate context of the Brexit campaign, concerns over UK sovereignty and immigration, and the increasing use of threats and political violence. Section three examines the decline of trust in politics due to the increasing failure to challenge lies in the Brexit debate. It explores the idea of “Project Fear”, the anti-expert narrative, and the anti-elitism narrative. Section four asks what this period tells us about UK democracy. It focuses on weak and disorderly government, the democratic status of the referendum, the erosion of trust in parliamentary institutions and mechanisms, and some reasons for (limited) optimism. The article concludes by considering possible ways forward for the UK government and polity following the decisive Conservative victory in the 2019 UK General Election.

Political Communication in the Period of the Constitution Referendum Campaign in Poland in 1997

Political Communication in the Period of the Constitution Referendum Campaign in Poland in 1997

Who is afraid of a change? Ideological differences in support for the status quo in direct democracy

ABSTRACT Research has documented that individuals display a bias for preserving the status quo across numerous domains of decision-making, including elections for candidates and referendums. Yet, it is not clear whether thinking about a political reform as a change to the status quo actually makes voters less likely to support it. We investigate this possibility in a referendum campaign, in which we prime a representative sample of voters with a “change cue” evoking the modification of the status quo related to a proposed reform. Our findings show that support for a referendum proposal decreases when voters consider that it will change the status quo, but only among right-wing voters. The effect is stronger among less knowledgeable voters on the right (but not on the left) of the political spectrum. Furthermore, we find that the priming manipulation has no effect in the presence of campaign arguments, thus suggesting that voters might discard peripheral cues when substantial policy information is available. These findings have relevant implications for the goal of achieving political change in democratic politics, and highlight the key role of ideology in moderating the status-quo bias in political decision-making.

The Role of the “Path” and the “Container” Image Schemas in Political Discourse in Kenya

The study of conceptual interaction has attracted the attention of many scholars in Cognitive Linguistics. Primarily, the analysis has focused on the role of image-schemas in the construction of metaphors. This study explores the PATH and the CONTAINER image-schemas and the role they play in conceptual formation of metaphors in political discourse in Kenya. The study presents the PATH and its subsidiary image schemas of Verticality, Process and Force-Motion and the CONTAINER image-schema and the subsidiary image-schemas of Excess and In-Out. The analysis reveals that both the PATH and the CONTAINER image-schemas structure the relationship between the source domains (journey and container) and the target domain (politics) by activating subsidiary image-schemas in metaphors of politics in Kenya. The study further reveals that image-schemas provide the axiological value (positive or negative) of metaphorical expressions in political discourse. A positive political environment is a key ingredient for green growth and knowledge economy. The study contributes to the field of metaphor in political discourse by examining the politicians’ conceptualization of politics as a journey, which consists of four structural elements (a source, a destination, contiguous locations which connect the source and the destination and a direction) and as a container, which consists of an interior, an exterior and a boundary. The study used the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) as a tool to establish conceptual metaphors used during the 2005 Draft Constitution referendum campaigns in Kenya and the Image-Schema Theory to account for the presence of image-schemas in political discourse in Kenya. Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory is the locus classicus of the image schema theory.

Bandit: Here to Haunt You! On Why I Became an Émigré Theatre Maker

Summary The article employs concepts of time lag, inspired by Ernst Bloch, and ghost and haunting, borrowed from Jacques Derrida. It also draws on Svetlana Boym’s and Vilém Flusser’s vision of the émigré and on Dominick LaCapra’s and Slavoj Žižek’s interpretations of trauma. The analysis is also informed by Karen Jürs-Munby’s and Cathy Caruth’s views on trauma and its representation in theatre. This critical apparatus is put into motion in the particular context of BANDIT: a theatre project developed in the UK by two Romanian émigré theatre-makers. The main focus is on exposing links between the references to trauma contained in the theatre piece BANDIT and the makers’ self-imposed artistic exile in the UK. The article seeks to answer the following question: what has pushed us, the makers of BANDIT, to leave our native country and what is our (new) role (as artists) in the country of emigration? The discussion is carried out within the wider context of the vast waves of Romanian emigration to Western Europe (after the fall of the Iron Curtain). The article critiques the troublesome relation of the contemporary Romanian society to its Communist past and the apparent inability and/or unwillingness to deal with the repressed/traumatic memories of that past. Analysis of BANDIT as performance of lingering trauma also references the historical Percentages agreement between Stalin and Churchill—the informal agreement that established spheres of influence in Europe at the end of the Second World War. Identifying the Iron Curtain as the epicentre of traumatic memory for Eastern Europeans, the discussion about BANDIT also makes a reference to Communist crimes against political prisoners committed in Romanian prisons in 1951–1952, put in parallel with the toxic EU referendum campaign in the UK in 2016. Underpinned by Derrida’s thinking, the article explains how the Romanian émigré-artist (as a paragon of the Romanian / Eastern European émigré in general) has to fashion herself into a ghost that haunts the adoptive culture, using artistic exile as a platform for processing the traumatic memories of an unresolved past.

Ciclos de protesta y referéndums por la independencia. Oportunidades cerradas y el camino de la radicalización en Cataluña

En este artículo desarrollamos un marco interpretativo para comprender la trayectoria de radicalización en el “procés” catalán. Independientemente del estatus legal del referéndum en cuestión, las campañas de referéndum son capaces de crear, y de hecho son en sí mismas, oportunidades políticas. En contraste con las predicciones desde las teorías de los ciclos de protesta, cuando se cierran las oportunidades a nivel nacional y la represión se intensifica, no necesariamente se desarrolla un proceso de radicalización que contribuye al declive del ciclo, al menos a corto plazo. Como el caso catalán ilustra entre mediados de los años 2000 y finales de 2018, varios mecanismos pueden mediar este proceso, incluyendo la apropiación de oportunidades políticas, el cambio de escala hacia abajo y la convergencia del movimiento. Una densa red de asambleas locales de base reemplaza en el a las grandes organizaciones de la sociedad civil que hasta entonces, y especialmente durante las diadas entre 2012 y 2015, habían liderado la movilización social. Aunque estas asambleas ciudadanas han abrazado repertorios de acción más directos y disruptivos, estos han sido mayoritariamente pacíficos. Asimismo, este reemplazo ha favorecido la convergencia del movimiento, abriendo espacios donde activistas de un amplio espectro pueden movilizarse conjuntamente, y evitando de este modo una escalada violenta y la emergencia de grupos escindidos violentos (al menos hasta finales de 2018).

Brexit and the borders and boundaries of the European Union

The article makes the case for the study of borders and boundaries as intertwined concepts that bear multiple implications for understanding the prominence of anti-migration in the public discourse. In this sense Brexit is approached as the epitome of the rebordering of Europe and the analysis’ focus falls on the influence on the outcome of the referendum of the discourses of ‘invading’ Eastern Europeans that burden the British state. The data used includes the declarations of British political leaders, found in media articles and in the official communication of the British Government, over the period of the campaign for the Brexit referendum, as well as in relation to the main milestones of Romania’s European integration. The referendum campaign rhetoric is placed within the wider strategy for obtaining restrictions and exceptions from the principles of freedom of movement in order to curb the mobility of the poor and of those perceived as threateningly different. At the same time, the case of Brexit reveals how outsiders are strategically portrayed as invaders and parasites in order to reclaim territorially binding powers.

Political partisanship versus turnout in Italy’s 2016 referendum

Italy’s 2016 referendum represents an opportunity to discuss the main hypotheses posited by current literature as to the determinants of referendums. The issue-voting of this constitutional referendum was too technical to arouse great passions in the voters. This provided room for second-order determinants, and the referendum campaign became a competition between Government and Opposition. In such a scenario, political partisanship is expected to play a significant role in the voter’s choice. This paper intends to test the impact of partisanship on the vote, versus that of further possible determinants: intra-party dissent, the voters’ dissatisfaction with the government, as well as the referendum turnout. Particular attention has been paid to the latter, also because the impact of turnout on referendums is understudied. Correlations and linear regression models, based on data of all the Italian provinces, revealed that, apart from partisanship, other second-order features impacted on the referendum outcome: in particular, it emerged that, where the turnout had been higher, the “No” share was lower. However, the turnout was intertwined with other determinants, first of all, partisanship. To disentangle the turnout from its correlates, a lagged instrument, namely the turnout of the previous referendum held in 2006, was introduced. The Two-Stage Least Squares model proved the instrument to be a robust predictor of the 2016 referendum vote. The result of a mediation model further supported these findings, which suggest that the turnout—as an expression of civic commitment—is not independent of the voters’ decision.