Campaigning Outside the Campaign: Political Parties and Referendums in Bulgaria

The instrumental use of referendums by political parties has been previously acknowledged in the literature. Earlier studies showed that parties in government used direct democracy tools to promote their policies and to gain legitimacy, while parties in opposition sought to augment their image in the eyes of the public. However, opposition parties may have another potential reason to promote referendums on top of their quest for a better image: the topic of the referendum could be a legacy of their time in government. This paper reveals the presence of this mechanism by focusing on the first referendum at national level in post-communist Bulgaria from 2013. It shows how the Bulgarian Socialist Party – in opposition at the time of the referendum – pursued a policy related to the building of a new nuclear plant initiated when it was in office. The qualitative analysis uses primary data (discourses) to investigate the extent to which the rhetoric of the party during the referendum campaign served as material for campaign in future electoral competitions.