Citizen Attitudes towards Referendum Processes

Direct democracy is on the rise throughout the world. But so far, rather little is known about how citizens view specific examples of referendum processes and how their attitudes towards such processes themselves change over the course of a referendum process. How are expectations towards the process shaped in the run-up to a referendum? How do these expectations change in light of the outcome of a referendum? Is there losers’ consent afterwards? What are the factors that influence expectations prior to the referendum as well as evaluations of the referendum process after the event itself? We will look at a specific example from Germany: a referendum was held concerning a large-scale infrastructure project (“Stuttgart 21” – relocating a major train station underground). We have a unique database at hand that comprises a total of five panel waves (with respondents being recruited from an online access panel), two of them were run in the run-up to the election, one right after the election and three more one, two respectively three years after the referendum itself. Based on this data, we can test, whether and if so how attitudes towards the process change over time.