Referendums and minorities: old topic, new findings

The fate of minorities in direct democracy has been one of the main concerns and critiques for decades. The existing literature offers inconclusive findings about whether referendums mainly curtail or expand minority rights. However, to date, there is no comprehensive research investigating policy outcomes and implications of minority popular votes on the European continent. This paper addresses this lacuna and explores under what conditions referendums have pro-minority or anti-minority outcomes and when are the results indeed implemented. The research is based on the original dataset covering the time period of over 20 years (2000-2022). Among other factors, we test for the type of referendums and their legal impact, quorums, the role of the initiator and support of the government.