When does the implementation of an adopted policy become optional?

Referendums have become one of the most widespread democratic innovations. Accordingly, popular votes have received a lot of scholarly attention. However, despite all the fuzz around the referendums with their intensive campaigns and potential for polarization, one question remained unaddressed – why do some (approved) outcomes get implemented, whereas others get modified or abandoned altogether. This paper aims to fill in this lacuna and examines under what conditions referendum results get 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.