Revisiting Public Opinion on Referendums

ABSTRACT: Do citizens want to vote on issues directly in popular vote processes, such as referendums and initiatives? The existing evidence suggests that most citizens support the use of popular vote processes in theory but may be less sanguine about the use of these instruments in practice. Previous research also suggests that citizens who are more educated are less likely to support referendums while those who are disaffected with representative political institutions appear more likely to support their use. Yet, these findings are generally based on measures of public opinion about popular vote processes that do not acknowledge institutional variation and do not inquire about citizens’ understandings of popular vote processes. In this paper, I develop alternative measures for assessing how citizens understand and evaluate popular vote processes and reassess key findings in the field.