Explaining the vote in referendums: The role of deliberation and symbolic attitudes

This paper focuses on the explanation of citizens' vote choice in referendums and its implications for democratic ideals. Building on pivotal findings from referendum research on the one hand (e.g. Kriesi, 2005) and well-established insights from public opinion and political psychology on the other hand (e.g. Sears et al., 1980; Krosnick, 1991), the starting point is that such choices are often shaped by symbolic attitudes. A key example of this are attitudes toward the incumbent government, which voters may use as a cue to reach their voting decision. The paper analyses to what extent these and other symbolic attitudes play a role in referendum voting and if their impact is influenced by the amount of deliberation. It does so on the basis of survey data collected around four referendums in the Netherlands, of which two focused on European Union politics and two focused on domestic politics. The first research question is to what extent the vote was driven by cues or symbolic attitudes, such as opinions about European integration, approval of the incumbent government, and – for the referendum about the EU-Ukraine Treaty – attitudes towards Russia. The second question is whether the relative impact of such factors shifted across the campaign period and depended on the level of deliberation. The paper analyses these questions with individual-level survey data and concludes with a reflection on the implications of the findings for the study of popular vote processes and democratic ideals (see e.g. LeDuc, 2015; el-Wakil & McKay, 2020), as well as for national referendums on European integration and domestic politics. References el-Wakil, A., & McKay, S. (2020). Disentangling Referendums and Direct Democracy: A Defence of the Systemic Approach to Popular Vote Processes. Representation, 56(4), 449–466. doi: 10.1080/00344893.2019.1652203 Kriesi, H. (2005). Direct Democratic Choice: The Swiss Experience. Bloomsbury Publishing. Krosnick, J. A. (1991). The Stability of Political Preferences: Comparisons of Symbolic and Nonsymbolic Attitudes. American Journal of Political Science, 35(3), 547–576. doi: 10.2307/2111553 LeDuc, L. (2015). Referendums and Deliberative Democracy. Electoral Studies, 38, 139-148. doi: 10.1016/j.electstud.2015.02.007 Sears, D. O., R. R. Lau, T. R. Tyler, H. M. Allen (1980). Self-Interest vs. Symbolic Politics in Policy Attitudes and Presidential Voting. American Political Science Review, 74(3), 670-684. doi: 10.2307/1958149