Regarding the Dutch `Nee' to the European Constitution
Abstract In June 2005, 61.5% of the Dutch voted `nee' in the referendum on the European constitution. In the present contribution I test hypotheses from the national identity, utilitarian and political approaches to explain this voting behaviour. I collected data in the Netherlands to test whether one of those approaches has been decisive in explaining the referendum outcome. I also provide information about whether specific EU evaluations from these approaches explain the voting behaviour, thus bringing in the discussion on the importance of domestic political evaluations (second-order electi... Mehr ...
Erscheinungsdatum: | 2011 |
---|---|
Verlag/Hrsg.: |
Sage Publications
|
Schlagwörter: | European constitution / Euroscepticism / national identity / referendum / The Netherlands |
Sprache: | Englisch |
Permalink: | https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-26820465 |
Datenquelle: | BASE; Originalkatalog |
Powered By: | BASE |
Link(s) : | http://hdl.handle.net/2262/52486 |
Abstract In June 2005, 61.5% of the Dutch voted `nee' in the referendum on the European constitution. In the present contribution I test hypotheses from the national identity, utilitarian and political approaches to explain this voting behaviour. I collected data in the Netherlands to test whether one of those approaches has been decisive in explaining the referendum outcome. I also provide information about whether specific EU evaluations from these approaches explain the voting behaviour, thus bringing in the discussion on the importance of domestic political evaluations (second-order election effects). I also test hypotheses on which theoretical approach explains differences between social categories in rejecting the constitution. My results show that specifically EU evaluations in particular accounted for the `no' vote, although in conjunction with a strong effect from domestic political evaluations. I also find evidence for `party-following behaviour' irrespective of people's attitudes. Utilitarian explanations determine the `no' vote less well than political or national identity explanations. The strongest impact on voting 'no' came from a perceived threat from the EU to Dutch culture. ; M.Lubbers@uu.nl (Lubbers, Marcel) ; Radboud University Nijmegen - NETHERLANDS (Lubbers, Marcel) ; NETHERLANDS