Referendums: increasingly unpopular among the ‘winners’ of modernization? Comparing public support for the use of referendums in Switzerland, the Netherlands, the UK, and Hungary

Using data from the 2012 European Social Survey (ESS) and the 2017 Polpart survey we compare public support for the use of referendums in Switzerland, the Netherlands, the UK, and Hungary before and after the referendums on Mass Immigration (2014), EU–Ukraine Relations (2016), Brexit (2016), and the EU Migrant Quota (2016). We show that overall referendum support declined between 2012 and 2017 in all countries, but especially the Netherlands where the government openly challenged the merits of direct democracy. We also provide evidence that referendum support became more strongly linked to the... Mehr ...