Regarding the Dutch `Nee' to the European Constitution: a test of the identity, utilitarian and political approaches to voting 'no'
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 effect... Mehr ...
Verfasser: | |
---|---|
Dokumenttyp: | journal article |
Erscheinungsdatum: | 2012 |
Verlag/Hrsg.: |
GBR
|
Schlagwörter: | Politikwissenschaft / Political science / European constitution / Euroscepticism / national identity / referendum / The Netherlands / Political Process / Elections / Political Sociology / Political Culture / European Politics / Europapolitik / politische Willensbildung / politische Soziologie / politische Kultur |
Sprache: | unknown |
Permalink: | https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-27204297 |
Datenquelle: | BASE; Originalkatalog |
Powered By: | BASE |
Link(s) : | http://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/handle/document/22931 |
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.