Party attitudes towards referendums in Western Europe

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Party attitudes towardsreferendums in WesternEuropeLaurence Morel aa Research fellow at the European UniversityInstitute ,Published online: 03 Dec 2007.

To cite this article: Laurence Morel (1993) Party attitudes towardsreferendums in Western Europe, West European Politics, 16:3, 225-244, DOI:10.1080/01402389308424972

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Party Attitudes Towards Referendums inWestern Europe

LAURENCE MOREL

Referendums are occurring more frequently in Western Europebut it is often difficult to understand what their exact functions orpossible drawbacks to the political systems are. Looking at partyattitudes in the events leading to the decision to hold referendumscan provide a good starting point. This was done systematicallyfor most nationwide referendums held since 1975. The con-clusion is a typology of party functions and dysfunctions ofreferendums making evident four major party concerns: internalcohesion, adoption of legislation, political power and legitimacy.

The referendum is once again playing an important role in the Europeanunification process. In Denmark, Ireland and France it was employedfor the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty; in other countries, thepossibility has been discussed. These recent events mirror the increasinginfluence of referendums throughout Western Europe since the early1960s. Some countries with no provision for a national referendum(Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands) are debating whether to intro-duce it; others (Austria, France) are contemplating whether to extendexisting provisions. Besides, the increased influence of the referendumcan also be gauged from its application in practice. First, as shown byTable 1, the frequency of nationwide referendums has increased sub-stantially over the last 30 years, compared with the period immediatelyafter the war.1 This is true also for Switzerland, which for methodologi-cal reasons we have chosen to omit from this study.

Second, there has been a qualitative change in the nature of issues.Traditional constitutional and territorial issues have been progressivelyreplaced with new ones related to economic and social change, such asthe environment, which are not always classifiable as issues of funda-mental national interest. This trend suggests that the referendum hasbecome increasingly a legislative device used to substitute for the nor-mal parliamentary process for reasons not easily identifiable.

West European Politics, Vol.16, No.3 (July 1993), pp.225-44PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON

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226 WEST EUROPEAN POLITICS

TABLE 1

NATIONWIDE REFERENDUMS IN WEST-EUROPEAN PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEMS

AustriaBelgiumBritainDenmarkGermanyFinlandFranceIcelandIrelandItalyLuxemburgNetherlandsNorwaySweden

Total

1900 19101909 1919

1

2

2 1

2 5

19201929

12

1

11

6

19301939

1

141

1111

11

19401949

42

1

7

19501959

1

2

1

1

2

7

19601969

6

4

2

12

19701979

1

13

1

53

1

15

19801992

2

2

514

1

24

19001992

211

1661

124

14203054

89

Source: D. Butler and A. Ranney (eds), Referendums - A Comparative Study of Practiceand Theory (American Enterprise for Public Policy Research, Washington,1978); J. Austen, D. Butler and A. Ranney, 'Referendums, 1978-1986', ElectoralStudies 6/2 (Aug. 1987), pp.139-47.

TABLE 2ISSUES PUT TO NATIONWIDE REFERENDUMS IN WEST EUROPEAN PARLIAMENTARY

SYSTEMS

1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 19001909 1919 1929 1939 1949 1959 1969 1979 1992 1992

Constit.Territ.Special imp.AllianceMoralPragmat.

Total

11

2

12

11

5

112

2

6

621

2

11

61

7

5

2

7

62

4

12

4

2531

15

411567

24

34106

111414

89

Source: As Table 1.

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PARTY ATTITUDES TOWARDS REFERENDUMS 227

Change notwithstanding, existing studies focus almost exclusively onthe classical theoretical issues of constitutionality, democratic stan-dards, or the political effects of referendums.2 Scholars have paid verylittle attention to the causes of referendums and to the functions theywere supposed to fulfil in the various contexts in which they occurred.Obviously such issues have not been completely ignored, but they haverarely been studied in a comparative and systematic way. This was thepoint of departure of our study on the intentions behind recent WesternEuropean referendums from the point of view of political parties.3 Allin all 17 referendums and 94 party positions on these referendums weresystematically analysed.4 The main results of this research are discussedhere. The Maastricht referendums will be discussed briefly by way of aconclusion.

THE SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Our approach to the study of referendums highlights their functionalrelationship to political parties as a means to identify underlying causesbehind their use. The present study's main focus is on parties to theexclusion of other actors, such as groups or individuals. Such a focus,first suggested by Smith in the 1970s,5 derives from the centrality ofparties in the political process of parliamentary systems. Understandingreferendum integration into parliamentary practice is thus to a greatextent synonymous with understanding referendum integration intoparty politics. This is also why we have not extended the study to non-parliamentary countries. The identification of party attitudes towardsreferendums in countries where parties are generally less important,would have been less revealing than is the case in parliamentarycountries. Even the United States, or Switzerland, where the referen-dum is more important than in the countries studied here, have beenexcluded.6

A first step was to look at the favourable or hostile attitudes of partiestowards holding a referendum. Even such a specific objective generatesmethodological problems. First, parties are complex organisations, inwhich the various actors and personalities may not necessarily agreeabout whether to hold a particular referendum. We have chosen tofocus on the position of the leadership, and, in the case of internalconflict, of the leader, since the leaders can be assumed to reflect moreaccurately the interests of the party as a whole; by means of a focus onleaders, we are better able to examine the integration of the referenduminto party politics. Still, this rule should not be regarded as absolute. Forexample, the study paid special attention to party leaders who are

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simultaneously heads of government, and who might therefore beforced to sacrifice their own party's interest for the sake of national, orcross-party, interests.

Another problem relates to the dynamics of party positions. Veryoften these change under pressure of events or for tactical reasons. InTable 3, this difficulty has been resolved by systematically retaining thelast position held by parties. Possible variations of these positions, orsimply of the motivations lying behind them, will be discussed later.

A last point concerns the identification of party positions. There aresometimes discrepancies between the official party position and whatshould be called its 'real' position on a referendum. A party might feelconstrained officially to approve a given referendum because of itsknown position on referendums (this tends to be the case today of thesmall Radical Party in Italy, currently renamed the 'party of the referen-dum'); or, a party may have promoted a referendum, but once havingdiscovered its potentially dangerous consequences, finds itself unable tochange its erstwhile official position. It is the 'real' party positions whichinterest us, and which are presented in Table 3.

The upper half of Table 3 lists parties with a positive view of referen-dums; in the lower half are parties for which referendums were expectedto be dysfunctional. One could imagine a third broad category, whichincludes parties that are indifferent, or which have no specific position.The intensity of party positions is not always high, but we have found noactual cases in which the referendum was neither functional nor dys-functional, but simply non-functional. The analysis of party motiva-tions, which was the second step of the empirical study, shows that suchcases would take place only when a referendum invokes either noparticular advantage nor drawback with respect to four broad partyconcerns, summarised in the typology in Table 4.

The various categories in this typology are examined below withexamples mainly drawn from Table 3. Some of these examples will fallinto more than one category, since a referendum can have severalfunctions or dysfunctions for any given party; it is also possible that areferendum can be partially functional and partially dysfunctional withregard to a party's interests.

THE REFERENDUM AND PARTY UNITY

One of the most striking features of referendums is their ambiguousimpact on the internal cohesion of groups (parties or party coalitions)faced with a divisive issue. The 'paradox' of referendums is that theymay intensify or endanger existing divisions.

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7>H

TABLE 3

PARTY POSITION TOWARDS THE HOLDING OF REFERRENDUMS

I POSITION

1

1|1II1 FAVOURABLE

|

1

1111 HOSTILE

11

GB

75EEC

LAB.SNP.PLAI .

CONS.LIB.

AU

78nucí .

OVPFPOSPO

SW

80nuc 1 .

LIB.CONS.SOC.COM.CENT.

85wages

PRDP

PCI

MSI

DCPSDIPRIPLI

PSI

87justt

PLIPR

PSI

DCPSDIPRI

PCI

87Just2

PLIPR

PSI

DCPSDIPRI

PCI

87nucl 1

PRDPPSIPSDI

GR.

DC

PRI

PCI

IT

87nuc 1 2

PRDPPSIPSDI

GH.

DC

PRI

PCI

87nuc 1 3

PRDPPSIPSDI

uH.

UC

PRI

PCI

90hunt

PRDPPSI

PCIUR.

DC

90insect

PROPPSI

PCIOR.

DC

91elect

PCI

DC

PSI

SP

86NATO

PSOEPCE

CP

OK

86

FR

88ECact|N.Cal

|CONS.LIB.

- CHR.

SD

PS

UDFRPR

IR

86dl«

FGLAB.PDWOR.

87 |ECact|

WOR. |

FF 1LAB. |PD 1FG 1

|GO

• Mco

O3¡aaennmTIatoa

ac

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TABLE 4

TYPOLOGY OF PARTY FUNCTIONS AND DYSFUNCTIONS OF REFERENDUMS

Party concern

Internal cohesion

Legislation

Power

Legitimacy

function

unifying

passing a policy

political profit

special legitimationof policy

dysfunction

divisive

popular rejection

political losses

delegitimationof party role

The Referendum as a Tool for Maintaining Party UnityAlthough the capacity of referendums to solve divisions properly hasalways been a matter of controversy, there is no doubt that they are oftenused as a last resort in order to restore party unity on a particular issue. Inother words, they amount throwing the 'hot potato' to the electorate,hoping that the popular verdict will eliminate internal dissent.

The decision of Harold Wilson in 1974 to call a referendum on theissue of British membership in the EC illustrates this case. The LabourParty leader, who at that time was also Prime Minister, thought thereferendum to be the only way to avoid parliamentary adoption (thanksto the Conservative and Liberal votes) of his renegotiated participationof Britain in the Common Market which would cause a rebellion withinthe party. The Labour Party was actually dominated at every level(National Committee, Conference, parliamentary group, activists) byanti-market majorities, and the referendum could all the more be seenas the best solution to the conflict, since the opponents to membershipactually were demanding it.

Sometimes referendums also serve to simply permit the politicalparties to escape from a dangerous situation. Thus, typically in thecontext of impending elections, referendums function to neutralise cam-paign issues which otherwise could have threatened the internal cohe-sion of a party, or the support of its electorate.

The referendums on civil nuclear power held in Austria (1978) and inSweden (1980) are two clear, and to a certain extent, related cases ofsuch use of the referendum. On the eve of the general election of 1979,Chancellor Bruno Kreisky was afraid of repeating the unhappy experi-ence of the Swedish Social Democrats, whose defeat in the 1976 electionwas mainly attributed to the division of their electorate on the nuclearissue. The socialist leader feared the electoral consequences of both the

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divisions inside the SPÖ and between the SPÖ and the two other mainparties, the ÖVP and the FPÖ, which were both opposed toZwentendorf. In the latter case, the SPÖ risked being accused ofendangering the Austrian consociationalism. As Gehmacher andPlasser put it: 'Each political party presenting itself alone as a proponentof giving permission to use the nuclear power-plant Zwentendorf (whichwas approaching completion), had to calculate with a noticeable penaltywhich could possibly become decisive during a close campaign'.7

In this context, the idea of a referendum became progressively moreattractive and was finally adopted by Kreisky in June 1978. In spite ofthe failure of the referendum, it none the less fulfilled its function, sincethe SPÖ gained in the following election. This is what convinced theSwedish Social Democrats, a year later, to propose a referendum in theview of the coming election. Internal SAP opposition to the govern-ment's nuclear programme had, indeed, intensified with the Harrisburg(USA) accident of March 1979. Also, the SAP was encouraged to call areferendum by the three parties of the Right; they were afraid that theirdissent on the nuclear issue would jeopardise their chance to governtogether after the election. The 'bourgeois' coalition formed inSeptember 1976 had broken down in October 1978 largely because ofthe Centre Party's opposition to the development of nuclear power.Thus, and in spite of divergent interests, in 1980 there was a broadagreement among the Swedish parties to hold a referendum intended, inBjorklund's words, to serve as a 'lightning rod for dissent'.8

Feared Divisive Effect of the ReferendumReferendums can also be dysfunctional for the internal cohesion ofgroups. This tends to be so when divisions over an issue are not salientand do not threaten to become salient in a near future.

Britain provides the first example. In agreement with the party lea-dership, most Conservative Party parliamentarians refused in April1975 to vote for the law approving a referendum on British membershipin the EC. Admittedly, a strong motivation for many Conservative MPswas their opposition to a device viewed as a dangerous attack onparliamentary sovereignty, but the Conservative leadership was alsoafraid of losing the referendum. Voting intentions had been very un-stable on the issue of British membership, and a defeat would clearlyhave meant a rebuff for the very same party which had led Britain intothe Common Market. However, the decisive factor explaining the Toryopposition to the referendum was the fear that it might break thesuperficial, yet essential, parliamentary unity of the party in favour ofthe Common Market, and encourage dissent among a large part of the

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party activists. Unlike the Labour Party, the Conservative Party hadsucceeded, not without difficulty, in avoiding a crisis on the EEC issue,and was not at all willing to risk the matter again.

Similarly, the hostility of the French Right to a referendum concern-ing the future status of New Caledonia undoubtedly had to do with thedivisions within both the UDF and the RPR over the issue. Althoughthese divisions did not threaten to provoke major conflict in Parliament,a public debate would definitely stir them up. This was all the more to befeared since divisions were not only intra-party but also inter-party, theUDF being officially favourable to the text proposed by the govern-ment, and the RPR majority hostile. The traditionally very fragile unityof the French Right was thus once again challenged, and the coalitionthat the UDF and the RPR were steadily trying to forge in oppositionwas bound to be severely strained by the referendum. Admittedly, thetwo parties were also worried about the political advantage likely toresult for the government from the referendum. The RPR, in addition,was obviously afraid of losing the referendum. But the problem ofinternal divisions was probably more decisive in the case of the Right'shostility.

Such problems were also been at the roots of the opposition of theItalian Christian Democrats and Communists to the referendums onjustice and nuclear power in 1987. The two parties, at the time rep-resenting more than 65 per cent of the Italian electorate, were actuallyinternally divided on both sets of issues. Of the two, the PCI wasprobably the most lacerated. Its traditional support for the judiciary wasincreasingly challenged within the party ranks, in particular by politi-cians who had been directly checked by the power of the judges at locallevel. The party's traditional support for nuclear power plants was alsofacing increasing internal dissent. The party was split in two almostequal parts, and the Youth Communist Federation was even one of theinitiators of the three referendums.

In spite of minor internal divisions, the DC was actually more stronglyopposed to these referendums, as showed by its efforts up to the lastmoment to find an agreement between its coalition partners so as tomodify the two laws on justice and the three laws on nuclear power.9

The point is that not only was the DC divided on these laws, but moreseriously, so were the governing parties. The dissenting views of the DCand the PSI were in fact threatening to break the coalition that hadsecured the DC its prominent position in the Italian political system.The opposition of this party to the referendums became even strongerduring 1987, especially when the PCI reluctantly began to accept thereferendums and to recommend a 'yes' vote. The risk was that a new

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coalition excluding the DC (a Left alternative) would result from thereferendums. This was clearly unacceptable to the DC.

THE REFERENDUM IN THE PROMOTION OF LEGISLATION

Another party concern about referendums has to do with their capacityto sponsor legislation, to be understood in a broad sense. The partyefficacy of referendums with regard to this problem actually derivesfrom the legal requirement to consult the people on certain laws (obliga-tory referendum), to their use to pass policies opposed by parliament orgovernment, but supposed to have support among the electorate (theopposition device). Referendums are regarded as dysfunctional whenthey appear likely to lead to a defeat of a party's policy stance.

Referendum Needed to Pass LegislationThe fact that a referendum is obligatory does not mean that it automati-cally takes place and that parties have no say as whether to hold it ornot. They sometimes abandon a piece of legislation in order to avoid areferendum which threatens to damage their interests. In other cases,they wish the referendum per se, in the hope of reaching some politicalaims having nothing to do with the promotion of the issue put to thepeople. These two opposed tactics alternated in a way in the case ofFianna Fail in the events leading up to the 1983 referendum in Ireland.On the eve of the elections held in June 1981 and February 1982, thisparty had committed itself to a referendum on abortion in exchange fora promise by pressure groups not to raise the issue during the cam-paigns. But as soon as the elections were over, it was clear that FiannaFail (although it agreed on the limitation of abortion which was at stake)was becoming much less favourable to a referendum, since the maineffect would have been to give saliency to a potentially very divisiveissue.

The 1986 referendum on divorce seems, on the contrary, to have beendesired by Fine Gael, as well as the Labour and Workers' parties, theonly intent being to modify constitutional provisions regarding divorce.Of course, ultimately, the policy change wanted by these parties hadpolitical aims. Thus, for example, Prime Minister Garret FitzGeraldhoped that a more secularised Ireland would make reunification moreattractive to Northern Protestants. He was probably also trying torevitalise the coalition with the Labour Party. The partner of Fine Gaelsuffered grass-roots criticism for the economic and social policy of thegovernment, and urgently needed to satisfy its strongly pro-divorceelectorate. Nevertheless, these aims could be realised only by the

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adoption of legislation introducing divorce and had nothing to do, as inthe preceding cases, with the use of the referendum device as such. Thefunction of the 1986 referendum for these parties was, at least in a firststage, purely legislative.10

The referendum is sometimes also sought as an oppositional device,typically favoured by small parties, and especially by those not rep-resented in parliament. The government may also call for such a refer-endum when it cannot rely on a parliamentary majority, as occurred inDenmark in 1986. In the beginning of that year, the four parties behindthe minority government of Poul Schlüter, which had just failed to winsupport for the EC Act in the Folketing, were actually joined by the LeftSocialists and the Radicals, in spite of their opposition to the treaty, tovote for a law providing for a consultative referendum on the issue. Ithas been argued that the government also pursued more political aims,and wanted in particular to weaken the Social-Democrats, which hadalways been deeply divided on EEC matters. There is, however, nodoubt that its main intention was to escape a parliamentary deadlockregarding the EC Act. Had the referendum been decided only by thegoverning parties, it could be interpreted as having served exclusively asa minority weapon. But it could not, in this case, be initiated by a thirdof the parliamentarians. The Danish Constitution states that such aminority initiative can address only texts which have been approved bythe parliament. The referendum on the EC Act was thus decided by alaw. This procedure, which was not provided for in the Constitution,had been used in Denmark only once before (in 1916), and was highlycriticised.

Not Running the Risk of Popular RejectionThe study of party attitudes towards referendums shows that partieswhose position is likely to be defeated at a referendum will generally behostile to holding it. Even if it were to serve as an opposition device,parties are reluctant to engage in a referendum without good chances ofwinning, with the possible exception of small and politically isolated, orextra-parliamentary, parties, which are more likely to seek publicity atany cost. The hostility of Fine Gael to the EC Act referendum in Ireland(1987) and of the Italian governing coalition to the referendum on wageindexation (1985) provide two examples.

Apart from the small Workers' Party, interested in the referendum asa minority weapon, it cannot be said that Irish parties were enthusiasticto consult the people on the EC Act. One reason common to all of themhad to do with surprise. The call for the referendum, which resultedfrom an appeal to the Supreme Court by an individual arguing the

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unconstitutionality of some points of the EC Act, appeared actually as ablow to parliament, which had just approved the treaty. Another reasonwas the divisions existing in all parties over the issue. But such aninconvenience was probably only decisive for Labour, the ProgressiveDemocrats, and eventually Fianna Fail, whose main worry was to beaccused of inconsistency if it were to campaign in favour of the treaty.When in opposition, Fianna Fail had indeed voted against the treaty inparliament. But now in government, its new internal and externalresponsibilities made the maintenance of a 'no' stand unthinkable. Incontrast, Fine Gael, which had been running the country at the time ofthe approval of the EC Act by parliament, was initially afraid of apossible defeat, since that would have been a severe condemnation of itsleading role in the ratification. Such fears were less present in theLabour Party which had, reluctantly, ratified the EC Act in parliament.Labour was thus more concerned about its internal divisions.Altogether, the negative attitude adopted by almost all Irish partiestoward the referendum was insufficient to prevent it due to the SupremeCourt's declaration that it was constitutionally obligatory.

A situation similar to that of Fine Gael was faced by the five Italianparties behind the governing coalition in 1985.n A referendum toabrogate a governmental decree intended to reduce wage indexationclearly threatened to divide some of the parties, in particular the PSIand the DC. Still, there were no immediate election prospects, implyingthat the negative effects of such divisions would not materialise. Themain worry of the five coalition partners concerned the consequences ofa popular rejection of a policy they had decided. That explains boththeir declared hostility to the referendum and numerous attempts tofind a parliamentary compromise satisfying the PCI and persuading it towithdrew support for the referendum. However, it soon became clearthat the PCI was less interested in the referendum as a minority wea-pon,12 and increasingly as a purely political device aimed at causing asevere defeat to the government in general, and to its major competitor,the PSI, in particular. Admittedly, the PCI's eagerness to hold thereferendum weakened towards the end; especially after the local elec-tions of May 1985, which failed to confirm its electoral success duringthe June 1984 European elections and which instead reinforced thegoverning coalition. The PCI was also increasingly fearful of losing thereferendum. The failure of parliamentary compromise negotiations hasindeed been attributed to the intransigence of the communist branch ofthe CGIL trade union, rather than to the PCI itself. Nevertheless, thewhole process was dominated by the Communists' determination to usethe referendum in its political battle against the government.

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THE REFERENDUM AND PARTY POWER

The behaviour of the PCI introduces a third type of party concern aboutreferendums: their expected political effects. The PCI expected theeffects to be positive, as was also the case in the examples of the Italianand the French socialist parties examined below. In other cases, the fearwas that the consequences might be negative. This explains the oppo-sition of the Spanish Right to the referendum desired by FelipeGonzález in 1986.

The concern about the political effects of a referendum is particularlysalient when the referendum is expected to be neither functional nordysfunctional from the point of view of the two other types of partyconcerns so far discussed. The parties analysed here are actually allrelatively united on the referendum issue. They also had good chancesof winning and did not depend on it in order to enhance their positions.In the case of the French PS, its position had a majority in parliament;this was also the case in Spain where, indeed, it had already beenapproved. The situation was only slightly different in Italy: the changesin the legislation on wage indexation, justice and nuclear power, whichwere proposed to the PCI (in 1985), and to the PSI (in 1987) by theother parties in order to avoid the referendums, were almost fullyconsistent with their positions on the issues. This makes it difficult toclassify these referendums as simple minority weapons.

The Referendum Used to Enlarge Party PowerAs previously mentioned, the main reason behind the ChristianDemocrats' hostility to the 1987 referendums on justice and nuclearmatters was the conflict with the PSI on the issues, and its possibleconsequences for present and future coalitions. Yet, the PSI's lack ofreal cooperation in finding parliamentary compromise clearly shows thatits principal aim was to cause the DC trouble. During 1987, it quicklyappeared that the PSI leader, Bettino Craxi, was reluctant to hand overthe prime ministership to a Christian Democrat for the last year of thelegislature, as a prior agreement between the two parties had stipulated.Quite likely, his fear was that the DC would rob him of the electoralbenefits of his long tenure as prime minister. In this context, thereferendums appeared very functional. They would likely produce adefeat for the DC, at least if the DC remained hostile to the abrogationof the five laws on justice and nuclear power. But whatever the positionadopted, these referendums were sure to severely damage the internalcohesion of the party. In both cases, the consequences would have beenfelt at the election in the following year. This was all the more to be

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expected since the nuclear issue had become very salient after theChernobyl accident. Moreover, the PSI, hostile to the construction ofnew power stations, was likely to offer an exit opportunity to thoseChristian Democrats deluded by their party line on the matter.

For the socialists, the referendums could therefore constitute anefficient way to cancel the advantage derived by the DC from its one-year prime ministership. Alternatively, the PSI would also gain were theDC to call an early election before the referendums could be held, andthis may have been the PSI's real aim from the very beginning.

Just as the referendum on wage indexation had been motivated by thePCI's competition with the PSI, the referendums on justice and nuclearpower were thus used by the PSI, two years later, in its competition withthe DC. In both cases, the functionality of the referendum consisted in itbeing dysfunctional to its closest adversary, either by causing it a defeator by dividing it. But the political advantage of a referendum can also bemore direct. Parties sometimes expect it to grant them a politicalvictory. Such an aim, in so far as it refers to an enlargement of the partyprestige, authority and power, recalls the well-known plebiscitary func-tion of the referendum. But contrary to the plebiscite, it does notsystematically suppose a vote of confidence. For a political party, politi-cal victory has more to do with having played a leading part in thepromotion of the victorious stand and in having decided to consult thepeople about it. Of course, it helps a lot being the ruling party, with itsown leader as head of government. It must be added that an importantfactor is the size of the result. A real political victory for a party meansthat it succeeded in making competing parties following its position.

All these conditions were met by the French PS in 1988. An importantfunction of the referendum on New Caledonia, admittedly, was tolegitimise the agreement reached by the government and the localleaders about the future of the French colony, intended to secure theend of a two-year crisis. However, the political advantages of thereferendum were too obvious to be completely incidental: as mentionedabove, the issue cut across both the UDF and the RPR. It also demon-strated the convergence of the UDF and the PS on certain matters,which could prove particularly useful after the referendum in the view ofhelping the minority socialist government to form majorities. This showsthat divisive strategy, beside seeking to weaken the antagonist, may alsoserve to reconstruct the political alliance structure. This is a well knownfunction of the referendum in Italy. But, above all, the referendum wasa way for the socialists to show more dramatically that they had suc-ceeded, unlike the previous RPR-UDF government, in finding a sol-ution to the problem of New Caledonia. It explains why the UDF was

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not substantially more favourable to the referendum than the RPR,although it agreed the solution. A victory of the 'yes' side at a referen-dum, was bound to be a Pyrrhic victory for the UDF. All the politicalbenefits would go to the socialists and to their leaders, the PrimeMinister Michel Rocard, and the President of the Republic, FrançoisMitterrand, who had negotiated the Accords de Matignon and hadinitiated the referendum. It is very likely that the UDF would have beenequally hostile to the referendum, even had the UDF been united, andeven if the socialists had been split on the issue.

Political Drawbacks of the ReferendumSimilar conditions were faced in Spain by the Popular Coalition when, inearly 1986, it voted against the law fixing the date of a referendum onNATO: there was no serious internal dissent in its ranks about Spainremaining in the military alliance whereas its main competitor, thePSOE, has still a third of its activists and a large part of its electorateagainst it. The opposition of Manuel Fraga, the leader of the PopularCoalition, to the referendum, had to do with his fear that a victory of the'yes' would give the PSOE a resounding political victory only a fewmonths prior to the elections. This view, which also caused Manuel Fragato recommend abstention, was not shared by everybody in the party. Hewas criticised for having underestimated the capacity of his party to seizethe political benefits of a pro-NATO vote. Some argued that the cam-paign could have insisted that it had been the Popular Coalition whichhad led Spain into NATO in 1981, or alternatively, the campaign couldhave pointed to Gonzalez's inconsistency. The leader of the PSOE hadindeed pronounced himself against NATO until his famous about-face in1984. Obviously, Manuel Fraga was not convinced by these arguments,and gave more importance to the advantage that the PSOE would gainboth from being the governing party at the moment and from being theinitiator of the referendum. The second point was seen as particularlyimportant as the Right had refused to consult the Spanish people in 1981,despite the polls then showing a popular majority against NATO.

More than a victory of the 'yes', it has to be asked whether the leaderof the Right did not fear a victory of the 'no', which according to thepolls was still quite likely in early 1986. Such a result of the referendumwas, however, most likely regarded by Manuel Fraga as the lesser of twoevils. A 'no' vote was thought to increase the probability that the Rightwould win the next election, which was scheduled before any effectivewithdrawal from NATO could be accomplished. The new governmentwould then have to ignore the result of the referendum, which wasconsultative and thus only morally binding for its initiator. Although

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Manuel Fraga probably hoped that the referendum would result in anarrow 'yes' victory, combined with high rates of abstention, there is nodoubt that he would still have preferred a 'no' victory and a largepopular acceptance of Spanish membership in NATO, since this couldonly be politically advantageous to the PSOE, as it actually did.

To summarise, it could be said that the referendum was dysfunctionalto the Popular Coalition in so far as it was functional to the PSOE. Thepolitical victory of the latter implied political defeat for the former. Apartial way out for the Spanish Right would have been to call for a 'no'vote, but the political drawback of the referendum would then havebeen the vulnerability to accusations of holding unrealistic views.Moreover, although the terms of Spain membership of NATO wereslightly different from those agreed by the Right government in 1981,the Popular Coalition would have looked extremely inconsistent if it haddeclared itself in favour of a 'no'.

Making party inconsistencies evident is, indeed, another typical poli-tical drawback of referendums for parties. We have seen that it was themain reason why Fianna Fail was reluctant to hold a referendum on theEC Act in 1987. Admittedly, it is true that González decided on areferendum in spite of clearly risking to seem inconsistent on the NATOissue, as discussed earlier. Is it just that he expected the positiveconsequences of the referendum for him and his party to be moreimportant? Or, is it that the political impact of the referendum oninconsistencies, as with divisions, is quite ambiguous? One might arguethat the referendum sometimes helps a party disengage itself from aproblem, allowing it to step back from an issue. If so, its effect would beto overshadow party inconsistencies on the issue. Surely, that was notthe case for the PSOE in 1986, and it is difficult to imagine that it wouldever be so for a ruling party, or for any prominent party. On the whole,the most typical effect of the referendum is to confront the people withtheir representatives. Most of its disruptive consequences and politicaldrawbacks, are related to this.13

THE REFERENDUM AND POLITICAL LEGITIMACY

Giving a Special Legitimacy to a DecisionThe referendum's 'classical' function of legitimating a decision appearsto be much less frequent than is generally claimed. The legitimatingfunction has often more to do with the official explanation of thereferendum than with the real intentions of its initiators. This is prob-ably because parties are attracted by a political use of the referendum,

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and are interested in its legitimation function only when a referendumcannot have any particular function or dysfunction with regard to thethree concerns previously mentioned - a very rare situation. That doesnot of course mean that the search for legitimacy for certain decisionsplays no role in the promotion of referendums, only that its role issecondary. In recent decades, France is perhaps the only country inwhich there have been referendums primarily intended to serve aslegitimation devices. Although they have become more famous for theirplebiscitary function, the referendums of January 1961 and April 1962were, above all, wanted by de Gaulle to confirm popular consent for hisAlgerian policy.14 As already indicated, the 1988 referendum had asimilar function in relation to the New Caledonia issue. The point withthese three referendums is that they well show how the legitimationfunction, in most cases, equals that of crisis resolution.

The legitimation function is, however, often difficult to distinguishfrom a sort of 'divestitured of responsibility' function. The party aim, inthis case, is not so much to give special legitimacy to a policy, as to avoidbeing charged with its possible negative consequences. In general, it isdoubtful that the real function of a referendum is to legitimate a policywhen it concerns an issue of secondary importance, and when thereferendum is optional. In that case it means functional in a strictlypolitical sense for a party. The 'natural' field of the legitimating referen-dum is thus the obligatory referendum, providing it deals with funda-mental issues.

Referendum Viewed as a Delegitimating Party RoleThe popular legitimation of policies using the referendum may, para-doxically, weaken the legitimacy of parties. For this reason, parties' firstreaction to referendums is often negative. However, the fear of delegiti-mation is rarely a primary motivation for opposing a referendum. Just asin the preceding case, other more political concerns generally predomi-nate. This explains why we have found virtually no case of party hostilityto a referendum. The closest example due to this problem is the BritishConservative Party's motivations behind its refusal to sanction a refer-endum on the EC.

THE MAASTRICHT REFERENDUMS

As with previous decisions regarding the EC, the ratification of theMaastricht Treaty has only been put to a referendum in a few countries;Denmark, Ireland and France. Note, however, that a referendum onthe treaty is constitutionally permitted in only three out of the nine

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countries which in practice relied on solely a parliamentary ratification.These countries are Spain, Greece and Luxemburg. In contrast, thePortuguese Constitution states that referendums are not possible for'treaties concerning Portugal's participation in international organisa-tions' (Article 164 J). The remaining countries either have no provisionat all for referendums (Belgium, United Kingdom, the Netherlands andGermany). Similarly in Italy, the abrogative referendum is not allowedon laws for the ratification of international treaties. That referendumswere nevertheless had already been held in Belgium and Britain, andthat a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty has been debated in most ofthese countries,15 I have suggested that the choice of parliamentaryratification may have been largely premissed on political grounds. Thepro-Maastricht forces have typically been opposed to a referendum,either because they feared a defeat, as in Britain, Luxemburg, Spainand Germany, or because they were divided on the issue. And theforces hostile to the treaty have generally favoured a referendum,viewing it as a minority weapon. Italy and the Netherlands are the onlynations in which there has not been any real debate on whether to hold areferendum on the Maastricht Treaty.

Party attitudes towards the Maastricht referendum were very similarin Denmark and Ireland; in both cases it was required by the consti-tution.16 France, where the referendum was optional, is a rare case inwhich a party favourable to the treaty actually advocated a referendum.The socialists, who were not yet clearly divided on the issue, and whothought that they would win it easily, favoured the referendum when itwas announced in June. This reflects François Mitterrand's intention todivide the Right, and to forge new alliances, possibly with the Centristsand the UDF, in view of the PS's likely defeat in the coming March 1993elections. They also hoped that the referendum would grant thePresident, and through him the socialist party, a resounding victory,socialist optimism with regard to the positive effects of the referendumwas primarily based on the expected large majority in favour. But it wasalso based on Mitterrand's prominent role during the treaty's negotia-tion and on his decision to consult the people,17 and finally on hiscapacity also to rally support from the Right. Altogether, the socialists'motives were very similar to those they harboured in the previousreferendum on New Caledonia. Continuing the symmetry, the Right'shostility to the referendum was, as in 1988, motivated by the fear ofinternal divisions and by the expected political advantages for thesocialists. This caused the campaign to become extremely politicized onboth sides.

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CONCLUSION

A logical follow-up to this research would be to test our typology againstthe democratic standards of the referendums, especially during thecampaigns. Research on referendums could fruitfully pursue two addi-tional directions. First, the study of their political consequences: thefunctions and dysfunctions of referendums that have been identifiedhere clearly indicate which kinds of consequences could be investigated,at least regarding parties. Second, there should be an effort to assess thecauses of referendums, especially as to to whether their more frequentuse is a temporary or a lasting phenomenon. Unfortunately, as Lijphartwrites, 'the question of why referendums occur much more frequently insome countries than in others cannot be answered satisfactorily'.18

Our analysis of party attitudes towards referendums has indicatedseveral hypotheses to be tested. The first concerns the impact ofconstitutional, territorial, and generally speaking, all fundamentalchanges, on the use of the obligatory and of the legitimating referen-dums. A second concerns the impact of societal change, which raisesnew issues cutting across party lines, and which may stimulate the use ofthe unifying referendum. Will divisive issues, particularly prevalent inrecent decades, disappear subsequent to party realignment? Or, ifsocio-economic change is very rapid, will no stable cleavage remain, inwhich case parties will be continuously faced with divisive issues? Asimilar situation could also emerge if ideological decline leads to thedisintegration of the traditional all-encompassing cleavage that unitesopinion across most issues. If this were to happen, opinion formationwould become increasingly pragmatic and individualistic, regardless ofparty affiliation.

Third, the blurring of party-specific ideologies should reduce parlia-ment's role as an arena for opposition politics. In turn, this should causean increase of extra-parliamentary opposition, a trend already evidentin the proliferation of group politics. The use of the referendum as aminority weapon could thus become more frequent. For example,referendums and initiatives in the United States have been interpretatedas a substitute for the lack of real opposition within representativeassemblies.

Fourth, attention should be addressed to institutional rules. Theexistence of constitutional provisions is clearly essential in the case ofthe obligatory referendum and of the minority initiative. The possibilityof resorting to mechanisms which may on occasion fulfil the samefunction as a referendum, for example the early dissolution of parlia-ment, should also be taken into account. Finally, the role of the fre-

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quency of referendums should be assessed. The more frequent referen-dums are, the less dysfunctional they need be to representative insti-tutions; their legitimacy would rise and their use come to be regarded asa commonplace feature of 'politics as usual'.

NOTES

The author wishes to thank Jean Blondel, who supervised her PhD thesis on referendums,and G0sta Esping Andersen for his critical comments on a first draft of this article.

1. The increase of the referendum practice has been even stronger at the local level. Thecountries in these tables have all been parliamentary systems since 1945.

2. For an account of the literature on referendums, see Laurence Morel, 'Le référen-dum: l'état des recherches', Revue Française de Science Politique 46/5 (Oct. 1992)

3. This study follows the author's PhD thesis 'Les référendums dans les régimes parle-mentaires d'Europe de l'Ouest-L'intégration de la Démocratie Directe à laDémocratie Représentative, Libérale et Partisane', European Universitary Institute,Florence, 1992. To our knowledge, there has been no general study on political actors'intentions regarding referendums in Western European parliamentary systems,except G. Smith, 'The Functional Properties of the Referendum', European Journalof Political Research 4/1, (March 1976): p. 6 and Bjørklund, limited however toScandinavia, T. Bjørklund, 'The demand for referendum: when does it arise and whendoes it succeed?', Scandinavian Political Studies 5/3, 1982, pp.237-59

4. Over 135 parties involved (only parties represented in parliament at the time of thereferendum have been considered). Of course, it is a kind of arbitary choice to focuson referendums which have actually been held, the scheme of the study applying aswell to all failed attempts to promote referendums. However, such attempts aresometimes so vague or so early aborted that it does not make sense to study partypositions on them.

5. See reference in note 3.6. Moreover, these two nations were of less interest since we are especially concerned

with countries in which there was no strong tradition of referendums.7. E. Gehmacher and F. Plasser, 'The Austrian nuclear power referendum and its

influence on the Austrian general elections in May 79', (Austria; Esomar: On 'Opi-nion Polls'); in conjunction with the World Association for Public Opinion Research,WAPOR, 1980, p.105

8. See note 4.9. Parliament can avoid holding referendums in Italy by voting substantial changes to the

laws which should be submitted to the people for abrogation.10. Admittedly, Garret FitzGerald, the leader of Fine Gael, became progressively less

enthusiastic about a referendum on divorce, especially when he realised that it couldseverely damage his party, which soon proved to be split on the issue.

11. The DC, the PSI, the PSDI, the PLI and the PRI.12. The referendum had first been a reaction of the PCI against the growing tendency of

the government to abandon the current consociationalist practice: 'The main politicalaim of the PCI's consultation was to restore one of the cornerstones of theCostituzione materiale (real constitution): that government majorities cannot takeimportant decisions with which the PCI disagrees' (P.V. Uleri, 'The DeliberativeInitiative of June 1985 in Italy', Electoral Studies 4/3 (Dec. 1985), p.273.

13. According to a French scholar, party hostility to referendums in France would be to agreat extent due to this problem (O. Duhamel, 'Les partis politiques face au référen-dum' in G. Conac and D. Maus (eds.), Le Référendum, quel avenir? – Expériencesétrangères, la France (Paris: ESTH, 1990)

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14. Admittedly, it is difficult to speak about a party function of the referendum in thiscase.

15. Including Portugal, where the idea of a referendum was defended by the President ofthe Republic.

16. The referendum was necessary in Denmark since 16 votes were lacking for themajority of 5/6ths needed in parliament to pass the treaty. It was obligatory in Ireland.

17. The referendum on treaties can be initiated in France only by the President of theRepublic on the proposal of the Prime Minister (article 11 of the Constitution).

18. A. Lijphart, Democracies – Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government inTwenty-One Countries (New Haven, CT and London, UK: Yale UP, 1984, p.197).

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Documents

Party attitudes towards referendums in Western Europe