Effects of government-initiated referendums

Abstract: This thesis asks the question “How do government-initiated local referendums affect citizens’ perceptions of democracy?”. In the theoretical discussion, direct democratic theory is found to be inadequate in studying the effects of government-initiated referendums. Since the referendums are government-initiated, that negates the important aspect of bypassing elites. The referendum democracy concept as a second theoretical view on referendums offered the perspective of referendums as people’s veto. However, also this concept adhered to the view that citizens are the main actors in a referendum process. Thus, theory which is more finely tuned to the power of elites was developed to study the effects government-initiated referendums may have on citizens. The resulting hypothesis (Citizens who experience local referendums will grant their local government increased trust and legitimacy) was tested on the Swedish case of local referendums. Independently pooled survey data for the years 2002-2012 was employed measure over time. Logistic regression revealed that no relationships between experiencing a government-initiated referendum and more favourable perceptions of democracy were statistically significant. It is suggested that this might depend on the very nature of the referendums. By skewing the power in the favour of political representatives, citizens no longer feel as participants in shaping policy.