When who and how matter: explaining the success of referendums in Europe

This article aims to identify the institutional factors that make a referendum successful. This comparative analysis seeks to explain the success of top-down referendums organized in Europe between 2001 and 2013. It argues and tests for the main effect of three institutional factors (popularity of the initiator, size of parliamentary majority, and political cues during referendum campaigns) and controls for the type of referendum and voter turnout. The analysis uses data collected from referendums and electoral databases, public opinion surveys, and newspaper articles. Results show that referendums proposed by a large parliamentary majority or with clear messages from political parties during campaign are likely to be successful

The puzzle of double referendums in the European Union

If voters are asked to vote twice on the same issue in a single year, why might they initially reject the proposal but then vote to approve it the second time? This has happened three times in EU referendums (Denmark on the Maastricht Treaty in 1992–93 and Ireland on the Nice Treaty in 2001–02 and the Lisbon Treaty in 2008–09). No work has yet compared all six of these referendum campaigns. I focus on the campaign strategies of the Yes and No sides and investigate whether campaigners act differently in the second campaigns. Based on fieldwork in Denmark and Ireland, 38 in-depth interviews with campaigners and public opinion data, I show that the Yes campaigners learned from their mistakes and changed their campaign strategies in the second rounds. Not only did they secure guarantees from the EU to neutralize the No side's arguments; they also used more emotional campaign arguments in the second campaigns

Who's Cueing Whom? Mass-elite linkages and the future of European integration

The 2005 French and Dutch referendum campaigns were characterized by an alleged disconnect between pro-European political elites and Eurosceptic masses. Past evidence regarding elite-mass linkages in the context of European integration has been conflicting. Whereas some scholars argue that political elites respond to the changing preferences of their electorates, others suggest that party elites cue the mass public through a process of information and persuasion. We contend that these conflicting results stem from the reciprocal nature of elite-mass linkages and estimate a series of dynamic simultaneous equations models to account for this reverse causation. Using Euro-barometer and expert survey data from 1984-2002, we find evidence of a dual-process model, whereby party elites both respond to and shape the views of their supporters. We also find that the strength of these results is contingent on several factors, including the type of electoral system, intra-party dissent and voter characteristics. Copyright © 2007 Sage Publications

Performed and preferred participation in science and technology across Europe: Exploring an alternative idea of "democratic deficit"

Republican ideals of active scientific citizenship and extensive use of deliberative, democratic decision making have come to dominate the public participation agenda, and academic analyses have focused on the deficit of public involvement vis-à-vis these normative ideals. In this paper we use latent class models to explore what Eurobarometer survey data can tell us about the ways in which people participate in tacit or in policy-active ways with developments in science and technology, but instead of focusing on the distance between observed participation and the dominant, normative ideal of participation, we examine the distance between what people do, and what they themselves think is appropriate in terms of involvement. The typology of citizens emerging from the analyses entails an entirely different diagnosis of democratic deficit, one that stresses imbalance between performed and preferred participation

Public Debate on Research Policy in the Nordic Countries. A Comparative Analysis of Actors and Issues (1998 – 2007)

Based on the experiences gained from the preparatory study, NordForsk decided in 2008 to fund a full-scale comparative study of research policy debate in the Nordic countries during the period 1998–2007. This report presents the results of the comparative study.NordFors

Evaluering af virkemidler målrettet kvindelige forskere og forskere i begyndelsen af deres karriereforløb: Delrapporter

Dette er de 6 delrapporter, der lægger til grund for hovedraporten i CFA´s evaluering af udvalgte forskningsrådsvirkemidler målrettet kvindelige forskere og forskere i begyndelsen af deres karriereforløb. Der fokuseres i evalueringen på tre undergrupper af virkemidler rubriceret som henholdsvis postdocvirkemidler, virkemidler rettet mod yngre forskere og virkemidler rettet mod kvindelige forskere. De 6 delrapporter afdækker følgende: Delrapport 1: fremlægger et beskrivende overblik, komparative effektresultater samt metodevalg og dataafgrænsning i den registerbaserede del af evalueringen. Delrapport 2: fremlægger resultater samt metodevalg og dataafgrænsning i den surveybaserede del af evalueringen. Delrapport 3: præsenterer resultaterne fra den interviewundersøgelse, der indgår som tredje delundersøgelse i den samlede evaluering. Delrapport 4: fremlægger resultaterne af den bibliometriske undersøgelse af postdocer og talentprojekter i 2001-03 inden for natur-, sundheds- og tekniske videnskaber i forbindelse med evalueringen. Delrapport 5: vurderer den danske forskningsrådsinitierede indsats rettet mod kvindelige forskere og forskere i begyndelsen af deres karriereforløb i et bredere perspektiv. Delrapport 6: giver relevant baggrundsinformation vedr. CFA’s evaluering mht. metodevalg og validering af datamateriale og usikkerheder i resultater som følge af metodevalgene