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What Is a Consultative Referendum? The Democratic Legitimacy of Popular Consultations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2020

Carlo Invernizzi Accetti Open the ORCID record for Carlo Invernizzi Accetti [Opens in a new window]  and
Giulia Oskian
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Abstract

We examine the democratic legitimacy of popular referendums asking whether they should be understood as bypassing or complementing representative institutions. To answer this question, we focus on the distinction between legislative referendums and consultative ones, noting that even though referendums of the latter kind are by far more prevalent from an empirical point of view, their specific role in democratic decision-making remains under-theorized in the existing literature. We therefore focus on consultative referendums as a possible way of reconciling the referendum procedure with representative democracy. First, we clarify the specific conception of representative democracy that underscores our study; second, we develop the idea that consultative referendums are to be understood to specify the political mandate of elected representatives; finally, we apply the results of this conceptual work to the case of the Greek bailout and the Brexit referendums, aiming to dispel some lingering misconceptions concerning the normative implications of their results and thereby clarifying the normative significance of our theory.

Type
Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 123 - 138
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

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Footnotes

They express their gratitude to Chris Bickerton, Lisa Disch, Maria Paula Saffon, and Nadia Urbinati. Discussions with the authors on an early draft of the manuscript and their comments revealed a deeper understanding of consultative referendums. They would also like to acknowledge the anonymous reviewers for the journal, whose suggestions were an excellent guide to the final revision of the manuscript.

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