Abstract
This paper analyzes how voters decide in referendums on European integration. More
specifically, it investigates how political information influences voting behavior. It argues
that political information conditions the way in which people make decisions in
referendums by altering the impact of the decision criteria that voters use. The impact of
political information is examined not only at the individual, but also at the contextual level.
It is hypothesized that variations in the context of the referendum - the intensity of the
campaign - produce differences in the way in which citizens act in referendums. As the
intensity of the referendum campaign increases, more information is available to citizens
and voters will rely more heavily on sophisticated criteria, such as attitudes and issue
positions on the EU. While the informational context influences voting patterns,
individuals also vary in their awareness of politics. It is argued that people with high levels
of political awareness receive more information, and consequently rely more on their own
attitudes and less on elite cues when deciding. These theoretical propositions are tested by
analyzing survey data from European referendums in Denmark, Ireland and Norway.
Never overestimate the information of the electorate,
but never underestimate its intelligence.
(Converse 2000:331)
Introduction
Direct democracy is becoming an increasingly common feature of the process of European
integration. The first referendum on European integration took place in France in 1972,
and since then 40 referendums on aspects of European integration have been conducted in
member states and candidate countries.
In the literature on voting behavior in European
referendums, voters are generally treated as a uniform mass that respond in a similar
fashion to elite cues, but differ in interests and preferences. The scholarly debate on
European referendums has focused on whether these referendums can be regarded as
‘second-order’ elections where satisfaction with national governments determine voting
behavior, or whether voters decide on the basis of their attitudes towards European
integration. Although most existing studies of referendum behavior do control for
demographic characteristics such as age and gender, they tend overlook the potential
impact of differences in the political awareness of individuals and variations in the
informational context of the referendum. Yet these variations in supply of and demand for
political information are likely to influence the way in which people make political
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Convention