Conditional legitimacy: How turnout, majority size, and outcome affect perceptions of legitimacy in European Union membership referendums
| Author | Mikael P Johannesson,Troy S Broderstad,Sveinung Arnesen,Jonas Linde |
| DOI | 10.1177/1465116518820163 |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Conditional legitimacy:
How turnout, majority
size, and outcome affect
perceptions of legitimacy
in European Union
membership
referendums
Sveinung Arnesen
Social Science Institute, NORCE—Norwegian Research
Centre, Bergen, Norway; Department of Comparative
Politics, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
Troy S Broderstad
Department of Comparative Politics, University of
Bergen, Norway
Mikael P Johannesson
Department of Comparative Politics, University of
Bergen, Norway
Jonas Linde
Department of Comparative Politics, University of Bergen,
Norway; Social Science Institute, NORCE—Norwegian
Research Centre, Norway
Abstract
This conjoint study investigates the type of mandate a referendum confers in the
political decision-making process. While a majority of citizens in general believe that
Corresponding author:
Sveinung Arnesen, NORCE—Norwegian Research Centre, Postboks 22 Nyga
˚rdstangen, Bergen 5838,
Norway.
Email: sveinung.arnesen@norceresearch.no
European Union Politics
2019, Vol. 20(2) 176–197
!The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1465116518820163
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the government should follow the results of a referendum on European Union mem-
bership, its perceived legitimacy in the eyes of the public heavily depends upon the level
of turnout, the size of the majority, and the outcome of the specific referendum in
question. Thus, whether a referendum legitimizes a political decision in the eyes of the
public is conditional upon these three dimensions.
Keywords
Conjoint survey experiment, European Union, legitimacy, Norway, referendums
Introduction
The growing popularity and use of referendums and legislative initiatives has led toan
increased interest in questions related to different perspectives on democracy and dem-
ocratic legitimacy (Donovan and Karp, 2006; Ferr in and Kriesi, 2016; Hobolt, 2006;
Morel, 2017; Qvortrup, 2018; Scarrow, 2001). Referendums ha veb ecome increasingly
important in the political decision-making process in Europe, and issues such as mem-
bership, key policies, ratification of treaties, and constitutionaldocuments are the most
voted-on issues in the world (De Vreese and Boomgaarden, 20 05; Hobolt, 2009).
Despite the existence of a large body of literature on referendums, questions of
the legitimacy of referendums as a political decision-making procedure are still
understudied. A virtue of democratic decision-making procedures is that the foun-
dations on which a decision is made are thought to enhance the legitimacy of that
decision (Dahl, 1989), and legitimate political decisions in turn facilitate implemen-
tation of the decision outcome (Tyler, 2006). One of the most pertinent research
questions yet to beanswered is how variations in turnoutand majority size affect the
implications andlegitimacy of referendum outcomes (Hobolt, 2006). In addition,the
question about the extent to which the outcome affects legitimacy beliefs among
those participating in the referendum should be addressed. In actual referendums,
these critical dimensions—the turnout, the size of the winning majority, and the
outcome—are subject to variation. We therefore empirically investigate how such
variation affects legitimacy beliefs. Do people think that the government should
follow any result once the issue is decided on in a referendum, or do they change
their opinion when learning about the attributes of the specific referendum?
Utilizing a conjoint experimental design, we propose a hypothetical scenario in
which membership in the European Union (EU) is put to a referendum. The
experiment is performed within the Norwegian Citizen Panel (NCP)—an online,
probability-based survey panel of the Norwegian population. The question regards
whether Norway should join the EU, an issue that was previously subject to ref-
erendums in 1972 and 1994.
The respondents are given different scenarios, where the level of turnout, size of
majority, and outcome are varied. Some respondents are not exposed to this
Arnesen et al. 177
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