Referendums Around the World: Final Thoughts

Summarizing the earlier chapters, the concluding section presents a tour d’horizon of the findings. Overall, there are two different worlds” of referendums, on the one hand, in Switzerland, California, and a few other states of the American union, initiatives and referendums are prominent strands in the fabric of political life and on the other, there are countries where referendums are held infrequently, usually only when the governments think they are likely to provide a useful ad hoc solution. This makes it difficult to draw conclusions. Referendums crucially depend on how they are regulated and upon the political cultures in which they are held. Thus, while a majoritarian device, that can lead to polarisation, the use of mechanisms of direct democracy can result in consensus politics, like in Switzerland, where counter-proposals have resulted in more centrist policies. But these tendencies are difficult to discern in countries where referendums are infrequent—and often lead to hostile polarisation.