How Political Parties Use Referendums: An Analytical Framework

Abstract

This article is part of the special cluster titled Political Parties and Direct Democracy in Eastern Europe, guest-edited by Sergiu Gherghina. Extensive research has shown how political parties use referendums to achieve their goals. Most studies use either a policy-oriented or an institution-based approach to explain parties’ actions. In spite of much empirical evidence, to date the analytical dimensions have not been put together to facilitate the study of referendum instrumentalization across countries. This article makes a first step in that direction and proposes a typology that distinguishes between the goals and types of action of political parties. The theoretical reasoning behind such a typology is then backed by empirical evidence from the five East European countries included in the special section of this journal.