Or, for that matter, recall the Brexit referendum and the political chaos it plunged the UK into.
I think there’s a need to distinguish between two types of referendums here.
Tensions preexited the referendum. Indeed, the referendum was a bid to solve an explosive political situation. Therefore, the ensuing chaos is less of a surprise and therefore doesn’t say much about referendums.
This is often the case in representative democracies where referendums are triggered and formulated by the government rather than the citizenship. In addition, in such crisis-time government-issued referendums, all actors understand that the legitimacy of the issuing government is tied to the result, which pollutes the debate around the actual matter, making it less about the policy and more about the individuals. On top of that, when there’s hardly 1 referendum every 10 years, the citizenship use their votes to express old grievances that also have no relation with the matter at hand.
All these flaws don’t happen when there are regular, citizenship-issued referendums, which is why I think it’s important to make the distinction.
I think there’s a need to distinguish between two types of referendums here.
Tensions preexited the referendum. Indeed, the referendum was a bid to solve an explosive political situation. Therefore, the ensuing chaos is less of a surprise and therefore doesn’t say much about referendums.
This is often the case in representative democracies where referendums are triggered and formulated by the government rather than the citizenship. In addition, in such crisis-time government-issued referendums, all actors understand that the legitimacy of the issuing government is tied to the result, which pollutes the debate around the actual matter, making it less about the policy and more about the individuals. On top of that, when there’s hardly 1 referendum every 10 years, the citizenship use their votes to express old grievances that also have no relation with the matter at hand.
All these flaws don’t happen when there are regular, citizenship-issued referendums, which is why I think it’s important to make the distinction.