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New publication on referendum boycotts!
Louis Stockwell and Özlem Atikcan have published a new journal article in the European Political Science Review.
Louis Stockwell and Özlem Atikcan have published a new journal article in the European Political Science Review. The article, titled: "On the determinants of referendum boycotts in Europe", addresses the puzzle of why, and under what circumstances, ostensibly highly participatory direct democratic processes are boycotted by parties and other political actors.
Drawing on a novel dataset of 223 referendums across 37 countries, the article combines quantitative and qualitative methods to explore how regime context, institutional design, and issue type shape boycott behaviour. The article highlights how turnout quorum requirements, lower levels of democratic maturity, and sovereignty-related referendum issues significantly increase the likelihood of boycotts.
Through a qualitative analysis of explicit boycott actor justifications, the article also develops a new typology of six motivation types: legitimacy-based, procedural unfairness, instrumental, tactical, minority interest, and ideological boycotts.
The results reveal a complex interplay between democratic institutions and political strategy, challenging the assumption that referendums are universally inclusive tools.
You can read the article in full at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755773925100301