Abstract
Consultative referendums may provide crucial information about public opinion but have received little attention in the literature compared with their binding counterparts. In this article, we analyse 221 Norwegian local consultative referendums on municipal amalgamation using the Venice Commission’s code on referendums. Much of the referendum literature suggests that consultative referendums are in fact binding. The municipal councils followed the outcomes of the referendums in most cases, but 14% chose to go against it. While the overall impression is that the outcomes of consultative referendums are seen as binding, the data indicate that ballot design may affect voters’ choice as well as council decisions. Although many democratic standards were met, the wording of questions and alternatives on the ballot paper were problematic in a number of cases – reducing the democratic value of the citizens’ advice.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
