Abstract
Following the European integration history, referenda are a risky ratification strategy. Despite establishing a convention and intense treaty negotiations, an unprecedented number of eleven member states announced a referendum for the ratification of the constitutional treaty in 2004, two of them finally failed and stalled the ratification process. This study examines the choice of the ratification instrument by an empirical analysis of the strategic interaction between government, opposition parties and the electorate in the 25 ratification countries. Our analysis considers country-specific conditions and correctly predicts most of the ratification choices in countries which announced referenda (65%) and almost all parliamentary ratification cases (93%). The results reveal that governments choose referenda when they expect low gains from a treaty reform or are confronted with a Euro-sceptical parliamentary opposition. We also find that governments are eager to separate popular votes from domestic electoral campaigns.
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Notes
These are Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ireland, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom, and only France announced the referendum after the signing of the treaty.
List of failed referenda: France (Constitution, 2006), Netherlands (Constitution, 2006), Denmark (Maastricht, 1992; EMU, 2000), Ireland (Nice, 2001), Norway (membership, 1972, 1994), Sweden (EMU, 2003). List of successful referenda: Ireland (membership, 1972; SEA, 1987; Maastricht, 1992; Amsterdam, 1998), Denmark (membership, 1972; SEA, 1986; Amsterdam, 1998), France (enlargement, 1972; Maastricht, 1992), Great Britain (continued membership, 1975), Austria, Sweden, Finland (membership, 1994), Luxemburg, Spain (constitution, 2006), Malta, Hungary, Slovenia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Poland, Czech R, Estonia, Latvia (membership, 2003).
In case voters’ desire for participation is very strong a referendum might turn out “de facto mandatory” (Binzer Hobolt 2006, p. 159f.). This is more likely in member states which have a tradition of referenda with respect to certain issues.
The Lithuanian government announced parliamentary ratification right after the general elections in 2004. In Spain the referendum has been announced by the Aznar government in June 2003, elections took place in March 2004 and the referendum has been conducted under the Zapatero government in May 2004. In January 2003 the Dutch elected a new government which announced referendum in September 2003.
The project Domestic Structures and European Integration (DOSEI) has been funded under the 5th framework programme of the European Commission (for more information please consult: http://dosei.dhv-speyer.de).
The gains of government i are defined by the following equation, where ip defines the ideal position of the government, sq defines the status quo (Treaty of Nice) and out defines the constitutional treaty: \( \mathop U\nolimits_{i} = \sqrt {\sum\nolimits_{j = 1}^{2} {\mathop {\mathop s\nolimits_{ij} \left( {\mathop {ip}\nolimits_{ij} - \mathop {sq}\nolimits_{j} } \right)}\nolimits^{2} } } - \sqrt {\sum\nolimits_{i = 1}^{2} {\mathop s\nolimits_{ij} \mathop {\left( {\mathop {ip}\nolimits_{ij} - \mathop o\nolimits_{j} } \right)}\nolimits^{2} } } \). The parameter s describes the relative salience the government attaches to one dimension as compared to the other. It has been operationalized as the relation of those summed item discrimination parameters which had been of vital interest for the respective government (König and Finke 2007; Hug and König 2002).
The Chapel Hill 2002 dataset is based on 238 expert interviews conducted between September 2002 and April 2003. The dataset includes positions on European integration for 171 parties in 21 countries. The positions for Cyprus, Malta, Luxembourg and Estonia have been imputed with the means of the respective party families. Our operationalization uses the answers from question 1: “Overall orientation of the party leadership towards European integration in 2002” (Hooghe et al. 2002).
Unfortunately, the CMP data does not include information on Cyprus and Malta. The respective party positions have been imputed on the basis of survey data provided by Benoit and Laver (2006) using AMELIA.
The standard approach to cooperative game theory assumes that actors always chose the best option (best response). The Quantal Response approach breaks with this assumption and allows for decision errors (quantal response). These decision errors follow a logistic distribution. The degree of rationality follows the distribution parameter λ (McKelvey and Palfrey 1995). For reasons of model identification the lambda is equal for all actors and has been fixed beforehand.
Note that the estimates are based on the assumption that referenda do not cause any other costs than implied by t r, t o, t v, p r, p o, p v and g. Furthermore, for the sake of model identification, the decision error is assumed to be identical and positive for all actors (λ = 25).
Governments expected utility is the product of the anticipated probability for ratification success and its treaty gains (t g). The probability of successful parliamentary ratification has been taken from the results of our QR estimation (see Table 4). The probability of successful referendum has been set equal to 0.5 because our main indicator for voters’ treaty gains (t v) turns out entirely insignificant.
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Appendices
Appendix 1
1.1 Adaptation 1: Government’s choice (applicable to 17 member states)
In this version, the last two stages of the game resemble those of the general model. The second stage is missing because the opposition has no choice to decide on a referendum. At stage 1, when government knows that it has to accept a popular vote, the choice will depend on the expected outcome of the popular and parliamentary vote. If both ratification actors will accept the proposal, the government votes for a referendum when the audience benefits plus gains in domestic party competition are positive (p g + g > 0). If, on the other hand, both will reject the proposal, the government only prefers a referendum if the audience benefits outweigh the losses in domestic party competition (p g > g). In the event of voters’ support and parliamentary rejection, the government is in favour of a referendum whenever the sum of the audience benefits, treaty gains and gains from domestic party competition is positive (t g + p g + g > 0). Finally, when voters reject and parliament adopt the proposal, the government will only propose a referendum if the audience benefits outweigh the sum of unrealized treaty gains and damage in domestic party competition (p g > t g + g).
If the government knows that it will overrule a popular vote, the choice for the ratification instrument is independent from audience benefits (with the exception that p g is discounted). In case of both ratification actors will accept the proposal, the government prefers a referendum whenever the gains in domestic party competition are higher than the treaty gains (g > t g). If, however, both ratification actors will reject the proposal, the government only favors a referendum if the treaty gains are higher than the losses in domestic party competition (t g > g). If voters will adopt but parliament reject the proposal, the government prefers a referendum if this promises gains in domestic party competition (g > 0). Finally, if voters will reject but parliament adopt the proposal, the government only prefers a referendum in the highly unrealistic event where it could benefit from a popular No-vote in domestic party competition (g < 0).
Overall, the likelhood for a referendum increases with p g if the referendum is either de facto or legally binding. The effects of g and t g depend on the government’s expectation about the parliamentary and popular vote. If t g is relatively large as compared to g and p g, the government will always choose a less risky ratification strategy. However, the model also suggests that a government will even accept treaty losses if this causes (or avoids) benefits (or costs) in domestic party competition.
1.2 Adaptation 2: Opposition can veto (applicable to Belgium, Germany, Poland)
Another class of institutional provisions applies to countries which require supermajorities in order to initiate a referendum. As a result, neither opposition nor government can initiate a referendum unilaterally. In this version, stages 4 and 3 are identical to the general model. Stage 2 is similar to the general model when the government prefers a referendum, while the opposition has no choice in the event of parliamentary ratification. At stage 1, when the opposition will veto a referendum, the government is indifferent between announcing a referendum and parliamentary ratification. But when the opposition agrees on initiating a referendum, the government is behaving as described in stage 1 of adaptation 1.
1.3 Adaptation 3: Opposition can initiate (applicable to Greece, Italy, Slovakia, Hungary)
In some countries, the opposition can unilaterally initiate a referendum. In these cases, stages 4 and 3 are identical to the complete model. This also holds true for stage 2 which, however, is only relevant when the government prefers parliamentary ratification; otherwise the opposition has no choice. At stage 1, when the opposition will prefer a referendum, the government has little choice. If the referendum is either de facto or legally binding, the government will announce a referendum whenever the audience benefits are positive (p g > 0). If the government must overrule a popular vote, it is indifferent between popular and parliamentary ratification. However, if the opposition would agree on a parliamentary ratification, the government is confronted with the same choice between referendum and parliament as described in stage 1 of adaptation1.
Appendix 2
The Ratification progress (mean of explanatory variables for the cases observed at each decision stage in January 2007).
Appendix 3
Appendix 4
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Finke, D., König, T. Why risk popular ratification failure? A comparative analysis of the choice of the ratification instrument in the 25 Member States of the EU. Const Polit Econ 20, 341–365 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-008-9068-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-008-9068-y