There are many myths about referendums. The most common one is that voters are inherently sceptical and tend to vote no when given the opportunity. This article analyses some of the commonly held ...‘truths’ about referendums on EU matters. Based on a statistical analysis of all forty‐three EU‐related referendums since 1972, it shows that governments tend to lose referendums if they have been in office for a long time, that emotive words on the ballot paper are correlated with a high yes vote and that a high turnout is correlated with a vote against European integration, but campaign spending is inconsequential. Based solely on statistical evidence from the previous forty‐three referendums, the opponents of EU membership will win the Brexit referendum.
This article makes a contribution by articulating, for the first time, how hope and fear appeals were constructed as a rhetorical media device in a political advertising campaign context, ...specifically the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. Based on a qualitative content analysis of both sides' campaigning materials, an understanding of the fluid, responsive and symbiotic nature of these emotional appeals and how they are utilized against the other is outlined. The research reveals core dimensions for constructing persuasive media appeals. While, fear appeals should strive to create a threat perceived to be relevant, and significant, the deployed hope appeals should focus on generating alternative positive visions and be goal congruent. By understanding contested (political) campaigns, new types of hybrid hope and fears appeal emerge (i.e. hope and fear reduction appeals). Taking these findings together, allows the authors to provide prescriptions on how certain message appeal types might be used to induce particular emotional effects in the audience.
This study articulates how hope and fear media appeals were constructed, and used to counteract each other, in a referendum context. Fear and hope can be elicited via three principal mechanisms: 1) Developing threats (fear) perceived as relevant, significant and expected to occur), 2) Deploying hope against fear by creating alternative, positive visions for target audiences 3) Creating messages that reduce feelings of fear or hope by reducing perceptions of the dimensions required to create them. Bringing these findings together allows the researchers to provide a prescription for how to induce particular hope/fear effects in the target audience.
European politicians have become increasingly concerned about the possible distorting effects of citizens not only being uninformed, but systematically misinformed about the European Union (EU). ...Against this background, this study assesses the role of EU knowledge in shaping the preference to vote to leave or remain in a (hypothetical) referendum on EU membership using cross‐national survey data that were collected simultaneously in eight EU countries during the run‐up to the 2019 EP elections. The surveys included a newly designed item battery of EU knowledge capturing both the accuracy as well as confidence in knowledge of the respondents. The results show that misinformedness is associated with a preference to leave the EU, the uninformed citizens tend to be undecided or not intending to vote, while the well‐informed prefer to remain. Overall, our findings contribute to the ongoing debates about the role of misinformation in politics.
Abstract
This study examines the temporal clustering of hate crimes in Scotland, England and Wales in the wake of the Brexit vote and the 2017 terrorist attacks. Using an interrupted time-series ...design, we analyzed hate crime data by motivation type and month as provided by area police forces under the Freedom of Information Act. The results revealed a significant increase in crimes based on religious bias in Scotland, England and Wales after the 2017 terrorist attacks. There is also evidence of a significant increase in racial hate crime in the aftermath of the European Union referendum but only in England and Wales. We suggest that these findings underscore the role of political legitimization in predicting hate crimes.
This article aims to provide democratic ideas related to the Intertemporal Replacement process and to find out about its less democratic practices so far. The research method used in this article is ...a normative juridical research method, with a statutory, case and conceptual approach. The purpose of this discussion is to analyze a memory process which is more democratic and more appropriate for application in Indonesia and to identify recall practices in Indonesia. The result of this study is that the recall process given to political parties only makes the recall instrument a tool for political parties in controlling their members in the legislative body as well as to scare their members who are against the policies of political parties. Things like this certainly hinder the development of democracy in the institutional system in Indonesia. This is shown from several recall cases which only for reasons contrary to political parties then expel their members from membership in the legislature. To change this practice, in this study, an interim replacement mechanism with a referendum recall process was initiated to involve the people in the process of dismissing members of the legislature so as to maintain the interests of political parties to remain democratic and prevent interim replacements from being used as weapons to frighten legislators. With the recall of the referendum, the people will be fully involved in the recall process so that the process becomes more transparent and democratic.
We study discrimination against immigrants using microlevel data from Switzerland, where, until recently, some municipalities used referendums to decide on the citizenship applications of foreign ...residents. We show that naturalization decisions vary dramatically with immigrants’ attributes, which we collect from official applicant descriptions that voters received before each referendum. Country of origin determines naturalization success more than any other applicant characteristic, including language skills, integration status, and economic credentials. The average proportion of “no” votes is about 40% higher for applicants from (the former) Yugoslavia and Turkey compared to observably similar applicants from richer northern and western European countries. Statistical and taste-based discrimination contribute to varying naturalization success; the rewards for economic credentials are higher for applicants from disadvantaged origins, and origin-based discrimination is much stronger in more xenophobic municipalities. Moreover, discrimination against specific immigrant groups responds dynamically to changes in the groups’ relative size.
The EU Referendum of 2016 was one of the most significant events in recent British political history. It is widely recognised that citizens engaged with the referendum through understandings of ...Britain, the EU, the world, and their place in it. This study complements existing research where such understandings have been inferred from citizens’ demographic characteristics, the characteristics of their localities/regions, or elite discourses. It builds on existing research where a more direct engagement with citizens’ understandings has been achieved through interviews or focus groups, allowing the content of understandings to be thickly described. To these latter studies, this paper makes three main contributions. First, it focuses on popular imaginative geographies, which are conceptualised drawing on literatures in Geography and Political Science as fast‐thinking heuristics. Second, it brings new evidence to the conversation in the form of volunteer writing for Mass Observation. Third, the focus is on the content of popular imaginative geographies, but also how and why such geographies were used by voters in the referendum. The main findings include that many Leave supporters imagined Britain as an island – either a once great military and imperial power, an island separate from Europe, needing freedom from Europe to engage in the wider world; or a small island, a full container, close to the rest of Europe and vulnerable to mobilities across Europe’s borders. By contrast, many Remain supporters imagined Britain as post‐imperial, small, vulnerable, and under threat of isolation from Europe and exposure to a chaotic, uncertain, dangerous world. Both groups engaged with the referendum through such popular imaginative geographies because the referendum presented voters with a difficult task, the campaigns provided few trustworthy facts, and voters therefore had to rely on cognitive shortcuts, including popular imaginative geographies.
It is widely recognised that citizens engaged with the EU Referendum of 2016 through understandings of Britain, the EU, the world, and their place in it. This paper conceptualises popular imaginative geographies as fast‐thinking heuristics, draws on new evidence in the form of volunteer writing for Mass Observation, and focuses on the content of popular imaginative geographies, but also how and why such geographies were used by voters in the referendum.
This paper examines how board gender diversity affects corporate risk disclosure. We exploit an exogenous shock on firms’ risk environment created by the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European ...Union (Brexit) and analyze related risk disclosure in annual reports of public firms in the UK. Using this unique setting, we mitigate concerns about omitted variables in concurrent studies. The findings suggest that board gender diversity is positively related to corporate risk disclosure. However, our results also indicate that the proportion of female directors needs to reach a critical mass to impact the risk disclosure decision. Moreover, we find lower bid–ask spreads immediately after the referendum date for those firms that disclosed Brexit-related risks in their annual reports prior to the vote. Collectively, our results are consistent with board gender diversity promoting the disclosure of decision-relevant information through improved board group dynamics.
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