The Voice of Populist People? Referendum preferences, practices and populist attitudes

Populist parties typically claim that democratic regimes fail to deliver results that are in line with what ´the people´ want. To address this policy outcome failure, they favour direct democracy tools (Taggart, 2000:103-105). The preference of populist parties for referendum tools is well documented, but we know virtually nothing about the relationship between the populist attitudes of citizens and their referendum preferences and practices. This matters as one of the main positive effects of populist parties is their ability to give voice to groups that do not feel represented (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012:207). Yet, somewhat ironically, we do not know whether populists´ proposed solution -the referendum- resonates with ´the people´ it wishes to give voice to. This study wishes to fill this gap by addressing three interrelated questions. First, we analyze to what extent people with populist attitudes are more in favour of referendums. Second, we analyze if and to what extent populist attitudes are linked to the decision to vote in the Dutch referendum about the association agreement between the EU and Ukraine. Third, we analyze if and to what extent these attitudes are linked to their vote choice. To answer these questions we use the Dutch 2016 National Referendum Survey. References: Mudde, C., & Kaltwasser, C. (2012). Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or corrective for democracy? New York: Cambridge University Press. Taggart, P. (2000). Populism. Buckingham: Open University Press.