The Paper I would like to present at the joint sessions seeks to explain governments’ success and failure in EU-related referendums between 1972 and 2016, using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The analysis will be based on an original dataset of EU-related referendums (n=61). The governments’ success and failure in EU-related referendums will be explained by political and socio-economic conditions, and by the type of referendums. Initial analysis of the data reveals that a unified majority government and positive economic development are the main drivers contributing to successful referendum outcomes. In different configurations with these two drivers, also being a net recipient of EU funds, facing recent elections, and elite consensus play a substantial role. However, the effect of these factors differs between membership, treaty and policy referendums. The initial analysis of unsuccessful referendum outcomes reveals that across all three types of referendums, the absence of economic development and the absence of recent elections are sufficient factors for the failure of EU-related referendums. In the paper the analysis of successful and unsuccessful cases will be further elaborated.
