This project takes a comparative angle and places the Brexit vote in the bigger picture of EU and independence referendums. At first glance, this referendum does not fit within the existing explanations of referendums elsewhere in the world. In previous EU referendums, whenever an anti-EU vote was presented as having drastic economic consequences or a vote on EU membership (e.g. Fiscal Treaty), a majority of voters tended to vote in favour of the EU. In independence referendums as well, economic costs consistently trump national identity, as a majority of voters worry about the economic costs of a departure from the host state (e.g. Quebec or Scotland). Nevertheless, a close look at campaigns and a comparison of the reveal why the Brexit referendum departs from the voting behaviour in these previous referendums. Political actors' campaign argumentation strategies can affect public opinion enough to affect referendum outcomes. In the Brexit vote, the risk assessment depended primarily on the campaign strategies of the Remain and Leave campaigns. A majority of British voters decided to vote against the status quo, and for an uncertain future outside the EU, because the campaign argumentation suggested that there were different kinds of risks involved in the decision. As opposed to the campaigners in previous EU or independence referendums, the Leave side effectively diluted the arguments around the potential economic costs and proposed their own figures on the economic costs of a Remain vote, while, most intriguingly, the Remain side was silent on these issues. The article relies on an extensive bank of strategies used by pro-EU / anti-EU and pro-independence / anti-independence campaigners, based on a unique dataset of over 180 in-depth interviews with campaigners in Scotland, England and across Europe, as well as a detailed post-referendum survey involving survey experiments.
