This referendum was the first one ever in this country that was initiated not by the government, but by a citizen’s initiative. All parties still clearly have to get used to this ‘democratic innovation’ – and this also showed throughout the entire process. Referenda were intended for major policy issues, but the ‘bars’ to pass for that were just put too low: it was too easy to get the (unverified) signatures via an online petition and the 30% threshold gave ‘tactical’ voters many perverse incentives to stay home, thus potentially distorting the real opinion of Dutch voters. Public funding for campaign initiatives was too fragmented, which made it hard to do ‘serious’ things. Only a few political parties campaigned actively. The government itself was only lukewarm in its support. The ‘no’ campaign was much more committed, visible, creative and lively. The problem was of course that the ‘no’-voters were much more easily mobilized – ironically not so much because they feel so strongly about the Association Agreement with Ukraine, but because they feel so angry with the European Union. Ukraine, in this sense, became an unfortunate victim of a few things that it had nothing to do with: 1) Dutch tinkering with new forms of more participatory democracy; 2) the growing resentment against ‘the system’ in certain parts of our population that are ending up on the ‘wrong’ side of globalization; and 3) the fundamental discussion about the future direction of the European Union.
The full article can be downloaded here.
Photo credit: thisisbossi via Foter.com / CC BY-SA
