Rediscovering Europe in the Netherlands - St Antony's College ...

safeguards and direct citizen participation
firmer sense of leadership. The experiences with referenda on Treaty
amendments in Denmark and Ireland, for example, reveal that – notwithstanding
the complexity of the issue – in a carefully prepared campaign
both the key points of the discussion and the various arguments of proponents
and opponents can become clear and understandable to the public.
This would address the many criticisms of the role played by politicians in
the European referendum campaign and the lack of co-ordination and leadership,
especially on the part of the ‘Yes’ camp (Crum 2007b). Thus it can
be convincingly argued that some of the problems with the 1 June 2005
referendum can be attributed to a lack of familiarity with the instrument.
Opponents of referenda argue that direct ballots undermine the function of
politicians as representatives of the people. In a representative democracy,
citizens elect representatives, whom they entrust with the power to take
political decisions on their behalf. Citizens should then not have to be
presented with the chore of having to make such decisions. Referenda can,
in this sense, indeed be seen as a means for politicians to displace their own
responsibilities on to the citizens. This argument also surfaced in discussions
on the Dutch referendum on Europe. However, Elzinga (2005: 100-3)
adds a little more context to this tension between indirect democracy and
referenda. Not only does the representative system have what he describes
as a ‘dynamic’ character, so that even in an indirect democracy, mps are
‘directly’ influenced by citizens and interest groups; but experiences in
other countries indicate that referenda may also offer remedies to problems
involving the functioning of traditional representative systems. For
instance, a referendum forces political parties to adopt an active profile
on specific issues vis-à-vis the electorate. This can be particularly relevant
for European issues, which seldom surface during mainstream political
debates (see chapter 2).
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Another shortcoming involves the ‘bluntness’ of the instrument: a referendum
indeed reduces often complex policy issues to a single simplistic,
dichotomous choice (yes/no; for/against). This polarisation of proponents
and opponents can hamper the creation of a well-considered policy
perspective on a theme such as Europe, which offers scope for a multifaceted
and nuanced picture. In this way, a referendum can be an obstacle to
the initiation of a substantive debate, which goes beyond the ‘more/less
Europe’ dichotomy.
Moreover, social psychology teaches us that referenda of this type engender
a natural tendency to cast a ‘No’ vote. Since a ‘Yes’ vote implies agreement
with the proposed policy, there is apparently no chance to influence
that policy. While ‘voice’ is very important for trust (Hirschman 1970), the