Cue-taking, populist attitudes, and support for holding a referendum: evidence from survey experiments

Why do citizens support holding a referendum? In this article, we argue that citizens are instrumental by using heuristics and cues from parties, independent experts, and the population to decide whether to hold a referendum. We further expect that populist and non-populist citizens differ in how they respond to these cues. Using pre-registered survey experiments in Austria and Germany, we find that citizens’ support depends mainly on their attitudes towards the respective policy and the opinion of their preferred party, while the views of experts and the public play only a subordinate role. Crucially, we find no systematic differences between populist and non-populist citizens, suggesting that even populists’ support for holding a referendum depends mainly on instrumental rather than normative considerations. This study provides comprehensive insights into the causal mechanisms of support for direct democracy and their implications for liberal and representative democracy.