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.