The World of Referendums

2024 edition

Yearly Referendum Database (RDB) report

Keywords

referendum, Centre for Research on Direct Democracy (C2D), direct democracy, report, worldwide

Preface

We are pleased to present the World of Referendums - 2024 Edition report. It is the second such report compiled by a team at the Centre for Democracy Studies Aarau (ZDA) at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. The report is based on data contained in the unique Referendum Database (RDB). We define referendums as instances of “(…) [a] popular vote on an issue of policy that is organized by the state or at least by a state-like entity, such as the authorities of a de facto state” (Mendez and Germann 2016, 144). So defined, the referendum includes both votes on government proposals as well as citizens’ initiatives.

In this iteration of the World of Referendums report, our aim is to provide a graphical and descriptive assessment of institutional availability and referendum practice with a special focus on national and subnational referendums in Switzerland. As a word of caution, we would like to remind the reader that this is a largely atheoretical data report. The data presented may reveal many interesting patterns and further avenues for future analyses based on theories and concepts from democracy studies, institutionalism and comparative public policy.

This report has been thoroughly compiled and checked by the authors. Any mistakes that remain are our own. We are aware that the Referendum Database may contain inconsistencies or missing events. This is why we are grateful for your critical feedback, either using Hypothes.is annotations or via e-mail to .

Introduction to the RDB

The Referendum Database (RDB), formerly known as the c2d Referendum Database, is hosted by the University of Zurich’s Centre for Democracy Studies Aarau (ZDA), an academic research centre dedicated to the study of democracy in Switzerland and around the world.

The RDB is committed to the documentation of referendum results at the national and partly at the subnational level on a global scale, and in particular at the cantonal level for Switzerland. As of 2024, the RDB contains information on 3,000 referendums at the national level and 15,000 referendums at the subnational level in over 200 countries and territories worldwide since 1791. For Switzerland alone, the Referendum Database contains data on around 700 national referendums since 1793, and around 7,000 cantonal referendums since 1970. For each of these referendums, we have recorded the institutional context and characteristics such as the trigger, the question put forward to the voters, the turnout, the outcome, etc. In total, we collect around eighty data points for each referendum. The RDB can be accessed here. Alternatively, the R package rdb is offered to access the database’s content directly.

History of the RDB

From 1994 to 2007, the Referendum Database was built up and developed at the Centre for Research on Direct Democracy (c2d) at the Department of Constitutional Law of the University of Geneva. The centre brought together researchers in law, political science and sociology studying direct democracy as institutions and political practice. The c2d promoted research on direct democracy from a pluridisciplinary perspective and also provided information, advice, and counselling on various aspects to public authorities (Auer and Bützer 2001). The Referendum Database was originally funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) project Dynamique et actualité de la démocratie directe dans un Etat fédéral grant no 39348 at the University of Geneva, directed by professors Andreas Auer and Hanspeter Kriesi. It was further developed with funds from the SNSF project La démocratie communale en Suisse: vue générale, institutions et expériences dans les villes 1990–2000 grant no 59366, and other projects.

In fall 2007, the Centre for Research on Direct Democracy and the Referendum Database were migrated to the Centre for Democracy Studies Aarau. Maintenance and development of the RDB was defined as one of the founding purposes of the ZDA. In the following years, the database was further developed, extended, and improved; for example by closing gaps in the data on voting results in Swiss cantons or by automating the coding of international voting results. In 2018, the database was completely redesigned and made available in a new format.

Over the years, the RDB has served as the basis for more than fifty scientific publications on direct democracy in Switzerland and worldwide. To support these research efforts, the RDB strives to become the most comprehensive empirical collection on referendums worldwide. This is why we continue to improve the database and add further data, especially from votes at the subnational (state and local) levels. At the same time, we are overhauling the RDB data structure to better encompass the historical and current legal foundations of referendums. The RDB is to provide accurate, up to date, and easily accessible data for referendum researchers worldwide.

Concurrently, we valorize the existing data in the form of annual reports and academic publications. This is why we initiated this World of Referendums (WoR) report series. In addition, we strive to regularly publish cutting edge academic research on referendums around the world.

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, we would like to pay homage to the founders of the Referendum Database, namely professors Andreas Auer, Jean-Daniel Delley and Hanspeter Kriesi, who all worked at the Centre for Research on Direct Democracy (c2d) at the University of Geneva at the time. Over the years, many additional people were involved in the development, maintenance and expansion of the Referendum Database.

Collaborators at the University of Geneva from 1994 to 2007 were in alphabetical order: Andreas Auer, Antje Beck, Marco Breitenmoser, Michael Bützer, Jean-Daniel Delley, Frédéric Esposito, Philippe Gerber, Sabine Haenni-Hildbrand, Guita Korvalian, Nicolas Kozuchowski, Reto Kreuzer, Hanspeter Kriesi, Claudio Mascotto, Jan Prince, Irène Renfer, Frank Schuler, Uwe Serdült, Bénédicte Tornay, Alexander Trechsel, Nicolas von Arx, Valérie Vulliez-Boget, Tobias Zellweger, and Serge Zogg.

Collaborators at the Centre for Democracy Studies Aarau at the University of Zurich from 2007 until today in alphabetical order include: Mayowa Alaye, Corsin Bisaz, Salim Brüggemann, Lukas Christen, Magdalena Despotov, Juri Ezzaini, Norina Frehner, Louis Gebistorf, Micha Germann, Andreas Glaser, Robin Gut, Joey Jüstrich, Kymani Koelewijn, Daniel Kübler, Beat Kuoni, Irina Lehner, Sarah Lüthold, Fernando Mendez, Beat Müller, Joel Probst, Gabriela Rohner, Liana Sala, Uwe Serdült, Evren Somer, Gianluca Sorrentino, Anastasyia Souslova, Andrin Walla, Yanina Welp, Jonathan Wheatley, and Jonas Wüthrich.

A special thank you goes to the following persons for their inputs and critical comments on this edition of the World of Referendums report: Laurent Bernhard, Benjamin Böhler, Junmo Cheon, Michaela Fischer, Louis Gebistorf, Andreas Glaser, Gabriel Hofmann, Daniel Kübler, Luka Markić, Joel Probst, and Marine Trichet.

Auer, Andreas, and Michael Bützer, eds. 2001. Direct Democracy. The Eastern and Central European Experience. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Mendez, Fernando, and Micha Germann. 2016. “Contested Sovereignty. Mapping Referendums on Sovereignty over Time and Space.” British Journal of Political Science 48 (1): 141–65.