12 Turnout
referendum, Centre for Research on Direct Democracy (C2D), direct democracy, report, worldwide
As we can see in Figure 12.1, the average turnout in referendums has decreased from 75 % in the 1940s to just under 50 % today. The trend is similar over the regions, except for Oceania, where participation is recovering after a long period of decline and is increasing on average (see Figure 12.2).
Looking at turnout by institutional trigger type, we find that bottom-up referendums have the lowest turnout, followed by top-down referendums. Automatic referendums seem to have the highest turnout. However, there are vast differences over the different regions, as can be seen in Figure 12.2 and and Figure 12.3. While participation in national bottom-up referendums in the Americas dramatically decreased over the last decade, the opposite trend is observed in Oceania.
