Eleventh Global Studies Conference

Abstract

This paper develops the idea that referendums in Eastern Europe’s recent history can be defined by their aggressive style and the prominence of identity politics. These characteristics concur with foundational moments of liberal democracies in the region, established concomitantly with the end of the Cold War. During this period, referendums were instrumental in the establishment of new definitions of the national community, which frequently involved territorial changes and exclusion of minorities. In the name of the people, voters were faced with existential dilemmas that, in fact, were defined in terms of the strengthening of local elites, rather than in terms of fortifying democratic institutions. Thus, referendums became an initial proof of the democratic character of new regimes, even in those cases in which the procedure was boosted by right-wing or ultranationalist populist actors. These dynamics eventually had an impact in the development of referendums in Western Europe, which, until the mid-two-thousands, had been working as balancers established democracies. Hence, events such as the French and Dutch European Constitution referendums in 2005, the 2015 Greek referendum, the Brexit referendum in 2016, and Catalan regional government successive attempts to celebrate a secessionist referendum, can be depicted as sequels of a long-term dynamics initiated in Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War.