Authority Referendum

Votes in which only the political authorities of the representative system (legislative and executive) decide on the initiation and content we define as referendums. Whereas Morel (2007, 2018) for example separates the government and the legislative as actors, we combine them in one type. In parliamentary systems they are entangled anyway and votes are launched by political majorities. In presidential systems the category of the referendum applies when votes are launched by the president or by parliament in a decision taken by the majority.

Especially for pure top-down instruments like this, the term plebiscite is often used. Vatter defines a plebiscite as a type of ad-hoc referendum (Vatter, 2009: 128). Also for Moeckli, a plebiscite is an ad-hoc vote launched by state authorities, which is not formally codified in the constitution and can be either consultative or binding (Moeckli, 1994: 50). Altman and Sanchez point out that “[s]ome typologies use the term “plebiscite” for “either the bypassing of one representative institution by another (usually the executive avoiding the legislative branch), the renunciation of responsibility for harsh policies, or attempts to legitimize extant policies” (Altman/Sánchez, 2020: 29). 

We refrain from using the term plebiscite. According to Morel, the etymological meaning of plebiscite comes from “plebis scitum” which means “degree of the plebs” and “[…] historically it designated the decisions of the assemblies of the plebs in Rome; but at the end of the Roman Republic, with Caesar and Pompey it became a process to consolidate their omnipotence” (Morel, 2018: 57). In that line, the term was also used from the 15th century on to Bonapartism and Nazi-Germany (Qvortrup, 2018: 21). Serdült and Welp use the word “plebiscitarian” to label the risk of manipulation in direct democracy (Serdült/Welp, 2012: 70). Given its history, Morel sees a "variety of meanings attached to the word "plebiscite" in academic literature, as well as in national traditions" which makes its use rather problematic (Morel, 2018: 28).

We follow the argument of Morel and agree that the term plebiscite has several meanings attached to it, which are not necessarily connected to democracy. This makes its use inappropriate for today’s referendum practice in democratic systems. Instead, we speak of authority referendum.