Referendums provide citizen control over policy outcomes under various institutional provisions. This article offers a theoretical model covering four types of referendums, which differ with respect to their likelihood of occurring and their policy consequences. Implications derived from this...

The literature on referendums comes to conflicting assessments: for some authors referendums are equivalent to direct democracy, for others, a poor and unfounded substitute. In addition, existing classifications use very diverse criteria, and theoretical models lead to different results...