Table of Contents

List of Figures
List of Tables
Preface
Part One: The Theoretical Framework
1: Introduction: Referendums in a European Context
2: A Theory of Referendum Behaviour
Part Two: A Comparative Study of Referendum Behaviour
3: A Comparative Analysis of Voting Behaviour
4: Campaign Effects in Referendums
5: Framing Effects in Referendums: Experimental Evidence
Part Three: Case Studies
6: Voter Competence: What do Voters Need to Know?
7: From No to Yes: The Danish and Irish Referendums on the Maastricht and Nice Treaties
8: Campaign Dynamics in the Referendums on the European Constitution
Part Four: Conclusions and Implications
9: Lessons and Future Challenges
Appendix 1: List of data sources
Appendix 2: Descriptive statistics
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Sara Binzer Hobolt is Lecturer in Comparative European Politics at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. She has published widely on referendums, elections, public opinion, and European integration.

Reviews

Hobarts book can be seen as advanced puzzle-solving that is, her research fills out the gaps and adds new exemplars to the existing paradigmatic framework of the reasoning voter... This is a specialist study, and not a book for the masses. But this does not change the fact that Europe in Question is a scholarly and erudite book that answers many of the questions regarding why voters have on occasion defied their leaders and voted no to further European. integration.
*Matt Qvortrup, Cranfield University, Political Studies Review*

By looking at both the contextual and the individuals levels, the author presents a spatial proximity model of voting...The conclusions and observations provided challenge the all-too-often instrumental logic used by the EU, whereby it is believed that more information on the benefits of the EU will result in more yes votes and in a more pro-European attitude...all in all, this book is a magnificent and fluent read for anyone interested in voting behaviour and the challenges of direct democracy.
*Petra Huyst, Ghent University for Journal of Common Market Studies*