REFERENDUM VOTING - ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR IN THE 1992 CONSTITUTIONALREFERENDUM

Referendums are rare events in most parliamentary democracies, and whe n they do occur they present an analytical puzzle. Are they such unusu al events that they fall outside of the theoretical frameworks familia r to students of elections? Or, even though they enter political life infrequently, can they be understood as something not entirely foreign to our thinking about electoral politics? Here, we argue that voting in referendums such as the constitutional referendum of October 26, 19 92 is driven by many of the same factors that are present in elections -parties, leaders, issues, a campaign timetable, the interplay between long- and short-term forces and the dynamic of the campaign itself. I n spite of their unique features, referendums can be understood in ter ms of models of voting behaviour familiar to students of elections in Canada and elsewhere. But, devoid of some of the long-term partisan an d social anchors which play a role in elections, their outcome is even more dependent on the short-term elements of the campaign. As such, r eferendums are subject to greater volatility and uncertainty than that typically found in ordinary parliamentary elections.