https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8148-7628
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ABSTRACT
The use of referendums to forge, ratify and enact peace agreements is on the rise. In growing numbers, peacemakers have organized referendums in order to aid peace talks and ameliorate post-settlement peacebuilding. Despite this increasingly common practice, there is little consensus on whether referendums help or hurt peace. Such votes can be uniquely powerful tools for addressing sovereignty incompatibilities driving armed conflict. However, dangerous outcomes include mass violence, intensified polarization, and the undermining peace agreement implementation. Based on 31 case studies and elite interviews conducted in Colombia, Cyprus, East Timor, Indonesia, and South Sudan, this article elaborates an analytical framework for the uses of referendums in peace processes and identifies specific benefits and risks associated with differing types. I argue that referendums can improve peacemaking and conditions for implementing negotiated settlements when they are well-designed and well-implemented.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful for feedback and support from Charles T. Call, Boaz Atzili, Neophytos Loizides, Joana Amaral and the three anonymous reviewers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
ORCID
Katherine Collin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8148-7628
Notes
1 Wambaugh, Monograph on Plebiscites.
2 Hancock, “No Alternative”; Qvortrup, Referendums and Ethnic Conflict.
3 Hogbladh, “Peace Agreements”; Toft, Securing the Peace; and Wallensteen, Understanding Conflict Resolution.
4 Loizides, “Negotiated Settlements and Peace Referendums,” 235.
5 Amaral, “Do Peace Negotiations Shape Settlement Referendums?”
6 McEvoy, “Letting the People(s) Decide.”
7 Reilly, “Democratic Validation,” 240.
8 Lee and Mac Ginty, “Context and Postconflict Referendums.”
9 Qvortrup analyses referendums used to manage nationalist claims over more than 200 years and concludes that referendums do not aggravate existing conflict nor bear increased risk of electoral violence. The votes are held under a wide variety of historic and structural conditions and most are organized in peace, not for the purposes of peacemaking. Qvortrup, Referendums and Ethnic Conflict, 146–59.
10 Butler and Ranney, Referendums Around the World; Qvortrup, “History of Ethno-Nationalist Referendums”; and Wambaugh, Monograph on Plebiscites. These lists were supplemented by a review of conflicts and peace agreements in order to capture referendums that were agreed upon, legalized, but not held. See Peace Accords Matrix; Peace Agreements Database.
11 See Altman, Measuring the Potential of Direct Democracy Around the World (1900–2014).
12 Hogbladh, “Peace Agreements.”
13 Butler and Ranney, Referendums Around the World, 3–4; LeDuc, The Politics of Direct Democracy, 16.
14 Sambanis and Schulhofer-Wohl, “Sovereignty Rupture as a Central Concept in Quantitative Measures of Civil War.”
15 Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency and Civil War”; and Toft, Geography of Ethnic Violence.
16 Sambanis, “Ethnic and Nonethnic Civil Wars”; Sarkees and Wayman, Resort to War; and Themnér and Wallensteen, “Armed Conflicts.”
17 Caspersen, Peace Agreements; Hodie and Hartzell, “Signals of Reconciliation”; Weller and Nobbs, Settlement of Ethnic Conflicts; and Wolff, “Conflict Management in Divided Societies.”
18 Griffiths, Age of Secession; and Sorens, Secessionism.
19 Muggah and Krause, “Closing the Gap”; and Steenkamp, “In the shadows.”
20 Collier, Wars, Guns, and Votes; Gillies, Elections in Dangerous Places; and Mansfield and Snyder, Electing to Fight.
21 Qvortrup, Referendums and Ethnic Conflict.
22 Schiendlin, “Phantom Referendums.”
23 Bosnia-Herzegovina’s 1992 independence referendum fits this description. Those most likely to vote against independence were not allowed to participate by state authorities in Serbia and Serbian-controlled areas. The 2016 vote in Darfur is another example. Voter registration was restricted and the vote boycotted by opposition. The 1988 vote on the Matignon Accords in the French Pacific territory, New Caledonia might also be framed as unilateral. It was held in all of France to avoid rejection within New Caledonia.
24 Paired votes included as single cases: Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland referendums on the Good Friday Agreements; northern and southern Cyprus on the Annan Plan; Guatemala and Belize on referring their territorial dispute to the ICJ.
25 Cheneval and El-Wakil “Do Referendums Enhance or Threaten Democracy?”
26 Altman, Direct Democracy Worldwide; and LeDuc, Politics of Direct Democracy.
27 Butler and Ranney, Referendums Around the World, 216.
28 Bjørklund, “The Demand for Referendum”; and LeDuc, Politics of Direct Democracy.
29 Morisi, “Voting Under Uncertainty.”
30 Collin, “Peacemaking Referendums in Oceania.”
31 Kerstig, “Direct Democracy in Constitutional Processes.”
32 Loizides, “Negotiated Settlements and Peace Referendums.”
33 Ibid., 237.
34 Strauss, “1992 Referendum in South Africa.”
35 Ibid.
36 Matanock and García-Sanchez, “Colombian Paradox”; and Taki, “Role of Mass Media.”
37 Amaral, “Do Peace Negotiations Shape Settlement Referendums?”; McEvoy, “Letting the People(s) Decide.”
38 Hancock, “No Alternative.”
39 Martin, Kings of Peace.
40 E-mail message to author, 18 April 2013.
41 Interview with negotiation team advisor, Bogotá, July 2018.
42 Lee and Mac Ginty, “Context and Postconflict Referendums.”
43 Lee and Mac Ginty, “Context and Postconflict Referendums”; Brett and Delgado, Constitution-Building Processes in Democratization.
44 LeDuc, “Opinion Formation in Referendum Campaigns.”
45 Matanock and García-Sánchez, “Colombian Paradox.”
46 Taki, “Role of Mass Media.”
47 Interview, Takis Hadjidemetriou, former Minister for European Integration, Nicosia, May, 2013.
48 LeDuc, “Opinion Formation in Referendum Campaigns.”
49 Quoted in Lordos, “Secret Diplomacy to Public Diplomacy,” 168. Nikos Anastasiades and Demetris Christofias led the two largest Greek-Cypriot parties.
50 Hannay, Cyprus.
51 Interview, Wlodek Cibor, former Senior Advisor to UNFICYP, Nicosia, May 2013.
52 Álvarez-Vanegas, Garzón-Vergara and Bernal, Voting for Peace.
53 Hancock, Joshua, and Glen, “Framing the Good Friday Agreement”; and Liendo and Braithwaite, “Colombian Attitudes Toward Peace.”
54 Dodd, Cyprus Conflict.
55 Álvarez-Vanegas, Garzón-Vergara, and Bernal, Voting for Peace; and Liendo and Braithwaite, “Colombian Attitudes Toward Peace.”
56 Álvarez-Vanegas, Garzón-Vergara and Bernal, “Understanding ‘No’.”
57 Lee and Mac Ginty, “Context and Postconflict Referendums”; Matanock and García-Sanchez, “Colombian Paradox”; and Taki, “Role of Mass Media.”
58 Hayes and McAllister, “Who Voted for Peace?”
59 Carey, “Maya Perspectives on the 1999 Referendum.”
60 Interview, Jok Madut Jok, executive director of the Sudd Institute, Juba, July 2013.
61 Regan, “Phases of the Negotiation Process.”
62 Chappell, The Kanak Awakening.
63 Theofilopoulou. The United Nations and Western Sahara.
64 Regan, “Phases of the Negotiation Process.”
65 The Philippines is an exception. President Marcos organized a 1977 vote on autonomy in order to control and restrict the autonomy agreement reached in the Libya Agreement. President Aquino’s 1989 plebiscites were a response to that precedent.
66 Johnson, Waging Peace in Sudan.
67 Cockett, Sudan, 162.
68 LeDuc, “Opinion Formation in Referendum Campaigns.”
69 Interview, Kuyok Abol Kuyok, formerly of the Referendum Taskforce, Juba, July 2013.
70 Bartu, “Wrestling with the Integrity of a Nation.”
71 Zunes and Mundy, Western Sahara.
72 Johnson, The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars.
73 Johnson, Waging Peace in Sudan.
74 quoted in Johnson, Waging Peace in Sudan, 172.
75 Partition frequently fails to make peace without conflict recurrence. Partition can undermine democracy, as the new majority consolidates power at the expense of a new minority, causing fresh grievances. New institutions in new states are less adept at conflict management. Some form of autonomy is a more popular solution but also has pitfalls.
76 Aalen, “Making Unity Unattractive.”
77 Robinson, If You Leave Us.
78 Interview, former presidential advisor Dewi Fortuna Anwar, Jakarta, May 2013.
79 Interview, former General Kiki Syahnakri, Jakarta, April 2013.
80 Loizides, “Negotiated Settlements and Peace Referendums.”
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Katherine Collin
Katherine Collin is an assistant teaching professor at Georgetown University's Department of Government and the associate director of Georgetown University's MA program in Conflict Resolution. Her work is on post-war stabilization, peacebuilding, and democratization, in particular the role of elections in post-conflict transitions. Her research explores the use of referendums in peace processes. Collin has a background in post-conflict election advising and administration. She worked on electoral programmes for peace operations on Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Nepal, South Sudan, and Libya. She has conducted research in Afghanistan, Colombia, Cyprus, East Timor, Indonesia, Romania, and South Sudan. Collin received her bachelor’s from the University of California, Berkeley in history and peace and conflict studies; her master's in international policy from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey; and her doctorate in international relations from American University’s School of International Service.