Institutional Conflict and Electoral Stakes: Explaining the Implementation of Referendum Policies in Romania

Policy proposals are the essence of referendums. Earlier research focuses extensively on the nature of policies, how certain policies make it to the ballot or how political actors refer to these policies. However, there is little information about why some policies approved through referendums are implemented and others are not. This paper seeks to address this gap in the literature and aims to explain what drives the post-referendum policy implementation. It focuses on five bottom-up referendums in Romania between 2007 and 2019, all initiated by the country president. These referendums produced policy outcomes but only in one out the five instances the policy was implemented. Our qualitative approach uses process tracing and tests the explanatory potential of cohabitation (president and cabinet in a semi-presidential system), the proximity of elections, the government stability, and the saliency of the issue (policy) for the public.