ABSTRACT
This chapter draws the empirical evidence from a broader project that investigates the voting behaviour in six referendums: on the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe (TCE) in Spain, France, the Netherlands and Luxembourg in 2005; and the double referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland in 2008 and 2009. In this chapter, the author's goal is to focus on referendum debates and discuss how direct democracy functions as a method of deepening European integration. The European integration project started as an elitist one, without explicit approval by the public. This was a necessary exclusion of public opinion, as the post-World War II European public was highly emotional and potentially hostile to cooperation with Germany. The chapter explores the existing literature on the Union's democratic deficit and by using interview and survey data discusses how sudden politicization via referendums challenges the deepening process.
