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Electoral Studies 29 (2010) 227–238

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Electoral Studies

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/e lectstud

Why are highly informed citizens sceptical of referenda?

Cameron Anderson a,*, Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant b,1

a Department of Political Science, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada N6A 5C2b Department of Political Studies, Queen’s University, Mackintosh-Corry Hall, Kingston, ON, Canada K7L 3N6

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 23 February 2009Received in revised form 18 December 2009Accepted 20 December 2009

Keywords:ReferendaPolitical knowledgeInformation effectsDirect democracy

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 519 661 2111x813904.

E-mail addresses: cander54@uwo.ca (C. Anders(E. Goodyear-Grant).

1 Tel.: þ1 613 533 6240; fax: þ1 613 533 6848.

0261-3794/$ – see front matter � 2009 Elsevier Ltddoi:10.1016/j.electstud.2009.12.004

a b s t r a c t

Past work on attitudes toward the use of referenda finds that the most politically informedcitizens are more sceptical of its use than their less informed counterparts. An intriguingtension presents itself in that those citizens who may be best equipped for referendum voting,the highly informed and politically sophisticated, are the least likely to support the use of thistool of direct democracy. Using data from Canadian Election Studies, we consider threeexplanations for relative referenda scepticism among political sophisticates. Our analysesprovide evidence to support a confidence in government explanation and a concern forminority rights explanation, but not an incompetent public explanation – a curious findingconsidering the centrality of citizen competence in the theoretical literature on referenda.

� 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Normative and empirical debates about direct democ-racy have focused in many ways on citizen competence.Citizen competence has figured prominently in debatesabout whether voters are able to make wise, or at the veryleast reasoned, choices in referendum votes (e.g., Bowlerand Donovan, 1998; Cronin, 1989); whether voters are ableto withstand elite manipulation during referendumcampaigns (e.g., Lupia and Johnston, 2001); and about thefactors that affect the simplicity or the complexity ofreferendum voting, such as the wording of referendumquestions, the placement of referendum questions ormeasures on ballots (e.g., Cronin, 1989; Zimmerman, 1986).While some scholars are optimistic about electorates’fitness for referendum voting, others are pessimists.

Not only are there differences in citizens’ abilities tonegotiate referendum voting, there is also important vari-ation on the prior question of whether and/or how oftenreferenda should be used. Indeed, variation in support for

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on), egg@queensu.ca

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the use of referenda based on information levels is a keyfinding in the literature. At the same time that highlyinformed, politically sophisticated voters are the best-equipped referendum voters, they are also the mostcomparatively sceptical of its use as a tool to make politicaldecisions (e.g., Anderson and Goodyear-Grant, 2005;Dalton et al., 2001; Donovan and Karp, 2006: 680–681). Asa result, an intriguing empirical tension presents itself: highaptitude for referendum voting is accompanied by greaterscepticism concerning its use. This article analyzes whythere are information effects in attitudes toward the use ofreferenda.

Using data from the 1997 and 2000 Canadian ElectionStudies, we assess three explanations for referenda scep-ticism among highly informed citizens: 1) the incompetentpublic explanation 2) the confidence in governmentexplanation, and 3) the concern for minority rights expla-nation. Examining public attitudes about the use of refer-enda is an important undertaking, particularly given theglobal increase in the use of referenda over the last fourdecades (e.g., LeDuc, 2003; Scarrow, 2001), and particularlyin light of two gaps in the literature identified by Donovanand Karp (2006): 1) the dearth of efforts to understand thenature of and explanations for opinion on referenda, 2) thefact that very little of the existing work actually modelspublic opinion on the use of referenda.

2 A fourth plausible explanation to account for information effects insupport for referenda is that the more knowledgeable are more externallyefficacious (the belief that the system is responsive to individuals’ polit-ical efforts). While this is theoretically possible, ancillary analyses (notshown) find that external efficacy has no effect on reducing the knowl-edge gap in support for the use of referenda, nor does its inclusion changeany of the central conclusions of the analyses or the article. As such, theanalyses are conducted exclusive of its consideration.

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2. Referenda and referenda scepticism

The allure of the referendum is not new, nor is thecitizen-participation rationale commonly employed tojustify its use. The endorsement and use of referenda havebeen closely associated with populism (e.g., Riker, 1982), anideology built on the premise that ordinary citizens shouldcome together to act politically in order to transcend artifi-cial divisions created by greed, corruption, and elite domi-nance. Direct democratic modes of decision making enhancethe role of the citizen in policy making, which fits withpopulists’ ‘‘faith in the capacity of ‘ordinary people’’’ andwish to prevent ‘‘concentrations of political and economicpower’’ (Bowler and Donovan, 2002, 2006). In the US,Bowler and Donovan (Ibid.) find that through the course ofthe late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the mostdirectly democratic forms of initiative were adopted instates with the strongest populist forces, driven principallyby the People’s Party. Likewise, across the globe, populistparties of various stripes have commonly endorsed the useof referenda. The Progressive Movement of the 1920s and,later, the former Reform and Canadian Alliance parties inCanada; the Front national in France; the now-defunct NewDemocracy in Sweden; and New Zealand First are illustra-tive examples.

Within the current climate that frequently turns to talkof democratic deficit and debate about increasing the role ofthe public in political processes the referendum iscommonly touted as an antidote to inaccessible policy-making processes. Publics around the world appear to agreewith this sentiment, as opinion toward the use of referendais generally favourable (e.g., Cronin, 1989; Dalton et al.,2001; Donovan and Karp, 2006; Hibbing and Theiss-Morse,2002; Karp and Aimer, 2002). In Canada, pro-referendumattitudes tend to prevail in the aggregate among 50–60percent of survey respondents (e.g., Anderson and Good-year-Grant, 2005; Clarke et al., 2000; Johnston et al., 2006;Mendelsohn and Parkin, 2001a,b). Yet, attitudes toward theuse of referenda certainly vary. Despite the normativeappeal of referenda – indeed, what means of decisionmaking could be more democratic that referenda? – manycitizens are relatively sceptical. In one survey, mostrespondents said that referenda should be held only‘‘sometimes’’, suggesting that ‘‘support for direct democracydoes not appear to be very deep’’ (Mendelsohn and Parkin,2001a: 4). In their cross-national study of public support forreferenda, Donovan and Karp (2006) hypothesized a posi-tive relationship between education and support for refer-enda, with cognitive mobilization as the causal mechanismlinking the two. Data from four of their six country casescontradicted this hypothesis (three Nordic countries andCanada), while null findings were reported for the other twocase countries (Switzerland and New Zealand).

This leads directly to this article’s central researchquestion: why are there information effects in attitudestoward the use of referenda? Why do we see less enthu-siasm for the use of referenda among highly informed,politically sophisticated voters, the very group who mightnaturally embrace citizen-centred, elite-directing forms ofpolitical decision making, as predicted by the cognitivemobilization (Dalton, 1984) and decline of deference theses

(Nevitte, 1996)? Arguments in favour of and opposition todirect democratic decision making can take different forms;some are process-oriented arguments, and some areoutcome-oriented. While arguments in favour of the use ofreferenda tend to emphasize process – the symbolic andsubstantive value of creating a larger role for citizens inpolitical decision-making, which are undoubtedly consid-erable – the explanations for sophisticates’ referendascepticism that we test in this article focus largely onoutcomes, that is, the negative effects that the use ofreferenda can produce. In many ways, this echoes the waygeneral debate about the benefits and drawbacks ofdirect democratic decision-making has been structured forcenturies. The explanations for referenda scepticism amongpolitical sophisticates we test are: 1) the incompetent publicexplanation, 2) the confidence in government explanation,and 3) the concern for minority rights explanation.2

2.1. Incompetent public

Competence has always been a central feature of work oncitizen involvement in political decision making, as discussedabove. With scholarly work on direct democracy, particularlynormative analyses, the issue typically tackled is whethercitizens are sufficiently competent to perform direct roles inlaw and policy making. Typically, the competence debate hasplayed out around questions about voters’ levels of politicalinformation, political attention, and abilities to withstandmanipulation by parties and other elites during referendumcampaigns. We remain neutral on competence questions. Infact, if anything, the possibilities presented by work oncampaign learning (e.g., Gelman and King, 1993), low-infor-mation shortcuts (e.g., Sniderman et al., 1991; Popkin, 1991),and collective rationality (e.g., Page and Shapiro, 1992) maysuggest that relatively uninformed citizens are able to makesensible choices at the referendum ballot box.

Rather than ask whether citizens are competent enoughfor referendum voting, the question we address is whetherhighly informed citizens think or believe that the majority oftheir peers are insufficiently competent for referendumvoting. Following Mutz’s work on impersonal influence(1998) – how beliefs and perceptions about anonymousothers or the ‘‘generalized other’’ influence citizens’ judg-ments – we hold that individual voters do receive infor-mation about the views and traits of mass collectives, or the‘‘generalized other’’, and that these do affect political atti-tudes and positions. We propose that political sophisticatestake a particularly pessimistic view on the question; that is,their estimations of the political competence of the votingpublic are more critical than those of poorly and moder-ately informed citizens. Thus, referenda scepticism amonghighly informed citizens may be a function of more

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prevalent beliefs among this segment of the electorate thatthe general public is ill-equipped to weigh in directly onlaw and policy, because of perceptions that the public iseither unable to make sense of the political world orunwilling to incur the information costs of doing so.

While the incompetent public explanation suggestspolitical sophisticates’ support for the use of referenda isdiminished because they have relatively pessimistic viewson the cognitive and informational resources of their peers,there is an additional mechanism through which this effectmay operate. Because highly knowledgeable citizens tend tohave more realistic estimations of the difficulties involved inpolicy making (e.g., Galston, 2001), and likely betterunderstand the challenges presented by complex refer-endum questions, their estimations of the competence ofthe general public may represent more salient consider-ations affecting their attitudes toward the use of referenda.

Thus, we propose that politically knowledgeable citizensare not only more skeptical than the electorate at large aboutthe general competence of citizens to weigh in on referendaquestions, but they are more likely to connect these negativeviews to their thinking about referenda voting, eitherimplicitly or explicitly, because of a greater awareness of themyriad challenges of political decision making in a complexpolicy environment. In short, politically knowledgeablecitizens know that citizen competence matters to successfulreferenda, so the two mechanisms work together to affectattitudes toward the use of referenda. This discussionsuggests that there may be important variations in attitudestoward the use of referenda among the politically knowledgedepending on the type of referenda that is common in theirjurisdiction. Some referenda are complex. The recent Cana-dian experience with referenda on a complex constitutionalaccord and Quebec sovereignty-association are illustrativeexamples, and their complexity is discussed in more detaillater in the article. The incompetent public explanation maybe more important to highly knowledgeable voters in thesesettings because their exposure is primarily to complexreferenda questions. Other referenda questions, in contrast,are relatively simple, such as referenda on gay marriage,divorce, and other moral issues. Referenda on these types ofissues are not necessarily straightforward, to be sure, but theyare issues on which knowledge of technical policy issues isnot typically necessary.

2.2. Confidence in government

Unpacking the concept ‘confidence in government’ isa challenging undertaking. In our empirical analyses, weoperationalize the concept using a survey question thatasks respondents directly about their confidence in thefederal government. However, it is worthwhile to considerin greater depth what the concept means. In our view,confidence in government is a general attitude that is basedon at least three factors, each of which refers to some moreparticular characteristic relating to how governments andpolitical systems operate: beliefs about whether the systemis responsive to individuals’ political efforts (externalpolitical efficacy), beliefs about whether governments arecompetent stewards of the political system and policyprocess (governance), and beliefs about the ethics of

government behaviour, specifically their propensity forcorruption in varying forms (ethics). A dim or scepticalview on any of these factors could plausibly lead one toplace greater value on citizen-directed forms of policymaking, such as referenda, in order to compensate forperceived shortcomings with respect to the three factors.Citizens who feel that government generally does notrespond to their political demands will likely view directinvolvement in policy making as a fix for failures in therepresentative function. Citizens who do not feel thatgovernments are competent managers that generally makegood decisions will also likely see greater need for citizensto weigh in directly on specific policy changes, becausegovernment cannot be relied upon to make satisfactorydecisions, particularly in the absence of well-defined publicpreferences on specific policy matters. Finally, citizens whobelieve that governments often intentionally take advan-tage of office for inappropriate personal or political gainwill be more likely to hold positive views about the use ofreferenda – and other forms of direct democracy such asinitiative and recall – because they will see substantialgrounds for the policing of elected officials’ behaviour. Infact, attitudes toward the use of recall may be most directlyconnected to this last facet of confidence in government,because this is the mechanism of direct democracy thatprovides for the removal of officials from public office.

What drives confidence in government, as well as itsconstituent elements, is a matter of some debate in theliterature (e.g., Braithwaite and Levi, 1998; Cook andGronke, 2005; Dalton, 2005). Some suggest it is driven byshort-term forces relating primarily to the government ofthe day; others suggest it is a deeper orientation towardgovernment generally. Theoretically, either one could affecthow citizens view the use of referenda. If confidence ingovernment is primarily a barometer of attitudes towardcurrent events and leaders, this could affect attitudestoward greater citizen involvement in political decisionmaking, especially if one is dissatisfied with the currentadministration or policy course. If confidence in govern-ment is a long-term orientation to government and systemmore generally, this will likewise affect in obvious wayshow one views the role of the citizen in the policy process.

Our explanation for how political knowledge interactswith confidence in government to produce greater referendascepticism among the most highly informed citizens focuseson their greater confidence in government institutions andpolitical actors. We know that highly informed voters tend tohave atypically high confidence in government (e.g., Gidengilet al., 2001; Karp et al., 2003). One of the reasons for greaterconfidence in government among the highly knowledgeableis their more realistic judgments about how well governmentperforms its functions given the wide range of factors that canchallenge successful policy making. As Galston points out,‘‘More knowledgeable citizens tend to judge the behavior ofpublic officials as they judge their owndin the context ofcircumstances and incentives, with due regard for innocentoversights and errors as well as sheer chance’’ (2001: 224).

There is likely a second, more sociological element tothis relationship, as well, whereby political actors actuallyare more responsive to the political interests and demandsof those with higher levels of political knowledge. Political

5 The 1997 CES is a three-wave panel survey and was conducted by theInstitute for Social Research (ISR) at York University in Toronto, Canada.The campaign wave of the survey included 3949 respondents (59%response rate, data collected from April 27 to June 1, 1997), of whom 3170completed the post-election survey (80% of first-wave respondents, datacollected from June 3 to July 29, 1997), and 1857 completed a mail-backsurvey (47% of first-wave respondents, data collected from June 19 toOctober 24, 1997). The 2000 CES is also a three-wave panel survey con-ducted by the ISR and Jolicoeur & Associes in Montreal. The campaignwave of the 2000 CES included 3651 respondents (60% response rate, datacollected October 24–November 26, 2000), of which 2852 completed the

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knowledge is positively correlated with education, income,and other socioeconomic indicators (e.g., Delli Carpini andKeeter, 1996; Gidengil et al., 2004), which makes thepolitically knowledgeable a relatively elite and powerfulsegment of the electorate, the very segment from whichpolitical elites tend to be drawn. Politically knowledgeablecitizens also tend to turn out to vote more frequently, paygreater attention to political news, and discuss politicsmore frequently (e.g., Gidengil et al., 2004), facts whichpoliticians, parties, and governments no doubt realize,leading them to actually attend to this segment of thepolitically active electorate in greater measure.

Given the inverse relationship between trust in govern-ment and support for the use of referenda (e.g., Dalton et al.,2001), we propose that greater confidence in government isan expression of relative satisfaction with and trust in thepolitical status quo that renders experimentation with alter-native instruments of political decision making, like refer-enda, unnecessary in the minds of highly informed citizens.3

2.3. Concern for minority rights

Another central feature of the direct democracy literatureis its focus on how referenda affect minority groups (e.g.,Cronin, 1989; Bowler and Donovan, 2001; Sartori, 1987).Referenda are majoritarian instruments with the potentialto create majority tyrannies that trump minority opinions,particularly in cases where referenda thresholds are set atsimple majorities. Empirical analyses suggest that theconcern is well founded. Analyzing three decades of citizeninitiatives and referenda on topics categorized among fivecivil rights domains4 in the US, Gamble (1997) reports thatmajorities ‘‘tyrannized’’ minorities by voting in favour ofrestricting their civil rights in over three-quarters of theseinitiatives and referenda. By comparison, the success or‘pass’ rate of all initiatives and referenda over the period was33 percent (Ibid). More recently, initiatives proposingconstitutional bans on same-sex marriage that were passedby 11 states during the 2004 Presidential election could beseen as further evidence of majority will restricting minor-ities’ rights (e.g., Riggle et al., 2005). Taking a global view,there is mixed evidence on the issue, particularly in theSwiss case where various authors have concluded thatreferenda have not tyrannized minorities (e.g., Frey andGoette, 1998; Lijphart, 2004), likely due to double-majorityprovisions and other safeguards (e.g., LeDuc, 2003).

Our focus with the concern for minority rights explana-tion is not values, per se, but citizens’ abilities to realize that

3 It certainly deserves mention that while we treat confidence ingovernment in our analyses as a variable that mediates the relationshipbetween political knowledge and attitudes toward the use of referenda, itis clearly the case that confidence in government can also be a function ofexperience with the use of referenda and other mechanisms of directdemocracy. Bowler and Donovan (2002), for example, present convincingevidence that experience with direct democracy has impressive effects onboth internal and external political efficacy, because ‘‘direct democracyassures voters that government either is listening to them or has to listento them at some point’’ (376).

4 ‘‘Housing and public accommodations for racial minorities, schooldesegregation, gay rights, English language laws, and AIDS policies’’(Gamble, 1997: 245).

the use of referenda has the potential to violate their values(concern for minority rights, among those who hold suchvalues). In other words, we suggest that concern for minorityrights plays a significant role in diminishing support for theuse of referenda among the highly knowledgeable becausethis group of citizens is more likely than less knowledgeablecitizens to know (or deduce) that referenda pose dangers tothe needs and rights of minorities. Following this, manyuninformed or moderately informed citizens who do prior-itize the rights of minorities may not realize that referendapose dangers to minorities’ rights, thereby failing to makethe connection between their own values and the use ofreferenda. Consequently, for relatively poorly informedcitizens there may be no relationship between their concernfor minority rights and their attitudes toward the use ofreferenda, because many in this group will not draw the linkbetween their values and the consequences of majoritari-anism. Given evidence that relatively uninformed citizenscan experience difficulty correctly linking their own interestsand values to political parties’ positions or policy options(e.g., Althaus, 1998), this hypothesis is on solid footing.

3. Data and methods

The data for these analyses come from the 1997 and 2000Canadian Election Studies (CES).5 Canada provides a strongcase within which to consider the central questions of theanalysis. Canada has relatively recent experience witha national referendum on amending the constitution. Whilethe 1992 referendum on the Charlottetown Accord ulti-mately failed, the substance of the document as well as theprocess of a country-wide campaign and widespread publicdeliberation on the merits of the proposed constitutionalchange provided all Canadians with the opportunity toexperience the exercise of direct collective decision. Outsideof this referendum (and the two sovereignty referenda inQuebec), the use of this instrument of direct democracy is

post-election survey (78% of first-wave respondents, data collectedNovember 28, 2000–March 12, 2001), and 1535 completed the mail-backsurvey (42% of first-wave respondents, no dates provided in CES docu-mentation). For both surveys the sample was designed to represent theCanadian adult population 18 years of age and older, who speak one ofthe two official languages (English and French), who are Canadian citi-zens, and who live in private homes. The samples were drawn usingrandom-digit dialling methods to select households and the birthdayselection method to select eligible respondents within households.Eligible respondents were Canadian citizens 18 years of age and older.The small number of Canadian households without telephones wasobviously excluded from the sampling population for each of the surveys.For further information, including details about calculation of surveyresponse rates, see the CES website at: http://ces-eec.mcgill.ca/ces.html,which includes technical documentation for each of the election studies.

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quite rare in Canada. As a result, for the vast majority ofCanadians in 1997 and 2000 (the years in which our datawere collected), there was limited experience with the use ofreferenda. A third benefit of using the Canadian case is thatCanadians referenda have dealt primarily with constitu-tional issues more than explicitly moral issues such asabortion or same-sex marriage. As a result, Canadians’ viewson the use of referenda are less likely to be biased as a resultof the topics of past referenda.

Our dependent variable is attitudes toward the use ofreferenda, and the wording of the question used to oper-ationalize the dependent variable is virtually identical forthe two election studies. The survey question we use askedrespondents whether referenda on important/controver-sial issues should be held regularly, occasionally, rarely, ornever.6 Responses were rescaled into a binary dependentvariable combining the categories of regularly and occa-sionally (¼1) and rarely or never (¼0).7 In other words, thedependent variable we use in our analyses contains twocategories: those with positive attitudes toward the use ofreferenda and those with negative or sceptical attitudestoward the use of referenda. Recoding the dependentvariable from four categories to two admittedly results ina loss of information, but we contend that this is the bestway to proceed. First, it facilitates a clearer presentation ofour results. Second, given work on interpersonal variationin the interpretation of survey questions and responseoptions (e.g., Brady, 1985; King et al., 2004), we have noway of knowing whether differences between ‘frequent’and ‘occasional’ use of referenda, for example, aresubstantively meaningful. Thus, we have opted to treat allpositive responses the same and all negative responses thesame by combining them into two simple categories.8

Models include a range of control variables, in which wehave only a passing interest.9 Models control for age,

6 In the 2000 CES, half of the sample was asked this question aboutreferenda on ‘‘important issues’’ and half was asked about referenda on‘‘controversial issues’’. While there may be some substantive difference inthe connotations of each version of the question, we have combined theminto a single variable. A comparison of the distribution of responses betweenthese two questions showed very similar patterns (results not shown).

7 ‘Don’t know’ and ‘refused’ responses were coded as missing.8 Analyses (not shown) using the four category dependent variable run

with an ordered logistic regression setup produce the same substantiveresults (direction of effect and statistical significance of theoreticallycentral independent variables).

9 See the Appendix for coding details of all variables included in the analyses.10 On the basis of past research (e.g., Johnston et al., 1996; Popkin and

Dimock, 1998), we conceptualize education and political knowledge asdistinct variables, and thus include education as an additional control in ourmodels. Johnston and his colleagues’ analysis of voting behavior in the 1992Canadian national referendum on the Charlottetown Accord revealed severalimportant points about the relationship between education and politicalknowledge. Most importantly, ‘‘education and information were essentiallyindependent of each other as factors in the vote’’ (Ibid.: 247). In this case,education’s effect on the vote was primarily ‘‘motivational’’ or ‘‘sociological’’,not cognitive. Other scholars have arrived at complementary conclusions onthis point. In their analyses of the 1992 and 1996 American National ElectionStudies (ANES), Popkin and Dimock (1998: 124) found that there issubstantial variation in political information at each education level. Natu-rally, there will always be overlap between education and information, buteducation – higher education, in particular – has known effects on individ-uals’ values and attitudes, including attitudes toward groups, government,and other political objects, that are unrelated to political knowledge.

education,10 region, and election year. Additionally, wehave included a party identification control which indicateswhether the respondent is a partisan of any of the federalparties most closely aligned with support for directdemocracy, including the use of referenda: the Reform(1997) and Canadian Alliance (2000) parties outsideQuebec (e.g., Laycock 1990) and the Bloc Quebecois withinQuebec. We include an attitudinal variable for internalefficacy, which measures the extent to which citizens viewpolitics as too complicated for themselves to understand.We also include a control variable measuring satisfactionwith democracy. The idea here is that those who aresatisfied with the current institutional and procedural set-up – the ‘rules of the game’, essentially – are less likely toendorse experimentation with alternative modes of deci-sion making, but for reasons basically unrelated to ourthree explanatory variables. Following on the satisfactionwith democracy control, we have also included a dummyvariable for partisan identification with the incumbentgovernment at the time of both surveys (the Liberal Party)because feelings about the incumbent party tend to bepositively related to attitudes toward democracy andinstitutional trust (e.g., Citrin, 1974; Levi and Stoker, 2000).

For our variables of greatest theoretical interest, somediscussion is required. Our political knowledge variable isa five-point index which scores respondents’ answers to fivefactual questions about Canadian politics and the twocampaigns. From the 1997 CES, the knowledge index iscomposed of answers to questions including: naming theprovincial premier, the first female Prime Minister of Canada,the federal Minister of Finance, which party was proposing tocut employment in half, and which party was promising tolower personal income taxes by 10%. For the 2000 CES, theknowledge index is constructed from answers to questionson the provincial premier, the federal minister of finance, thePrime Minister when Canada signed the Free Trade Agree-ment, which party was proposing a single tax rate, and whichparty was proposing a national prescription drug plan.

While there are claims suggesting that political knowl-edge is multidimensional (e.g., Krosnick, 1990), much of theexisting work on measurement of political knowledge andconstruction of knowledge indexes and scales seems tosuggest that specific knowledge on particular factualquestions stands for political knowledge more generally(e.g., Johnston et al., 1996; Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1993).This finding enhances confidence that the particularquestions used here provide a good barometer of respon-dents’ general levels of political knowledge. As for thenumber and specific nature of questions used in con-structing our knowledge indexes, there are a couple ofpoints to be made. First, each is composed of five individualquestions, which is reasonable. Delli Carpini and Keeterfound that a five-item index explained three-quarters ofthe variance in a knowledge index composed of 39 items(1993: 1191). In terms of the particular questions includedin our knowledge indexes, the use of previously existingdatasets naturally constrains the available options;however, the options we’ve chosen from those presentedby the CES datasets are quite reasonable. In both cases weinclude a variety of types of knowledge questions,including several identification-type questions that ask

C. Anderson, E. Goodyear-Grant / Electoral Studies 29 (2010) 227–238232

respondents to identify political figures – some moreprominent than others – and a couple of matching-typequestions where respondents must identify which partyproposed some specific policy during the campaign.

This paper’s central task is to evaluate three explana-tions for more knowledgeable voters’ referenda scepticism.To operationalize the incompetent public explanation, weuse a scale that combines responses to two survey ques-tions.11 The first measures agreement with the statement:‘‘the problem with democracy is that most people don’treally know what’s best for them’’. The second componentof the index measures the extent of agreement ordisagreement with the statement: ‘‘most people haveenough sense to tell whether the government is doinga good job.’’ Responses are coded so that higher scores onthis scale reflect a more pessimistic view of the averageperson’s ability to correctly identify their own politicalinterests and to ascertain whether government is per-forming well, two necessary abilities for democratic deci-sion making. Combined, these two questions providea good proxy for views on whether the general public issufficiently competent for referenda decision making.

To operationalize the confidence in government expla-nation, we use responses to a question that asked respon-dents directly about their confidence in the federalgovernment.

Finally, we assess the notion that the most knowledge-able respondents are less likely to support referendabecause they are more aware of and more concerned aboutthe possible drawbacks referendum decision making holdsfor the protection of minority groups’ rights. To oper-ationalize this variable, we use a question that askedrespondents: ‘‘which is more important in a democraticsociety: letting the majority decide or protecting the needsand rights or minorities’’. Reflecting the tensions inherentin the use of referenda, this question directly measures thepotential concern of referenda use for minority rightsallows us to consider (when interacted with knowledge)the theorized possibility that the more knowledgeable arebetter able to connect their concern for minorities to thepotential risks in the use of referenda.

Because the dependent variable is dichotomous, weestimate these models using binary logistic regression.12

We first estimate a model with the control variables and theknowledge index. This allows us to demonstrate the centralclaim that more knowledgeable respondents are less likely

11 The Cronbach’s alpha for this scale is 0.33. This is a low value, owinglikely to the small number of items in the scale. Scale length does tend toincrease the value of Cronbach’s alpha (e.g., Cortina, 1993; Cronbach,1951; Voss et al., 2000), even when the estimated average correlations areequal. Similarly, Cronbach’s alpha can be low, and sometimes even under-estimate the reliability of an index or scale, when the number ofcomponent items is small (e.g., Komorita and Graham, 1965). There are noadditional items in the 1997 and 2000 Canadian Election Studies thatcould reasonably be added to the scale, so the other option would be touse a single variable to represent the incompetent public explanation. Were-estimated the models in Table 2 separately with each of the variablesin the index and their interactions with the knowledge variable (resultsnot shown). In both instances, results are similar to those obtained whenthe two items are combined in the scale.

12 See Appendix for regression formulae.

to endorse the use of referenda. From this, we consider whythis might be the case by assessing our three possibleexplanations for information effects in referenda support.To do this, we estimate a second model containing variablesthat interact political knowledge with each of our explan-atory variables (incompetence, confidence, and minorityrights). If these explanatory expectations are correct, weshould observe coefficients for these interaction termswhich are negatively signed and statistically significant.

4. Results

Before turning to results of our regression models, a lookat the distribution of the dependent variable providesa general sense of attitudes toward the use of the refer-endum in Canada. As Table 1 indicates, slightly fewer than60% of Canadians surveyed in the 1997 and 2000 CanadianElection Studies expressed favourable support for the use ofreferenda on important or controversial issues. By contrast,a clear minority of roughly 40% expressed hesitation withor outright rejection of the use of referenda.

Table 2 contains the results for the two central logisticregressions.13 While the control variables have the expec-ted effects on support for the use of referenda, the variableof greatest theoretical interest in Model 1 is politicalknowledge. Based on these results, the effect of being ableto answer one more question correctly decreases the oddsof supporting the use of referenda by about 20 points. Thisfinding is in keeping with expectations developed earlier inthe paper and with previous findings (e.g., Anderson andGoodyear-Grant, 2005; Dalton et al., 2001). As a result, oneof the central expectations of the paper is confirmed: moreknowledgeable voters are less likely to support the use ofreferenda as a form of democratic decision making.

To further examine the effects of knowledge on refer-enda scepticism, we conducted a series of post-estimationsimulations. These simulations generate the predictedprobabilities of supporting the use of referenda at differentvalues of the knowledge index (Fig. 1).14 Following thismethod, if all respondents exhibited the lowest level ofknowledge (i.e. zero correct answers), the predicted prob-ability of favouring the use of referenda would be about0.815.15 By contrast, if all respondents correctly answeredevery knowledge question and their index score was fiveout of five, then the probability of supporting the use of

13 The reader may observe the relatively low R2 values for these models(0.07 and 0.08, respectively). While these measures of model fit aren’tparticularly high, our intent is not to provide a global account of views onreferenda and direct democracy but the rather more limited goal ofunderstanding why knowledge is linked to weaker support for the use ofreferenda.

14 All predicted probabilities were generated using the Clarify applica-tion (King et al., 2000; Tomz et al., 2001). The values generated indicatethe predicted probability of referenda support at different values of theindependent variable in question holding the values of all non-manipu-lated variables in the model at their means. All figures include the 95%confidence intervals for the predicted values produced through Clarify.

15 This value comes from a 0 to 1 scale where a predicted probability of‘1’ would indicate that all respondents are predicted to support the use ofreferenda and a score of ‘0’ suggests that none of the respondents arepredicted to support the use of referenda.

Table 1Aggregate support for the use of referenda.

Never 5.5%Rarely 24.7Occasionally 44.3Regularly 25.9

N¼ 2759; Source: 1997, 2000 CES.

C. Anderson, E. Goodyear-Grant / Electoral Studies 29 (2010) 227–238 233

referenda drops to 0.609. The 20 point gap between thetwo knowledge groups constitutes a substantial decrease inpredicted support for referenda.

The final step in the analysis attempts to account for whypolitical knowledge has the observed effect on support forthe use of referenda. To do so we assess three potentialexplanations for referenda scepticism among politicalsophisticates: cynicism regarding the competence of theaverage voter, greater confidence in government, anda concern for the rights and needs of minorities in a demo-cratic system. Model 2 in Table 1 includes interaction termswhich test these three explanations.16 With the inclusion ofour three central explanatory variables and the associatedinteraction terms with knowledge, the knowledge variablecoefficient is understood as the effect of a one unit change inknowledge on support for the use of referenda when all threeexplanatory variables are set to zero (Brambor et al., 2006) Inthis case, the effect of knowledge, previously observed inModel 1, disappears (in both direction and significance). Thissuggests that the independent effect of greater knowledgeobserved earlier may be subsumed through accounting forthese additional attitudinal dimensions.

Looking to how and why it disappears, we consider ourtheoretical expectations in sequence. The first propositionsuggested that the negative relationship between knowledgeand referenda views may be understood as a function ofmore knowledgeable citizens’ pessimism about the generalpublic’s competence, and by extension its ability to castsensible referendum ballots. The first interaction term ofknowledge and public incompetence is in the expectednegative direction, but has a statistically insignificant effecton referendumviews: the more knowledgeable respondents’relative hesitation about the use of referenda is not centrallydriven by scepticism concerning their co-citizens’ abilities tomake wise collective policy decisions through referenda. Thisfinding is surprising and deserves some discussion.

As discussed previously, competence occupies a centralrole in the theoretical and normative literatures on directdemocracy. However, judgement about the competence ofthe average voting public, or the ‘‘generalized other’’ inMutz’s terms (1998), does not seem to be as salienta consideration for the politically sophisticated. We offera few initial yet tentative thoughts on this interesting non-finding. In the first instance, it is possible that highlyknowledgeable voters’ attitudes toward the use of refer-enda are driven largely by other considerations – which weconsider shortly. Beyond the salience of different factorsdriving the result, are there other aspects to the most-knowledgeable citizens’ views of the competence of the

16 Based on post-estimation diagnostics using variance inflation factors,multicollinearity is not a concern in any of these models.

general public? Initially, it is possible that the politicallyknowledgeable give relatively little thought to the collec-tive ability of their less-informed co-citizens to make gooddecisions about public policy. On this view, judgments ofaverage citizen competence may be a non-issue for themost knowledgeable. Alternatively, it is plausible thathighly knowledgeable voters are not particularly scepticalabout the general public’s abilities to make sense of politicsand therefore cast sensible referendum votes.

Turning to our other explanations to account for thenegative relationship between political knowledge andattitudes toward the use of referenda, both the confidencein government and the concern for minority rights expla-nations find support within these data. The interactionterms of knowledge with these variables are in the expec-ted negative directions (i.e. decreasing support for refer-enda) and statistically significant. These results suggestthat politically knowledgeable citizens are less supportiveof referenda than their poorly and moderately informedpeers in part because they have greater confidence ingovernment as well as a greater concern for minoritygroups’ rights or greater knowledge that minority groups’rights can be jeopardized by the use of referenda.

As a clearer means of interpreting the results from Model2, predicted probabilities are presented in Figs. 2 and 3.17 Wefirst consider the predicted probabilities of supporting theuse of referenda at different values of both political knowl-edge and confidence in government. Based on our hypoth-eses, we would expect to find very little effect of confidencein government at lower knowledge levels and large effectsof confidence in government at higher levels of knowledge.

Fig. 2 presents the predicted probabilities of supportingreferenda for high- and low-knowledge respondents at thefour different levels of confidence in government (one foreach of the levels). When the knowledge scale is set to 0 (i.e.all respondents unable to answer any of the knowledgequestions correctly), increasing confidence in the federalgovernment has the somewhat counterintuitive effect ofincreasing support for the use of referenda. For the unin-formed with the lowest level of confidence in government,the predicted probability of supporting the use of referendais 0.722. By contrast, at the same knowledge level, but withthe highest level of confidence in the federal government,the predicted probability of supporting the use of referendais 0.801. In short, when knowledge is low, rising confidencesurprisingly increases support for the use of referenda.

By contrast, among the most knowledgeable, the influ-ence of confidence in government on referenda support issubstantial. When knowledge is at its highest level andconfidence is at its lowest level, the predicted probabilityof supporting the use of referenda is 0.790. Among high-knowledge respondents, when confidence in the federalgovernment is set to the highest value, the predicted prob-ability of supporting the use of referenda drops to 0.488.Based on these predicted probabilities, when knowledge ishigh, the effect of increasing confidence in the federal

17 As previously, these values were generated using Clarify (King et al.,2000; Tomz et al., 2001).

Table 2Support for the use of referenda.

Model 1 Model 2

Age .14 (.05)*** 1.15 .12 (.05)*** 1.13Education �.15 (.10) .86 �.09 (.10) .91West .14 (.12) 1.15 .11 (.12) 1.12Quebec �.50 (.12)*** .60 �.50 (.12)*** .61Atlantic �.07 (.14) .93 �.09 (.15) .912000 �.61 (.09)*** .55 �.58 (.09)*** .56Efficacy .10 (.05)** 1.10 .09 (.05)* 1.10Democratic satisfaction �.13 (.06)** .88 �.07 (.06) .93Ref/CA/BQ PID .77 (.14)*** 2.16 .64 (.14)*** 1.90Liberal PID �.21 (.11)** .81 �.15 (.11) .86Knowledge �.20 (.04)*** .82 .07 (.10) 1.08Incompetent public – �.00 (.18) 1.00Confidence in Government – .14 (.14) 1.15Minority rights – .26 (.13)** 1.30Knowledge * Incompetent – �.03 (.06) .97Knowledge * Confidence – �.12 (.04)*** .89Knowledge * Minority – �.13 (.04)*** .88Constant 1.73 (.21)*** 1.29 (.35)***Pseudo R2 0.06 0.08N 2759 2759

Note: figures in columns are coefficients with standard errors in paren-theses and odds ratios in italics. ***p< .01 **p< .05 *p< .10; Source: 1997,2000 CES.

C. Anderson, E. Goodyear-Grant / Electoral Studies 29 (2010) 227–238234

government is relatively large and significant, resulting ina significant drop in support for the use of referenda.

The general pattern observed in Fig. 2 suggests thatviews on the use of referenda are not affected by knowl-edge per se or knowledge solely, but also by varying levelsof confidence in government, particularly among the mostknowledgeable citizens. It is when the effects of confidencein government are accounted for across knowledge levelsthat the effect of knowledge becomes clearer. When this isdone, the predicted probabilities reveal that the combina-tion of high knowledge and high confidence in governmentdecreases support for referenda relative to either highconfidence or high knowledge considered independently.

6

7

8

9

adnereferfoesuroftroppuS

0 1 2 3 4 5Knowledge index values

Fig. 1. Predicted probabilities of referenda support by knowledge levels.

Fig. 3 presents the results of predicted probabilitiesgenerated for the interaction of knowledge and concern forminority rights in Model 2. Our theoretical expectations aswell as the interpretation of the graph are the same as forFig. 2. If prioritizing the needs and rights of minorities ina democracy is an important component of explaining theknowledge effect, as the negative and significant interac-tion term suggests, then we should observe stronger effectsof these kinds of ‘minoritarian’ views on decreasing refer-endum support at higher levels of knowledge.

At the lowest level of knowledge (i.e. zero correctanswers), the predicted probability of support for referendaincreases as respondents’ priorities shift from majoritariandecision-making (¼0) to concern for minority rights (¼2).At the lowest level of knowledge, the predicted probabilityof referendum support when respondents prioritize lettingthe majority decide (over concern for minority rights ina democracy) is 0.681. By contrast, when uninformedrespondents think that protecting the needs and rights ofminorities is more important than letting the majoritydecide the predicted probability of support for referendaincreases to 0.779. One reason for this surprising findingmay be that citizens exhibiting low levels of knowledge areless able to accurately connect their concerns about pro-tecting the needs and rights of minorities to the potentiallyharmful effects that the use of referenda may have onminority interests. In other words, they may not be awareof the fact that referenda are thought to pose potentialdangers to minority rights. The crucial link between theirvalues and their attitudes toward referenda may bemissing.

Among the most knowledgeable respondents (five outof five correct answers), the predicted probability of refer-enda support among majoritarians is 0.757. Within thesame knowledge category, the predicted probability ofreferenda support drops to 0.598 among those who prior-itize the needs and rights of minorities. This differencesuggests a clear ability of highly informed respondents to

Highknowledge

Lowknowledge

4

5

6

7

8

9

adnerefer fo esu rof troppuS

0 1 2 3Confidence in government

Fig. 2. Predicted probabilities of referenda support by confidence ingovernment and political knowledge.

Highknowledge

Lowknowledge

5

6

7

8

9

adnerefer fo esu rof troppuS

0 1 2Concern for Minority Rights

Fig. 3. Predicted probabilities of referenda support by concern for minorityrights and political knowledge.

18 The Accord had four central features: recognition of Quebec asa distinct society, recognition of Aboriginal self-government, a guaranteeto Quebec of 25 percent of seats in the House of Commons, and Senatereform. In addition, there were other, less central features of the Accord,all of which were combined in a single, comprehensive constitutionalpackage and submitted to a direct yes/no vote by the Canadian electorate.

C. Anderson, E. Goodyear-Grant / Electoral Studies 29 (2010) 227–238 235

connect their concern for minority rights with a relativescepticism about the use of referenda.

5. Discussion and conclusions

The article began by noting the empirical observationthat knowledge is negatively correlated with support forthe use of referenda (e.g., Dalton et al., 2001; Donovan andKarp, 2006). Our results (Table 1, Model 1) confirm thesefindings through indicating a clear negative relationshipbetween political knowledge and support for the use ofreferenda to decide policy issues. More knowledgeablecitizens are relative referenda sceptics, controlling for thesocio-demographic and attitudinal variables included inthe models. Building from this initial statement, the centralobjective of the paper has been to uncover explanations forthis information effect in support for the use of referenda.To do so we identified three possible explanations withfirm grounding in the literature: 1) the incompetent publicexplanation, 2) the confidence in government explanation,and 3) the support for minority rights explanation. Ouranalyses provide support for the last two explanations, butnot the first (Table 1, Model 2; see also Figs. 2 and 3). Itappears that both their greater confidence in governmentand their presumed ability to identify the dangers thatreferenda pose for minorities (beyond a concern forminority rights) render political sophisticates more scep-tical than the public at large about the use of referenda.

In considering these results, it is important to keep inmind that our data come from the Canadian context whererecent referenda have not presented simple or straight-forward choices to voters. Indeed, we are reminded ofCarmines and Stimson’s distinction between ‘hard’ and‘easy’ issues (1980). While hard issues are those that dealwith abstract or complex matters requiring a lot of infor-mation (e.g., complex constitutional law), easy issues arerelatively straightforward ones that often produce instant

‘gut’ reactions (e.g., moral issues like abortion or the deathpenalty). The 1992 Canadian referendum on the Charlot-tetown Accord on constitutional change clearly constituteda referendum on a complex issue.18 Many Canadians didnot even understand the content and implications of theCharlottetown Accord (Clarke et al., 2000; Johnston et al.,1996), because ‘‘the package which was ultimately negoti-ated at Charlottetown . was too large, too complex and tooincomplete to be easily ‘sold’ to the population at large’’(Stein, 1997: 326). In the case of Quebec sovereigntyreferenda of 1980 and 1995, debate ensued about thewording of the referendum question posed to electorates,which was deemed overly complex and ambiguous bymany. Indeed, the 1980 vote asked Quebecers to weigh inon ‘sovereignty-association’ with Canada, a political statusthat would be far different than simple independentstatehood. In short, at this point in time (1997–2000)Canada had extensive experience with referenda onparticularly complex or hard issues.

Beyond the character of specific referenda issues, thereare other contextual features present that should be bornein mind. The use of referenda for collective decision-making in Canada is relatively rare, the stakes tend to behigh (i.e. in 1992 the constitution was at issue), and thereferenda campaigns cannot help but remind citizens ofsome of Canadian society’s deepest divisions. This isa specific context. In similar contexts, where referenda areseldom held and when they are, on high-stakes issues,similar attitudes may prevail. In jurisdictions with similarreferenda experiences, highly knowledgeable voters withhigh confidence in government may see little need forpolitical experimentation with alternative instruments ofpolicy making, particularly if the political decisions to bemade deal with constitutional matters of great importance.In such scenarios, risk aversion is likely an important factorpromoting preference for the status quo. Likewise, injurisdictions characterized by deep societal cleavages, thehighly knowledgeable voters that are both more concernedwith minority rights and, more critically, likely to be awarethat majoritarian modes of decision making have thepotential to jeopardize minorities are also likely to be lessenthusiastic about the use of referenda.

Our findings may have relatively less applicability tojurisdictions that have regular experience with referenda;where referenda tend to deal with less critical, more‘mundane’ or run-of-the-mill policy issues; and wherereferenda do not necessarily engage deep societal cleav-ages. In these types of jurisdictions, information effects insupport for referenda may be absent or may take ona different complexion. In contexts where referenda arecommonplace, such as Switzerland and various US states,the referendum may be viewed similar to any election.

Stepping back from the immediacy of these analyses andthe specific context in which they are situated, the findings

C. Anderson, E. Goodyear-Grant / Electoral Studies 29 (2010) 227–238236

presented here should be seen as contributing to a largerliterature on the effects of knowledge and sophistication onpublic opinion. The political behaviour literature on theeffects of knowledge on attitudes and opinion formationinevitably finds clear impacts on the distribution of attitudesand opinions on a range of policy areas and politicalprocesses. While this literature observes these sorts ofeffects it does not always push further to consider thereasons which might underlie the evident variation. It is onthis point which we believe this article makes a usefulcontribution to our growing understanding about how andwhy knowledge matters in study of political behaviour. Inelaborating and finding support for reasons why knowledgemight matter for views on referenda we suggest that theseanalyses may provide a starting point for further explorationof the processes which underlie knowledge effects.

In conclusion, there is ample scholarly and populardiscussion today about ‘democratic deficit’, ‘democraticmalaise’, ‘critical citizens’, declining trust in government,political apathy, and the like. These various phenomena aresaid to be highly intertwined, and one of the key themes inthis sort of discussion is the sense that the public feelsinadequately represented by policy makers and the polit-ical system as a whole, which is thought to offer too fewroutes to genuine citizen influence. In short, the publicwants in. The increased use of referenda to decide law andpolicy is one among many options that permits citizensgreater access to the policy process, and it is a popularoption that has become more pervasive globally in the lastfew decades (e.g., Scarrow, 2001). Yet, clearly our analysescaution against wholesale statements about both publicdiscontent with politics, as well as the popularity of thereferendum as a decision tool. Support for the use ofreferenda is not uniform, or uniformly high. Across thepolitical knowledge spectrum, the citizens who are argu-ably best equipped to deal with the informational andcognitive demands of referenda are the most scepticalabout its use to decide law and policy.

Appendix

University graduate19

‘‘What is the highest level of education that you havecompleted?’’

graduated from university¼ 1, no university degree¼ 0

Age cohorts

‘‘In what year were you born?’’Pre-boomers¼ 0 if born 1944 and before

Boomers¼ 1 if born 1945–1959Gen X¼ 2 if born 1960–1969Post-gen X¼ 3 if born 1970–1982

Region

19 Unless otherwise indicated, all variable coding and construction areconsistent across the 1997 and 2000 Canadian Election Studies.

Dummy variables for Atlantic, Quebec and West withOntario as the reference category.

Party identification

1997‘‘In federal politics, do you usually think of yourself as a:Liberal, Bloc Quebecois, Reform, Conservative, N.D.P., noneof these?’’‘‘How strongly do you feel? Very strongly, fairly strongly,not very strongly’’

2000Half the sample received these questions: ‘‘In federal poli-tics, do you usually think of yourself as a: Liberal, BlocQuebecois, Alliance, Conservative, N.D.P., none of these?’’‘‘How strongly (party) do you feel? Very strongly, fairlystrongly, not very strongly’’Half the sample received these questions: ‘‘Generallyspeaking, in federal politics, do you usually think of yourselfas a Liberal, Bloc Quebecois, Alliance, Conservative, NDP(New Democratic Party) or do you usually think of yourselfas not having a general preference?’’‘‘Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself asa very strong, fairly strong or a not very strong (party)?’’

a) Fairly and very strong identification with Reform/Canadian Alliance or Bloc Quebecois¼ 1; no partyidentification and other party identification¼ 0.b) Fairly and very strong identification with the LiberalParty¼ 1 no party and other party identification¼ 0.

Coding in this manner leaves as the reference categorypartisans of the Progressive Conservative and New Demo-cratic Parties and respondents with no party identification.

Internal efficacy

‘‘Sometimes politics is so complicated that a person likeme can’t really understand what’s going on.’’ strongly dis-agree¼ 3, strongly agree¼ 0

Democratic satisfaction

On the whole how satisfied are you with the waydemocracy works in Canada? very satisfied¼ 3, not satis-fied at all¼ 0

Political knowledge

Index comprised of questions on knowledge of politics.Indexes arrange from 0 to 5 where a score of 5 means thata respondent answered all five questions correctlyand a scoreof 0 means that no questions were answered correctly.

1997 CES (Cronbach’s Alpha¼ 0.61)1. ‘‘Do you recall the name of the Government Leader/

Premier of this province/territory?’’ (varies with province)2. ‘‘Do you recall the name of the first woman Prime

Minister of Canada?’’ (Kim Campbell)3. ‘‘Do you recall the name of the Federal Minister of

Finance?’’ (Paul Martin)

C. Anderson, E. Goodyear-Grant / Electoral Studies 29 (2010) 227–238 237

4. ‘‘Do you recall which party promised to lower personalincome tax by 10%?’’ (Conservatives)

5. ‘‘Do you recall which party promised to cut unemploy-ment in half’’ (NDP)

2000 CES (Cronbach’s Alpha¼ 0.68)1. ‘‘Do you recall the name of the Government Leader/

Premier of this province?’’ (varies with province)2. ‘‘Do you recall the name of the Minister of Finance of

Canada?’’ (Paul Martin)3. ‘‘Do you happen to know the name of the Prime Minister

at the time of the Free Trade Agreement with the UnitedStates?’’ (Brian Mulroney)

4. ‘‘Do you happen to remember which party is promisinga single tax rate?’’ (Canadian Alliance)

5. ‘‘Do you happen to remember which party is proposinga national prescription drug plan?’’ (NDP)

Public incompetence

‘‘The problem with democracy is that most people don’treally know what’s best for them.’’strongly agree¼ 3, strongly disagree¼ 0

‘‘Most people have enough sense to tell whether thegovernment is doing a good job.’’strongly disagree¼ 3, strongly agree¼ 0

After adding these two variables together (creatinga 0 to 6 scale), a new 0 to 2 scale was created. Based on thedistribution of responses, the variable was recoded throughcombining response values 0 and 1 (¼ 0), 2 and 3 (¼ 1) and4 through 6 (¼ 2) where ‘2’ denotes strongest agreementwith the idea of public incompetence.

Confidence in government

‘‘Please indicate how much confidence you have in the‘the federal government.’’’none at all¼ 0, not very much¼ 1, quite a lot¼ 2, a greatdeal¼ 3

Concern for minority rights

‘‘Which is more important in a democratic society:letting the majority decide or protecting the needs andrights of minorities?’’

letting majority decide¼ 0, unsure¼ 1, protecting theneeds and interests of minorities¼ 2

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