PLEBISCITARY AGENDA-SETTING and PARTY STRATEGIES Theoretical Considerations and Evidence from Austria

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PARTY POLITICS VOL 5. No.3 pp. 303–315

PLEBISCITARY AGENDA-SETTING AND PARTY STRATEGIES Theoretical Considerations and Evidence from Austria

Wolfgang C. Müller

ABSTRACT

This article explores party strategies in situations where a plebiscitary instrument – the initiative – allows citizens to get a bill on the agenda of parliament. The initiative is a unique means for citizens and opposition parties to attract public attention to an issue both in its pre-parliamentary and parliamentary phases. This article identiﬁes the requirements for an initiative to be successful in terms of building new electoral alliances. While the characteristics of the issue are crucial, the instrument of the initiative, as distinct from the issue itself, has the potential to have an impact on the processes of issue competition and opinion formation. The Austrian experiences make clear how the instrument of the initiative has an in-built advantage for the party employing it.

KEY WORDS Ⅲ agenda setting Ⅲ Austria Ⅲ initiative Ⅲ issue competition Ⅲ party strategies

This article explores party strategies in situations where a plebiscitary instrument – in this case the people’s initiative – allows citizens to get an issue on the agenda of parliament as a formal bill. The instrument studied here differs from other plebiscitary instruments. In contrast to the referendum it is not a decision-making instrument. In contrast to the consultative referendum, citizens can only register their support for a particular case but not their rejection of it. Thus an initiative does not produce a majority and a minority unless a majority of the electorate signs it. Even when this happens, the initiative is not binding in a legal sense. The people’s initiative differs from the petition (i.e. a demand raised by an unspeciﬁed number of citizens and then adopted by an MP) by requiring a speciﬁed number of supporters and by resulting in a formal bill which is equal to or, in some ways,

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even superior to other kinds of bills since it requires full parliamentary treatment. It can be accepted in an unchanged or amended form, or rejected. The type of initiative dealt with in this article is not the first step towards a referendum, as is the case in some US states and in Switzerland. It may therefore correctly be called an advisory initiative (Suksi, 1993: 7). Currently the instrument does not exist in any other West European country at the national level. The people’s initiative (Volksbegehren) has been part of the Austrian constitution since 1920 (Article 41), but was not used until 1963. It can be initiated by a specified number of voters and, until December 1998, could also be initiated by MPs of the Nationalrat, or deputies of Land diets.1 Before it can succeed, by becoming a formal bill, it needs the support of at least 100,000 voters (200,000 before 1981), or of a sixth (half before 1981) of the voters of each of three Länder.2 Supporters have to sign the initiative in the presence of electoral authorities and all the signatures must be collected within one week. Once an initiative has received the required support, the Nationalrat (the lower house of the Austrian parliament) is then obliged to deal with it. But there is no legal requirement beyond the mere consideration of the bill. The people’s initiative allows citizens and interest groups to push for policy. It has also been available to political parties which, until the end of 1998, could use their MPs to introduce an initiative and could still mobilize their members and supporters to sign it. Political parties can hardly escape taking positions on initiatives, even if they might prefer to keep an issue off the agenda or to maintain a low profile. The main research question of this article is how the initiative game can impinge on party competition in the electoral arena. I address this question by first discussing the agenda-raising potential of the initiative and compare it with other means. I then ask whether the instrument of the initiative, as distinct from the issue itself, has the potential to affect the processes of issue competition and opinion formation. Three empirical sections follow, which review the Austrian experience in some detail.

Public and Parliamentary Agenda-setting through the People’s Initiative

How does the initiative distinguish itself from other means of introducing a bill in parliament [i.e. government, private members’ and second chamber (Bundesrat) bills]? First, an initiative can claim a higher degree of legitima- tion by drawing on direct and speciﬁc support from a large number of citizens. Other bills, in contrast, can only claim indirect and general support from elections. Second, an initiative will automatically attract more media and public attention than a ‘normal’ bill (i.e. one developed through representative channels). This is partly a function of the ﬁrst point, but also 304 03 Muller (to) d/k 26/5/99 3:39 pm Page 305

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results from the fact that an initiative is a relatively rare event. While hun- dreds of bills are introduced by the government or MPs during a parliamentary term (Table 1), the number of people’s initiatives never exceeded four prior to the parliamentary term which began in 1996. A people’s initiative sponsored by a relevant political party or organization (such as the Catholic Church or the Trade Union Congress) will attract considerable media attention. The attention cycle begins when the idea of launching a people’s initiative is first mentioned. Public attention increases when the idea becomes a commitment. Normally, a great number of media reports will be published immediately before the official start of an initiative. The media will not only summarize the demands of the initiative and the arguments of its proponents; they will also give room to potential critics and will themselves engage in discussing its merits or demerits or whether it is a workable proposal. Other questions typically raised concern who will sign the initiative and for what reasons. The organizers of an initiative will try to get testimonials from prominent people, and prominent people will be asked by journalists whether they intend to sign the initiative. Occasionally the critics of a people’s initiative will also come forward with testimonials. The major question to emerge after a successful initiative (one supported by the required number of citizens) is what will happen next. The initiators may fuel this discussion by new supportive arguments and suggestions. When the people’s initiative emerges on the parliamentary agenda, it is guaranteed more media attention than most bills (see below). The whole initiative process also has a horse-race dimension. The organizers will either state their goal for the number of signatures to be collected at the beginning of their campaign, or they will be pressed hard by journalists until they make the ‘bet’. If the initiative gets much attention, there will be discussion about this aspect as well. Pollsters and journalists will make their estimates on the basis of previous initiatives and the electoral support or membership size of sponsoring parties or organizations. After the initiative has been completed, its support level will be discussed in the light of previous initiatives and the organizers’ initial claims. Eventually, the issue that was the subject of a people’s initiative may re-emerge in an electoral campaign. If it attracted considerable support, but was subsequently not accepted, the ‘undemocratic’ behaviour of the parliamentary majority will figure as prominently as the substantive issue. The instrument of the people’s initiative is attractive to groups of citizens because they have no other way of directly introducing a bill. If they manage to succeed in collecting the required support for a people’s initiative they will also get more media attention for their cause than otherwise. In contrast, government parties generally do not introduce people’s initiatives – they have other means for pursuing their policy goals. If, however, they cannot act because they lack resources, or coalition discipline prevents them from acting (because the coalition partners disagree on the issue), an initiative would only draw attention to their inability to deliver. 305 03 Muller (to) d/k 26/5/99 3:39 pm Page 306

PARTY POLITICS 5(3) b s 4 Rejected 61 n.a. 57 es) gur 64 86 95 Not decided 148 Opposition bill oduced 99 ————————————————— Intr 245 102 217 c d a Rejecte 0 n.a. 2 0 s nment MP 6 Not decided 25 19 20 ties. gover nment and opposition bills, 1986–98 (absolute ﬁ Private member bills of ties. oduced 49 60 Intr ——————————————— 175 197 ty and opposition par s initiatives, gover Rejected 1 n.a. 0 0 ties plus opposition par nment par nment bills . ty nment par decided Not 16 n.a. 17 17 y bills: people’ Gover nment par oduced tment, Austrian parliament; Schefbeck (1998: 5). 95 Intr ——————————————— 246 n.a. 458 ed by just one gover ed by all gover Parliamentar s y 1998. Table 1. initiatives People’ 6 3 2 0 d 4 6 8 : Documentation depar – – ce ypically bills of just one gover Including bills co-sponsor Until 31 Januar Including bills co-sponsor T Period 1986–90 a b c d Sour 1990 1996– 1994

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While it is clear why the people’s initiative is attractive to citizens’ groups, which have no other way to command legislative attention for their proposals, it is less clear why parties with at least a few legislative seats should employ this device. After all, opposition parties with only five MPs (eight until 1988) can introduce their proposals as private members bills. One answer is that generally such bills are not equivalent to a people’s initiative in terms of visibility. First, these bills generally lack the drama and the resulting attention that is characteristic of the pre-parliamentary phase of people’s initiatives. Second, even within parliament, opposition bills are severely handicapped compared to people’s initiatives. Typically, opposition bills do not get much visibility from their treatment in parliament, as illustrated by Table 1. Until 1996, many of them were discussed neither on the floor nor in committees. Although a 1975 reform of the standing orders required committees to at least start deliberations on these bills, they were not obliged to complete deliberations before the end of a parliamentary term, at which point all bills die. Moreover, until 1996 the committee’s obligation was already fulfilled by establishing a subcommittee to discuss the relevant bill, even if the subcommittee never met. Indeed, this was a common practice. In the three full parliamentary terms from 1986 to 1996, 59 percent of opposition bills were buried in committees and never received plenary treatment. In contrast, this was the fate of only 15 percent of private members bills sponsored by government MPs, and of almost none of the government bills. Sometimes opposition bills do have an effect on legislation, particularly when they are settled together with a government bill that incorporates minor suggestions from the opposition. However, in this case the opposition has a hard time in claiming credit for its influence, since the plenary debate focuses on the government bill; typically the opposition’s criticism of the government bill receives more media coverage than its constructive alternatives. In the 1990–8 period this happened to about 20 percent of the opposition bills. Finally, opposition bills may get some visibility if they are rejected by the parliamentary majority in plenary meeting. This happened to about 22 percent of the opposition bills in the 1990–8 period. However, even in these cases the government parties’ parliamentary dramaturgy aims to minimize the visibility of the opposition’s bills by, for instance, having them debated at the very end of a day’s agenda. Thus, an initiative automatically increases the legitimacy of a demand and, by adding sub-dimensions, provides a degree of publicity that the opposition has a hard time achieving by other means. Because of this, even if the opposition does not win on the issue of the initiative itself, it may be able to use the surrounding publicity to shift the issue agenda. According to the theory of issue competition, party alignments form around a specific issue agenda and related party commitments. It remains stable as long as the issue agenda, or more precisely its underlying dimensions (cleavages), and party commitments remain unchanged (Carmines, 1991). Losing parties therefore 307 03 Muller (to) d/k 26/5/99 3:39 pm Page 308

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turn to new issues to improve their situation. If these new issues split the voter alliances behind the winning party or parties while uniting the electorate of the losing party, they may produce party system change. If successful, the introduction of new issues ‘produces a new majority coalition composed of the old minority and the proportion of the old majority that likes the new alternative better’ (Riker, 1986: 1). The introduction of a new issue is probably as much about opinion formation as agenda formation. Recent research in public opinion suggests that citizens generally do not have fixed issue positions in the first place (Zaller, 1992). While they may relate new issues to the values they hold, these values are often inconsistent and consequently there is much leeway in this process. As Stimson concisely summarizes (1995: 183): ‘Each citizen has a range of views, depending on which consideration is consulted, not a single fixed one, and that range tends to be large.’ As a consequence, persuasive communication can be highly relevant, certainly for the vast number of voters. In particular, if a person ‘has little prior information and little access to alternative communication flows, information reaching him from a dominant campaign will have a large effect’ (Zaller, 1992: 267). The directional theory of voting has argued that voters conceptualize issues ‘in diffuse fashion rather than in terms of specific policy alternatives’ (Rabinowitz and Macdonald, 1989: 94). According to this theory parties are rewarded by the voter ‘for taking a clear and deeply committed stand to an issue the voter slightly favours’. Parties that take more intense stands than their competitors but ‘avoid stands so extreme that voters reject them as irresponsible’ will benefit (Hinich and Munger, 1997: 187–8). These theoretical considerations apply to all issues, irrespective of the means by which they are put on the agenda as a bill. If the issue indeed strikes a responsive chord in the mass public, the people’s initiative is probably the best way to bring it on the agenda. Likewise the people’s initiative is particularly suitable for opinion formation, with an in-built bias in favour of the initiative’s demand. This is because the instrument of the people’s initiative only allows voters to register their support. While the promoters of an issue have every reason to engage in a powerful pro-campaign, the strategic situation is more complex for its opponents. If they engage in a campaign against the initiative, they will inevitably draw attention to the issue and may thereby increase the number of supporting signatures. If the opponents abstain from campaigning, however, they leave the field open to the promoters of the issue. Their campaign becomes dominant and has a good chance of having a major impact. Finally, the initiative is also a good means of taking advantage of the points highlighted by the directional theory of voting (Rabinowitz and Mac- donald, 1989). The central campaign message of an initiative tends to be simple, such as ‘against the legalization of abortion’, ‘against building a conference centre’, ‘against foreigners’ or ‘pro-women’. It clearly establishes a direction that voters may like or dislike. Those citizens who generally favour 308 03 Muller (to) d/k 26/5/99 3:39 pm Page 309

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this direction will credit the party supporting the people’s initiative, as long as its demands are not viewed as extremist.3 Parties that express only partial or lukewarm support will not be credited for this. Parties that favour the direction but not the specific proposal(s) of an initiative may try to attach the extremist label to the initiative, and parties that disagree on the direction may try to do the same in a bolder fashion. This is, however, a risky strategy. If the extremist label does not stick, the anti-campaign will only raise the attention and turnout of those who agree with the initiative’s direction. To summarize this discussion, the instrument of the initiative clearly has the potential to lend additional weight to an issue and to have a distinct impact on the processes of issue competition and opinion formation. One caveat remains to be made, however. For any relevant actor – party or other – an initiative also involves some risk. There are relatively clear yardsticks of success and failure. While the bottom line is established by law (i.e. the minimum support requirement), measures of success are also derived from the amount of support for previous initiatives, the size of membership or support base of the initiative’s organizer, and the level of ambition (i.e. stated goals in terms of expected number of support signatures). A proposal not sufficiently supported in an initiative may inflict lasting damage. The organizers may be worse off in policy terms than otherwise and the issue may be earmarked as a non-mobilizing one, unsuitable for electoral competition. So far I have identified the strategic situations, uncertainties and risks facing political parties in respect to many initiatives. Being on the offensive (i.e. organizing and supporting an initiative) generally seems to be the more favourable role. This is also supported by the fact that government parties are often considerably constrained and cannot respond to a demand, even if they would like to do so. Thus the lack of financial resources, international obligations (particularly from membership in the European Union) and the imperative of coalition discipline, which does not allow one coalition party to join forces with the opposition, reduce the room for manoeuvre of government parties in the initiative game.

The People’s Initiative in Austrian Politics: An Overview

Austria has considerable experience with the initiative. Between 1960 and the end of 1998, 23 initiative attempts were made. Only two failed to get the required support (and thus do not constitute people’s initiatives in the technical sense). Three attempts were made in the 1960s, one in the 1970s, ten in the 1980s, and nine in the 1990s (until the end of 1998). Eleven attempts at initiatives were introduced by the required number of citizens, 12 by members of representative bodies. This, however, is not sufﬁcient to distinguish between initiatives sponsored by citizens and those sponsored by parties. Parties occasionally collected signatures of citizens rather than 309 03 Muller (to) d/k 26/5/99 3:39 pm Page 310

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letting their MPs introduce the initiative. Likewise, initiatives may originate from groups of citizens who then approach political parties to help meet the threshold of introduction. Here I discuss a few of the Austrian initiatives to brieﬂy illustrate how initiatives introduced by citizens’ groups and those introduced by opposition parties have affected party competition and electoral support. In doing so I concentrate on the period since the early 1980s. Austrian electoral research has shown that it is only since this time that sub- stantial proportions of the electorate are ‘available’, and hence may be won by making use of the initiative. Moreover, I consider only initiatives that won the support of at least 4 percent of the potential electorate. Details about all the Austrian initiatives up until mid-1997 can be found elsewhere (Müller, 1998a).

The People’s Initiative as a Game between Groups of Citizens and Political Parties

Only two of the five initiatives that were introduced by citizens’ groups since 1980 were supported by at least 4 percent of the potential electorate, which is the level which is sufficient for a party to win parliamentary representation. The first of these was launched by environmentalist groups and aimed at the creation of national parks and strict limitations on the construction of new power stations. Conflict over the construction of a hydro- electric power station on the Danube escalated before the people’s initiative was launched, with protesters illegally occupying the construction site in the winter of 1984/5. The initiative was signed by 353,906 voters (6.55 percent), a success that gave a certain amount of legitimacy to occupation of the construction site. The government parties, the SPÖ and FPÖ, were divided over this issue. About 15 percent of SPÖ voters were in favour of the initiative’s most direct goal of not building the power station at Hain- burg. The ÖVP and FPÖ electorate was even more divided over the issue, with 22 percent of ÖVP and 27 percent of FPÖ voters supporting this goal (Pelinka, 1984: 97; Ulram, 1990: 136). Partly as a result of this issue, in the 1986 elections each of the major parties lost about 2 per cent to the Greens (Plasser and Ulram, 1986: 65), who won parliamentary representation for the first time. The second citizens’ group initiative to receive broad support was held in 1996. Aimed at giving neutrality constitutional status, it was signed by 326,990 voters (6.21 percent). This initiative had the potential to divide the electoral alliances behind all parties, since a majority of each party’s supporters favours maintaining neutrality (Unterberger, 1995: 546). Both the ÖVP and FPÖ in particular may face trade-offs between their policy and their electoral goals, given that both have recently expressed their prefer- ence for NATO. The actual impact of this issue on party competition remains to be seen. 310 03 Muller (to) d/k 26/5/99 3:39 pm Page 311

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The People’s Initiative as a Game between Political Parties

Some of the initiatives launched by opposition parties have been sponsored by the two traditional major parties, the SPÖ and ÖVP. Others have been started by the FPÖ and the Greens, parties that have enjoyed little or no access to government. With one exception – the SPÖ’s attempts to reverse the referendum on nuclear energy – the SPÖ- and ÖVP-sponsored initiatives were launched when the respective party was in opposition, and were aimed at rejecting major government policies. Illustrative of these is the ÖVP’s 1982 initiative against the government-ﬁnanced construction of an international conference centre in Vienna. This initiative divided the electoral alliance behind the SPÖ; among the almost 1.4 million voters who signed were 30 percent of independent voters (to whom the SPÖ owed its parliamentary majority) and 9 percent of SPÖ voters (Plasser and Ulram, 1982). The SPÖ’s decision to proceed with the project despite the very high level of support for the people’s initiative became an issue in the 1983 elections. The initiative introduced a new and relevant issue which contributed to the SPÖ’s loss of its absolute majority (Plasser and Ulram, 1983). Since 1986, the FPÖ has been radically transformed and has adopted a populist strategy (Luther, 1997). During this period the party has increased its vote share from 4.8 percent (1983) to 21.9 percent (1995), a gain that came about while concentrating on three issues: discomfort with the political class (scandals, political privileges, etc.), immigration, and European integration (Müller, 1998b). In keeping with these emphases the FPÖ launched a series of people’s initiatives, each designed to highlight one of its core issues: party patronage and privileges (1987), the ‘foreigners question’ (1993), and the public broadcasting system, which the FPÖ portrays as a domain of the SPÖ and ÖVP (1989). The FPÖ promoted its third core issue, its anti-EU stand, in two initiatives (both 1997) which followed the obliga- tory constitutional referendum on allowing Austria’s accession to the EU (Müller, 1998a: 27–8). One of these initiatives demanded a referendum on the introduction of the Euro currency; the other aimed at halting the trans- port of nuclear material through Austria. In the second case the FPÖ MPs supported an initiative originally introduced by a green splinter group. Since both initiatives were to be signed at the same time, the FPÖ hoped to increase the support for its own initiative by providing a strong incentive for green Eurosceptics to appear at the polling station. Moreover, the FPÖ had recently joined the bandwagon when a campaign for an initiative of the Greens against gene technology gained momentum. This initiative again squeezes the government between domestic demands and European commitments. With the exception of the public broadcasting system, all the FPÖ’s initiative issues struck a responsive chord in the mass public. The issue of 311 03 Muller (to) d/k 26/5/99 3:39 pm Page 312

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scandals and privileges of the political class was a high-profile one that drove a wedge into the voter alliances behind the major parties and won ‘negative voters’ for the FPÖ (Plasser et al., 1990). Polls suggest that the FPÖ’s recent anti-EU stand has the potential to attract broader support for the party than the actual meagre support for the initiatives suggests. However, the most interesting case is the ‘foreigners question’, which also divided the electoral alliances behind the SPÖ and ÖVP. In the 1990 elections the issue was already considered very important for individual voting behaviour by 22 percent of the voters and as somewhat important by 41 percent (Plasser and Ulram, 1993). The government parties responded to some real problems and to the mood in the population by adopting new legislation on the subject, but despite these and other possible concessions, in 1993 the FPÖ decided to launch a people’s initiative, entitled ‘Austria first’. At this point surveys showed that between 11 and 17 percent of the voters (i.e. 600,000–960,000 voters) were ‘very certain’ that they would sign the initiative (Plasser and Ulram, 1993). Accordingly, the FPÖ’s semi-official goal was to win the support of one million voters. However, a platform of (non-FPÖ) poli- ticians, members of the Catholic Church, the arts, sports and academe effec- tively mobilized against the initiative. The FPÖ responded by reducing its ambition to winning the support of 700,000 voters; that is, no more than had already declared their support as ‘very certain’ at the beginning of the campaign. Eventually, the people’s initiative was signed by slightly more than 400,000 voters. Although this was a failure when measured against the FPÖ’s ambitions, the initiative had mobilized 7.35 percent of the potential total electorate. In terms of the degree of mobilization of the sponsoring party’s electorate, it was one of the most successful people’s initiatives. Sub- sequently the ‘foreigners’ issue’ has remained on the agenda, where it con- tinues to generate support for the FPÖ (Müller, 1998a).4 In the 1990s the Greens also launched a number of initiatives. Three of them had a unifying effect on the electoral alliance behind the Greens while cutting through those of other parties. The initiatives originated from social movements and were introduced and supported by the Greens. They demand animal protection (1996), severe restrictions for the use of gene technology in Austria (1997), and – in the women’s initiative (1997) – a comprehensive programme of affirmative action. The introduction of the last-mentioned initiative was co-sponsored by 14 SPÖ MPs. All three initiatives were considered successful in terms of support, which ranged from half a million to one and a quarter million voters. All three initiatives have the potential to cause non-trivial electoral damage to the parties rejecting them. Since it is hard to be against animal protection, all parliamentary parties except the ÖVP – which represents farmers, furriers and other affected professions – now claim to support the main demands of the people’s initiative. Yet since the SPÖ is obliged to support its coalition partner (the ÖVP) in parliamentary voting, the initiative lacks a parliamentary majority. In the case of the gene technology 312 03 Muller (to) d/k 26/5/99 3:39 pm Page 313

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initiative, the Greens and the FPÖ have positioned themselves to attract voters who are dissatisfied with the government’s response, a response that is necessarily limited by Austria’s European commitments. In the case of the women’s initiative, the position of the government is no more comfortable. Again, the government’s response did not satisfy even the basic demands of the initiative, both because the government’s coffers are empty, and because of disagreement between the government parties, with the SPÖ (and its left wing in particular) displaying a more positive attitude than the ÖVP. The partial support the initiative has received from SPÖ MPs can be seen as an attempt at damage limitation. The Greens have positioned themselves to attract voters who are dissatisfied with the government’s response. However, if the people’s initiative were to turn into a women’s party, as some of its organizers have threatened, this would also inflict considerable damage on the Greens. The Greens therefore (unsuccessfully) tried to recruit the initiative’s spokeswomen as a candidate for the 1999 parliamentary elections. As the cases sketched above make clear, most party-sponsored initiatives have addressed issues that had electoral potential. Most of them indeed cut through the voter alliances behind other parties and had a unifying effect on the sponsoring party’s electorate. In most cases, political parties’ decisions to launch people’s initiatives indeed served their purpose of winning votes. Although the subsequent electoral effects of initiatives are a bit hard to disentangle, since outcomes are affected by many additional factors, this conclusion is also supported by evidence from the elections immediately following the respective initiatives (Müller, 1998a).

Conclusion

This article has explored party strategies in an institutional setting that allows citizens to partly shape the parliamentary agenda by the initiative. The Austrian people’s initiative is a unique means for citizens and opposition parties to attract public attention to an issue, both in its pre-parliamentary and parliamentary phases. Drawing on the theoretical literature on issue competition, or heresthetics (Riker, 1986), I have identiﬁed the requirements for an initiative to be successful in terms of building new electoral alliances. Building on recent literature on mass opinion formation (Zaller, 1992) and the directional theory of voting I have argued that, ceteris paribus, the instrument of the initiative has an in-built advantage for the party engaging in it. The empirical discussion of the use of the initiative in Austria has distin- guished initiatives sponsored by groups of citizens (including all non-party organizations) and those sponsored by political parties. In Austria, the former have been less important than the latter. Nevertheless, there have been cases where citizen-sponsored initiatives exercised considerable inﬂu- ence on party competition. Party-sponsored initiatives have been used 313 03 Muller (to) d/k 26/5/99 3:39 pm Page 314

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mainly to lend additional emphasis to issues the parties have tried to popu- larize. While not every initiative worked (because every issue does not strike a responsive chord in the electorate), the empirical evidence marshalled here shows that party-sponsored initiatives had an effect on party competition. This, in turn, lends support to this article’s theoretical considerations about the role of the initiative in issue competition. First, the instrument of the initiative is a means to raise attention to issues and to maintain it over time by adding sub-dimensions. Second, the instrument of the initiative, as distinct from the issue itself, has the potential to have an impact on the processes of issue competition and opinion formation.

Notes

1 The precise ﬁgures are: 10,000 voters (30,000 between 1963 and 1973), 8 MPs of the Nationalrat (15 MPs between 1963 and 1973), and 4 deputies of each of three Land diets (i.e. a total of 12) [5 deputies of each of three Land diets between 1963 and 1973 (a total of 15)]. 2 Since 1988 it has been sufﬁcient for a people’s initiative to articulate a demand (rather than to have it formulated as a bill). For the sake of simplicity I refer to all successful initiatives as bills. 3 On these propositions see Westholm (1997) and Macdonald et al. (1998). 4 It was the third most important reason in open questions and the most important reason in closed questions, attracting 12 percent of the voters in both versions (Plasser and Ulram, 1995: 492).

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WOLFGANG C MÜLLER is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Vienna, Austria. His main research interests are political parties and political institutions in Western Europe. His publications include articles in the European Journal of Political Research, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Party Politics, Political Studies, West European Politics and various other journals. ADDRESS: Institut für Staats- und Politikwissenschaft, University of Vienna, Hohenstaufengasse 9, A-1010 Vienna, Austria. [email: [email protected]]

Paper submitted 1 December 1997; accepted for publication 10 April 1998.

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