Bulletin n. 1/2009 | ||
July 2009 | ||
Qvortrup Matt |
||
Rebels without a Cause? The Irish Referendum on the Lisbon Treaty | ||
in Political Quarterly , Volume 80, Issue 1, January/March 2009 , 2009 , 59-66 | ||
The Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty follows a pattern of class-voting also seen in the 2005 referendums on the European Constitution. However, the poll differed in other respects. Polling in the wake of the vote suggested that the main reason given for voting no was a lack of knowledge about the treaty (22 per cent of no voters holding that view). A further 40 per cent of the voters voted no because they claimed not to understand the Treaty. This is in contrast to referendums in 2005 in Spain and the Netherlands where, respectively 70 and 51 per cent, of those with a self confessed 'very limited ' knowledge of the Constitution voted yes. | ||