{"id":10561,"date":"2026-04-09T13:35:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T13:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.proefschriftmaken.nl\/portfolio\/sebastien-rojon\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T07:23:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T07:23:51","slug":"sebastien-rojon","status":"publish","type":"us_portfolio","link":"https:\/\/www.proefschriftmaken.nl\/en\/portfolio\/sebastien-rojon\/","title":{"rendered":"Sebastien Rojon"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":12580,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"us_portfolio_category":[45],"class_list":["post-10561","us_portfolio","type-us_portfolio","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","us_portfolio_category-new-template"],"acf":{"naam_van_het_proefschift":"Who Wants Referendums?","samenvatting":"Er is geen Nederlandse samenvatting beschikbaar. De Engelse samenvatting vind je <a href=\"https:\/\/www.proefschriftmaken.nl\/en\/portfolio\/sebastien-rojon\/\">hier<\/a>.","summary":"For decades political scientists have warned that citizens in established democracies are increasingly alienated and disengaged from politics. Popular involvement in political decision-making is one of the most common and extensive remedies proposed for this \u201ccrisis of democracy\u201d as it provides citizens with more control over politics. In all countries of the European Union (Leininger, 2015) and in several American states (Craig, Kreppel, and Kane, 2001) substantial majorities of citizens have voiced their support for the use of referendums. However, recent referendum campaigns such as Brexit, the Swiss and Hungarian Anti-Immigrant Referendums, and the Dutch Referendum against EU-Ukraine relations have raised concerns among politicians, academics, and journalists about the contribution of these instruments to liberal democracy.\n\nThe core focus of this dissertation is to investigate which individuals want political decisions to be taken by ordinary citizens. This is done by testing hypotheses about the effects of political attitudes, party preferences, policy preferences, and socio-demographic characteristics on items measuring support for participatory decision-making. The second aim is to investigate how the abovementioned determinants of public support for participatory decision-making differ a) over time; b) across polities; and c) depending on what instruments are used. Finally, this dissertation also explores how everyday perspectives on politics and the citizen\u2019s role in political decision-making differ between countries providing citizens with many vs. few opportunities to participate in political decisions.\n\nChapter 2: Using data from the 2012 European Social Survey (ESS) and the 2017 POLPART survey we compare public support for the use of referendums in Switzerland, the Netherlands, the UK, and Hungary before and after the national referendums on Mass Immigration, EU-Ukraine Relations, Brexit, and the EU Migrant Relocation Plan. Between 2012 and 2017 overall referendum support declined in all countries but especially in the Netherlands. In some countries, referendum support became more strongly linked to those at the margins of politics (i.e. politically disaffected, xenophobic, and lower-income individuals) in 2017 than in 2012.\n\nChapter 3: Combining data on twenty-six European countries from the 2012 ESS and the 2017 POPLART survey, we demonstrate that both radical right (RR) and radical left (RL) voters score higher on referendum support than mainstream voters, with RR voters scoring the highest. However, the differences between voter groups are more characteristic of Western than Eastern European countries and the link between RR voting and referendum support is weaker in countries where these parties are more electorally successful. In a second analysis we investigate individual-level explanations for the association between radical voting and referendum support in Western Europe, demonstrating that anti-elitism is the most important attitude linking RR voters to referendum support whereas income redistribution is the most important attitude linking RL voters to referendum support. Even when controlling for all possible explanations, we find that RR voters are still more favorable towards direct democracy than mainstream voters.\n\nChapter 4: Drawing from a series of focus groups conducted in fall 2015, we compare citizens\u2019 discussions about politics and a participatory model of democracy in the UK (a centralized state with a strong tradition of representative politics) and Switzerland (a decentralized state with strong elements of direct democracy). The UK focus group discussions were characterized by a pervasive mood of anti-politics yet participants expressed reluctance about inviting citizens to take political decisions and seemed inclined towards reforms aimed at improving representative politics or giving more power to local authorities. In Switzerland participants described their political system as a \u201cprivilege\u201d but also expressed frustration with complicated voting materials, lengthy political processes, and referendum outcomes being ignored or contested.\n\nChapter 5: In a survey experiment conducted among a sample of 960 Americans we compare citizens\u2019 preferences for vote-centric (referendums & initiatives) and talk-centric (public meetings) instruments, demonstrating that public meetings are rated considerably lower, especially when they are used to take binding decisions. Contrary to expectations, individuals from referendum and initiative states were not more positive about these instruments than those from non-direct democratic states and expressed a general preference for advisory instruments. Confirming expectations, individuals expressing concerns about minority rights or public incompetence in political matters were not as negative about direct decision-making when the outcomes were advisory as opposed to binding.\n\nAuthor Biography\n\nS\u00e9bastien Rojon was born on June 27, 1991 in Dakar, Senegal. Growing up he lived in several countries including Madagascar, the United States, Germany, and Burkina Faso. In 2012 he obtained a BA in History from the University College London. As an intern for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Ghana he developed an interest in migration theory and practice, which led to an MSc in Migration Studies from the University of Oxford, completed in 2013. His Master\u2019s thesis compared the relationship between the share of immigrants and the level of support for the French National Front at the regional versus local level. Springing from this research on populism and anti-immigrant attitudes, he pursued a PhD in Sociology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His PhD dissertation, defended in September 2020, investigates the growing demand for referendums, arguing that these instruments are particularly appealing to those at the margins of politics, i.e. politically disaffected, anti-immigrant, lower-educated, and lower-income individuals. Outside of academia, he worked at the European Parliament, the International Migration Institute, and the Belgian Centre for Development Cooperation. Currently, he is working as a consultant for the International Organization for Migration in Burundi, where he conducted research on human-trafficking and labor exploitation in Burundi and neighboring countries. In the future he hopes to continue bridging research on migration and politics in both academic and non-academic contexts.\n\nINVITATION\n\nYou are kindly invited to the WHO WANTS REFERENDUMS? PhD defense ceremony of S\u00e9bastien Rojon: A cross-national investigation of citizens\u2019 attitudes towards participatory decision-making. The ceremony will take place on Tuesday 1 September 2020 at 11:45 in the Aula of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam. S\u00e9bastien Alexandre Rojon.","auteur":"Sebastien Rojon","auteur_slug":"sebastien-rojon","publicatiedatum":"1 september 2020","taal":"EN","url_flipbook":"https:\/\/ebook.proefschriftmaken.nl\/ebook\/sebastienrojon?iframe=true","url_download_pdf":"","url_epub":"","ordernummer":"FTP-202604091333","isbn":"978-94-6380-857-6","doi_nummer":"","naam_universiteit":"Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam","afbeeldingen":12580,"naam_student:":"","binnenwerk":"","universiteit":"Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam","cover":"","afwerking":"","cover_afwerking":"","design":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proefschriftmaken.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/us_portfolio\/10561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proefschriftmaken.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/us_portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proefschriftmaken.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/us_portfolio"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proefschriftmaken.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proefschriftmaken.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.proefschriftmaken.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/us_portfolio\/10561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10562,"href":"https:\/\/www.proefschriftmaken.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/us_portfolio\/10561\/revisions\/10562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proefschriftmaken.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proefschriftmaken.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"us_portfolio_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proefschriftmaken.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/us_portfolio_category?post=10561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}