Early career researcher researcher's article on referendums honoured

In her award-winning article "Referendums, Initiatives, and Voters' Accountability," Alice el-Wakil, tenure track assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, argues that the critique of referendums has two major weaknesses.

"We lack good justifications for characterising voters as legislators in referendums, while we don't use that characterisation in representative elections," she says and elaborates:

"This conceptual clarification may have implications for other objections to referendums, including the claim that voters are not sufficiently competent to vote on political issues," she says.

Secondly, Alice el-Wakil believes that it is wrong to see voters as a kind of legislators who should be held accountable.

"Even if we recognise voters as co-legislators, voters, unlike elected politicians, do not have the kind of special powers that require accountability," she points out.

Referendums can support and inform voters

In conclusion, Alice el-Wakil suggests that well-designed referendum processes can support voters in getting the information they need to play their institutional role better than in conventional representative systems – or at least enable them to correct previous decisions in light of new information.

The article, which has just been published in Res Publica, is praised by Deputy Head of Department Asmus Leth Olsen.

"We are very proud of Alice's achievement. The award illustrates the strong research and large pool of talent among the department's tenure tracks," he says. 

The award was presented by the president of the Danish Political Science Association Svend-Erik Skaaning and Lasse Wolsgaard (Djøf Forlag) during the Association’s annual conference in Nyborg.

Read the full article here (open access).