This special issue about the practice of local referendums in the Netherlands and Flanders, Belgium, focuses in particular on the relationship between referendums and the consensus model of democracy. On the one hand, referendums are widely conceived of as a typical majoritarian device. On the other hand, the legal possibility of referendums forces political elites to reach broad agreement, in order to prevent a popular vote in which decisions would be recalled. The three contributions to this issue demonstrate that consensus democracy influences the debate about referendums in the legislative, as well as how the practicalities are organised, in more varied ways. Studies of independent referendum bodies in the Netherlands and question wording in referendums in Flanders show that the nature of consensus democracy enables both countries to find solutions to potential problems, but also brings new problems. Guidelines for how these may be prevented in future referendums are provided.

Belgium did not organise a referendum on the European Constitution, like the Netherlands, even though there were some initiatives to make it legally possible. In the Netherlands there is also more experience with referenda at the local level. For decades there has been a debate about how to make it legal at the national level, but after many attempts, there is still no law that makes referenda possible at that level. The aim of this article is to compare Belgium and the Netherlands in order to identify similarities and differences. Some explanation can be found in the past, which clarifies why Belgium is reluctant to referenda and why at the local level this tool is not as often used as in the Netherlands. The main conclusion is that in spite of the referendum on the European Constitution in the Netherlands and the more frequent use of local referenda in that country, the political classes in Belgium and the Netherlands are comparable in their reluctant attitude towards this consultation of their citizens. Both countries continue to evaluate referenda as not in accordance with the system of representative democracy.

Since the nineties of the last century, there has been a modest rise of local referendums in the Netherlands. This article describes the important role played by independent local referendum committees, one of the most remarkable characteristics of the recent Dutch referendum experience. Their task is among others to advice about the wording of the question, to supervise the organisation of the referendum and the campaign and to handle complaints. The need to use an independent body to support the referendum process is missing in countries as Switzerland and the United States. The lack of referendum experience and the lack of confidence in Dutch local authorities forced them to introduce independent local referendum bodies. The role of these institutions fits in the traditions of the Dutch consensus democracy to engage experts to depoliticise delicate political problems.

Direct democratic participation through referenda is often contested, because one faces the problem of determining referendum questions which avoid confusion or subjectivity. However, detailed knowledge concerning socalled ‘question wording effects’ is available within the domain of survey research. In this body of literature, several wording effects such as the use of suggestive wordings, the ambiguity of yes/no questions etc., have been well documented. Yet, despite the similarities between referendum and survey questions, knowledge from survey methodology is rarely employed within the literature on referenda. The present study discusses a number of question wording effects studied in survey research and shows their relevance in referendum settings. In addition this article explores these effects in twelve local referenda in Flanders, Belgium. Building on this empirical evidence, we conclude with a number of precise guidelines regarding the quality of referendum questions.