Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Referendum |
ReferendumNoun1. A legislative act is referred for final approval to a popular vote by the electorate. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "referendum" was first used: 1847. (references) |
| Domain | Definitions |
Satire | REFERENDUM, n. A law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion. Source: Devil's Dictionary. |
Agriculture | In agriculture, referendum generally refers to a vote by farmers on whether to approve or disapprove a farm program, such as mandatory production or marketing controls, assessments for generic commodity promotion, or marketing orders. (references) |
Law | Vote by the general community to accept or reject a measure proposed by the government. Source: European Union. (references) |
| Vote that takes place in Switzerland on federal laws, general decrees, international treaties or membership agreements with international organizations. Source: European Union. (references) | |
| The method by which a measure adopted by the Legislature may be submitted to the electorate for a vote. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A referendum or plebiscite (plurals referenda, plebiscites) is a general poll on a legislative or constitutional issue.
Referendum is the referring of a political question to a direct vote of the electorate.
A consultative referendum (also called an advisory referendum) leaves the interpretation of the vote to the legislature.
A binding referendum is possible only in some countries, a certain size of the participating electorate often being a prerequisite.
A plebiscite is directed to all citizens, regardless of their franchise. A plebiscite, in its narrow sense, is the request for approval of a (radical) governmental decree or approval of the general policies of the government, typically in states without Democracy, Parliamentarism or a representative parliament.
Referenda are a key measure in semi-direct democracy and the only measure in a pure direct democracy. Few believe that such "rule by poll" is always desirable. For once, referendums may lead to inconsistent politics, such as increasing spending on certain issues while lowering taxes (both of which are likely to be favored by many voters). Voters may be subject to disinformation campaign, especially on emotional issues. Also, referendums may be inadequate for very technical issues. However, most advocates of grassroots democracy propose measures that would make them far more common.
In most jurisdictions practicing representative democracy, referenda, the calling of which can only be achieved through the act of a legislature, are a relatively rare event.
Constitutions, in many jurisdictions, are modifiable only by referendum. In part this is due to the arguments above, to ensure that the cases for and against change are concentrated at one point in time for a balanced presentation to the public.
However, in some jurisdictions, some non-constitutional issues are put to referenda, which can be initiated by a petition of a certain proportion of voters. One such measure is representative recall which permits voters (or party members) in one district to "fire" their elected representative. This would require a referendum only in the firing district.
See also: initiative, approval voting, political science, representative recall
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Referendum."
Synonym: ReferendumSynonym: Initiative and referendum. (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Government | Election, poll, ballot, vote, referendum, recall, initiative, voice, suffrage, plumper, cumulative vote, plebiscitum, plebiscite, vox populi; electioneering; voting; Verb: elective franchise; straight ticket; opinion poll, popularity poll. |
Inquiry | Scire facias, ad referendum; trial. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Referendum |
| Specialty definitions using "referendum": BUDDHA ♦ corrupt electoral practices ♦ electoral corruption, electoral fraud ♦ Fluid Milk Promotion Act of 1990 ♦ Marketing quotas ♦ Sheep Promotion, Research, and Information Act of 1994. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Referendum" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Albanian (plebiscite, referendum), Czech (referendum), German (referendum), Italian (referendum), Latin (give back, pay back, referendum, renew, report, return, that which must be referred), Romanian (referendum), Serbo-Croatian (referendum), Swedish (plebiscite, referendum). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Come on, Divorce Referendum! (Father Ted; writing credit: Graham Linehan; Arthur Mathews) | |
Movie/TV Titles | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Sign concerning wheat quotas referendum. Genesee, Idaho.Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Le Centre veut une assemblee regionale elue par vous ... a plusieurs questions une seule reponse : c'est inacceptable, non a ce referendum.Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Vous voulez vivre mieux sans crainte de l'avenir, une France souveraine, independante, cooperant avec tous les pays, dans ... dites non au referendum plebiscite.Credit: Library of Congress. | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Civil Liberties | Djibouti | A 1993 referendum approved limiting the number of political parties to four; however, this result has not yet been codified into law. (references) |
Ukraine | Likewise in the period leading up to an April 2000 referendum, television coverage was overwhelmingly propresidential and proreferendum. (references) | |
Switzerland | In a June referendum, voters approved the repeal of a constitutional provision that prevented the Catholic Church from setting up new dioceses without the express consent of the Government. (references) | |
Economic History | Turkey | They also may be submitted to popular referendum. (references) |
Azerbaijan | In October 1991, a referendum in N-K approved independence. (references) | |
Greece | To call a referendum, he must obtain approval from parliament. (references) | |
Human Rights | Armenia | Such constitutional revisions must pass both Parliament and a national referendum. (references) |
Bahrain | The Bahrain Freedom Movement has endorsed the results of the National Action Charter referendum and fully supports the Amir's political reform initiative. (references) | |
Ukraine | However, in March 2000, the Court ruled that the President's proposed referendum on expanding presidential authority was constitutional, although it threw out two of the six original questions. (references) | |
Indigenous People | Canada | These legal challenges include one from the Liberal Party that contends that the treaty should have been submitted to a referendum and one from the Gitanyow, an indigenous group located near the Nisga'a, who contend that the treaty awarded more than 85 percent of their traditional tribal lands to the Nisga'a. (references) |
Australia | The mandate of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, created by Parliament in 1991, expired in 2000. The Council's final report was released in December 2000, and it included recommendations that the federal and state governments set performance benchmarks and timelines for overcoming Aboriginal disadvantage and enact legislation to further the principles of legislation; that Parliament prepare legislation providing for a referendum on deleting a constitutional amendment on racial criteria for voting; and that the Constitution be amended to make racial discrimination unlawful. (references) | |
Minorities | Liechtenstein | In 2000 voters approved a referendum that changed naturalization requirements to facilitate the naturalization of long-term residents, but it required that applicants relinquish their citizenship in other countries. (references) |
Political Economy | Maldives | Further terms in office also require confirmation by referendum. (references) |
Uk | The Conservatives, by contrast, are likely to oppose such a referendum. (references) | |
Norway | In a November 1994 referendum, Norwegians rejected European Union membership. (references) | |
Political Rights | Liechtenstein | If approved by Parliament, the bill then would be presented to voters in a referendum. (references) |
Maldives | The nominee is then confirmed or rejected by secret ballot in a nationwide referendum. (references) | |
Bahrain | Women were permitted to vote in the February referendum on the National Action Charter. (references) | |
Trade | Switzerland | Nonetheless, a referendum seeking to force the Swiss government to retract the country's application for EU membership was rejected in May, 1997. The Government has been making a concerted effort to bring Swiss laws and regulations into line with those of the EU, and Switzerland recently concluded a package of seven sectoral agreements with the EU, known as "the Bilaterals" which will afford Switzerland many of the economic advantages that joining the EEA would have. (references) |
Women | Uganda | Approximately 60 percent voted in favor of the referendum. (references) |
Uganda | On December 22, in the eastern district of Tororo, a referendum was held to reform the 1964 bride-price by-law. (references) | |
Worker Rights | Pakistan | This policy also decrees that, in order to check the growth of trade unions, unions receiving less than 20 percent of the votes in a referendum are to be dissolved automatically and their registrations canceled. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
Warren G. Harding | 1921-1923 | In a deliberate questioning of a suggested change of national policy, where internationality was to supersede nationality, we turned to a referendum, to the American people. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Referendum" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 99.93% of the time. "Referendum" is used about 1,433 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 99.93% | 1,432 | 5,623 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.07% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 1,433 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "referendum": ad referendum. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "referendum": election-referendum. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "referendum"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | referendum (plebiscite). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | مذكرة إستعلامية, إستفتاء شعبي (plebiscite). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | референдум, допитване до народа. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 公民投票 (Plebiscite). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | referendum, veřejné hlasování. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | traktaten forkastedes ved folkeafstemning (treaty rejected by referendum). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | verwerping van het Verdrag per referendum (treaty rejected by referendum). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | مراجعه باراعمومی , همه پرسی (Plebiscite), کسب تکلیف , رفراندم . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | kansanäänestys (plebiscite). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | référendum (referenda). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | referendum, volksentscheid (referenda). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | δημοψήφισμα (plebiscite). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | משאל עם (plebiscite), משאל (desire, poll, request, wish). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | népszavazás (plebiscite, popular vote). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | pemungutan suara (balloting, voting). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | referendum (strike ballot). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 人民投票 (plebiscite), 一般投票 (plebiscite, popular vote). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | いっぱ"とうひょう (plebiscite, popular vote), じ"み"とうひょう (plebiscite). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | refrane. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | eferendumray referendo, plebiscito (plebiscite, plebs). (various references) referendum. (various references) референдум (plebiscite, referenda). (various references) referendum. (various references) referéndum. (various references) folkomröstning (plebiscite). (various references) ประชามติ. (various references) referandum (plebiscite), halkoylaması. (various references) референдум. (various references) cuộc trưng cầu ý dân. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | referendum. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "referendum": referendums. (additional references) | |
| |
"Referendum" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: referandum, referend, referrendum, referundum, refferendum, refrendum. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "referendum" (pronounced re'fere"ndum) |
| 4 | -n d u m | condom, corundum, memorandum, random, tandem. |
| 3 | -d u m | addendum, boredom, chiefdom, dukedom, earldom, fiefdom, freedom, kingdom, macadam, madam, Madame, martyrdom, modem, officialdom, Sedum, seldom, sheikdom, Sodom, stardom, subkingdom, wisdom. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "d-e-e-e-f-m-n-r-r-u" | |
-2 letters: freedmen, murderee, refunder. | |
-3 letters: demurer, emender, freemen, reedmen, unfreed. | |
-4 letters: demure, endure, enured, feeder, fender, ferrum, frenum, furred, mender, murder, needer, redeem, reefed, reefer, refeed, refund, remend, render, unfree. | |
-5 letters: defer, demur, emeer, emend, ender, endue, enure, erred, femur, feued, freed, freer, fremd, frere, fumed, fumer, merde, merer, mured, murre, neume, nuder, refed, refer, rerun, ruder, rumen, undee, under, unfed. | |
| Words containing the letters "d-e-e-e-f-m-n-r-r-u" | |
+1 letter: referendums. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)52 65 66 65 72 65 6E 64 75 6D |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references).-. . ..-. . .-. . -. -.. ..- -- |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01010010 01100101 01100110 01100101 01110010 01100101 01101110 01100100 01110101 01101101 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)R e f e r e n d u m |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0052 0065 0066 0065 0072 0065 006E 0064 0075 006D |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)52717271847180708779 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Quotations: Non-fiction 8. Quotations: Speeches | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Translations: Ancient 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Orthography 18. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
