A brief history of referendums in Italy

Martina Trettel, let’s start from the end. Why has the March 22–23 referendum been called?

The referendum that will take place shortly is a confirmatory constitutional referendum. These are called when a constitutional reform approved by Parliament does not obtain, in the second vote, the qualified majority – namely two-thirds of the voters. In this case, if one of the authorized subjects – one fifth of the members of a chamber, five hundred thousand voters, or five regional councils – requests it, the reform may be submitted to a vote of the population, which has the final say on its entry into force.

What are the differences between a confirmatory referendum and an abrogative referendum?

An abrogative referendum serves to eliminate, in whole or in part, an ordinary law already in force and requires a quorum: the majority of those entitled to vote must participate for the result to be valid. To date, about half of abrogative referendums have been invalidated because the quorum was not reached. In a confirmatory constitutional referendum, by contrast, there is no quorum. The result is valid regardless of turnout, and only the number of votes cast in favor and against is counted. The absence of a minimum threshold is based on the idea that a constitutional revision already approved by Parliament through a double vote may be confirmed by the population without further conditions.

Does the absence of a quorum affect the political climate?

Yes, significantly. In abrogative referendums it sometimes happens that one political side calls for abstention, with the aim of influencing the outcome of the vote. In constitutional referendums, by contrast, every vote has the same weight, and this tends to orient the debate more toward the substance of the reform rather than toward the strategic choice of whether or not to participate in the vote.

At the same time, however, a vote in favor of or against a reform proposal may also be interpreted as a signal of support for, or criticism of the government. In such cases, the outcome of the referendum tends to be linked to a broader evaluation of the government’s performance, with the risk of shifting attention from the subject of the vote to a more strictly political dimension.

An example often cited is the 2016 constitutional referendum on overcoming equal bicameralism, after which the victory of the “no” vote was followed by the resignation of the government led by Matteo Renzi. In situations of this kind, the referendum vote may be perceived not only as a choice on the proposed reform but also as an overall judgment on the government’s action – almost as if the two dimensions were inevitably intertwined.

 What is the central point of the judicial reform?

The core of the reform concerns the separation of careers between the adjudicating judiciary and the prosecutorial judiciary – that is, between judges and public prosecutors. Currently in Italy both functions belong to the same judicial order and, at least in principle, a magistrate may move from one function to the other during their career. The reform instead provides for a clearer distinction between the two professional paths and a different organization of the judiciary’s self-governing bodies. The text also intervenes in the system of judicial self-government. Today there is a single body – the High Council of the Judiciary (CSM) – which deals with assignments, careers, and disciplinary matters concerning magistrates. The reform instead provides for the creation of two separate High Councils: one for adjudicating magistrates and one for prosecuting magistrates. In addition, disciplinary powers would be assigned to a new constitutional body – a High Disciplinary Court. Justice and labor are the issues on which the population has most often been called to express itself through referendums. In particular, two referendums had already been held on the separation of careers – in 2000 and 2022. In both cases these were abrogative referendums, and neither reached the quorum; in 2022 the turnout was just 20.4 percent: the lowest ever recorded. This figure reflects a more general trend: in recent years participation in abrogative referendums has progressively declined, making it increasingly difficult to reach the threshold required for the validity of the vote.

Is this due to a general decline in voter turnout or to the fact that the issues are very technical?

Almost 88 percent of voters participated in the 1974 referendum on divorce, while about 80 percent of the population took part in the 1981 referendum on abortion. These figures suggest that issues closer to the population tend to encourage greater electoral mobilization. The last abrogative referendum that reached the quorum was the 2011 referendum on the management and privatization of water – a matter that at the time generated strong interest and wide public debate.

The questions in abrogative referendums are very complex to understand because it is not permitted to modify a law but only to eliminate it in whole or in part. The result is often a collage of different pieces that do not function well together. At a time when there is a certain reluctance to vote, this certainly does not help.

How often has the referendum been used in Italy?

Overall, Italy has made relatively frequent use of the referendum instrument, especially compared with other European systems. Since the birth of the Republic in 1946, 84 referendums have been called, including the one scheduled for March 2026. If we exclude the 1946 institutional referendum – through which the population chose between monarchy and republic – and the 1989 consultative referendum on granting a constituent mandate to the European Parliament, the vast majority of consultations – 77 – have been abrogative referendums. In contrast, confirmatory constitutional referendums have been few: 2001, 2006, 2016, 2020, and 2026. This shows that in Italy the referendum has mainly been used as a tool of control or correction of Parliament’s legislative activity, rather than as a tool for deciding on constitutional reforms. Constitutional referendums have been fewer also because constitutional reforms are, by their nature, rarer and require more complex procedures to be initiated and approved.

Is it an outdated instrument?

It remains an important instrument, but it has some limits: it is a binary consultation, which reduces often very complex issues to a yes or no, and it requires very broad mobilization of the population. There is discussion about adopting reforms to make it a more up-to-date instrument. The quorum, for example, has become an anachronistic element. If we know that turnout is always below 50 percent, how can we think of calling abrogative referendums with a quorum that – we know for certain – will not be reached? This leads to a distortion of the instrument because, instead of entering into the substance of the issue, attention shifts to whether or not to go and vote in order to reach the threshold. One proposal is to consider turnout in the previous general elections and set the quorum at half plus one of that figure. This would be a more realistic benchmark, and the focus would return to the reasons for yes and no.

You are an expert in participatory democracy. What alternatives to the referendum might be more successful in involving the population?

In recent years other forms of participation have been experimented with that can complement the referendum. These include, for example, citizens’ assemblies selected by lot, structured deliberative processes, or forms of public participation during the policy-making cycle. These instruments make it possible to involve the population before decisions are taken, offering spaces for information, debate, and discussion. In many cases the most promising idea is not to replace the referendum but to combine different instruments – moments of participatory deliberation during the policy-development cycle and, when necessary, recourse to the popular vote for final decisions. An interesting case is the Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review – an instrument of deliberative democracy used in the state of Oregon in the United States to improve citizens’ information before a referendum. Around twenty people, randomly selected to be representative of the population, meet for several days to study a legislative proposal that will be submitted to a popular vote. During the process these people hear from experts, supporters, and opponents of the proposal, discuss among themselves, and at the end draft a “citizens’ statement” – a document that summarizes the main facts and the strongest arguments in favor of and against the measure. This text is then published in the official voter guide, with the aim of helping the public make more informed decisions in the referendum vote.

How does Italy compare with the European landscape of referendums?

In the European comparison, Italy is one of the countries that has made the greatest use of referendums at the national level. If we exclude Switzerland – which represents a unique case of direct democracy – Italy is among the European countries with the highest number of popular consultations in recent decades. Many European states in fact use the referendum much more rarely and reserve it almost exclusively for constitutional decisions or issues of great importance, such as accession to the European Union or the ratification of international treaties. In several countries – such as Germany, Belgium, or Greece – there is not even a true national referendum on popular initiative. A very different model is that of Switzerland, where the referendum is an integral part of the political system: over the course of history hundreds of national referendums and thousands at the cantonal level have taken place.