This is the odds ratio and, very briefly, if this number is close to 1, the variable has no effect; the more the ExpB number is above one, the greater the effect of the variable on increasing abstention; the more it is below 1, the greater the effect on reducing the level of abstention. The right-hand column in Table 3 shows the level of statistical significance (this should normally be below 0.05). The point of the present analysis is that, controlling for the effects of socio-demographic, attitudinal and political factors, an important range of communication, campaign and knowledge variables had substantial effects on turnout/abstention in the second Nice referendum. Conclusion The evidence presented here shows that turnout in EU referendums is significantly and independently affected by the quality of political campaigning and by people’s knowledge of both domestic and European politics. This finding reinforces previous evidence that knowledge also affects turnout in in European Parliament elections. The worrying thing about this is that people are not very well informed about either the EU or the EP. The encouraging thing is that knowledge is something elites can do something about, provided they set about it intelligently and energetically. References  Sinnott, R., ‘EU Referenda: Selective Veto or Inclusive Consultation’ in Challenging Europe No. 16, (2007) pp  Garry, J., & Marsh, M., & Sinnott, R., ‘Second Order versus Issue Voting Effects in EU Referendums: Evidence from the Irish Nice Treaty Referendums’ in European Union Politics Vol.6, No. 2, (2005) pp  Svensson, P., ”Five Danish referendums on the European Community and European Union: A critical assessment of the Franklin thesis”, European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 41, No.6, (2002) pp EU Developmental Referendums: Knowledge, Turnout & Vote Choice Prof. Richard Sinnott (University College Dublin), Prof. Palle Svensson (Århus University) & Stephen Quinlan (University College Dublin) Introduction EU developmental referendums deal with treaty- based changes in European integration. They are quite distinct from accession referendums. A key difference is that the decision in a developmental referendum directly affects all member states and the process of integration itself. Accession referendums directly affect only the state concerned. The purpose of this paper is to examine aspects of people’s behaviour in developmental referendums in the four member states that have said ‘no’ in such a referendum. Because Ireland is the only member state holding a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon, particular attention will be paid to that case. Comparisons The four ‘no’ outcomes in developmental referendums occurred in quite different public-opinion contexts and with quite different underlying trajectories and levels of support for membership (see Fig.1). Because Denmark and Ireland have each held EU developmental referendums on more occasions that any other member state, they form a particularly appropriate pair for comparison. The differences in abstention and in the volatility of the ‘yes’ vote are striking (see Fig. 2 and 3). Knowledge Knowledge plays a crucial role in referendum behaviour. Judging by responses to open- ended questions, lack of knowledge contributed substantially to the very high level of abstention in the first Nice referendum in Ireland (see Table 1). It also contributed to the ‘no’ vote in that same referendum (Table 2) and to the ‘no’ vote in the Maastricht referendum in Denmark in 1992 (Fig. 4). Response to the campaign What makes for an informed and self-confident electorate? A comparison of the two Nice referendums in Ireland suggests that the campaign in the media and interpersonal discussion are crucial. As Fig. 5 shows, there was substantial improvement in both respects between the two referendums. There was also increased satisfaction with some official sources of information (the government’s White Paper and the information disseminated by the Referendum Commission). Multivariate analysis This allows us the measure the effect of an individual variable (for example, knowledge of the EU) while holding the effects of all the other variables constant. The essential information is contained in the ExpB column (see Table 3). FP6 CivicActive