Download Free Special Issue Referendums Democracy And Nationalism Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Special Issue Referendums Democracy And Nationalism and write the review.

This revised and expanded edition analyses the factors conducive to holding independence and secession referendums, to winning these votes and to their status in domestic and international law. Taking into account the votes in Catalonia and Scotland, the book shows that votes on secession and independence are not a passing phenomenon but an important part of international politics. The book includes an overview of the history of referendums on independence and a summary of the legal issues involved in doing so, as well as a chapter on referendums in unrecognised states and case study chapters exploring referendums in Kosovo, Cyprus, Kurdistan and Somaliland amongst others. By considering the ethical arguments for secession and recognition, the legal norms governing the process, and the positive and political science theory of when would-be states succeed in becoming recognized by the international community, it shows the role of referendums in the process of establishing new states, and, as a corollary, their role (if any) winning international recognition for these states. This book will be of interest to all scholars and students of political science, law and even philosophy.
How referendums can diffuse populist tensions by putting power back into the hands of the people Propelled by the belief that government has slipped out of the hands of ordinary citizens, a surging wave of populism is destabilizing democracies around the world. As John Matsusaka reveals in Let the People Rule, this belief is based in fact. Over the past century, while democratic governments have become more efficient, they have also become more disconnected from the people they purport to represent. The solution Matsusaka advances is familiar but surprisingly underused: direct democracy, in the form of referendums. While this might seem like a dangerous idea post-Brexit, there is a great deal of evidence that, with careful design and thoughtful implementation, referendums can help bridge the growing gulf between the government and the people. Drawing on examples from around the world, Matsusaka shows how direct democracy can bring policies back in line with the will of the people (and provide other benefits, like curbing corruption). Taking lessons from failed processes like Brexit, he also describes what issues are best suited to referendums and how they should be designed, and he tackles questions that have long vexed direct democracy: can voters be trusted to choose reasonable policies, and can minority rights survive majority decisions? The result is one of the most comprehensive examinations of direct democracy to date—coupled with concrete, nonpartisan proposals for how countries can make the most of the powerful tools that referendums offer. With a crisis of representation hobbling democracies across the globe, Let the People Rule offers important new ideas about the crucial role the referendum can play in the future of government.
A major new statement of deliberative theory that shows how states, even transnational systems, can be deliberatively democratic.
Latin American states took dramatic steps toward greater inclusion during the late twentieth and early twenty-first Centuries. Bringing together an accomplished group of scholars, this volume examines this shift by introducing three dimensions of inclusion: official recognition of historically excluded groups, access to policymaking, and resource redistribution. Tracing the movement along these dimensions since the 1990s, the editors argue that the endurance of democratic politics, combined with longstanding social inequalities, create the impetus for inclusionary reforms. Diverse chapters explore how factors such as the role of partisanship and electoral clientelism, constitutional design, state capacity, social protest, populism, commodity rents, international diffusion, and historical legacies encouraged or inhibited inclusionary reform during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Featuring original empirical evidence and a strong theoretical framework, the book considers cross-national variation, delves into the surprising paradoxes of inclusion, and identifies the obstacles hindering further fundamental change.
Liberal left orthodoxy holds that Brexit is a disastrous coup, orchestrated by the hard right and fuelled by xenophobia, which will break up the Union and turn what’s left of Britain into a neoliberal dystopia. Richard Tuck’s ongoing commentary on the Brexit crisis demolishes this narrative. He argues that by opposing Brexit and throwing its lot in with a liberal constitutional order tailor-made for the interests of global capitalists, the Left has made a major error. It has tied itself into a framework designed to frustrate its own radical policies. Brexit therefore actually represents a golden opportunity for socialists to implement the kind of economic agenda they have long since advocated. Sadly, however, many of them have lost faith in the kind of popular revolution that the majoritarian British constitution is peculiarly well-placed to deliver and have succumbed instead to defeatism and the cultural politics of virtue-signalling. Another approach is, however, still possible. Combining brilliant contemporary political insights with a profound grasp of the ironies of modern history, this book is essential for anyone who wants a clear-sighted assessment of the momentous underlying issues brought to the surface by Brexit.
In the contemporary world, there are many democratic states whose minority nations have pushed for constitutional reform, greater autonomy, and asymmetric federalism. Substate national movements within countries such as Spain, Canada, Belgium, and the United Kingdom are heterogeneous: some nationalists advocate independence, others seek an autonomous special status within the state, and yet others often seek greater self-government as a constituent unit of a federation or federal system. What motivates substate nationalists to prioritize one constitutional vision over another is one of the great puzzles of ethnonational constitutional politics. In Visions of Sovereignty, Jaime Lluch examines why some nationalists adopt a secessionist stance while others within the same national movement choose a nonsecessionist constitutional orientation. Based on extensive fieldwork in Canada and Spain, Visions of Sovereignty provides an in-depth examination of the Québécois and Catalan national movements between 1976 and 2010. It also elaborates a novel theoretical perspective: the "moral polity" thesis. Lluch argues persuasively that disengagement between the central state and substate nationalists can lead to the adoption of more prosovereignty constitutional orientations. Because many substate nationalists perceive that the central state is not capable of accommodating or sustaining a plural constitutional vision, their radicalization is animated by a moral sense of nonreciprocity. Mapping the complex range of political orientations within substate national movements, Visions of Sovereignty illuminates the political and constitutional dynamics of accommodating national diversity in multinational democracies. This elegantly written and meticulously researched study is essential for those interested in the future of multinational and multiethnic states.
The main area of sustained populist growth in recent decades has been Western Europe, where populist parties have not only endured longer than expected, but have increasingly begun to enter government. Focusing on three high-profile cases in Italy and Switzerland – the Popolo della Libertà (PDL), Lega Nord (LN) and Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP) – Populists in Power is the first in-depth comparative study to examine whether these parties are indeed doomed to failure in office as many commentators have claimed. Albertazzi and McDonnell’s findings run contrary to much of the received wisdom. Based on extensive original research and fieldwork, they show that populist parties can be built to last, can achieve key policy victories and can survive the experience of government, without losing the support of either the voters or those within their parties. Contributing a new perspective to studies in populist politics, Populists in Power is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as scholars interested in modern government, parties and politics.
Combining an account of the political history and philosophy of the referendum, with a thorough assessment of the practical experiences with referendums in western democracies, this book has established itself as the unrivalled market-leader in the field. Fully revised and with new chapters on campaign spending and the administration of referendums, the second edition of this book provides a thorough overview of the theory and practice of referendums.
This volume purports to explore the legal and political issues triggered by the new wave of secessionism. More specifically, those issues concern the interplay between notions of democracy (and democratic ends and means) and law (and the rule of law and constitutionalism). Against this background, the editors use amorality in order to escape the terrain of the justification of secession by making a distinction between the democratic theory of secession and the theory of democratic secession. In the first section, the theoretical nexus democracy-secession has been approached both from a legal and political theory perspective. The second section of the book examines the instruments that the theory of democratic secession invokes in order to justify secession and presents both legal and political science contributions. The third section focuses on social movements and political actors. The fourth section focuses on two case studies due to the awareness of the importance of the difference between secession in a democratic occidental context (which call into play the discussion of the democratic theories) and separations in a non-democratic context (where the nexus between secession and democracy is not really central).
This book provides an up to date review of subnational and multicultural issues in Western multinational states.