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Chapter 5 focuses on the debate over the resolution of Taiwanese national identity through referendums. It provides a comprehensive historical and political overview of the issues involved, and examines the prospects for future referendums and their policy implications. The chapter examines the referendum proposal adopted by the DPP, the referendum law debated in the legislative Yuan, and the administrative regulation proposed by the Executive Yuan. It also examines the manipulative aspect of referendum and suggests that a future referendum should follow the guidelines of deliberative democracy to achieve a deliberative referendum.

This chapter is the first of three central chapters in which the SNP’s 2002 constitutional text is examined in detail. This document, although now dated, is still the most detailed statement of the SNP’s constitutional policy ever to have been formally announced by the party. In examining the constitutional draft’s provisions relating to Parliament and the legislative branch, the chapter argues that the general structure of the proposals are sound, but that they lack the institutional and procedural clarity needed in a working constitutional text.

Using the example of the European Union, the chapter analyses referendums on European Integration and finds that voters, by and large, are informed about the issues and that the outcomes of referendums on the subject reflect the preferences of the voters

The chapter presents an analysis of the reasons why the Irish voters rejected the Lisbon Treaty in the referendum in 2008. It is shown that class-voting is still a potent factor explaining the outcomes of referendums.

The chapter presents an overview of referendums on electoral reform using the 2011 British referendum on AV as a comparative case study. The chapter shows that voters, contrary to the received wisdom – are not inclined to vote no, and that there have been several examples of electoral reforms, which have been endorsed in referendums.

Chapter one considers how the republican concept of democracy can inform the understanding of popular sovereignty as the central organising principle of the Irish Constitution. It considers various understandings of the constitutional referendum in particular as an exercise of popular sovereignty. While contesting this understanding of the constitutional referendum, it suggests that it can be valued instead as a means of promoting contestation of government power in the area of constitutional change, and as a means of promoting civic participation.

This chapter examines party-funding. The radical reform inherent in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 quickly proved inadequate to the challenges of regulating an area so central to party competition. The founding legislation was not sufficiently clear about donor transparency, and the Electoral Commission was uncertain about how to calibrate regulatory burdens, and how to allocate its resources across the complex nature of its mission. This brought the Commission into tension with its original architect, the CSPL, and underlined the difficulty faced by the Commission as it struggled to sustain necessary political support from Parliament and from the parties. The new system, unquestionably a major advance over what went before in terms of transparency, nevertheless in several respects actually stimulated greater controversy, with compliance issues becoming particularly controversial where previously they had not existed.

This chapter outlines the generic Deliberative Peace Referendum model. We introduce key innovations such as a modestly coercive referendum ballot design that encourages public-reason based deliberation. We also point to more established institutional options (eg, mini-publics) and where these may fit the referendum process. The generic Deliberative Peace Referendum model is amendable to modification, especially in light of the various types of conflict in which it may apply.

This chapter focuses on the question of settlement endurance—a question that overlaps with but is importantly distinct from the question of settlement achievement (as discussed in Chapter 2). We argue that even a brief popular act of entrenchment may solidify in the form of a lasting constitutional settlement. However, the process by which this act occurs is crucial. We particularly focus on deliberative peace referendums. One claim in this chapter will be that these referendums, by drawing on institutional supports for deliberation, may expose a broad but latent constitutional agreement that may already have existed at the popular (but not the elite) level in a conflict society. The referendum may also clarify the reasons on which an agreement is based, and hence deepen the sense of legitimacy that attaches to it.