Levy on Referendums in Conflit Societies

Ron Levy (Australian National University) has posted Shotgun Referendums: Popular Deliberation and Constitutional Settlement in Conflict Societies (Melbourne University Law Review, Vol. 41, No. 3, 2018) on SSRN.  Here is the abstract: Referendums are now common in ‘conflict societies’ — societies where widespread armed engagement recently occurred, is occurring or is liable to occur. If well designed, a referendum might improve the prospects of achieving a conflict settlement. The referendum’s relative democratic legitimacy may also help to ensure against subsequent breach, once a settlement is reached. However, in practice the utility of referendums for conflict settlement has been inconsistent. Some past referendums faltered (e.g. a ‘no’ vote delayed settlement) as a result of neglect of careful institutional design. In particular, a number of past referendums proceeded as simple majoritarian exercises with little in the way…

Read more detail on Recent Legal Theory posts –

This entry was posted in Legal Theory and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply