Bellamy, R;
(2018)
Majority Rule, Compromise and the Democratic Legitimacy of Referendums.
Swiss Political Science Review
, 24
(3)
pp. 312-319.
10.1111/spsr.12315.
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Abstract
Cheneval and el-Wakil () defend referendums as a mechanism that allows a popular majority to express itself in situations where the standard channels of representative democracy fail to include the concerns of certain citizens and end up reflecting the views of a minority. By contrast, this comment argues that the likelihood of exclusion and settlement on a minority preference is much greater when policy choices are made by referendum. The reason lies in the plurality of policy options on many issues, and the fact that the most favoured policy may be a shared second or third best. The tendency for most forms of representative democracy to encourage politicians to build majorities through compromises among different coalitions of minorities is more likely to settle on the majority preference of diverse actors holding a plurality views than a referendum based on a binary choice.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Majority Rule, Compromise and the Democratic Legitimacy of Referendums |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1111/spsr.12315 |
| Publisher version: | http://doi.org/10.1111/spsr.12315 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Political Science |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10057380 |
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