Tag: Direct Democracy
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Mexico’s Upcoming Presidential Recall Election has been Hijacked by the President’s Party
—Mariana Velasco-Rivera, National University of Ireland Maynooth, School of Law and Criminology; Co-Editor, IACL Blog. Twitter: @marisconsin. [Editor’s Note: This is one of our regular ICONnect columns.] In recent years, a series of constitutional amendments have introduced mechanisms of direct democracy in Mexico—in particular, referendums (2012) and Presidential recall elections (2019).
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The Implementation Initiative (“Durchsetzungsinitiative”): Deepening the Divide Between Citizens and Non-Citizens in Switzerland
—Rekha Oleschak, Institute of Federalism, University of Fribourg[1] On 28 February 2016, Swiss citizens will go to polls again, this time to exercise their direct democratic rights on a wide range of issues, including taxation, prohibition of speculation on commodities, whether or not to have a second tunnel to the Gotthard and finally, on the expulsion of foreigners (the “Implementation Initiative” or “Durchsetzungsinitiative”).
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The Internet Tax Debate: Genuine Freedom of Assembly vs. the Illusion of Direct Democracy in Hungary
—Zoltán Pozsár-Szentmiklósy, ELTE University, Budapest On October 21, 2014, Hungarian government officials announced that in the 2015 state budget they would include a tax on internet data transfer. This so-called internet tax was widely criticized in the media and in civil society.
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‘And the Winner is… the Referendum’: Scottish Independence and the Deliberative Participation of Citizens
—Stephen Tierney, University of Edinburgh* Only 45% of Scots said yes to independent statehood, but a massive majority said yes to direct democracy. The turnout of 84.65% was the highest for any UK electoral event since the introduction of universal suffrage, significantly trumping the 65.1% who voted in the 2010 UK general election and the 50.6% who bothered to turn out for the 2011 Scottish parliamentary elections.
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Direct Democracy and Constitutional Change: Institutional Learning from State Laboratories in the USA
—Jurgen Goossens, Ph.D. Candidate Ghent University, LL.M. Yale Law School Although the federal constitutional amendment procedure in Article V of the U.S. Constitution has not been altered since its adoption 226 years ago, constitutional tradition in the 50 states has substantially evolved.