Referendums as Representative Democracy [Paperback]

In referendums on fundamental constitutional issues, do the people come together to make decisions instead of representatives?This book argues no. It offers an alternative theory of referendums whereby they are one of many ordinary ways that voters give direction to their representatives. In this way, the book argues that referendums are better understood as exercises in representative democracy.

The book challenges the current treatment of referendums in processes of constitutional change both in the UK and around the world. It argues that referendums have been used under the banner of popular sovereignty in a way that undermines representative institutions. This book makes the case for the use of referendums stronger by showing how they can support, rather than undermine, institutions of representative democracy.

Understanding referendums as exercises in representative democracy has broader implications for constitutional democracy as well. Rather than see the power to constitute constitutions as something that happens occasionally in exceptional moments through referendums, this book argues instead that voters constantly have the power to constitute and reconstitute their constitutions.

An important book British Association of Comparative Law

This book is a brilliant attack on part of the current constitutionalist orthodoxy [...] Trueblood has presented a conception of referendums and representative democracy that deserves to be taken seriously. Maris K?pcke, Professor of Legal Philosophy, University of Barcelona, Spain,I CON

Leah Trueblood has written an important book about the relationship between referndums and constitutional change.Referendums as Representative Democracychalleges the way in which referendums have been generally conceived by constitutional theorists: rather than mechanisms of l#