Secession, Referendum and Legitimacy of a Ballot Text - Scolarly Reflection

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F49777513%3A23330%2F16%3A43929456" target="_blank" >RIV/49777513:23330/16:43929456 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="http://www.politickevedy.fpvmv.umb.sk/archiv-vydani/2016/4-2016/" target="_blank" >http://www.politickevedy.fpvmv.umb.sk/archiv-vydani/2016/4-2016/</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Secession, Referendum and Legitimacy of a Ballot Text - Scolarly Reflection

Original language description

After the 1980 and 1995 sovereignty referendums in Quebec, relevant international institutions and liberal democratic states involved in secessionist struggles of their peripheries and scholars started to pay attention to the issue of wording of ballot formulas designed for independence referendums. In this text, the rather underestimated scholarly reflection of the issue will be critically scrutinized. Scholars have investigated on many aspects of the ballot text. Nevertheless, I argue that the whole debate on its legitimacy can be narrowed to three most relevant legitimizing criteria. Naturally, referendum questions ought to be an important part of scholarly attention, nevertheless, the relevance of response options cannot be underestimated. Last but not least, attention was paid to the question whether single-question ballot texts deserve more legitimacy than multiple-choice ballot texts. I found out that there was a dynamic development of the issue within the last two decades. As for intelligibility of the referendum questions, scholars have defined a clear question in opposition to unbearably long and biased formulas. As for fair response options, it has not been clear whether, in future, the most common Yes-No binary alternatives might be substituted by long and illustrative response options as it was the case on the ballot text designed for "Brexit". Finally, scholars have not brought a clear answer to the question whether a single issue - which oversimplifies the issue - or a multiple-choice ballot text - which rarely generates clear majority for any of the alternatives - fulfils better the criteria of legitimacy

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_x - Unclassified - Peer-reviewed scientific article (Jimp, Jsc and Jost)

CEP classification

AD - Political sciences

OECD FORD branch

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Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2016

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Politické vedy

ISSN

1335-2741

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

19

Issue of the periodical within the volume

4

Country of publishing house

SK - SLOVAKIA

Number of pages

26

Pages from-to

93-118

UT code for WoS article

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EID of the result in the Scopus database

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