عنوان
پدید آورنده
موضوع
رده
کتابخانه
محل استقرار
TLets324566
Democratic governance, EU referendums and the European Union
[Thesis]
Roberts-Thomson, Patricia
Nottingham Trent University
2000
Ph.D.
Nottingham Trent University
2000
This thesis analyses the twenty-four 'EU référendums' held in Western Europe since 1972 on matters associated with membership of the European Union. It does so in relation to the European Union and to a form of what is claimed to be a distinctive pattern of democratic governance emerging there. In doing so the research eschews the usual approach to analysing référendums with respect to national political systems and/or their constitutional or legal origins. In order to facilitate this task, the thesis establishes a typology of EU référendums: accession, treaty, quasi-treaty, special purpose and withdrawal référendums. These are analysed in a comparative thematic way in terms of constitutional and decision-making practices, which highlight the sources of these référendums, and in terms of participation and legitimacv. which indicate the endorsement they carry and the extent of legitimation conveyed. This forms an important part of the analysis and the main body of the thesis. EU référendums relate to the development of the European Union in the areas of enlargement, treaty reform and démocratisation. Within these parameters, these référendums are highly significant for the European Union, and particularly so in view of the inadequacies of other forms of democratic authorisation and consent. The study concludes by suggesting that a number of conventional assumptions surrounding référendums need revision, and that EU référendums have a significant impact on both the European Union itself, and on the pace and direction of integration. More importantly, the study finds that these référendums contribute cumulatively to a form of democratic governance emerging in the European Union in explicitly political/electoral areas. The argument that référendums can be understood in terms of this idea of the emergence of a democratic governance system is the primary claim to originality arising from the thesis as a whole. This form of governance restricts the development of integration to that which can be reliably passed in Danish and Irish treaty référendums which, in turn, acts as a brake on the progress of integration. In doing so it imposes on the European Union, by a very indirect means, a specific form of West European liberal democracy which is based on the explicit involvement of the people in European integration - the major political issue of contemporary Western Europe.
Political science
Roberts-Thomson, Patricia
Nottingham Trent University
مطالعه متن کتاب p
[Thesis]
276903
a
Y
