Leah Trueblood (Worcester College) Deliberative Peace Referendums (Book Review) (Forthcoming, International Journal of Constitutional Law) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
While referendums are often, and rightly, argued to be potentially divisive democratic processes, in Deliberative Peace Referendums, Levy, O’Flynn, and Kong put forward a hopeful, alternative vision of the relationship between referendums and conflict. The authors argue that, provided they are used in the right deliberative way(s), referendums can be tools for achieving conflict settlements and helping those settlements endure. Usefully, the book offers many design solutions to help achieve both ends. These design solutions speak to various types of conflict, including secession, indigenous-settler conflict, and group sovereignty. While much of the picture the authors offer is optimistic, helpful, and persuasive, it is unclear whether, on the authors' view, it is referendums that are doing the work to achieve conflict settlements and help those settlements to endure. Instead, the authors may have offered a compelling picture of deliberative democracy in which referendums play a small and neither necessary nor sufficient part. If the authors think referendums are 'the end of the beginning' of resolving conflicts, their analysis is persuasive. If, however, they think that referendums are the ‘beginning of the end,’ then their argument is less compelling. The epigraph of Amaral’s book Making Peace with Referendums effectively captures the difference between these two approaches. She begins her book by quoting American Diplomat Harold H. Saunders, who says that ‘treaties do not make peace, people do.’ While Deliberative Peace Referendums is an excellent contribution to the literature, it is not always clear on the authors’ view whether referendums make peace or people do.