This PhD thesis explores the question how citizens react when they are confronted with complex institutional questions related to politics. Specifically, we look at how citizens vote when they are asked for their opinion in a referendum on amending the electoral system of their country. Traditionally, electoral systems have been considered the political playing ground of political elites. It is hence interesting to see what happens when the ‘power of decision’ shifts to citizens, who are supposed to have little interest in, or knowledge about, electoral systems. We observe that citizens partially mimic political elites in their behaviour, by following partisan considerations: citizens judge electoral reforms on the consequences for their favoured parties. Moreover, citizens tend to incorporate values when judging electoral reforms: a particular effect is caused by the left-right-distinction, with left-wing voters being more attracted towards more proportional systems. Finally, we observe that how citizens react to electoral systems is affected by their baseline knowledge on politics. More knowledgeable citizens tend to judge more on substantial grounds, while less knowledgeable citizens rather tend to judge on miscellaneous grounds. We conclude by arguing that citizens can and do form substantial opinions on complex subjects like institutional reforms, but that some baseline knowledge is nonetheless required in order to substantially participate in the democratic decision-making process. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

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[pt] O presente trabalho busca analisar a saída do Reino Unido da União Europeia e seu impacto na fronteira entre a Irlanda do Norte e a República do Norte, ponto de tensão que a cada dia toma um papel mais central para a política britânica. O objetivo é entender como as duas perspectivas divergentes — da União Europeia e do Reino Unido — se inserem no Acordo de Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, e como essa divergência pode influenciar o resultado final do Brexit. O estudo conclui que as prioridades de negociação do Reino Unido, tiradas do referendo de 2016, são incompatíveis com uma fronteira aberta na Irlanda, parte integral do processo de paz e prioridade de negociação da União Europeia. Sem alteração nessas prioridades e sem a resolução do dilema político atual — causado pela falta de direção comum no Parlamento —, o Reino Unido pode sair sem um acordo, o que seria catastrófico para o processo de paz. / [en] The current dissertation aims to analyse Britain s exit from the European Union and its impact in the Irish border, an issue that becomes more vital by the day. The aim is to understand how two divergent perspectives — the EU s and the UK s — are inserted into the framework created by the peace process, and how the aforementioned divergence can influence Brexit s end result. We conclude that UK s red lines, drawn from the 2016 referendum, are incompatible with an open border in Ireland, an integral part of the peace process and one of EU s red lines. Without a change in negotiation priorities and the resolution of the current political dilemma, caused by the lack of a common focus in Westminster, the UK can crash out of the EU without a deal, which would be catastrophic for the peace process.

Volksentscheide sind ein Instrument der direkten Demokratie. Durch sie erhält die Bevölkerung die Möglichkeit, sich an der politischen Willensbildung zu beteiligen und direkt über Sachthemen abzustimmen - so am 27. Februar 2005 in Dresden, als die Stadtbevölkerung zur Abstimmung über die Realisierung des Verkehrszuges „Waldschlößchenbrücke Dresden“ aufgerufen war. Die Untersuchung des Abstimmungsverhaltens der Dresdner Bevölkerung beim Bürgerentscheid ist Gegenstand dieser Arbeit. So werden mittels thematischer Karten und multipler Regressionsrechnung Zusammenhänge zwischen dem Abstimmungsverhalten beim Bürgerentscheid und den Merkmalen der Bevölkerung analysiert. Im Fokus der Untersuchung steht die Modellierung des Abstimmungsverhaltens, d.h. die Abbildung möglicher Einflussfaktoren und die Suche nach der richtigen Modellspezifikation. Unter Anwendung des Bottom-up-Ansatzes zur Suche nach der richtigen Modellspezifikation zeigt sich, dass die durch Variablen abgebildeten Einflussfaktoren Ideologie, Nutzen, Alter und Bildung ca. 84% der Gesamtvarianz des Abstimmungsverhaltens erklären. Aus diesen Schätzergebnissen lässt sich schlussfolgern, dass die ideologische Einstellung des Wählers, gepaart mit dem vom Wähler erwarteten Nutzen, dessen Alter und Bildungsgrad, den größten Einfluss auf die Zustimmung zum Verkehrsprojekt hatte. Darüber hinaus deuten der positive Einfluss des Alters und der negative Einfluss des Bildungsgrades auf die Zustimmung zum Verkehrsprojekt darauf hin, dass die Bereitstellung von Verkehrsinfrastruktur durch alte und weniger gut ausgebildete Wählerschichten bevorzugt wird. Um diese Erkenntnisse für künftige Volksentscheide zu Verkehrsinfrastrukturprojekten nutzbar zu machen, wird die Prognosegüte des Modells des Abstimmungsverhaltens mittels Kreuzvalidierung überprüft. Das Ergebnis der Kreuzvalidierung ist eindeutig: Mit einer deutlich unter dem Grenzwert liegenden Abweichung eignet sich das Modell für Prognosen.

公民投票是一種直接民主的表現、是直接民主的實踐，而直接民主也是民主政治最原始的形式，早從古雅典式的民主開始，公民的直接參與政治便已然成形，但是直接民主在實際運作上是有其困難性的，因此公民將其權力委託給代議士的代議民主，就成為當今世界民主國家主導政治運作的核心機制。 雖然代議政治儼然成為世界最為普遍的民主政體，但由於受委託的代議士經常會受到個人利益或是其他利益團體之影響，無法完全展現委託人之意志，因而，產生了許多代議政治下的偏差現象，怎麼樣的機制能夠彌補這諸多代議制度下的失靈現象呢？於此之際，「公民投票」遂為當前必須加以著重討論的重要課題。 本論文試圖就公民投票的定義、理論、類型分析，從中找出公民投票在施行上所可能受到的限制以及其可能造成的偏差現象，並從國外的實際施行的經驗中，找出可以避免或修正公民投票弊病的方法。

L’année 2014 est marquée par les référendums sur la souveraineté de l’Écosse et de la Catalogne, deux nations partageant de nombreux points communs sur les plans de l’histoire et de la culture. Le cadre juridique pré-référendaire de chacune de ces régions est fondamentalement le même: l’existence juridique de l’Écosse et de la Catalogne est directement issue de la volonté d’un État central unitaire, respectivement le Royaume-Uni et l’Espagne. La compétence législative de tenir un référendum sur l’autodétermination de ces régions est d’ailleurs ambiguë. Devant ce dilemme, le Royaume-Uni permet à l’Écosse d’organiser un référendum sur sa souveraineté. Il en résulte un processus démocratique juste, équitable, décisif et respecté de tous. De son côté, l’Espagne interdit à la Catalogne d’en faire de même, ce qui n’empêche pas Barcelone de tout mettre en œuvre afin de consulter sa population. Il en découle un processus de participation citoyenne n’ayant rien à voir avec un référendum en bonne et due forme. 20 ans après le dernier référendum sur la souveraineté du Québec, l’étude des référendums de l’Écosse et de la Catalogne nous permet de mettre en lumière la justesse, mais aussi l’incohérence partielle des enseignements de la Cour suprême du Canada dans son Renvoi relatif à la sécession du Québec. D’un côté, la nécessité d’équilibrer les principes constitutionnels sous-jacents de démocratie et de constitutionnalisme est mise en exergue. Parallèlement, les concepts de question et de réponse claires, d’effectivité et de négociations post-référendaires prennent une toute autre couleur face à un nouvel impératif absent des conclusions de la Cour suprême : celui des négociations pré-référendaires. / The year 2014 is marked by the referendums on sovereignty of Scotland and Catalonia, two nations that have a lot in common in terms of history and culture. The pre-referendum legal framework for each of these regions is basically the same: the legal existence of Scotland and Catalonia comes directly from the will of a unitary central state, respectively the United Kingdom and Spain. The legislative competence to hold a referendum on self-determination of these regions is also ambiguous. Faced with this dilemma, the United Kingdom allows Scotland to hold a referendum on sovereignty. This results in a fair democratic process, equitable, decisive and respected by all. For its part, Spain prohibits Catalonia to do the same, which does not prevent Barcelona to spare no effort to consult its population. The outcome is a public participation process that has nothing to do with a referendum in due form. 20 years after the last referendum on Quebec sovereignty, the study of the Scottish and Catalan referendums allows us to point out the accuracy but also the partial inconsistency of the teachings of the Supreme Court of Canada in its Reference re Secession of Quebec. On one hand, the need to balance the underlying constitutional principles of democracy and constitutionalism is highlighted. At the same time, the concepts of the clear question and answer, effectiveness and post-referendum negotiations take on another color in face of a new imperative that is absent from the conclusions of the Supreme Court: the pre-referendum negotiations.

1 Resume The thesis is divided into two large units, on a theoretical and practical part. Follow the practical part of the work is to be divided on an assessment of selected aspects that are covered by municipal and provincial governments at the European level and in this context, then followed by a separate section on comparative evaluation of the scope of local government in selected European countries. I will focus first on the theoretical part. The issue of regions and municipalities evaluate first in the context of Czech legislation and then subsequently focus on each selected legislation relating to European legislation related to issues of regions and municipalities. Choice of thesis topic was selected based on an appropriate combination of administrative law issues and focus on the broader context of legislation within the EU, which focuses mainly practical part. With regard to the comparison of the Czech legislation and issues of European legislation, so we can get a rich variety of assumptions and considerations, which could be formulated in the context of the considerations de lege fedenda at the level of regions and municipalities. The main concept of the theoretical part is the local authority. Can we talk about the fact that public administration is carried out at its lowest possible level,...

加拿大自脫離英國政府的殖民統治以來，至今已經有一百三十多年的歷史。期間雖經歷了保守黨、自由黨之輪流執政，仍無法完全解決長期以來魁北克人民對於「獨特社會」地位、保護法語文化及傳統的要求。尤有甚者，一九七六年魁人黨（Parti Quebecois）在魁北克省執政成功，並分別於一九八○年及一九九五年針對獨立與否議題舉辦兩次魁省公民投票。雖然最後魁北克人企圖獨立的公投失敗，但其所帶來的衝擊、餘波，更強力震撼了加拿大的政治生態。 一九九三年柯瑞祥（Jean Chretien）領導的自由黨在大選中擊敗執政長達九年的穆隆尼（Brian Moulorney）保守黨政府，順利當選加拿大聯邦總理後，一直致力於改善失業率，通貨膨脹率及削減預算赤字等國內經濟問題。然一九九五年魁北克公投期間，柯瑞祥被許多聯邦派人士批評過於輕忽國家統一問題及魁北克分離派（separatist）的實力。最後聯邦主義者（federalist）雖以1.2％約五萬五千票的差距取得勝利，但獨立派人士卻揚言要繼續推動第三次公投以尋求最後的成功。 本論文主要探討柯瑞祥政府對魁北克獨立運動的因應策略，其中主要以經濟、政治、法律等三個層面予以分析。在經濟層面探討柯瑞祥政府的安撫策略（carrot strategy）及強硬策略（stick strategy）；政治上則探討魁人治魁的傳統策略，以及提前大選策略、外交策略、多元文化策略等；法律上則探討密契湖協議（Meech Lake Accord）與查洛城協議（Charletown Accord），以及九五年公投法律分析、Ｂ計畫 (Plan B)、澄清法案（Clarity Bill）等。由於一九九五年魁省公投對加拿大聯邦政府帶來的衝擊，使得柯瑞祥不得不更謹慎處理國家統一問題。其後，從一九九七年的大選和一九九八年的魁北克省長選舉得票結果可知，魁北克獨立勢力似乎已有見緩的趨勢。因此柯瑞祥政府在經濟、政治和法律面上對魁北克獨立運動策略之成效為何，以及魁北克獨立運動的未來可能發展，均值得探討，此乃本論文之主軸。 由於國內研究加拿大的學者不多，特別是針對魁北克獨立問題的研究更是鳳毛麟角，因此引發筆者的研究動機。面對近來因民族主義意識而興起之獨立運動風潮，魁北克的獨立議題實值得深入分析。 / It has been more than 130 years since Canada stopped being an English colony. Although conservative and liberal governments had come and go, none had managed to resolve completely and permanently the Quebec people's demands for a "distinct society" status and moves to protect the French language and culture. The quest for the former is especially worth mentioning. In 1976, Partis Qucbecois was voted into power in Quebec and held 2 state referendums to decide whether to be independent in 1980 and 1995. Despite failing to get a majority in the referendum, these events sent the shockwaves throughout the political world. In 1993, the Liberal party led by Jean Chretien beat the conservative government led by Brian Moulorney, which had been in power for 9 years. After Chretien became the federal prime minister of Canada, he concentrated on cutting down the unemployment rate and other internal economical problems such as the inflation rate and the deficit. In spite of this, he was criticized by many federalists as neglecting the country unification issue and the power of Quebec's separatists. Although, in 1995's referendum, federalists managed to win with a margin of 1.2% (around 55,000 votes) in the end, independents vow to seek a referendum again until they win. This thesis aims to analyze strategies taken by the Chretien government against the Quebec independent movement from three viewpoints: Economical, Political and Legal. From the economical viewpoint we'll take a look at Chretien's "Carrot and Stick Strategy". From the political viewpoint, the traditional "Quebecers rule Quebec" policy as well as the "earlier election" policy, foreign policies, multicultural policies, etc. are examined. From the legal viewpoint, the Meech Lake Accord, the Charletown Accord as well as 1995's referendum law analysis, Plan B, the Clarity Bill, etc. are examined. Due to shockwaves to the federal government brought about by 1995's Quebec Referendum, Chretien had to handle the country unification problem with even more care. After 1995, as can be seen from 1997 general elections and 1998 Quebec's provincial election, the Quebec Independence Movement started to lose steam. Therefore, it is worthwhile to examine the effects the economical, political and legal polices the Chretien government took had on the movement, as well as possible developments of the movement. That will be the main topic of this thesis. The author was motivated to do research on this topic as there aren't many researchers on Canada locally, especially researchers on the problems of Quebec's Independence Movement. Facing the independent movement recently due to heightening nationalist sentiments, Quebec's Independence Movement case study is worth an in-depth analysis.

台灣和美國的關係自冷戰以來即維持密切的互動，從1950年代中期的反共軍事同盟至冷戰結束後台灣的民主化，台灣不論在政治、社會、經濟乃至國家安全的發展變遷上，都深受美國的影響。雖然台灣與美國於1979年經歷斷交的陰影，但台灣與美國至今仍保有相當友好的關係。 目前學界對台美關係的觀察多由主流國際關係理論的觀點為途徑，例如由新現實主義及新自由主義，僅探討台美關係在亞太地區軍事戰略的物質結構，缺乏對身分認同及戰略利益的連結關係，因此在解釋台美關係動態變化時，有其無法涵蓋之處。為彌補新現實主義及新自由主義解釋台美關係的缺失，本文由國際關係中社會建構主義的觀點出發，以民進黨陳水扁政府執政時期同時具備外交、兩岸與塑造台灣主體意識效果的兩次總統大選公民投票政策為例，詮釋台灣與美國如何透過身分認同及因身分所衍生的戰略利益兩項主要變數，進而影響雙方的政策產出與關係變動，作為對現有台美關係研究途徑的補充。 由國際關係理論中社會建構理論的奠基者溫特的身分概念，分析台美關係，其中具有可以合作協調的部分，亦有美國因霸權角色身分所衍生的戰略利益與一中政策，是台灣在爭取美國支持我國主權國家地位時，最艱鉅的挑戰。陳水扁執政時期，台美在台灣兩次總統大選公民投票議題所形成的戰略利益分歧，即是由台美雙方參照國際政治體系的角色身分所衍生的戰略利益不協調所導致。 / Taiwan and the United States have maintained close interaction and relationship since the Cold War era. The cooperation between the U.S. and Taiwan from the mid-1950s to now, Taiwan was deeply influenced by the U.S. in many aspects, including political, social, economic, democratization and even national security. Although the diplomatic relation between the U.S. and Taiwan was terminated in 1979, but they still maintain strong bilateral ties. The popular approaches in academic area for the analysis concerning Taiwan-U.S. bilateral relationship depend on the mainstream international relations theories, including Neo-realism and Neo-liberalism. These two theories emphasize on power structure and material interest, but ignore the causality of identity and strategic interest of states. This thesis takes the perspective of Identity in Social Constructivism as a complementary approach in order to interpret the dynamic changes and identity factors in Taiwan-U.S. relations. The research takes the twice national referendums held together with presidential election in 2004 and 2008 during the Chen Shui-bian Administration period as case studies. Chen’s referendum policies presented the effects of Taiwanese national identity and the strategy of foreign and Cross-Strait policies, those effects can help us interpret the identity and strategic interest variables in Taiwan –U.S. relationship. When using the conception of identity from the social constructivism to observe Taiwan-U.S. relations, we can figure that cooperation and coordination persist in some issue areas, but we also can find there are some divergences of strategic interests between U.S. and Taiwan driven by the role identity factors. The hegemonic role identity of the United States drive the insistence on the “One China policy” as her national interest, it is the most difficult part for Taiwan to seek the U.S.’s support for Taiwan’s sovereignty. The strategic divergence between the U.S. and Taiwan in Taiwan’s sovereignty and the referendum policies caused by the differences of their strategic interest come from the role identities.

Social dilemmas constitute a broad class of quandaries, including, for example, common pool resource (CPR) dilemmas and public good (PG) dilemmas. CPR's are characterized by non-excludability and rivalry and are often associated with overexploitation. Through similar arguments, the features non-excludability and non-rivalry give rise to under-provision of PG's. The prevalence and inefficiencies often associated with CPR's have given rise to an extensive literature and the role of resource uncertainty has not been ignored. Uncertainty combined with rivalry is often said to augment users' incentive to overexploit. However, underlying most of the theoretical research is an explicit or implicit assumption of symmetric information, or a symmetric lack of information. In reality, people generally have access to different sources of information and they may differ in their abilities to process information. In the first two papers of this thesis, the assumption of symmetry is relaxed and both papers demonstrate that from a welfare perspective, the distribution of uncertainty is also of importance. Many CPR's and PG's are natural, which can complicate the situation. In the traditional resource management literature, the exploited resource is often assumed to be properly characterized by some concave growth function. Today, there is extensive empirical evidence suggesting that many ecosystems have more complex, often non-linear dynamics. Management of such resources can be quite challenging as the non-linear dynamics can make the ecosystem flip between alternate stable states, and even marginal changes can cause radical transformations of such ecosystems. Most of the CPR models assume the shared resource to be of fixed size or to be able to generate a constant flow of services. In the third paper we aim at providing a more complete picture of the overexploitation of a common resource, by combining the institutional structure with complex ecological dynamics. We manage to raise questions and doubts about the standard assumptions. Another feature of convex-concave resources is that a state can become highly robust and sometimes an ecosystem change may even be irreversible. This is problematic if, for example, we wish to restore a degraded ecosystem. The aim of the fourth paper is to empirically analyze this question, by eliciting peoples' preferences through a hypothetical referendum on the issue. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2005