Constitution on Ice
This paper reports recent events in Iceland where the political agents of oligarchs didn t even bother to try to influence, let alone contest, a national referendum on a new constitution because, if they didn t like the result, they would simply find ways to nullify the outcome ex post. The paper re...
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Munich: Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
2014
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ftzbwkiel:oai:econstor.eu:10419/105112 2023-12-17T10:32:04+01:00 Constitution on Ice Gylfason, Thorvaldur 2014 http://hdl.handle.net/10419/105112 eng eng Munich: Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo) Series: CESifo Working Paper No. 5056 gbv-ppn:803792379 http://hdl.handle.net/10419/105112 RePec:ces:ceswps:_5056 http://www.econstor.eu/dspace/Nutzungsbedingungen ddc:330 K10 constitution democracy Iceland doc-type:workingPaper 2014 ftzbwkiel 2023-11-20T00:42:32Z This paper reports recent events in Iceland where the political agents of oligarchs didn t even bother to try to influence, let alone contest, a national referendum on a new constitution because, if they didn t like the result, they would simply find ways to nullify the outcome ex post. The paper reviews and explains the making of Iceland's crowd-sourced constitution bill from 2009 to 2014, and also offers an explanation as to why the bill failed to be passed by Parliament, addressing various criticisms leveled against the bill along the way. It needs to be emphasized that these criticisms, whether well founded or not (and they are not), are irrelevant because Parliament held a national referendum on 20 October 2012 in which the bill and its key individual provisions were accepted by an overwhelming majority of the voters. A democratic nation cannot under any circumstances permit the outcome of national elections, let alone a constitutional referendum, to be fixed ex post, but this is what the Icelandic Parliament is at present trying to do, flirting with a farewell to democracy. Report Iceland EconStor (German National Library of Economics, ZBW) |
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EconStor (German National Library of Economics, ZBW) |
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English |
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ddc:330 K10 constitution democracy Iceland |
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ddc:330 K10 constitution democracy Iceland Gylfason, Thorvaldur Constitution on Ice |
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ddc:330 K10 constitution democracy Iceland |
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This paper reports recent events in Iceland where the political agents of oligarchs didn t even bother to try to influence, let alone contest, a national referendum on a new constitution because, if they didn t like the result, they would simply find ways to nullify the outcome ex post. The paper reviews and explains the making of Iceland's crowd-sourced constitution bill from 2009 to 2014, and also offers an explanation as to why the bill failed to be passed by Parliament, addressing various criticisms leveled against the bill along the way. It needs to be emphasized that these criticisms, whether well founded or not (and they are not), are irrelevant because Parliament held a national referendum on 20 October 2012 in which the bill and its key individual provisions were accepted by an overwhelming majority of the voters. A democratic nation cannot under any circumstances permit the outcome of national elections, let alone a constitutional referendum, to be fixed ex post, but this is what the Icelandic Parliament is at present trying to do, flirting with a farewell to democracy. |
format |
Report |
author |
Gylfason, Thorvaldur |
author_facet |
Gylfason, Thorvaldur |
author_sort |
Gylfason, Thorvaldur |
title |
Constitution on Ice |
title_short |
Constitution on Ice |
title_full |
Constitution on Ice |
title_fullStr |
Constitution on Ice |
title_full_unstemmed |
Constitution on Ice |
title_sort |
constitution on ice |
publisher |
Munich: Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo) |
publishDate |
2014 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10419/105112 |
genre |
Iceland |
genre_facet |
Iceland |
op_relation |
Series: CESifo Working Paper No. 5056 gbv-ppn:803792379 http://hdl.handle.net/10419/105112 RePec:ces:ceswps:_5056 |
op_rights |
http://www.econstor.eu/dspace/Nutzungsbedingungen |
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1785585566329339904 |