مجلة المفكر
Volume 20, Numéro 2, Pages 450-469
2025-12-25
British Referendums: Genuine Democracy Or Governmental Strategy?
Authors : Esseghier Rouza .
Abstract
Referendum use in Britain has undergone a significant upheaval. Despite the massive vigilance that British politicians exerted toward the device, it successfully managed to infiltrate the political agenda and establish itself as an institutional mechanism for settling major constitutional dilemmas. However, questions around their statutory place in the British constitution and political apparatus remain a topic of an ongoing academic debate. Based on their operational framework that challenges the sovereignty of the British parliament, it is important to evaluate the original rationale for their establishment and assess their democratic legitimacy. Following a historical analytical approach that draws on historical institutionalism, this paper attempts at tracing the evolution of referendum use in Britain and situates it within the broader development of Britain’s political institutions. Accordingly, the paper sheds some light on how past decisions and path dependencies have structured the conditions under which referendums were held. Such an approach allows us to determine whether the British approach toward referendums derives from a genuine democratic pursuit or serves as a government strategy for targeted political gains.
Keywords
democratic legitimacy ; democratic pursuit ; government strategy ; referendum use
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