When signing the new Treaty on European Union in Maastricht, the governmental leaders of the 12 member countries of the European Communities had accomplished a significant step towards economic and political union. Before taking effect the draft proposal had, however, to be ratified according to...

An increasing number of member countries of the European Union (EU) is heading for ratification through referendum of the yet to be adopted constitution for Europe. Such popular votes will add an additional ratification constraint and empirical models will require information on the positions of...

Spatial models are increasingly finding entrance into the analysis of international relations. These models are perfectly appropriate as long as the relevant policy or negotiation space is unidimensional or the actors are truly unitary. But the recent discovery of the domestic arena questions...

Referendums provide citizen control over policy outcomes under various institutional provisions. This article offers a theoretical model covering four types of referendums, which differ with respect to their likelihood of occurring and their policy consequences. Implications derived from this...

The literature on referendums comes to conflicting assessments: for some authors referendums are equivalent to direct democracy, for others, a poor and unfounded substitute. In addition, existing classifications use very diverse criteria, and theoretical models lead to different results...

After four years in operation the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is subject to criticism, and various scholars and practitioners alike present and discuss reform proposals. In the present paper we study systematically the controversial decisions in the UNHRC. We find that...

In the literature on civil conflicts, federalism is often touted as a useful institution to address regional demands. However, diversity in the groups present in a country is also associated with a higher tendency for conflicts. In this article we examine how the geographic distribution of...