“Direct Democracy Considered – Irish, Scottish, Swiss, and Transnational European Perspectives on the Use of Referendums” was a workshop hosted jointly by the UCD College of Business and the Sutherland School of Law the 30th of November 2015. The speeches are now available online in a playlist on the channel of the UCD Business E-learning.
List of the speeches
Gavin Barrett – The Experience of Direct Democracy in the Ireland: Why Do We Have It, How Have We Used It (including in the European Union Field)
Andreas Gross – The Experience of Direct Democracy in Switzerland. Why Do We Have It, How Have We Used It (including in the European Union Field)
Katie Boyle – The Scottish Independence Referendum: Process, Outcome and Deliberative Democracy
Bruno Kaufmann – The Idea of Transnational Direct Democracy: Is There Anything to it?
Final Debate – What Future for Direct Democracy? chaired by David Farrell
Profile of the speakers
Professor Gavin Barrett is Jean Monnet Professor for European Constitutional and Economic Law at UCD Sutherland School of Law and has written on the topic of referendums in Ireland in journals such as the European Constitutional Law Review and the Journal of Legislative Studies.
Dr. Roland Erne is a Senior Lecture in International and Comparative Employment Relations, UCD College of Business, and co-editor of Transnationale Demokratie. Impulse für ein demokratisch verfasstes Europa, 1995.
Dr Katie Boyle is a solicitor and Senior Lecturer in Law in the University of Roehampton and has researched on constitutional transitions, constitutional theory, transitional justice and the application of economic, social and cultural rights in transitioning states.
Andreas Gross is director of the Swiss “Atelier on Direct Democracy”, co-editor of Transnationale Demokratie. Impulse für ein demokratisch verfasstes Europa 1995, and has also been a Social Democratic Swiss MP and Council of Europe deputy.
Bruno Kaufmann chairs the Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe. He is Editor-in-Chief of people2power.info, the democracy media platform hosted by the Swiss Broadcasting Company. Bruno chairs the Democracy and Election Commission in Falun/Sweden and is research fellow at the Centre of Social Cohesion at the Arizona State University in Tempe/USA. He is co-president of the Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy.
Professor David Farrell is Professor of Politics in the School of Politics and International Relations at UCD and a specialist in the study of parties, elections, electoral systems and members of parliament. His current research focuses on the role of deliberation in constitutional reform processes. He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and a founding co-editor of Party Politics, and has been President of the Political Studies Association of Ireland and Speaker of the Council of the European Consortium for Political Research
Più Democrazia in Trentino 