Popular Consultations Research Articles

How Populism Affects Bioethics.

This article aims at raising awareness about the intersection of populism and bioethics. It argues that illiberal forms of populism may have negative consequences on the evolution of bioethics as a discipline and on its practical objectives. It identifies at least seven potential negative effects: (1) The rise of populist leaders fosters "epistemological populism," devaluing the expert and scientific perspectives on which bioethics is usually based, potentially steering policies away from evidence-based foundations. (2) The impact of "moral populism" is evident in legislative prioritization of the "morality of common people," often solicited through popular consultations on issues like abortion, drug legalization, or LGBT issues. (3)Populist distrust in autonomous governmental agencies and advisory bodies, including national bioethics commissions, can compromise expert advice, challenging both their authority and decisions. (4) Populists may erode transparency by undermining institutions responsible for it, hindering access to vital information for bioethical research. (5)"Medical populism" creates adversarial dynamics, prompting politicians to make simplistic healthcare policy decisions based on political rather than informed criteria, adversely affecting vulnerable populations. (6)Radical-right populist parties' "welfare chauvinism" may shape healthcare policies, impacting service access and resource allocation, disproportionately affecting vulnerable groups such as migrants, but indirectly affecting the rest of the population. (7)Nationalist sentiments associated with populism may obstruct international collaborations, posing challenges for global bioethics that seeks to address ethical concerns beyond national borders. In summary, these dynamics raise significant bioethical concerns encompassing evidence-based decision-making, transparency, healthcare equity, and global collaboration. How bioethicists may respond to these challenges is discussed.

‘Never mind extraction, ownership still belongs to ‘us’’: A spatial critique to subsoil public property in Colombia

The subsoil is a strange (legal) object. This article is interested in the legal forms and imaginaries that shape the subsoil as a container of commodities-to-be, and the different regimes of exclusion of use necessary for it to be turned into an exploitable property under a public property scheme. In particular, it examines the spatial assumptions underlying the legal and judicial constructions of the soil-subsoil divide, focusing on a relatively recent debate in Colombia on the reach of peoples’ opposition to mining extraction through a constitutional participation mechanism, popular consultations ( consultas populares). It shows a property regime of use that removes the public content from subsoil public property under an illusion of people’s ownership over a, nevertheless, emptied container. I first focus on the threefold subsoil proprietor and the latent assumption in the Colombian legal system of the subsoil as a set of fragmentable resources contained underground, instead of an intermingled net of relations. In the context of an increasing use of local public consultations to stop subsoil mining throughout the country between 2014 and 2018, I show how mobilization brought to light the limits of a legal fragmentarian lens and how use makes the title of public owners an illusion. I follow with a critical examination of the spatial assumptions underpinning a controversial Constitutional Court decision to ban local popular consultations as a mechanism to decide on the exploitation of the subsoil and ultimately oppose it. From a legal geography perspective, and bringing in elements from other disciplines, this article seeks to unsettle this type of legal spatial production of the subsoil from a more relational understanding of it.

Oil and water: unlikely alliances in the opposition to extractive industries during popular consultations in Colombia

ABSTRACT In 2017, 97,61% of the people of Cumaral, Colombia, voted in a popular consultation against having the oil industry in their municipality. However, this historical result was challenged by the government in court and ultimately overturned in 2018. By looking into the origins and strategies employed by Cumaral's environmental movement, we argue that their success involved turning a diverse, and even contradictory, collective into a singular voice that could reject the state’s development agenda. We thus highlight the combination of factors that led to the consultation result showing that an effective way of resistance can be achieved through the state.

Referendums and popular consultations in the Spanish constitutional system: reflecting on the possibility of holding a referendum on the independence of Catalonia from Spain

This article aims to assess the possibility of convening a referendum linked to the initiation of a constitutional amendment to recognise Catalonia’s right to secede from Spain. With this purpose in mind, we will analyse the legal institution of the referendum and other forms of popular consultations provided for in the Spanish legal system, with particular emphasis on the institution of the “consultative referendum on issues of special political importance” enshrined in Article 92 of the Spanish Constitution. This will serve to bring knowledge and rationally challenge the theoretical proposals of some authoritative sources in the legal doctrine, who have argued that before formally initiating a constitutional reform process in Spain, it would be convenient to verify whether such a desire for independence actually exists in Catalonia by holding a consultative referendum in this region, which would be in accordance with the Constitution.

Consulta popular como democracia directa en Cuba y Venezuela

This document has been prepared using a qualitative methodology based on a bibliographical review of authors, books, articles and other scientific sources. This allows us to achieve the objective of analyzing the processes of direct democracy in countries such as Cuba and Venezuela, through the legal tools for the participation of their citizens. Due to existing democratic events, decision-making by the people has to be handled correctly and truthfully, always seeking collective improvement and involvement on the part of the citizens. In Cuba, as in Venezuela, direct democracy has several mechanisms such as popular consultations, referendums and revokements of mandate, where citizens can be continuously involved in the democratic scenarios of each country. By having a clear understanding of democratic processes, we motivate and encourage the exercise of collective participation to achieve democratic control and transparency, based on good living and innovation for a development of decision-making and always achieve, committed participation.

Can direct democracy deliver an alternative to extractivism? An essay on popular consultations

Between 2013 and 2018, ten different municipalities in Colombia held popular consultations in which people were asked to decide whether they wanted or not extractive industries in their territory. Promoted and articulated by environmental movements for the defence of water resources and local livelihoods, popular consultations led to surprising alliances of traditionally opposed actors, that found their interests temporarily aligned in opposition to resource extraction. In all of the ten popular consultations people voted massively against allowing the industry to enter. Through the defunding of the popular consultations and through a series of legal challenges, the government rushed to stop an additional 54 votes from happening that threatened to derail its finances and model of development. In this essay, I identify three main boundaries in the literature concerning popular consultations: between what counts as legal and legitimate, between the centre and the periphery as loci of political power, and between people and nature as bearers of rights. By providing an analysis of the absent elements of the political and academic discourse, I argue that popular consultations as spaces of experimental autonomous activity have the potential to engender alternatives to extractivist development. Hence, building on the notion of ‘resource sovereignty’ and contemporary discussions on autonomy as a prefigurative force, I reconfigure the three boundaries into a theoretical framework to guide research and political action for alternative post-extractivist futures.

The ‘consultas populares’ in Colombia: restrictions on mechanisms for citizen participation in foreign extractive projects from the perspective of the capitalocene

ABSTRACT This article discusses from the perspective of the capitalocene how judicial decisions have limited legal mechanisms utilized by local communities as emancipatory tools. It focuses on the case of consultas populares (popular consultations) using the consultation in Cumaral, Colombia, to illustrate the argument. These judicial decisions have favoured a few transnational actors who pursue a hegemonic view of development. These actors are aligned with the logic of commodity speculation in financial markets. The restrictive interpretation of popular consultations has limited the communities’ participation, who suffer most directly from the consequences of large-scale investment and ‘development’ projects. These judicial decisions also exert control over territories, disregard local views of development, and contribute to worsening the current climate crisis.

Vox populi: Consultas populares y procesos participativos

Esta obra cuenta con los planteamientos dogmáticos previos necesarios para ofrecer con una base sólida el análisis jurídico de las consultas populares y los procesos de participación, algo que será bienvenido por juristas y funcionarios públicos. De este modo, desgranan los elementos propios de las consultas referendarias y no referendarias, con apoyo en la doctrina constitucional, deteniéndose especialmente en el reparto de competencias.
 Sin embargo, el objeto de estudio de esta obra es especialmente la consulta popular municipal con naturaleza referendaria, sobre la que muy pocas Comunidades Autónomas han regulado la cuestión (Baleares, Andalucía, Navarra y Cataluña), donde se detienen especialmente, con habilidad de cirujano, en separar el concepto del carácter referendario o no de las consultas municipales, la iniciativa y requisitos para solicitarlas, quiénes pueden participar en ellas, el régimen de organización y de competencias, su carácter vinculante en su caso, dado que materialmente la votación hace que se puedan confundir su fronteras, como ha señalado en otoño de 2019 el Tribunal Supremo sobre una consulta relativa a festejos taurinos en San Sebastián.

La academia como escenario para el cumplimiento de los objetivos de desarrollo sostenible

La academia, atendiendo las realidades sociales, políticas y económicas, se convierte en un escenario de inclusión social a través del desarrollo de proyectos que incluyan a quienes históricamente han sido excluidos. Las consultas populares, los referendos, las iniciativas legislativas populares y los cabildos abiertos son ejemplos claros de escenarios de democracia participativa que tienen sustento en la doctrina y en el trabajo científico que se hace desde la academia.

Main generic frames in the media coverage of environmental popular consultations in Colombia.

Guided by the Framing Theory, this paper presents the final results of a content analysis performed on a group of news from three cases of environmental popular consultations in Colombia, aiming to find the main generic frames on them to understand how the debate was shaped within the Andean country during 2017. The context of those consultations was that they took place on the first year without armed confrontation, after the peace agreement was signed, with former FARC guerrilla and when the national debate shifted from the war itself to social justice issues. Results showed that all of the collected stories had, at least, three frames that were mainly human interest, focused on portraying the human side of actors involved; conflict, displaying the disagreement between pro and con sides as well as proclaiming winners and or losers; and attribution of responsibility, putting responsibility on actors and groups involved, and offering solutions such as relying on congress or the highest courts to fill the legal gap. These findings confirm that environmental conflicts constitute a new form of crisis in the post-conflict Colombia.

El referéndum autonómico en su laberinto

Based on the provisions of Article 149.1.32.a of the Spanish Constitution, the Statutes of Autonomy of several Autonomous Communities assumed powers regarding of popular consultations; however, the attempts of the Basque Country and Catalonia to hold secession referendums limited their scope. As a consequence of the independence challenge, the Spanish Constitutional Court made a very restrictive interpretation of these titles that extended the State’s power over the entire institution of referendums. This paper analyses the assumptions and arguments of this first interpretation, the subsequent deactivation of the attempts to regulate non-referendum popular consultations as copies of real referendums and the interpretative self-correction made in ruling 137/2015 and, specially, rulings 51/2017 and 90/2017 of the Spanish Constitutional Court: These rulings infer that, within the framework of the state’s regulations for the development of the fundamental right to political participation, the Autonomous Communities can establish and regulate new types of referendum if it is so cumulatively stated by their Statutes of Autonomy and by the Spanish Organic Act on Types of Referendum.

Minería y movilizaciones sociales en Colombia: consultas populares y derecho al territorio

Una mirada a la agenda de la movilización social en Colombia en los últimos diez años evidencia que los principales temas de conflicto social están vinculados a las luchas contra el impacto de las llamadas locomotoras del desarrollo, en el marco de las movilizaciones históricas por el derecho a la protesta y por el acceso, cobertura y calidad de los servicios sociales. Se trata de una emergente y creciente movilización en contra del modelo económico aperturista y extractivista predominante y de la cuestionada respuesta estatal a los conflictos sociales. Este artículo aborda actores y agendas de las movilizaciones en contra de la “locomotora minero-energética” y en defensa del territorio y explora los aprendizajes y expectativas de las comunidades que en contextos rurales y urbanos resisten a medidas económicas y reivindican el derecho al territorio y a una vida digna. Sin desconocer las conexiones con la dinámica latinoamericana, se subrayan las particularidades del caso colombiano, en relación con los desafíos de una ciudadanía que se levanta sobre aspectos culturales y políticos territorializados, que explora el camino de vías institucionales, como las consultas populares, proyectándolas como formas de acción contestataria más allá de las vías de hecho, en el marco de procesos organizativos de sectores subalternos que invocan la democracia participativa consagrada en la Carta Política de 1991.

Contesting claims for democracy: The role of narratives in conflicts over resource extraction

This article focuses on the use of narratives to understand how claims for democratic participation in conflicts over resource extraction are being countered by national state and corporate actors. Theoretically, the analysis is based on Gramsci’s notion of consent and a dialectical understanding of narratives and agency, whereby narratives are understood as contingent products of social interaction. It is argued that in order to become powerful, and to impede the institutionalization of democratic participation and prevent a shift in the power balances in the resource sector, a mixture of different narratives is applied. Core narratives are adjusted to protesters’ claims, are complemented by new storylines to react to changing contexts, and are mixed in order to organize consent in different settings and among different audiences. Empirically, the study focuses on ongoing disputes over popular consultations on mining, fracking and oil exploitation in Colombia. The data for the analysis consists of semi-structured interviews, transcripts of two public and live-streamed hearings, and articles from two leading Colombian newspapers. The period investigated covers the years 2013 (June) to 2018 (November).

10 Downing Street: who’s next? Seemingly unrelated regressions to forecast UK election results

ABSTRACT In recent years, the British polling industry has encountered difficulties in its attempts to measure voting intentions in important popular consultations, notably the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, the 2015 UK general election, and the 2016 EU membership referendum. In such a context, it is extremely valuable to explore how different forecasting models that rely on political and economic variables can be used to predict the outcome of elections. In this paper, we propose such a model by introducing a political economy equation to estimate the vote share obtained by the incumbent party in UK general elections three months before the vote as well as a set of seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) to forecast the results of the Official Opposition, the Liberal Democrats, and the remaining parties.

Extractivism, law and social conflict in Colombia

This research article is the result of research on the project entitled, Public Policy, Law and Social Movements. The objective of this research is to present how popular consultations have been developed in Colombia regarding extraction processes. This is to demonstrate how this participation mechanism has become a tool for environmental advocacy and the fight of communities against the extractive model. The research question is how popular consultations are being used by Colombian society so as to question the extractive model? There search method tackles a socio-legal field as it confronts a social fact against a normative element of citizen participation, its approach is qualitative and the research tools stem from the documentary analysis. The article concludes that popular consultations in the context of the mining energy conflict have been important insofar as the communities affected by the extractivist model might exercise their right to decide whether or not to implement the energy mining model. The above-mentioned tools were innovative and effective; however, Colombian high courts have curtailed the effectiveness of these constitutional actions. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21017/Rev.Repub.2019.v26.a63

La consulta popular frente a la intervención estatal en materia minera

El presente artículo analiza cómo la dinámica interventora del Estado colombiano en las actividades económicas, ha incidido en el incremento de consultas populares en temas mineros. Ésta se presenta como un instrumento mediante el cual la comunidad hace frente al otorgamiento desproporcionado de títulos mineros que no cuentan con el requisito de participación de la comunidad afectada o benefciada. Además, se proponen estrategias que el Estado debería adoptar para garantizar el bien común y el interés general acorde con los fnes constitucionales de guiar la economía bajo parámetros del desarrollo sostenible.

Direct democracy in mining conflicts in Latin America: mobilising against the La Colosa project in Colombia

ABSTRACT This article examines the conditions under which popular consultations serve as a means of protest against mining and the socio-political effects that result. Building on empirical research into the protests against the La Colosa gold mining project in Colombia, the analysis is rooted in social movement studies and democracy theory. It shows that the use of popular consultations is enabled by long-term political-institutional changes and short-term changes in structural conditions. The outcomes range from changes in project design to political agenda setting, and the opening of spaces for participation and public debate.

La Ley catalana de consultas populares de 2014

Resumen:La Ley Catalana de Consultas Populares de 2014 constituye un deseo de potenciar la participación ciudadana en la toma de decisiones políticas pero al tiempo era un intento de aprobar una norma que sirviera de marco jurídico para celebrar un verdadero referéndum sobre el futuro político de Cataluña, propósito evitado por el Tribunal Constitucional estableciendo que solo caben las consultas sectoriales y nunca las generales. Abstract:The Catalonia law of popular consultations of 2014, constitute a desire to enhance the citizen participation in political decision-making, but at the same time, it was an attempt to approve a lawe that would serve as the legal framework to hold a true referendum about the political future of Catalonia. This purpose was avoided by the Constitutional Court, stablishing that only sectoral and never general consultations are allowed. Summary:I. Introduction. II. Historical Previous Law Issues. III. Law Topic

Direct democracy and trade union action

Until recently, the political influence of trade unions primarily relied on ties to labour-friendly political parties. Since the 1990s, however, party-union relations have deteriorated, forcing unions to consider complementary political strategies. This article reviews different direct democratic instruments at local, national and EU levels. We distinguish popular consultations initiated by government from above from citizens’ initiatives initiated from below and discuss corresponding trade union experiences in Germany, Italy, Ireland, Slovenia and Switzerland. We also analyse the successful right2water European Citizens Initiative (ECI) of the European Federation of Public Service Unions and the failed fair transport ECI of the European Transport Workers’ Federation at EU level. Whereas unions have successfully used direct democratic instruments to (i) defend social achievements or (ii) as a lever to extract policy concessions, direct democracy is also challenging. Successful direct democratic campaigns require unions that are able to mobilise their own rank-and-file and to inspire larger sections of society.

Kämpfe um Bergbau und die Möglichkeiten demokratischer Transformation

The article explores the political effects of popular consultations as a means of direct democracy in struggles over mining. Building on concepts from participatory and materialist democracy theory, it shows the transformative potentials of processes of direct democracy towards democratization and emancipation under, and beyond, capitalist and liberal democratic conditions. Empirically the analysis is based on a case study on the protests against the La Colosa gold mining project in Colombia. The analysis reveals that although processes of direct democracy in conflicts over mining cannot transform existing class inequalities and social power relations fundamentally, they can nevertheless alter elements thereof. These are for example the relationship between local and national governments, changes of the political agenda of mining and the opening of new spaces for political participation, where previously there were none. It is here where it’s emancipatory potential can be found.