'The Aftermath of the Annan Plan Referendums' Cross-Voting Moderation for Cyprus

This article examines recent developments in the Cyprus negotiations and suggests a number of changes to the proposed electoral system. Specifically, cross-voting and other electoral methods that encourage coalition-building across ethnic communities might add significantly to the functionality of the Annan Plan. Combined with other innovative mechanisms already in the plan, cross-voting could force political parties to seriously take into account the interests and concerns of the two Cypriot communities, an element that is currently missing from both the Turkish Cypriot (TC) and Greek Cypriot (GC) political systems. Special conditions on the island, as well as the way most political parties operated in the critical pre-April 2004 referendum period, suggest the need for this amendment. Although this study respects the consociational logic of the Annan Plan, it supplements consociationalism with elements that foster integration and inter-dependence between the two communities and their voters. The article also reviews the postreferendum developments in Cyprus which might have worrisome future implications, not only for its two communities, but also for EU enlargement in general. Cyprus both holds one of the keys to Turkey's entrance into the EU and is a litmus test for the Euro-Atlantic nexus and its capacity to pacify and integrate ethnically divided societies in Europe and elsewhere.

Emotions and voting in EU referendums

There is an emerging scholarship on the emotional bases of political opinion and behaviour and, in particular, the contrasting implications of two distinct negative emotions - anger and anxiety. I apply the insights in this literature to the previously unresearched realm of the emotional bases of voting in EU referendums. I hypothesise that anxious voters rely on substantive EU issues and angry voters rely on second-order factors relating to domestic politics (partisanship and satisfaction with government). Focusing on the case of Irish voting in the Fiscal Compact referendum, and using data from a representative sample of voters, I find support for the hypotheses and discuss the implications of the findings for our understanding of the emotional conditionality of EU referendum voting. 

Direct Democracy and Regional Integration::Citizens' Perceptions of Treaty Implications and the Irish Reversal on Lisbon

Analyses of voting in European Union referendums typically distinguish between ‘second-order’ effects and the impact of substantive ‘issues’. In order to explain change in referendum outcome, two types of substantive issues are distinguished in this article. Focusing on Irish voting in the Lisbon Treaty referendums and using data from post-referendum surveys, it is found that perceptions of treaty implications outperform underlying attitudes to EU integration in predicting vote choice at both referendums, and perceptions of treaty implications are strong predictors of vote change between the referendums. The findings have broadly positive implications for normative assessments of the usefulness of direct democracy as a tool for legitimising regional integration advance.

Tanzanian scepticism of a militarised East African Federation and underlying military concerns

Attitudes towards a regional military force are of paramount importance when exploring public support for regional integration. Until now, however, scholarly research has not considered the influence of attitudes towards a regional military mechanism in the sub-Saharan African context. Using Afrobarometer data, we demonstrate that military concerns are vital when exploring Tanzanian attitudes towards the proposed political federation of the East African Community (EAC), the East African Federation (EAF). More specifically, opposition to military cooperation strongly influences Tanzanian scepticism of the EAF. This finding is highly relevant given that referendums in the participating member states must be passed to facilitate political integration. Heightened opposition towards military cooperation raises the possibility of the public rejecting a politically integrated EAC. This poses a potential obstacle to the implementation of joint security policies and crucial mechanisms to provide a more stable region at large. We account for alternative explanations of Tanzanian opinion formation and reflect on the strength of military-orientated concerns for investigating public support for the East African project specifically and regional integration in sub-Saharan Africa more widely.