A British Referendum on the E.U.

Legislators can make the task of getting instructions from the popular sovereign, the people, unduly difficult. In November 2012, the Florida legislature confronted its people with several proposed constitutional amendments written in legalese that even some lawyers found difficult to navigate through. The next month, Boris Johnson and Liam Fox of Britain pressured their state’s legislature to put forth a referendum that, unlike that of Florida, would present the people with a clear choice.

The flags of Florida and the United Kingdom. 

   

The full essay is at "Essays on the E.U. Political Economy," available at Amazon.

South Sudan as a Sovereign State: Governmental Change in Slow Motion

Announced in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, on February 7, 2011, voters in the oil-producing south overwhelming chose to secede from the Arab north. According to the New York Times, 98.83 percent of the more than 3.8 million registered voters in the south chose to separate from the north. The referendum had been agreed to as part of the peace agreement in 2005, after two long and brutal civil wars between the Arab Muslim north and the mostly animist and Christian south. “Today we received these results and we accept and welcome these results because they represent the will of the southern people,” President Bashir said in a statement on state television, according to Reuters. In Washington, the White House released a statement by President Obama congratulating the people of south Sudan and announcing “the intention of the United States to formally recognize southern Sudan as a sovereign, independent state in July 2011.” The New York Times reported that actual independence would be declared on July 9, when the peace agreement that set the stage for the vote expired. In the meantime, issues regarding citizenship, oil-revenue rights and the contested and volatile region of Abyei would be settled.

The full essay is at "South Sudan."