A referendum is a vote made by the public on a particular issue and referendums allow voters to register their opinions on a specific question regarding policy issues, with a simple yes or no answer.

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Edexcel Politics mock unit 1 corrections

Question 1(a)

 

A referendum is a vote made by the public on a particular issue and referendums allow voters to register their opinions on a specific question regarding policy issues, with a simple yes or no answer.  Referendums are a form of direct democracy in the context of representative democracy, where citizens are directly involved in decision making.  Referendums tend to be based on a question drawn up by the government and put to the electorate.  An example of a referendum that had occurred in the recent past was the devolution of Scotland referendum in 1997.

Question 1(b)

A referendum is a vote made by the public on a particular issue and referendums allow voters to register their opinions on a specific question regarding policy issues, with a simple yes or no answer.  

The circumstances that governments have called referendums are as follows.  Referendums may be used for many reasons, to allow the public to vote on issues such as constitutional change, where the public who withhold sovereignty, get a chance to vote on any issues associated with constitutional change.  For instance many referendums have been regarding constitional reform such as the devolution of Scotland in 1997.

Referendums have been held in the past on debaes which involve discussion on the quality of democracy a country receives.  Parties in government such as Labour use referendums to encourage more people to participate and enrol in politics and reinvigorate citzenship.  Also referendums are held, when the government feel that they have swayed the public towards a plausible response that coincide with what the government want.

Also referendums are used to weaken the opposition and can also unite parties that are split on issues.  In that if parties cannot agree on certain topics than a referendum is a coherent solution to this problem as a third source, ie – the public may express their opinions through a referendum in order to unite the parties on these split issues.

Referendums are sometimes held to deal with moral issues such as abortion.  Certain moral issues that are affecting a country, may be discussed and votes may occur to settle a dispute on significant moral issues.  These types of referendum are common in Ireland.

Recently Tony Blair has promised to hold a referendum for the issue relating to the Euro.  The question that is being asked, is whether Britain should participate with other European countries, and replace the sterling pound with a new currency, the Euro.

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Question 1(c)

The advantages for the wider use of referendums are as follows.

Referendums are a form of direct democracy and this is good as this is the “purest” form of democracy.  There is also an expression of popular sovereignty and this is beneficial.  

Referendums encourage political participation by influencing what the government does, and this hence encourages voting, campaigning and other levels of political participation.  Referendums in addition encourage political education by raising the level of debate.  This is good for citzenship as it initially gets people involved.  Furthermore they discourage apathy as they ...

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