IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bejeap/vtopics.4y2004i1n23.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Citizens Should Vote on Secession

Author

Listed:
  • Eerola Essi

    (RUESG, University of Helsinki)

  • Määttänen Niku

    (The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy and CEBR)

  • Poutvaara Panu

    (Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR), CESifo and IZA)

Abstract

The draft treaty establishing a constitution for the European Union states that each member state may withdraw from the European Union following its own constitutional requirements. We argue that such a rule could lead into an increased use of threat of withdrawal to extract concessions in intergovernmental negotiations. This problem would be exacerbated by national electorates facing an incentive to elect more confrontational politicians. We also suggest a remedy: EU constitution should require that withdrawal from EU membership must be approved by the voters of the withdrawing member state in a referendum.

Suggested Citation

  • Eerola Essi & Määttänen Niku & Poutvaara Panu, 2004. "Citizens Should Vote on Secession," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-22, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:topics.4:y:2004:i:1:n:23
    DOI: 10.2202/1538-0653.1312
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1538-0653.1312
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1538-0653.1312?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier Compte & Philippe Jehiel, 2002. "On the Role of Outside Options in Bargaining with Obstinate Parties," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1477-1517, July.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Enrico Spolaore, 1997. "On the Number and Size of Nations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1027-1056.
    3. Vaubel, Roland, 1994. "The Political Economy of Centralization and the European Community," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 81(1-2), pages 151-190, October.
    4. Laussel, Didier, 2002. "Delegation effects in representative democracies: do they foster extremism?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 191-205, August.
    5. Dilip Abreu & David Pearce, 2003. "A Behavioral Model of Bargaining with Endogenous Types," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1446, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    6. Patrick Bolton & Gérard Roland, 1997. "The Breakup of Nations: A Political Economy Analysis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1057-1090.
    7. Gradstein, Mark, 2004. "Political Bargaining in a Federation: Buchanan meets Coase," CEPR Discussion Papers 4188, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, "undated". "Why Social Preferences Matter - The Impact of Non-Selfish Motives on Competition," IEW - Working Papers 084, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    9. Segendorff, Bjorn, 1998. "Delegation and Threat in Bargaining," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 266-283, May.
    10. Alesina, Alberto & Perotti, Roberto & Spolaore, Enrico, 1995. "Togetheror separately? Issues on the costs and benefits of political and fiscal unions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 751-758, April.
    11. Gradstein, Mark, 2004. "Political bargaining in a federation: Buchanan meets Coase," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 983-999, October.
    12. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2002. "Why Social Preferences Matter -- The Impact of Non-Selfish Motives on Competition, Cooperation and Incentives," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(478), pages 1-33, March.
    13. Bordignon, Massimo & Brusco, Sandro, 2001. "Optimal secession rules," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 1811-1834, December.
    14. Buchanan, James M & Faith, Roger L, 1987. "Secession and the Limits of Taxation: Toward a Theory of Internal Exit," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 1023-1031, December.
    15. Thomas Apolte, 1997. "Secession Clauses: A Tool for the Taming of an Arising Leviathan in Brussels?," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 57-70, March.
    16. Fidrmuc, Jan, 1999. "Stochastic Shocks and Incentives for (Dis)Integration," CEPR Discussion Papers 2104, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Athanassiou, Phoebus, 2009. "Withdrawal and expulsion from the EU and EMU: some reflections," Legal Working Paper Series 10, European Central Bank.
    2. Alexander Libman, 2015. "Words or deeds: what matters? On the role of symbolic action in political decentralization," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 49(3), pages 801-838, November.
    3. Ohr Renate, 2007. "Clubs im Club – Europas Zukunft? / Clubs within the Club – Europe’s Future?," ORDO. Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 58(1), pages 67-84, January.
    4. Morelli, Massimo & Tavares, José & Luque, Jaime, 2011. "Fiscal Union Consensus Design under the Risk of Autarky," CEPR Discussion Papers 8552, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Till Nikolka & Panu Poutvaara, 2017. "Brexit – Theory and Empirics," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 17(04), pages 68-75, January.
    6. Susanne Lechner & Renate Ohr, 2011. "The right of withdrawal in the treaty of Lisbon: a game theoretic reflection on different decision processes in the EU," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 357-375, December.
    7. Gianmarco Daniele & Amedeo Piolatto & Willem Sas, 2018. "Who Sent You? Strategic Voting, Transfers and Bailouts in a Federation," Working Papers. Serie AD 2018-05, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    8. Libman, Alexander Mikhailovich, 2009. "Эндогенные Границы И Распределение Власти В Федерациях И Международных Сообществах [ENDOGENOUS BOUNDARIES AND DISTRIBUTION OF POWER In the Federation]," MPRA Paper 16473, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. José Tavares, 2012. "Fiscal Union Consensus Design Under The Threat Of Autarky," 2012 Meeting Papers 202, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Till Nikolka & Panu Poutvaara, 2017. "Brexit – Theory and Empirics," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 17(4), pages 68-75, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Libman, Alexander Mikhailovich, 2009. "Эндогенные Границы И Распределение Власти В Федерациях И Международных Сообществах [ENDOGENOUS BOUNDARIES AND DISTRIBUTION OF POWER In the Federation]," MPRA Paper 16473, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Grégoire Rota Graziosi, 2009. "On the Strategic Use of Representative Democracy in International Agreements," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 11(2), pages 281-296, April.
    3. Gregoire Rota Graziosi, 2003. "The theory of `Internal Exit', a comment on Buchanan and Faith (1987)," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 8(12), pages 1-6.
    4. Anesi, Vincent, 2012. "Secessionism and minority protection in an uncertain world," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 53-61.
    5. Michel Le Breton & Shlomo Weber, 2003. "The Art of Making Everybody Happy: How to Prevent a Secession," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 50(3), pages 1-4.
    6. Bordignon, Massimo & Brusco, Sandro, 2001. "Optimal secession rules," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 1811-1834, December.
    7. Thierry Madiès & Grégoire Rota-Grasiozi & Jean-Pierre Tranchant & Cyril Trépier, 2018. "The economics of secession: a review of legal, theoretical, and empirical aspects," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 154(1), pages 1-18, December.
    8. Vincent Anesi & Philippe De Donder, 2011. "Voting under the threat of secession: accommodation vs. repression," Working Papers 2011/40, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    9. Berglöf, Erik & Burkart, Mike & Friebel, Guido & Paltseva, Elena, 2012. "Club-in-the-club: Reform under unanimity," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 492-507.
    10. Knoll Bodo & Koenig Andreas, 2011. "Leviathan Europa – Stärkung der Nationalstaaten und der EU durch konstitutionelle Schranken?," Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 60(2), pages 127-145, August.
    11. Vincent Anesi & Philippe De Donder, 2011. "Voting under the Threat of Secession: Accommodation vs. Repression," CESifo Working Paper Series 3458, CESifo Group Munich.
    12. Alexander Libman, 2012. "Sub-national political regimes and asymmetric fiscal decentralization," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 302-336, December.
    13. Staal, Klaas, 2006. "Country size and publicly provided goods," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 187, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    14. Federico Etro, 2003. "Globalization and Political Geography," CESifo Working Paper Series 986, CESifo.
    15. Grégoire Rota Graziosi, 2007. "Secession and the Limits of Taxation: Toward a Theory of Internal Exit: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 534-538, March.
    16. Roland Vaubel, 2013. "Secession in the European Union," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 288-302, October.
    17. Anesi, Vincent, 2012. "Secessionism and minority protection in an uncertain world," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 53-61.
    18. Vanschoonbeek, Jakob, 2020. "Regional (in)stability in Europe a quantitative model of state fragmentation," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 605-641.
    19. Branko Milanović, 2001. "Nations, Conglomerates and Empires: Trade-off Between Income and Sovereignty," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Dominick Salvatore & Marjan Svetličič & Jože P. Damijan (ed.), Small Countries in a Global Economy, chapter 1, pages 25-69, Palgrave Macmillan.
    20. Rohner, Dominic & Esteban, Joan & Flamand, Sabine & Morelli, Massimo, 2018. "A Dynamic Theory of Secession," CEPR Discussion Papers 12398, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:topics.4:y:2004:i:1:n:23. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.