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Since the United States adopted a written constitution as a consequence of the War of Independence, it is fair to say that most Western democracies with written constitutions have taken some guidance from that founding document. Inevitably, a key provision for any written constitution is ‘how can it be amended’. Even where there is an unwritten constitution (as for the United Kingdom, Aotearoa/New Zealand and Israel), the ‘rules’ established by convention or custom or some other means cannot be immutable: the passage of time or changing ideas require some means of altering or updating the rules. Changing a constitution is a matter of law, yet one inescapably imbued with politics. This article explores the way constitutional change has come, and how the rules have worked, in Australia (the 1951 referendum to ban the Australian Communist Party – unsuccessful, and the 1967 referendum to recognise rights of Indigenous Australians – successful) and the United States (the Equal Rights Amendment – situation ongoing), with a foray into the referendum process in United Kingdom (the 2017 ‘Brexit’ vote). It explores, too, the ‘change’ to a constitution where there is no change to the words of the document, but a change in interpretation – this in the context of Canada in 1929. There, consistent with judgments in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, the Canadian Supreme Court interpreted ‘person’ as appearing in the North America Act as not including women, denying women any entitlement to be appointed to the Canadian Senate. As related here, women were finally acknowledged as ‘persons’ when the Privy Council pronounced this to be so, an unanticipated outcome from a judicial body considered by both Canada and Australia to be so hidebound as not to be ‘right’ as the final court of appeal for Britain’s former colonies.

Texas state Rep. Rafael Anchías (D-Dallas) questioned Rep. Briscoe Cain (R-Deer Park) in the state House of Representatives on May 7 on the history of language used in a bill on voting regulations.

Mariupol residents began voting in a Kremlin-orchestrated referendum on becoming part of Russia on Sept. 23.

Il Sole 24 ore, 9 giugno 1996. Flamigni definì la legge inapplicabile auspicandone una completa abrogazione anche attraverso il referendum. Flamigni dichiarò di essere pronto ad autodenunciarsi per il mancato rispetto di alcuni dei divieti, come il divieto di produrre più di tre embrioni, il divieto di congelarli, di fare indagini genetiche pre-impianto, di accettare donazioni di gameti e anche di rifiutare l’embrione nel proprio grembo una volta prodotto, smontati in buona parte poi dalle sentenze dei giudici. Il 12 e 13 giugno 2005, la legge fu oggetto del referendum popolare sull’abrogazione di buona parte dei divieti che andavano contro il diritto alla salute. All’indomani del referendum in articolo pubblicato sull’Unità e intitolato “Le ragioni di una sconfitta”, Flamigni scriveva: «La scienza è un grande investimento sociale, forse il più importante di tutti. Così, lascia libera la scienza di esplorare l’ignoto, perché un occhio che scruta non può fare male a nessuno, chiede invece di poter esercitare un controllo sulle cose che la tecnica produce, perché una mano che fruga può far male, e come».

A well-functioning democracy requires a degree of mutual respect and a willingness to talk across political divides. Yet numerous studies have shown that many electorates are polarized along partisan lines, with animosity towards the partisan out-group. This article further develops the idea of affective polarization, not by partisanship, but instead by identification with opinion-based groups. Examining social identities formed during Britain's 2016 referendum on European Union membership, the study uses surveys and experiments to measure the intensity of partisan and Brexit-related affective polarization. The results show that Brexit identities are prevalent, felt to be personally important and cut across traditional party lines. These identities generate affective polarization as intense as that of partisanship in terms of stereotyping, prejudice and various evaluative biases, convincingly demonstrating that affective polarization can emerge from identities beyond partisanship.