When the people speak, what do they say? The meaning and limits of the popular mandate

After every election, someone will inevitably proclaim that “the people have spoken”. But what exactly the people say when they speak is far from clear. The legal and political boundaries of the democratic mandate have been called into question on a number of occasions in the past few years. Is there any way, in which the popular mandate can be measured and reconstructed without it setting unwarranted constraints to representative democracy? To what extent is the new government under a new PM bound by the mandate of the 2015 general election? What did the Leave vote in the EU referendum exactly mean? Is the mandate given in the EU referendum at odds with the mandate of the Scottish independence referendum? Are party manifestoes legally or politically binding? What might the role of courts be in maintaining the popular mandate? The event will examine these questions from various perspectives including political science, political philosophy, and law.

John Curtice (@whatukthinks) is Professor of politics at Strathclyde University and chief commentator at whatukthinks.org/eu.

Sionaidh Douglas-Scott holds the Anniversary Chair in Law and is Co-Director at the Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context at Queen Mary University of London.

Katrin Flikschuh is Professor of Political Theory at LSE Government.

Emmanuel Melissaris (@EMelissaris) is Associate Professor of Law at LSE Law.

LSE Law (@LSELaw) is an integral part of the School's mission, plays a major role in policy debates & in the education of lawyers and law teachers from around the world.