This collection focuses on the particular nexus of popular sovereignty and constitutional change, and the implications of the recent surge in populism for systems where constitutional change is directly decided upon by the people via referendum. It examines different conceptions of sovereignty as expressed in constitutional theory and case law, including an in-depth exploration of the manner in which the concept of popular sovereignty finds expression both in constitutional provisions on referendums and in court decisions concerning referendum processes. While comparative references are made to a number of jurisdictions, the primary focus of the collection is on the experience in Ireland, which has had a lengthy experience of referendums on constitutional change and of legal, political and cultural practices that have emerged in association with these referendums. At a time when populist pressures on constitutional change are to the fore in many countries, this detailed examination of where the Irish experience sits in a comparative context has an important contribution to make to debates in law and political science.

This collection focuses on the particular nexus of popular sovereignty and constitutional change, and the implications of the recent surge in populism for systems where constitutional change is directly decided upon by the people via referendum. It examines different conceptions of sovereignty as expressed in constitutional theory and case law, including an in-depth exploration of the manner in which the concept of popular sovereignty finds expression both in constitutional provisions on referendums and in court decisions concerning referendum processes. While comparative references are made to a number of jurisdictions, the primary focus of the collection is on the experience in Ireland, which has had a lengthy experience of referendums on constitutional change and of legal, political and cultural practices that have emerged in association with these referendums. At a time when populist pressures on constitutional change are to the fore in many countries, this detailed examination of where the Irish experience sits in a comparative context has an important contribution to make to debates in law and political science.

In this radically original and optimistic reflection on the future of Christianity in the Western world, Sean O'Conaill starts from the conviction that the life, ministry, and death of Jesus of Nazareth were a deliberate reversal of the human "heroic" journey to adulation and influence, which has caused violence, tyranny, and injustice in all epochs. He did not identify with, or seek to emulate, the powerful and the influential; he sought out the outcasts and taught that every person was of equal worth in the eyes of God. In the end, he exalted the person who was most despised-the victim-by accepting an ignominious death. O'Conaill argues that, even since the earliest times, Jesus's followers have been tempted to rejoin the "upward journey" toward power and influence-a journey which inevitably creates "pyramids of esteem" or "hierarchies of respect," which glorify individuals and elites at the expense of majorities. The development of the relationship between Christianity and the political establishment, in the fourth century, soon associated Christ himself with coercion and led, in the end, to the schisms between East and West, Protestant and Catholic, and between Christianity and liberal secularism. It is also at the root of the "silent schism" within the Catholic church today. The future of Christianity then lies in its willingness to abandon this "upward journey" and to return to the essence of the gospel message, not only institutionally, but personally in the lives of all Christians. This return to a countercultural stance will aim to raise the disadvantaged and to secure the future of the global family and its environment.