Summary The paper addresses the divergence in majority rules at the moment of creating or reforming constitutions. While constitutions require, in most cases, qualified majorities in order to be approved at the constitutional assembly, they normally require only simple majorities to be ratified at the referendum. We analyze the set of conditions under which each majority rule is preferable for constitutional referendums. We argue that the simple majority requirement for referendums in constitution‐making, which is nearly universally used, lacks a clear theoretical justification. Qualified majority rules increase legitimacy and provide additional checks on the drafters. We further highlight when simple majority rules have advantages: when decision‐making costs in the referendum are high. Thereafter, we present an evaluation mechanism to identify the cases in which each majority rule should be used to increase stability and legitimacy. We then apply this evaluation mechanism to the constitution‐making processes in Poland, Bolivia and Egypt, which are three examples of diverging majority rules.

Germany shows a more welcoming attitude towards refugees than most other European countries. At the same time, the influx of refugees has led to massive protests, demonstrations and attacks against refugees. We look at the economic effects of these demonstrations and attacks on one important industry, namely tourism. Combining a novel, district-level data set on tourism with data on xenophobic activities, we find that xenophobic demonstrations have negative effects on tourist arrivals. This effect is found for domestic and foreign tourists.

The reaction of a tethered pyridine diimine (PDI) ligand with copper(I) chloride yielded a µ-chlorido bridged cationic dicopper(I) PDI complex, which is a rare structural motif. The geometric constriction of...

No abstract