Subsidizing Democracy

Subsidizing Democracy PDF Author: Michael G. Miller
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801469511
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
In the wake of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), the case that allowed corporate and union spending in elections, many Americans despaired over the corrosive influence that private and often anonymous money can have on political platforms, campaigns, and outcomes at the federal and state level. In McComish v. Bennett (2011), the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the matching funds feature of so-called "Clean Elections" public financing laws, but there has been no strong challenge to the constitutionality of public funding as such. In Subsidizing Democracy, Michael G. Miller considers the impact of state-level public election financing on political campaigns through the eyes of candidates. Miller’s insights are drawn from survey data obtained from more than 1,000 candidates, elite interview testimony, and twenty years of election data. This book is therefore not only an effort to judge the effects of existing public election funding but also a study of elite behavior, campaign effects, and the structural factors that influence campaigns and voters. The presence of publicly funded candidates in elections, Miller reports, results in broad changes to the electoral system, including more interaction between candidates and the voting public and significantly higher voter participation. He presents evidence that by providing neophytes with resources that would have been unobtainable otherwise, subsidies effectively manufacture quality challengers. Miller describes how matching-funds provisions of Clean Elections laws were pervasively manipulated by candidates and parties and were ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court. A revealing book that will change the way we think about campaign funding, Subsidizing Democracy concludes with an evaluation of existing proposals for future election policy in light of Miller’s findings.

Subsidizing Democracy

Subsidizing Democracy PDF Author: Michael G. Miller
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801469511
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 163

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the wake of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), the case that allowed corporate and union spending in elections, many Americans despaired over the corrosive influence that private and often anonymous money can have on political platforms, campaigns, and outcomes at the federal and state level. In McComish v. Bennett (2011), the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the matching funds feature of so-called "Clean Elections" public financing laws, but there has been no strong challenge to the constitutionality of public funding as such. In Subsidizing Democracy, Michael G. Miller considers the impact of state-level public election financing on political campaigns through the eyes of candidates. Miller’s insights are drawn from survey data obtained from more than 1,000 candidates, elite interview testimony, and twenty years of election data. This book is therefore not only an effort to judge the effects of existing public election funding but also a study of elite behavior, campaign effects, and the structural factors that influence campaigns and voters. The presence of publicly funded candidates in elections, Miller reports, results in broad changes to the electoral system, including more interaction between candidates and the voting public and significantly higher voter participation. He presents evidence that by providing neophytes with resources that would have been unobtainable otherwise, subsidies effectively manufacture quality challengers. Miller describes how matching-funds provisions of Clean Elections laws were pervasively manipulated by candidates and parties and were ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court. A revealing book that will change the way we think about campaign funding, Subsidizing Democracy concludes with an evaluation of existing proposals for future election policy in light of Miller’s findings.

The Submerged State

The Submerged State PDF Author: Suzanne Mettler
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226521664
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
“Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” Such comments spotlight a central question animating Suzanne Mettler’s provocative and timely book: why are many Americans unaware of government social benefits and so hostile to them in principle, even though they receive them? The Obama administration has been roundly criticized for its inability to convey how much it has accomplished for ordinary citizens. Mettler argues that this difficulty is not merely a failure of communication; rather it is endemic to the formidable presence of the “submerged state.” In recent decades, federal policymakers have increasingly shunned the outright disbursing of benefits to individuals and families and favored instead less visible and more indirect incentives and subsidies, from tax breaks to payments for services to private companies. These submerged policies, Mettler shows, obscure the role of government and exaggerate that of the market. As a result, citizens are unaware not only of the benefits they receive, but of the massive advantages given to powerful interests, such as insurance companies and the financial industry. Neither do they realize that the policies of the submerged state shower their largest benefits on the most affluent Americans, exacerbating inequality. Mettler analyzes three Obama reforms—student aid, tax relief, and health care—to reveal the submerged state and its consequences, demonstrating how structurally difficult it is to enact policy reforms and even to obtain public recognition for achieving them. She concludes with recommendations for reform to help make hidden policies more visible and governance more comprehensible to all Americans. The sad truth is that many American citizens do not know how major social programs work—or even whether they benefit from them. Suzanne Mettler’s important new book will bring government policies back to the surface and encourage citizens to reclaim their voice in the political process.

Democracy, Public Expenditures, and the Poor

Democracy, Public Expenditures, and the Poor PDF Author: Philip Keefer
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0031210104
Category : Democracy
Languages : en
Pages : 36

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Book Description
Countries vary systematically with respect to the incentives of politicians to provide broad public goods, and to reduce poverty. Even in developing countries that are democracies, politicians often have incentives to divert resources to political rents, and to private transfers that benefit a few citizens at the expense of many. These distortions can be traced to imperfections in political markets, that are greater in some countries than in others. The authors review the theory, and evidence on the impact of incomplete information of voters, the lack of credibility of political promises, and social polarization on political incentives. They argue that the effects of these imperfections are large, but that their implications are insufficiently integrated into the design of policy reforms aimed at improving the provision of public goods, and reducing poverty.

Democracy Prevention

Democracy Prevention PDF Author: Jason Brownlee
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107025710
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Democracy Prevention explains how America's alliance with Egypt has impeded democratic change and reinforced authoritarianism over time.

Government Subsidies

Government Subsidies PDF Author: Mr.Benedict J. Clements
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1451851480
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 58

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Book Description
This paper addresses the problems of defining and measuring government subsidies, examines why and how government subsidies are used as a fiscal policy tool, assesses their economic effects, appraises international empirical evidence on government subsidies, and offers options for their reform. Recent international trends in government subsidy expenditure are analyzed for the 16-year period from 1975 to 1990, using general government subsidy data for 60 countries from the System of National Accounts (SNA) and central government expenditure on subsidies and other current transfers for 68 countries from Government Finance Statistics (GFS). The paper reviews major policy options for subsidy reform, focusing on ways to improve the cost-effectiveness of subsidy programs.

Oral Democracy

Oral Democracy PDF Author: Paromita Sanyal
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107019745
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
Studies citizens' deliberation on governance and development in Indian democracy, and the influence of state policy and literacy, analysing three hundred village assemblies. This title is also available as Open Access.

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America PDF Author: Richard Rothstein
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1631492861
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
New York Times Bestseller • Notable Book of the Year • Editors' Choice Selection One of Bill Gates’ “Amazing Books” of the Year One of Publishers Weekly’s 10 Best Books of the Year Longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction An NPR Best Book of the Year Winner of the Hillman Prize for Nonfiction Gold Winner • California Book Award (Nonfiction) Finalist • Los Angeles Times Book Prize (History) Finalist • Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize This “powerful and disturbing history” exposes how American governments deliberately imposed racial segregation on metropolitan areas nationwide (New York Times Book Review). Widely heralded as a “masterful” (Washington Post) and “essential” (Slate) history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law offers “the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state, and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation” (William Julius Wilson). Exploding the myth of de facto segregation arising from private prejudice or the unintended consequences of economic forces, Rothstein describes how the American government systematically imposed residential segregation: with undisguised racial zoning; public housing that purposefully segregated previously mixed communities; subsidies for builders to create whites-only suburbs; tax exemptions for institutions that enforced segregation; and support for violent resistance to African Americans in white neighborhoods. A groundbreaking, “virtually indispensable” study that has already transformed our understanding of twentieth-century urban history (Chicago Daily Observer), The Color of Law forces us to face the obligation to remedy our unconstitutional past.

Energy Democracy

Energy Democracy PDF Author: Denise Fairchild
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1610918517
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
The near-unanimous consensus among climate scientists is that the massive burning of gas, oil, and coal is having cataclysmic impacts on our atmosphere and climate. These climate and environmental impacts are particularly magnified and debilitating for low-income communities and communities of color. Energy democracy tenders a response and joins the environmental and climate movement with broader movements for social and economic change in this country and around the world. Energy Democracy brings together racial, cultural, and generational perspectives to show what an alternative, democratized energy future can look like. The book will inspire others to take up the struggle to build the energy democracy movement.

Deepening Local Democracy in Latin America

Deepening Local Democracy in Latin America PDF Author: Benjamin Goldfrank
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271074515
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
The resurgence of the Left in Latin America over the past decade has been so notable that it has been called “the Pink Tide.” In recent years, regimes with leftist leaders have risen to power in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Venezuela. What does this trend portend for the deepening of democracy in the region? Benjamin Goldfrank has been studying the development of participatory democracy in Latin America for many years, and this book represents the culmination of his empirical investigations in Brazil, Uruguay, and Venezuela. In order to understand why participatory democracy has succeeded better in some countries than in others, he examines the efforts in urban areas that have been undertaken in the cities of Porto Alegre, Montevideo, and Caracas. His findings suggest that success is related, most crucially, to how nationally centralized political authority is and how strongly institutionalized the opposition parties are in the local arenas.

Democracy Restored

Democracy Restored PDF Author: Timothy Crimmins
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 9780820329116
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
The history that was made and continues to be made within and without the walls of the Georgia Capitol is captured in this stunning, fully illustrated volume that chronicles the major periods in the Capitol's history and the building's design and construction, from 1885 to the present day.