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Author: Susan Stokes
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610443500
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
What are the essential elements of a democracy? How can nations ensure a political voice for all citizens, and design a government that will respond to those varied voices? These perennial questions resonate strongly in the midst of ongoing struggles to defend democratic institutions around the world and here at home. In Designing Democratic Government, a group of distinguished political scientists provides a landmark cross-national analysis of the institutions that either facilitate or constrain the healthy development of democracy. The contributors to Designing Democratic Government use the democratic ideals of fairness, competitiveness, and accountability as benchmarks to assess a wide variety of institutions and practices. John Leighly and Jonathan Nagler find that in the U.S., the ability to mobilize voters across socioeconomic lines largely hinges on the work of non-party groups such as civic associations and unions, which are far less likely than political parties to engage in class-biased outreach efforts. Michael McDonald assesses congressional redistricting methods and finds that court-ordered plans and close adherence to the Voting Rights Act effectively increase the number of competitive electoral districts, while politically-drawn maps reduce the number of competitive districts. John Carey and John Polga-Hecimovich challenge the widespread belief that primary elections produce inferior candidates. Analyzing three decades worth of comprehensive data on Latin American presidential campaigns, they find that primaries impart a stamp of legitimacy on candidates, helping to engage voters and mitigate distrust in the democratic process. And Kanchan Chandra proposes a paradigm shift in the way we think about ethnic inclusion in democracies: nations should design institutions that actively promote—rather than merely accommodate—diversity. At a moment when democracy seems vulnerable both at home and abroad, Designing Democratic Government sorts through a complex array of practices and institutions to outline what works and what doesn't in new and established democracies alike. The result is a volume that promises to change the way we look at the ideals of democracy worldwide.
Author: Susan Stokes
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610443500
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336
Get Book Here
Book Description
What are the essential elements of a democracy? How can nations ensure a political voice for all citizens, and design a government that will respond to those varied voices? These perennial questions resonate strongly in the midst of ongoing struggles to defend democratic institutions around the world and here at home. In Designing Democratic Government, a group of distinguished political scientists provides a landmark cross-national analysis of the institutions that either facilitate or constrain the healthy development of democracy. The contributors to Designing Democratic Government use the democratic ideals of fairness, competitiveness, and accountability as benchmarks to assess a wide variety of institutions and practices. John Leighly and Jonathan Nagler find that in the U.S., the ability to mobilize voters across socioeconomic lines largely hinges on the work of non-party groups such as civic associations and unions, which are far less likely than political parties to engage in class-biased outreach efforts. Michael McDonald assesses congressional redistricting methods and finds that court-ordered plans and close adherence to the Voting Rights Act effectively increase the number of competitive electoral districts, while politically-drawn maps reduce the number of competitive districts. John Carey and John Polga-Hecimovich challenge the widespread belief that primary elections produce inferior candidates. Analyzing three decades worth of comprehensive data on Latin American presidential campaigns, they find that primaries impart a stamp of legitimacy on candidates, helping to engage voters and mitigate distrust in the democratic process. And Kanchan Chandra proposes a paradigm shift in the way we think about ethnic inclusion in democracies: nations should design institutions that actively promote—rather than merely accommodate—diversity. At a moment when democracy seems vulnerable both at home and abroad, Designing Democratic Government sorts through a complex array of practices and institutions to outline what works and what doesn't in new and established democracies alike. The result is a volume that promises to change the way we look at the ideals of democracy worldwide.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309047978
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 94
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Book Description
The global movement toward democracy, spurred in part by the ending of the cold war, has created opportunities for democratization not only in Europe and the former Soviet Union, but also in Africa. This book is based on workshops held in Benin, Ethiopia, and Namibia to better understand the dynamics of contemporary democratic movements in Africa. Key issues in the democratization process range from its institutional and political requirements to specific problems such as ethnic conflict, corruption, and role of donors in promoting democracy. By focusing on the opinion and views of African intellectuals, academics, writers, and political activists and observers, the book provides a unique perspective regarding the dynamics and problems of democratization in Africa.
Author: Pippa Norris
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521694803
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Proposals for power-sharing constitutions remain controversial, as highlighted by current debates in Iraq, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Sudan. This book updates and refines the theory of consociationalism, taking account of the flood of contemporary innovations in power-sharing institutions that have occurred worldwide. The book classifies and compares four types of political institutions: the electoral system, parliamentary or presidential executives, unitary or federal states, and the structure and independence of the mass media. The study tests the potential advantages and disadvantages of each of these institutions for democratic governance. Cross-national time-series data concerning trends in democracy are analyzed for all countries worldwide since the early 1970s. Chapters are enriched by comparing detailed case studies. The mixed-method research design illuminates the underlying causal mechanisms by examining historical developments and processes of institutional change within particular nations and regions. The conclusion draws together the results and the practical lessons for policymakers.
Author: G. Shabbir Cheema
Publisher: Kumarian Press
ISBN: 1565491971
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
Annotation Bridges the gap between theoretical literature and the tools and practices needed to strengthen or rebuild democratic institutions and reform governance systems. Through case studies and examples of good practices of governance, Cheema assesses the conditions that make democracy work.
Author: Robert D. Behn
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780815798101
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 332
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Book Description
Traditionally, American government has created detailed, formal procedures to ensure that its agencies and employees are accountable for finances and fairness. Now in the interest of improved performance, we are asking our front-line workers to be more responsive, we are urging our middle managers to be innovative, and we are exhorting our public executives to be entrepreneurial. Yet what is the theory of democratic accountability that empowers public employees to exercise such discretion while still ensuring that we remain a government of laws? How can government be responsive to the needs of individual citizens and still remain accountable to the entire polity? In Rethinking Democratic Accountability, Robert D. Behn examines the ambiguities, contradictions, and inadequacies in our current systems of accountability for finances, fairness, and performance. Weaving wry observations with political theory, Behn suggests a new model of accountability—with "compacts of collective, mutual responsibility"—to address new paradigms for public management.
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 9264183639
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 142
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Book Description
There is growing recognition of the need for new approaches to the ways in which donors support accountability, but no broad agreement on what changed practice looks like. This publication aims to provide more clarity on the emerging practice.
Author: Jonathan Boston
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1786350556
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 576
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Book Description
The book focuses on how to enhance the political incentives on democratically-elected governments to protect the interests of future generations.
Author: Elaine C. Kamarck
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780815798613
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 210
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Book Description
A Brookings Institution Press and Visions of Governance for the 21st Century publication Advances in information technology are transforming democratic governance. Power over information has become decentralized, fostering new types of community and different roles for government. This volume—developed by the Visions of Governance in the 21st Century program at the Kennedy School of Government—explores the ways in which the information revolution is changing our institutions of governance. Contributors examine the impact of technology on our basic institutions and processes of governance, including representation, community, politics, bureaucracy, and sovereignty. Their essays illuminate many of the promises and challenges of twenty-first century government. The contributors (all from Harvard unless otherwise indicated) include Joseph S. Nye Jr., Arthur Isak Applbaum, Dennis Thompson, William A. Galston (University of Maryland), L. Jean Camp, Pippa Norris, Anna Greenberg, Elaine Ciulla Kamarck, David C. King, Jane Fountain, Jerry Mechling, and Robert O. Keohane (Duke University).
Author: Dino Falaschetti
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387787070
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 146
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Book Description
Conventional wisdom warns that unaccountable political and business agents can enrich a few at the expense of many. But logically extending this wisdom implies that associated principals – voters, consumers, shareholders – will favor themselves over the greater good when ‘rules of the game’ instead create too much accountability. Democratic Governance and Economic Performance rigorously develops this hypothesis, and finds statistical evidence and case study illustrations that democratic institutions at various governance levels (e.g., federal, state, corporation) have facilitated opportunistic gains for electoral, consumer, and shareholder principals. To be sure, this conclusion does not dismiss the potential for democratic governance to productively reduce agency costs. Rather, it suggests that policy makers, lawyers, and managers can improve governance by weighing the agency benefits of increased accountability against the distributional costs of favoring principal stakeholders over more general economic opportunities. Carefully considering the fundamentals that give rise to this tradeoff should interest students and scholars working at the intersection of social science and the law, and can help professionals improve their own performance in policy, legal, and business settings.
Author: Mark Bevir
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400836859
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
Democratic Governance examines the changing nature of the modern state and reveals the dangers these changes pose to democracy. Mark Bevir shows how new ideas about governance have gradually displaced old-style notions of government in Britain and around the world. Policymakers cling to outdated concepts of representative government while at the same time placing ever more faith in expertise, markets, and networks. Democracy exhibits blurred lines of accountability and declining legitimacy. Bevir explores how new theories of governance undermined traditional government in the twentieth century. Politicians responded by erecting great bureaucracies, increasingly relying on policy expertise and abstract notions of citizenship and, more recently, on networks of quasi-governmental and private organizations to deliver services using market-oriented techniques. Today, the state is an unwieldy edifice of nineteenth-century government buttressed by a sprawling substructure devoted to the very different idea of governance--and democracy has suffered. In Democratic Governance, Bevir takes a comprehensive look at governance and the history and thinking behind it. He provides in-depth case studies of constitutional reform, judicial reform, joined-up government, and police reform. He argues that the best hope for democratic renewal lies in more interpretive styles of expertise, dialogic forms of policymaking, and more diverse avenues for public participation.
