Download or read book Consequences of Party Reform written by Nelson W. Polsby and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1983 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Assesses what effect the Democratic reforms of 1968 have had on American politics and suggests practical changes that could improve current political practices.
Download or read book Party Reform written by Anika Gauja and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explains why, and how, political parties in several advanced democracies are undertaking high-profile organizational reforms.
Download or read book Primary Elections and American Politics written by Chapman Rackaway and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2022-10-01 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The last twenty years has seen a series of changes to American party politics: polarization, negative partisanship, decreasing voter turnout, and decreasing faith in elections and government. In Primary Elections and American Politics, Chapman Rackaway and Joseph Romance trace the origins of these and other problems to one of the most controversial reforms in American political history: the direct partisan primary election. With a comprehensive history of the primary election, the authors link the rise of primaries to the many political ills the nation faces today. They argue that the Progressives who created the primaries mistook direct democratic reforms, like the primary, for participatory democratic reforms like deliberative polling or participatory budgeting.
Download or read book Urban Reform and Its Consequences written by Susan Welch and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout this century, reformers have fought to eliminate party control of city politics. As a result, the majority of American cities today elect council members in at-large and nonpartisan elections. This result of the turn-of-the-century Progressive movement, which worked for election rules that eliminated the power of the urban machine and the working class on which it was based, is today still a subject of lively debate. For example, in the mid-1980s, regular Democrats in Chicago sought to institute a nonpartisan mayoral election. Supporters thought that reform would make the electoral process more democratic, while opponents charged that it was meant to dilute the voting powers of blacks. Clearly, the effect of urban reform remains an important issue for scholars and politicians alike. Susan Welch and Timothy Bledsoe clarify a portion of the debate by investigating how election structures affect candidates and the nature of representation. They examine the different effects of district versus at-large elections and of partisan versus nonpartisan elections. Who gets elected? Are representatives' socioeconomic status and party affiliation related to election form? Are election structures related to how those who are elected approach their jobs? Do they see themselves as representatives concerned with the good of the city as a whole? Urban Reform and Its Consequences reports an unprecedented wealth of data drawn from a sample of nearly 1,000 council members and communities with populations between 50,000 and 1 million across 42 states. The sample includes communities that use a variety of election procedures. This study is therefore the most comprehensive and accurate to date. Welch and Bledsoe conclude that nonpartisan and at-large elections do give city councils a more middle- and upper-middle-class character and have changed the way representatives view their jobs. Reform measures have not, however, produced councils that are significantly more conservative or more prone to conflict. Overall, the authors conclude that partisan and district elections are more likely to represent the whole community and to make the council more accountable to the electorate.
Download or read book Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House written by David W. Rohde and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1991-08-13 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the Second World War, congressional parties have been characterized as declining in strength and influence. Research has generally attributed this decline to policy conflicts within parties, to growing electoral independence of members, and to the impact of the congressional reforms of the 1970s. Yet the 1980s witnessed a strong resurgence of parties and party leadership—especially in the House of Representatives. Offering a concise and compelling explanation of the causes of this resurgence, David W. Rohde argues that a realignment of electoral forces led to a reduction of sectional divisions within the parties—particularly between the northern and southern Democrats—and to increased divergence between the parties on many important issues. He challenges previous findings by asserting that congressional reform contributed to, rather than restrained, the increase of partisanship. Among the Democrats, reforms siphoned power away from conservative and autocratic committee chairs and put control of those committees in the hands of Democratic committee caucuses, strengthening party leaders and making both party and committee leaders responsible to rank-and-file Democrats. Electoral changes increased the homogeneity of House Democrats while institutional reforms reduced the influence of dissident members on a consensus in the majority party. Rohde's accessible analysis provides a detailed discussion of the goals of the congressional reformers, the increased consensus among Democrats and its reinforcement by their caucus, the Democratic leadership's use of expanded powers to shape the legislative agenda, and the responses of House Republicans. He also addresses the changes in the relationship between the House majority and the president during the Carter and Reagan administrations and analyzes the legislative consequences of the partisan resurgence. A readable, systematic synthesis of the many complex factors that fueled the recent resurgence of partisanship, Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House is ideal for course use.
Download or read book Money Matters written by Robert K. Goidel and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1999 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Methods of campaign financing have been controversial since George Washington first ran for office, and debates over campaign finance reform have raged just as long. Contemporary critics of reform often contend that it would decrease electoral competition, voter turnout, and the amount of information voters receive about candidates. Money Matters subjects these criticisms to careful, systemic analysis_using simulations, aggregate vote analyses, and individual-level data analyses based on House elections_and concludes that reform, with modest public subsidies and spending limits, would enhance rather than diminish the U.S. system of democratic governance. This timely book helps bridge the gap between quantitative academic research and applied progressive reform efforts. It will be of interest to scholars and students of political parties, the legislative process, campaigns and elections, political institutions, public policy, and political behavior and methodology.
Download or read book Curing the Mischiefs of Faction written by Austin Ranney and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-02-25 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1975.
Download or read book Parties and Their Environments written by Robert Harmel and published by Longman Publishing Group. This book was released on 1982 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Politics Industry written by Katherine M. Gehl and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2020-06-23 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading political innovation activist Katherine Gehl and world-renowned business strategist Michael Porter bring fresh perspective, deep scholarship, and a real and actionable solution, Final Five Voting, to the grand challenge of our broken political and democratic system. Final Five Voting has already been adopted in Alaska and is being advanced in states across the country. The truth is, the American political system is working exactly how it is designed to work, and it isn't designed or optimized today to work for us—for ordinary citizens. Most people believe that our political system is a public institution with high-minded principles and impartial rules derived from the Constitution. In reality, it has become a private industry dominated by a textbook duopoly—the Democrats and the Republicans—and plagued and perverted by unhealthy competition between the players. Tragically, it has therefore become incapable of delivering solutions to America's key economic and social challenges. In fact, there's virtually no connection between our political leaders solving problems and getting reelected. In The Politics Industry, business leader and path-breaking political innovator Katherine Gehl and world-renowned business strategist Michael Porter take a radical new approach. They ingeniously apply the tools of business analysis—and Porter's distinctive Five Forces framework—to show how the political system functions just as every other competitive industry does, and how the duopoly has led to the devastating outcomes we see today. Using this competition lens, Gehl and Porter identify the most powerful lever for change—a strategy comprised of a clear set of choices in two key areas: how our elections work and how we make our laws. Their bracing assessment and practical recommendations cut through the endless debate about various proposed fixes, such as term limits and campaign finance reform. The result: true political innovation. The Politics Industry is an original and completely nonpartisan guide that will open your eyes to the true dynamics and profound challenges of the American political system and provide real solutions for reshaping the system for the benefit of all. THE INSTITUTE FOR POLITICAL INNOVATION The authors will donate all royalties from the sale of this book to the Institute for Political Innovation.
Download or read book Political Participation and the Impact of Party Reform written by Thomas Robert Marshall and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 694 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Small Change written by Raymond J. La Raja and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2008-03-05 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All democracies face the dilemma of how to pay for politics. Money fuels the campaigns that inform and mobilize voters. But private political contributions raise the specter of undue influence, or, worse, political corruption. This book reviews the history of America's efforts at federal campaign finance reform.
Download or read book Term Limits and Their Consequences written by Stanley M. Caress and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Legislative term limits remain a controversial feature of the American political landscape. Term Limits and Their Consequences provides a clear, comprehensive, and nonpartisan look at all aspects of this contentious subject. Stanley M. Caress and Todd T. Kunioka trace the emergence of the grassroots movement that supported term limits and explain why the idea of term limits became popular with voters. At the same time, they put term limits into a broader historical context, illustrating how they are one of many examples of the publics desire to reform government. Utilizing an impressive blend of quantitative data and interviews, Caress and Kunioka thoughtfully discuss the impact of term limits, focusing in particular on the nations largest state, California. They scrutinize voting data to determine if term limits have altered election outcomes or the electoral chances of women and minority candidates, and reveal how restricting a legislators time in office has changed political careers and ambitions. Designed to transform American politics, term limits did indeed bring change, but in ways ranging far beyond those anticipated by both their advocates and detractors.
Download or read book Lowering the Voting Age to 16 written by Jan Eichhorn and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-11-27 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the consequences of lowering the voting age to 16 from a global perspective, bringing together empirical research from countries where at least some 16-year-olds are able to vote. With the aim to show what really happens when younger people can take part in elections, the authors engage with the key debates on earlier enfranchisement and examine the lead-up to and impact of changes to the voting age in countries across the globe. The book provides the most comprehensive synthesis on this topic, including detailed case studies and broad comparative analyses. It summarizes what can be said about youth political participation and attitudes, and highlights where further research is needed. The findings will be of great interest to researchers working in youth political socialization and engagement, as well as to policymakers, youth workers and activists.
Download or read book Changing the Rules of the Game written by Pedro Riera and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the "Short Twentieth Century" came to an end, more and more democracies seriously considered the possibility -often for the first time in their history- of changing their national electoral system. Since then, the total number of electoral reforms enacted in countries that select their rulers through free and fair elections has sharply increased: in the last two decades over 33% of the world's democratic states modified the formula employed for choosing the members of their national legislatures, and a similar percentage adjusted other elements of the rules of the game such as the district magnitude, the legal threshold, the assembly size or the ballot structure. Unfortunately, the academic examination of the causes and consequences of these episodes of institutional change has lagged well behind these empirical developments with single case studies and small n studies still the norm. In light of this gap, research on the determinants and the outcomes of electoral reform processes is increasingly needed. The aim of this study is to transcend the analysis of a small number of cases, and instead to comparatively examine the universe of electoral system changes that have occurred in 60 contemporary democracies between 1945 and 2010. The thesis has three main findings. First, the levels of party system fragmentation and citizens' satisfaction with democracy have strong potential to explain electoral system changes in contemporary democracies. Contrary to what is usually implied by the literature on electoral reform, parties are seen to have strong tendencies to pass restrictive rather than permissive electoral system changes in circumstances where the electoral system might be considered to be already overly-permissive resulting in excessive numbers of parties. Moreover, electoral reforms in the intraparty dimension usually take place when large numbers of voters are currently dissatisfied with the way democracy works in their country. The second main finding is that electoral reforms can reshape the morphology of established party systems through two distinct mechanisms of electoral engineering. The first mechanism takes place at the interparty level, with permissive reforms reducing the difference between the percentage of votes received and the percentage of seats obtained by a party, and restrictive reforms enlarging this gap. The second mechanism operates at the intraparty level, where candidate-centred reforms decrease the level of party system nationalization while partycentred reforms leave party system nationalization unchanged. Finally, the third main finding of the thesis is that parties' positions regarding the possible modification of the rules of the game have an electoral effect. Parties that advocate a permissive reform in countries with low party system fragmentation are more likely to electorally benefit. By contrast, support for such reforms when the number of parties is large is more likely to result in electoral loses.
Download or read book Haphazard Reform written by Michael Campbell and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The objective of this thesis is to systematically analyze what causes variation in levels of perceived political corruption and confidence in electoral processes across countries, to better understand how the functionality of democracy can be improved. A quantitative analysis of 35 parliamentary and semi-presidential countries considers the potential effects of three mainstream explanations: the economic status of citizens; the education level of citizens; and the electoral systems under which a country operates. A fourth and original explanation for variation is also examined: party finance regulations. Arguably, these regulations can incentivize parties to participate in corrupt acts, which might have far-reaching consequences. This concerns the need for money in modern democratic elections, as well as the desire of political parties to win office. This thesis treats perceptions of political corruption and confidence in electoral processes as dependent variables, while the four explanations are treated as independent variables. Compiling data from multiple relevant sources, an entirely original dataset has been created for this project. I conclude that socio-economic development is among the most important determinants for variation, while installing a system of direct public funding alongside bans that purge all special interest money from the political sphere is the most advantageous party finance regulatory strategy.
Download or read book Corruption and Government written by Susan Rose-Ackerman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-06-28 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How high levels of corruption limit investment and growth can lead to ineffective government.
Download or read book Campaign Finance and Political Polarization written by Raymond J. La Raja and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2015-10-06 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illuminating perspective on the polarizing effects of campaign finance reform
