Download or read book Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions Catching the Deliberative Wave written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2020-06-10 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public authorities from all levels of government increasingly turn to Citizens' Assemblies, Juries, Panels and other representative deliberative processes to tackle complex policy problems ranging from climate change to infrastructure investment decisions. They convene groups of people representing a wide cross-section of society for at least one full day – and often much longer – to learn, deliberate, and develop collective recommendations that consider the complexities and compromises required for solving multifaceted public issues.

Download or read book Democratization in Africa written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1992-02-01 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Political Institutions written by Josep M. Colomer and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2001-02-01 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The role of institutions is to establish the domains of public activity and the rules to select leaders. Democratic regimes organize in simple institutional frameworks to foster the concentration of power and alternative successive absolute winners and losers. They favour political satisfaction of relatively small groups, as well as policy instability. In contrast, pluralistic institutions produce multiple winners, including multiparty co-operation and agreements. They favour stable, moderate, and consensual policies that can satisfy large groups' interests on a great number of issues. The more complex the political institutions, the more stable and socially efficient the outcome will be. This book develops an extensive analysis of this relationship. It explores concepts, questions and insights based on social choice theory, while empirical focus is cast on more than 40 democratic countries and a few international organizations from late medieval times to the present. The book argues that pluralistic democratic institutions are judged to be better than simple formula of their higher capacity of producing socially satisfactory results.

Download or read book Designing Democratic Government written by Margaret Levi and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Institutions and Democracy in Africa written by Nic Cheeseman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-22 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers new research on the vital importance of institutions, such as presidential term-limits in the African democratisation processes.

Download or read book Deliberation Participation and Democracy written by Shawn W. Rosenberg and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-11-09 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political participation is falling and citizen alienation and cynicism is increasing. This volume brings together the first work of this kind by leading scholars in the US and Europe to consider the issue. Four of the leading philosophers of deliberative democracy contribute their commentaries on the groundbreaking empirical research.

Download or read book Building Democratic Institutions written by G. Shabbir Cheema and published by Kumarian Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Institutionalising Democracy written by Ndletyana, Mcebisi and published by Africa Institute of South Africa. This book was released on 2015-12-01 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: South Africa is now more than twenty years old as a democratic republic. Five successful elections have been amongst the major markers of the country's democratic status. The success of the elections has, in turn, yielded stable institutions of governance. Because they were elected through a credible electoral process, the various spheres of government enjoy popular legitimacy. Pivotal in moulding these institutions of governance has been the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).

Download or read book Can Democracy be Designed written by Sunil Bastian and published by Zed Books. This book was released on 2003-06 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constitution-making for democracy has always been a highly political and contested process. It has never been more ambitious, or more difficult, than today as politicians and experts attempt to build democratic institutions that will foster peace and stability in countries torn by violent conflict. The extended investigation out of which this book has grown has ranged across three continents. It has examined such apparently intractable cases as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sri Lanka and Fiji, as well as apparent 'success stories' like South Africa, Ghana and Uganda. Three groups of questions are explored: * How and by whom were democratic institutions (re)designed? * How have they functioned in practice: what has been the relationship between democratic institutions and democratic politics? * How have they measured up to the pressures placed on them by ongoing violence, poverty, globalization and democratization itself? The authors, while regarding democracy as a general entitlement, refuse to subscribe to a triumphalist view which sees it as a universal panacea. Instead they seek to understand how democratic institutions actually facilitate (or sometimes fail to facilitate) improved governance and the management of conflict in a variety of national settings. This thoughtful and empirical set of explorations is highly relevant to other societies wrestling with similar problems of institutional design in situations of democratic transition and/or deep-seated social conflict.

Download or read book The Character of Democracy written by Richard A. Clucas and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Character of Democracy: How Institutions Shape Politics offers a uniquely comprehensive overview of the major democratic institutions found around the world, including electoral systems, party systems, presidential and parliamentary governments, legislatures, federalism, and constitutional courts. The authors first present five broad categories of democratic ideals that reflect the consent of the governed--meaningful elections, fair representation, accountability, majority rule and minority rights, and the functionality of the state--and then explain how well different institutional designs live up to these democratic ideals. For each institution, they provide an in-depth treatment of its related literature, describe variations in how it is structured around the world, and explain why these variations are important to how democratic political systems work. Case studies of the political structures found in Brazil, Germany, Japan, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States illustrate how differences in institutional design affect democratic government. Taking an analytical and scholarly approach that does not advocate any particular democratic design, The Character of Democracy is ideal for advanced courses in comparative politics and/or democratic institutions.

Download or read book Reforming Democracy written by Camille Bedock and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-19 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When, why, and how are democratic institutions reformed? This is the broad question guiding this research, rooted in a context of crises of representative democracy. Core democratic rules can be understood as the formal political rules regulating the direct relationship between elites within the political system, parties, and citizens. They are therefore the cornerstone of the functioning of any political system. This book deals with the context, the motives, and the mechanisms explaining the incidence of institutional engineering in consolidated European democracies between 1990 and 2015. It is centred on the choice of political elites to use - or not to use - institutional engineering as a response to the challenges they face. This study provides both a better empirical understanding of the world of democratic reforms in consolidated democracies, thanks to a new data-set covering six dimensions of reform in 18 European countries. Secondly, the book provides evidence about the link between the lack of political support and democratic reforms, and the role of electoral shifts in fostering reforms. Thirdly, this research shows that the final outcome of a given reform depends on the type of reform at stake and on the process used during the phase of discussion of the reform, though case studies in Ireland, France and Italy. Ultimately, the book demonstrates that contrary to what has been commonly assumed, reforms of the core democratic rules are frequent and constitute in most cases an answer of challenged political elites to the erosion of political support and electoral change. Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The series is edited by Emilie van Haute, Professor of Political Science, Université libre de Bruxelles; Ferdinand Müller-Rommel, Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Leuphana University; and Susan Scarrow, Chair of the Department of Political Science, University of Houston.

Download or read book Democratic Innovations written by Graham Smith and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-02 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can we design institutions that increase and deepen citizen participation in the political decision making process? At a time when there is growing disillusionment with the institutions of advanced industrial democracies, there is also increasing interest in new ways of involving citizens in the political decisions that affect their lives. This book draws together evidence from a variety of democratic innovations from around the world, including participatory budgeting in Brazil, Citizens' Assemblies on Electoral Reform in Canada, direct legislation in California and Switzerland and emerging experiments in e-democracy. The book offers a rare systematic analysis of this diverse range of democratic innovations, drawing lessons for the future development of both democratic theory and practice.

Download or read book The Development of Political Institutions written by Federico Ferrara and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2022-01-18 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the literature on “new institutionalism” explains the stability of institutional arrangements within countries and the divergence of paths of institutional development between countries, Federico Ferrara takes a “historical institutionalist” approach to theorize dynamic processes of institutional reproduction, institutional decay, and institutional change in explaining the development of political institutions. Ferrara synthesizes “power-based” or “power-distributional” explanations and “ideas-based” “legitimation explanations.” He specifies the psychological “microfoundations” of processes of institutional development, drawing heavily from the findings of experimental psychology to ensure that the explanation is grounded in clear and realistic assumptions regarding human motivation, cognition, and behavior. Aside from being of interest to scholars and graduate students in political science and other social-scientific disciplines whose research concentrates on the genesis of political institutions, their evolution over time, and their impact on the stability of political order and the quality of governance, the book will be required reading in graduate courses and seminars in comparative politics where the study of institutions and their development ranks among the subfield’s most important subjects.

Download or read book Mechanisms of Democracy written by Adrian Vermeule and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-07-24 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What institutional arrangements should a well-functioning constitutional democracy have? Most of the relevant literatures in law, political science, political theory, and economics address this question by discussing institutional design writ large. In this book, Adrian Vermeule moves beyond these debates, changing the focus to institutional design writ small. In established constitutional polities, Vermeule argues that law can and should - and to some extent already does - provide mechanisms of democracy: a repertoire of small-scale institutional devices and innovations that can have surprisingly large effects, promoting democratic values of impartial, accountable and deliberative government. Examples include legal rules that promote impartiality by depriving officials of the information they need to act in self-interested ways; voting rules that create the right kind and amount of accountability for political officials and judges; and legislative rules that structure deliberation, in part by adjusting the conditions under which deliberation occurs transparently or instead secretly. Drawing upon a range of social science tools from economics, political science, and other disciplines, Vermeule carefully describes the mechanisms of democracy and indicates the conditions under which they can succeed.

Download or read book Rebuilding Public Institutions Together written by Albert W. Dzur and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-15 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Laurence and Lynne Brown Democracy Medal is an initiative of the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Pennsylvania State University. It annually recognizes outstanding individuals, groups, and organizations that produce exceptional innovations to further democracy in the United States or around the world. In this book, Albert W. Dzur argues that some of the most innovative and important work in democracy is taking place face-to-face and is being led by professionals who bring those involved into the decision making process. These "democratic professionals" create a culture that leads to better decisions and overcomes what he calls "civic lethargy." He focuses on how this democratic professionalism manifests itself in the operation of a wide range of public institutions, including schools and local government, as well as in the reform of our criminal justice system, from juries to prisons.

Download or read book Institutions and Democratic Citizenship written by Axel Hadenius and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2001-07-05 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines the nature and role of democratic citizenship, the conditions necessary fro its development, and its relationship to the key democratic institutions of the state. Comparing and contrasting the patterns of political development and practice in established democracies with those states that have experienced democatic breakdown, the author aims to contribute to our understanding of the political conditions that sustain liberal democracy. The book contains twoparts, which have a broad theme in common. The aim in Part One is to contribute to the debate on democracy's preconditions. Drawing on a broad range of theories, the author specifies certain societal and institutional traits which can serve to further democracy. Democratic development in Africa, LatinAmerica and India then is compared. The conclusion is that democracy is not the product of social and economic forces first of all. To a yet greater extent it is the consequence of prevailing institutional conditions, i.e. the nature of the state.The historical development of state structures is the object of analysis in Part Two. The focus is mainly on Europe. The prospects for democracy in modern times have been greatly affected, the author maintain, by varying paths of institutional development. Moreover, the differing modes of state have displayed a variable capacity for governance and economic development. The evolution of state structures thus has consequences across broad areas of political and social life.

Download or read book Institutionalizing Agonistic Democracy written by Ed Wingenbach and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book length study of agonism as a mature account of democratic politics, Institutionalizing Agonistic Democracy provides a lucid overview of agonistic democratic theories and demonstrates the viability of this approach for institutional politics. Situating agonistic democracy within and against debates about radical democracy, foundationalism, liberal democracy, and pluralism, Institutionalizing Agonistic Democracy engages the texts of Mouffe, Connolly, Ranciere, Tully, Honig, Owen, and others to fully map the contours of agonistic democratic theories. Organizing this diverse literature into a coherent typology enables sophisticated analysis of the assumptions, distinctions, and aspirations of the often conflicting theoretical positions gathered within the constellation of agonistic democratic theory. Using this framework to explore the concrete institutional possibilities appropriate to agonistic democracy, Wingenbach argues that a modified version of Rawlsian political liberalism describes the institutional conditions most likely to sustain agonistic political practices. Once shorn of metaphysical commitments and detached from aspirations to consensus, political liberalism offers a contingent and historically viable framework within which agonistic contestation can occur. Such a reinterpretation of Rawls produces not the sublimation of agonism but a transformation of liberalism, so that it more adequately accommodates the deep pluralism of the post-foundational condition.