Download or read book What is Opposition Good For written by Betul Demirkaya and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democratically elected governments may sometimes give in to pressures from extreme constituents thereby failing to adopt policies congruent with the median voter's preferences. This situation is exacerbated by the inability or the reluctance of voters to acquire information about the consequences of policy alternatives. Opposition parties, in principle, could help remedy this problem using the prerogatives at their disposal such as participating in legislative debates and proposing bills, amendments or no confidence motions. In practice, however, they may have incentives to mislead the voters for policy or election purposes. Given the critical role of opposition parties to remedy problems of incongruence, it is essential to gain theoretical clarity and empirical knowledge as to when and how opposition parties use the tools available to them in legislatures. My dissertation contributes to the recently growing literature that studies the behavior of opposition parties in different institutional contexts, and the implications of that behavior for democratic representation. In particular, I examine the conditions under which opposition parties provide the voters with accurate information, thereby inducing the government to act in accordance with voters' demands and interests. My analysis reconsiders the conventional wisdom that the influence of opposition parties on policy making is commensurate with their electoral strength or seat share in the legislature.In the first paper, I develop a formal model that examines the interaction between a government with control over a policy proposal and an opposition party faced with the decision whether to attract voters' attention to the proposal by objecting to its adoption. The model assumes that the government has incentives to pursue policies divergent from voter preferences and that voters face non-trivial costs in monitoring the government's legislative proposals. Voters can use the objection of the opposition party as a signal to identify adverse government proposals. However, for the mechanism to work, the opposition party should be responsible, i.e. not alarm the voters too frequently. I show that confrontation between the government and the opposition party is more likely when the chances of election for the opposition party are sufficiently low and the opposition activists are sufficiently distant in terms of their ideological positions from the government (as well as the voter and the opposition party itself). In addition to providing useful signals, the presence of a responsible opposition party may increase voters' welfare by inducing the government to preemptively adjust its policies.In the second paper, I propose a formal model that explores whether the voters can receive accurate information from the opposition party under further constraints. More specifically, the model assumes that the voters do not have the means to verify the accuracy of information they receive about the policy and furthermore they have limited information about the preferences of the government and the opposition party. I show that the opposition party can discipline the government to choose policies congruent with voters' preferences if the reputation of the opposition is high and the benefit of policy to the government is small relative to the benefit of winning elections. Under the same conditions, however, misleading messages of the opposition party may cause a good government to implement policies that bring about bad outcomes for the voters.In the the third paper, I examine when legislators withdraw their support from the bills that they cosponsored using an original dataset of cosponsorship in the US House of Representatives. I argue that the legislators take into account the preferences of their constituency in their cosponsorship decisions. Since acquiring information about the bills is costly, legislators use the cosponsorship decisions of their counterparts as signals for the acceptability of the bill for their constituency. My analysis shows that there is a relationship between the partisan composition of cosponsors and the likelihood that he/she decides to remove his/her name from the bill later. More specifically, a legislator is less likely to remove his/her name from a bill that he/she cosponsored as the difference between the number of his/her partisans that cosponsored the bill and the number of his/her opponents that cosponsored the bill increases.
Download or read book Democracy Without Competition in Japan written by Ethan Scheiner and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explains why no opposition party has been able to offer itself as a sustained challenger in Japan.
Download or read book Special Interest Politics written by Gene M. Grossman and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the role that special interest groups play in modern democratic politics.
Download or read book Leaders of the Opposition written by T. Heppell and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-03-27 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Timothy Heppell brings together a renowned group of contributors to consider the role of the Leader of the Opposition in British Politics. The book argues that the neglect of opposition studies needs to be addressed, especially given the increasing importance attached to the performance the Leader of the Opposition in the British political system.
Download or read book Indian Democracy written by M. Manisha and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Indian Democracy' is an attempt to understand the development of democratic polity in India. It covers a wide range of issues - theoretical concepts, political institutions, federalism, electoral process, individual and group rights and mass media - drawing attention to the significant broadening of Indian democracy.
Download or read book How Dictatorships Work written by Barbara Geddes and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-23 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explains how dictatorships rise, survive, and fall, along with why some but not all dictators wield vast powers.
Download or read book Responsible Parties written by Frances Rosenbluth and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How popular democracy has paradoxically eroded trust in political systems worldwide, and how to restore confidence in democratic politics In recent decades, democracies across the world have adopted measures to increase popular involvement in political decisions. Parties have turned to primaries and local caucuses to select candidates; ballot initiatives and referenda allow citizens to enact laws directly; many places now use proportional representation, encouraging smaller, more specific parties rather than two dominant ones.Yet voters keep getting angrier.There is a steady erosion of trust in politicians, parties, and democratic institutions, culminating most recently in major populist victories in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Frances Rosenbluth and Ian Shapiro argue that devolving power to the grass roots is part of the problem. Efforts to decentralize political decision-making have made governments and especially political parties less effective and less able to address constituents’ long-term interests. They argue that to restore confidence in governance, we must restructure our political systems to restore power to the core institution of representative democracy: the political party.
Download or read book Against Democracy written by Jason Brennan and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-26 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bracingly provocative challenge to one of our most cherished ideas and institutions Most people believe democracy is a uniquely just form of government. They believe people have the right to an equal share of political power. And they believe that political participation is good for us—it empowers us, helps us get what we want, and tends to make us smarter, more virtuous, and more caring for one another. These are some of our most cherished ideas about democracy. But Jason Brennan says they are all wrong. In this trenchant book, Brennan argues that democracy should be judged by its results—and the results are not good enough. Just as defendants have a right to a fair trial, citizens have a right to competent government. But democracy is the rule of the ignorant and the irrational, and it all too often falls short. Furthermore, no one has a fundamental right to any share of political power, and exercising political power does most of us little good. On the contrary, a wide range of social science research shows that political participation and democratic deliberation actually tend to make people worse—more irrational, biased, and mean. Given this grim picture, Brennan argues that a new system of government—epistocracy, the rule of the knowledgeable—may be better than democracy, and that it's time to experiment and find out. A challenging critique of democracy and the first sustained defense of the rule of the knowledgeable, Against Democracy is essential reading for scholars and students of politics across the disciplines. Featuring a new preface that situates the book within the current political climate and discusses other alternatives beyond epistocracy, Against Democracy is a challenging critique of democracy and the first sustained defense of the rule of the knowledgeable.
Download or read book Party Systems in Latin America written by Scott Mainwaring and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-08 with total page 525 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book generates a wealth of new empirical information about Latin American party systems and contributes richly to major theoretical debates about party systems and democracy.
Download or read book Agenda Dynamics in Spain written by Laura Chaqués Bonafont and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-08-11 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanish politics has been transformed. Using new techniques, this book looks at 30 years of Spanish political history to understand party competition, the impact of the EU, media-government relations, aspirations for independence in Catalonia and the Basque region, and the declining role of religion.
Download or read book Governed by a Spirit of Opposition written by Jessica Choppin Roney and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2014-12-15 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "To what extent did the American Revolution involve ordinary people? Historians as notable as Carl Becker and Edmund Morgan famously have asked this question or versions of it, but here Roney approaches it afresh by examining local governance and civic associations in Philadelphia, the largest colonial American city. How did popular participation in charity, schools, the militia, and informal banks prepare people to adopt radical ideas and take to the streets protesting against tyranny in the 1760s and 70s? Roney's GOVERNED BY A SPIRIT OF OPPOSITION will both be an important addition to the current literature on public life in early America, and also to the wider literature on urban governance in the British Atlantic in the eighteenth century. She sheds light on the powerful roles played by men acting in the political and constitutional circumstances of early Philadelphia leading up to the Revolution"--
Download or read book Model Rules of Professional Conduct written by American Bar Association. House of Delegates and published by American Bar Association. This book was released on 2007 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.
Download or read book The Politics of Opposition in Contemporary Africa written by Adebayo O. Olukoshi and published by Nordic Africa Institute. This book was released on 1998 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In South Africa, Michael Neocosmos
Download or read book Against Elections written by David Van Reybrouck and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A small book with great weight and urgency to it, this is both a history of democracy and a clarion call for change. "Without drastic adjustment, this system cannot last much longer," writes Van Reybrouck, regarded today as one of Europe's most astute thinkers. "If you look at the decline in voter turnout and party membership, and at the way politicians are held in contempt, if you look at how difficult it is to form governments, how little they can do and how harshly they are punished for it, if you look at how quickly populism, technocracy and anti-parliamentarianism are rising, if you look at how more and more citizens are longing for participation and how quickly that desire can tip over into frustration, then you realize we are up to our necks." Not so very long ago, the great battles of democracy were fought for the right to vote. Now, Van Reybrouck writes, "it's all about the right to speak, but in essence it's the same battle, the battle for political emancipation and for democratic participation. We must decolonize democracy. We must democratize democracy." As history, Van Reybrouck makes the compelling argument that modern democracy was designed as much to preserve the rights of the powerful and keep the masses in line, as to give the populace a voice. As change-agent, Against Elections makes the argument that there are forms of government, what he terms sortitive or deliberative democracy, that are beginning to be practiced around the world, and can be the remedy we seek. In Iceland, for example, deliberative democracy was used to write the new constitution. A group of people were chosen by lot, educated in the subject at hand, and then were able to decide what was best, arguably, far better than politicians would have. A fascinating, and workable idea has led to a timely book to remind us that our system of government is a flexible instrument, one that the people have the power to change.
Download or read book How to be in Opposition written by Nigel Fletcher and published by Biteback Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays from leading academics and practitioners, combining first-hand accounts of the challenges of life in the political shadows with detailed analysis of its opportunities and vital importance.
Download or read book On War written by Carl von Clausewitz and published by . This book was released on 1908 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Right to Freedom of Assembly of Opposition Political Parties in a Democratic Society A Comparative Study of Uganda and Ghana written by Kasule Philip and published by . This book was released on 2019-10-17 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Master's Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Public International Law and Human Rights, grade: 3.5 DISTINCTION, Makerere University (School of Law, Makerere University), course: LLM, language: English, abstract: This thesis is about the right to freedom of assembly and examines how this right takes place in opposition parties in a democratic society. This study is of a comparative nature of the freedom of assembly in Uganda and Ghana. It is guided by the following research objectives: To examine and compare the adequacy of the legal and policy regulatory frameworks for political party assembly management in Uganda and Ghana; to identify and compare the challenges faced by opposition parties and to, finally; identify and analyze the performance of the different support institutions involved in handling and managing political party assembly in promoting democracy in Uganda and Ghana. The concept of human rights promotes dignity, tolerance and peace by educating individuals and groups to respect, defend, and advocate for their rights. It should thus be realized that for any country to reach the status of a full democratic community that ought to be respected and easily evidenced in any community, the right of freedom free assembly, of the people and political parties must be respected. Uganda and Ghana both have good policy and legal frameworks to regulate the right to the freedom of political party assembly. In both countries the supremacy of the Constitution is upheld as a binding force on all authorities and persons and any law which is inconsistent is void. Uganda is going through very challenging times with extremely limited space to operate in a free and friendly environment for political assembling which is not so much of a Ghana case, Ghana has tried to embrace the freedom. In recommendation, the stakeholders must accept and embrace the freedom by doing everything possible to ensure equality in enforcing the fre
