The Politics of Electoral Reform - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Politics of Electoral Reform write by Alan Renwick. This book was released on 2010-02-04. The Politics of Electoral Reform available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Elections lie at the heart of democracy, and this book seeks to understand how the rules governing those elections are chosen. Drawing on both broad comparisons and detailed case studies, it focuses upon the electoral rules that govern what sorts of preferences voters can express and how votes translate into seats in a legislature. Through detailed examination of electoral reform politics in four countries (France, Italy, Japan, and New Zealand), Alan Renwick shows how major electoral system changes in established democracies occur through two contrasting types of reform process. Renwick rejects the simple view that electoral systems always straightforwardly reflect the interests of the politicians in power. Politicians' motivations are complex; politicians are sometimes unable to pursue reforms they want; occasionally, they are forced to accept reforms they oppose. The Politics of Electoral Reform shows how voters and reform activists can have real power over electoral reform.
Defining Democracy
Defining Democracy - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Defining Democracy write by Daniel O. Prosterman. This book was released on 2013-02-14. Defining Democracy available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Defining Democracy reveals the history of a little-known experiment in urban democracy begun in New York City during the Great Depression and abolished amid the early Cold War. For a decade, New Yorkers utilized a new voting system that produced the most diverse legislatures in the city's history and challenged the American two-party structure. Daniel O. Prosterman examines struggles over electoral reform in New York City to clarify our understanding of democracy's evolution in the United States and the world.
The Limits of Electoral Reform
The Limits of Electoral Reform - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Limits of Electoral Reform write by Shaun Bowler. This book was released on 2013-03-28. The Limits of Electoral Reform available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Institutions 'matter' to electoral reform advocates and political scientists - both argue that variation in electoral institutions affect how elected officials and citizens behave. Change the rules, and citizen engagement with politics can be renewed. Yet a look at the record of electoral reform reveals a string of disappointments. This book examines a variety of reforms, including campaign finance, direct democracy, legislative term limits, and changes to the electoral system itself. This study finds electoral reforms have limited, and in many cases, no effects. Despite reform advocates' claims, and contrary to the 'institutions matter' literature, findings here suggest there are hard limits to effects of electoral reform. The explanations for this are threefold. The first is political. Reformers exaggerate claims about transformative effects of new electoral rules, yet their goal may simply be to maximize their partisan advantage. The second is empirical. Cross-sectional comparative research demonstrates that variation in electoral institutions corresponds with different patterns of political attitudes and behaviour. But this method cannot assess what happens when rules are changed. Using examples from the US, UK, New Zealand, Australia, and elsewhere this book examines attitudes and behaviour across time where rules were changed. Results do not match expectations from the institutional literature. Third is a point of logic. There is an inflated sense of the effects of institutions generally, and of electoral institutions in particular. Given the larger social and economic forces at play, it is unrealistic to expect that changes in electoral arrangements will have substantial effects on political engagement or on how people view politics and politicians. Institutional reform is an almost constant part of the political agenda in democratic societies. Someone, somewhere, always has a proposal not just to change the workings of the system but to reform it. The book is about how and why such reforms disappoint. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers 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 Comparative Politics series is edited by Professor David M. Farrell, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, and Kenneth Carty, Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia.
Principles of Electoral Reform
Principles of Electoral Reform - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Principles of Electoral Reform write by Michael Dummett. This book was released on 1997. Principles of Electoral Reform available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. A country's electoral system has a profound effect on its politics; its citizens ought therefore to ask themselves at frequent intervals whether that currently in force is satisfactory. This book does not argue for a particular answer, but aims to help people think about the question. Few realize how much thought it needs. One should not begin by asking whether this or that system is better, but by trying to make precise what we want an electoral system to do. A general election has two effects: it decides the composition of Parliament; and it decides who is going to represent each constituency. The question of what we want an electoral system to do therefore splits in two: how should Parliament be divided between the parties, given the voter's preferences? and which are the most representative local candidates, given the voter's preferences? Neither question is straightforward, but this timely new book helps to explain on what basis we should decide which electoral system we should have.
The Hidden Costs of Clean Election Reform
The Hidden Costs of Clean Election Reform - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Hidden Costs of Clean Election Reform write by Frederic Charles Schaffer. This book was released on 2008. The Hidden Costs of Clean Election Reform available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Schaffer reveals how tinkering with the electoral process, even with the best of intentions, can easily damage democratic ideals.
