Democracy Transformed?: Expanding Political Opportunities in Advanced Industrial Democracies

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Bruce E. Cain, Russell J. Dalton, Susan E. Scarrow
Oxford University Press, 2006 - Political Science - 309 pages
The popular pressures for reforms of the democratic process have mounted across the OECD nations over the past generation. In response, democratic institutions are changing, evolving, and expanding in ways that may alter the structure of the democratic process. These changes include reforms of the electoral process, the expansion of referendums, introduction of open government provisions, and more access points for direct political involvement. Indeed, some observers claim that we are witnessing the most fundamental transformation of the democratic process since the creation of mass democracy in the early 20th Century.

This international team of distinguished scholars assembles the evidence of how democratic institutions and processes are changing, and considers the larger implications of these reforms for the nature of democracy. The findings points to a new style of democratic politics that expands the nature of democracy, but also carries challenges for democracies to include all its citizens and govern effectively in an environment of complex government.

 

Contents

New Forms of Democracy? Reform and Transformation
1
Expanding the Electoral Marketplace
23
Making Elections More Direct? Reducing the Role
44
Political Parties and the Rhetoric and Realities of Democratization
59
Changing Party Access to Elections
81
63
107
The Expansion
115
Trends in Decentralization
140
Reforming the Administrative State
164
Participation Representative Democracy and the Courts
192
A Second Transformation of Democracy? 22323 250
223
Democratic Publics and Democratic Institutions
250
References
276
Index
305
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