Comparative Democratic Politics: A Guide to Contemporary Theory and Research (Comparative Politics Ser.)
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- Synopsis
- This bold venture into democratic theory offers a new and reinvigorating thesis for how democracy delivers on its promise of public control over public policy. In theory, popular control could be achieved through a process entirely driven by supply-side politics, with omniscient and strategic political parties converging on the median voter's policy preference at every turn. However, this would imply that there would be no distinguishable political parties (oreven any reason for parties to exist) and no choice for a public to make. The more realistic view taken here portrays democracy as an ongoing series of give and take between political parties' policy supply and a mass public's policy demand. Political parties organize democratic choices as divergentpolicy alternatives, none of which is likely to satisfy the public's policy preferences at any one turn. While the one-off, short-run consequence of a single election often results in differences between the policies that parliaments and governments pursue and the preferences their publics hold, the authors construct theoretical arguments, employ computer simulations, and follow up with empirical analysis to show how, why, and under what conditions democratic representation reveals itself overtime. Democracy, viewed as a process rather than a single electoral event, can and usually does forge strong and congruent linkages between a public and its government. This original thesis offers a challenge to democratic pessimists who would have everyone believe that neither political partiesnor mass publics are up to the tasks that democracy assigns them.
- Copyright:
- 2012
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- ISBN-13:
- 9781446224847
- Related ISBNs:
- 9781412932615, 9780761954767, 9780761954774
- Publisher:
- SAGE Publications Ltd
- Date of Addition:
- 04/18/18
- Copyrighted By:
- Hans Keman
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- Nonfiction, Politics and Government
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.