Democracy Transformed?

Abstract

This book examines how established democracies have responded to citizen demands for greater access, transparency, and accountability. In a series of coordinated chapters, a team of international collaborators assesses the extent of institutional reform in contemporary democracies, and evaluates how the core actors of representative democracy are responding to the new structures. Different sections examine change in electoral institutions and practices, and in citizen input and influence through non-electoral institutions such as courts, bureaucracies, and Freedom of Information laws. Concluding chapters put the observed changes in theoretical perspective, and ask whether they constitute a transformation of democracy.

Why Do Voters Lose Trust in Governments? Public Perceptions of Government Honesty and Trustworthiness in Britain 2000–2013

“…The equityfairness model suggests that public perceptions that the policy making process is fair and that democracy works well should be influential in building trust (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 2001;Cain et al 2003;Carman 2010). Moreover individuals who believe that they are being treated fairly are more likely to be reconciled with decisions which go against them than individuals who think that the decisionmaking process is unfair (Fishkin 1991;Luskin et al 2002).…”

The Participatory and Democratic Potential and Practice of Interest Groups: Between Solidarity and Representation

“…Confronted with so‐called ‘democratic deficits’ and widespread mistrust of political institutions, governmental institutions – both national and supranational – are keen to engage with ‘civil society’. This enthusiasm is mirrored by a literature that views groups as potentially able to forge new linkages between citizen and state in the face of a political party system that is widely accepted to be failing (see Lawson and Merkl 1988; Dalton and Wattenberg 2000; Cain et al 2003; Dalton 2004). Groups are also seen as able to supplement the deficiencies of majoritarian institutions of representative democracy (Sawer and Zappala 2001, p. 13).…”

Democratic innovation beyond deliberative reflection: the plebiscitary rebound and the advent of action-oriented democracy

“…In one sense this is correct: they all give electoral masses equalized opportunities to participate in large-scale ballots. 48 Even so-called "low turn-outs" involve much more participants than the other options discussed here. We should, however, also see the differences between general elections, formal referendums and other types of generalized votations.…”

“…Pioneering research into new forms of aggregative democracy by Cain et al has not been updated or widened to include the new quasi-referendums of the internet age. 65 Specialized literature reports on the institutionalization of formal but not informal referendums, 66 largely overshadowed by the democratic-innovations literature on deliberative meetings-of-minds.…”