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Author: Emiliano Grossman Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0192662945 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 224
Book Description
Are election campaigns relevant to policymaking, as they should in a democracy? This book sheds new light on this central democratic concern based on an ambitious study of democratic mandates through the lens of agenda-setting in five West European countries since the 1980s. The authors develop and test a new model bridging studies of party competition, pledge fulfillment, and policymaking. The core argument is that electoral priorities are a major factor shaping policy agendas, but mandates should not be mistaken as partisan. Parties are like 'snakes in tunnels': they have distinctive priorities, but they need to respond to emerging problems and their competitors' priorities, resulting in considerable cross-partisan overlap. The 'tunnel of attention' remains constraining in the policymaking arena, especially when opposition parties have resources to press governing parties to act on the campaign priorities. This key aspect of mandate responsiveness has been neglected so far, because in traditional models of mandate representation, party platforms are conceived as a set of distinctive priorities, whose agenda-setting impact ultimately depends on the institutional capacity of the parties in office. Rather differently, this book suggests that counter-majoritarian institutions and windows for opposition parties generate key incentives to stick to the mandate. It shows that these findings hold across five very different democracies: Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and the UK. The results contribute to a renewal of mandate theories of representation and lead to question the idea underlying much of the comparative politics literature that majoritarian systems are more responsive than consensual ones.
Author: Emiliano Grossman Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0192662945 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 224
Book Description
Are election campaigns relevant to policymaking, as they should in a democracy? This book sheds new light on this central democratic concern based on an ambitious study of democratic mandates through the lens of agenda-setting in five West European countries since the 1980s. The authors develop and test a new model bridging studies of party competition, pledge fulfillment, and policymaking. The core argument is that electoral priorities are a major factor shaping policy agendas, but mandates should not be mistaken as partisan. Parties are like 'snakes in tunnels': they have distinctive priorities, but they need to respond to emerging problems and their competitors' priorities, resulting in considerable cross-partisan overlap. The 'tunnel of attention' remains constraining in the policymaking arena, especially when opposition parties have resources to press governing parties to act on the campaign priorities. This key aspect of mandate responsiveness has been neglected so far, because in traditional models of mandate representation, party platforms are conceived as a set of distinctive priorities, whose agenda-setting impact ultimately depends on the institutional capacity of the parties in office. Rather differently, this book suggests that counter-majoritarian institutions and windows for opposition parties generate key incentives to stick to the mandate. It shows that these findings hold across five very different democracies: Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and the UK. The results contribute to a renewal of mandate theories of representation and lead to question the idea underlying much of the comparative politics literature that majoritarian systems are more responsive than consensual ones.
Author: Benjamin Ginsberg Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1315286750 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 229
Book Description
This text provides an analysis of the variety of consequences that elections may have for the operation of American political institutions and the formulation and administration of policy.
Author: Emiliano Grossman Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 019284721X Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 225
Book Description
"The critique of liberal democracy has focused mostly on the same issues since the 19th century. Liberal democracy is denounced as an elitist project that deprives the vast majority of the people of any meaningful form of participation. Elites, once elected, will primarily respond to economic interests or serve themselves, rather than represent voters. Elites become increasingly disconnected from the rest of society and access to the sphere of political elites will become increasingly difficult over time. In the context of globalization, they are moreover less and less connected to their countries of origin. The electoral supply is growing increasingly similar, thereby limiting effective choice for voters. Political elites, the media and scholars have voiced increasing concern about the shrinking leeway for elected governments to actively shape policies in times of growing international interdependence, regional integration, budget pressures and political polarization (Boix, 2000; Mair, 2008). Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, recently expressed concern about the fact that Europe had "drawn up rules that people in the member States through elections no longer can change" and that voters "could not anymore influence economic policy by casting their vote." Against this background, electoral promises are essentially cheap talk designed above all to win the election and then quickly forgotten. In most democracies, opinion polls reveal a climate of generalized and growing scepticism towards parties and their promises. Party programs are often presented as a mere instrument of communication. In France, for example, one recent survey reveals that "broken electoral promises" are among the reasons that are most cited by interviewees for loss of confidence in the executive. A non-trivial number of citizens and political actors in virtually all contemporary democracies shares parts or all of this non-exhaustive list of critiques. Many political challengers, especially on the far right, have built their political agenda and their electoral clientele around these criticisms. Increasingly, even mainstream parties have taken up many of these points and there is a growing number of attempts to reform political systems to respond to their perceived or real shortcomings. Many of the typical reforms of the past years, such as reduction of the number of parliamentarians, introduction of popular referenda or instances of deliberative democracy, are motivated by doubts about the functioning of representative democracy. The present book tries to ascertain some of those claims with a focus on the policy relevance of elections. We want to examine whether liberal democracies have really become the deceptive machines that its opponents claim they are. These claims deserve an empirical investigation. How relevant are democratic elections to public policy? This topical question is mostly addressed through the lens of what has been called promissory representation, or mandate responsiveness. Yet, empirical work to date has most often failed to take into account the relationship between party issue competition on the one hand and mandate responsiveness on the other. The very notion of mandate responsiveness has often been defined very partially and requires further elaboration. Our central argument, based on a more comprehensive approach to mandates, is that there is empirical evidence for a significant connection between electoral supply and public policy. We will shed new light on the institutional determinants of mandate representation and show that the situation in most cases has not deteriorated as much as critics pretend"--
Author: Leticia Bode Publisher: Brookings Institution Press ISBN: 0815731922 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 276
Book Description
How the 2016 news media environment allowed Trump to win the presidency The 2016 presidential election campaign might have seemed to be all about one man. He certainly did everything possible to reinforce that impression. But to an unprecedented degree the campaign also was about the news media and its relationships with the man who won and the woman he defeated. Words that Matter assesses how the news media covered the extraordinary 2016 election and, more important, what information—true, false, or somewhere in between—actually helped voters make up their minds. Using journalists' real-time tweets and published news coverage of campaign events, along with Gallup polling data measuring how voters perceived that reporting, the book traces the flow of information from candidates and their campaigns to journalists and to the public. The evidence uncovered shows how Donald Trump's victory, and Hillary Clinton's loss, resulted in large part from how the news media responded to these two unique candidates. Both candidates were unusual in their own ways, and thus presented a long list of possible issues for the media to focus on. Which of these many topics got communicated to voters made a big difference outcome. What people heard about these two candidates during the campaign was quite different. Coverage of Trump was scattered among many different issues, and while many of those issues were negative, no single negative narrative came to dominate the coverage of the man who would be elected the 45th president of the United States. Clinton, by contrast, faced an almost unrelenting news media focus on one negative issue—her alleged misuse of e-mails—that captured public attention in a way that the more numerous questions about Trump did not. Some news media coverage of the campaign was insightful and helpful to voters who really wanted serious information to help them make the most important decision a democracy offers. But this book also demonstrates how the modern media environment can exacerbate the kind of pack journalism that leads some issues to dominate the news while others of equal or greater importance get almost no attention, making it hard for voters to make informed choices.
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Publisher: National Academies Press ISBN: 030947647X Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 181
Book Description
During the 2016 presidential election, America's election infrastructure was targeted by actors sponsored by the Russian government. Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy examines the challenges arising out of the 2016 federal election, assesses current technology and standards for voting, and recommends steps that the federal government, state and local governments, election administrators, and vendors of voting technology should take to improve the security of election infrastructure. In doing so, the report provides a vision of voting that is more secure, accessible, reliable, and verifiable.
Author: Thomas Frank Publisher: Picador ISBN: 1429900326 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 340
Book Description
One of "our most insightful social observers"* cracks the great political mystery of our time: how conservatism, once a marker of class privilege, became the creed of millions of ordinary Americans With his acclaimed wit and acuity, Thomas Frank turns his eye on what he calls the "thirty-year backlash"—the populist revolt against a supposedly liberal establishment. The high point of that backlash is the Republican Party's success in building the most unnatural of alliances: between blue-collar Midwesterners and Wall Street business interests, workers and bosses, populists and right-wingers. In asking "what 's the matter with Kansas?"—how a place famous for its radicalism became one of the most conservative states in the union—Frank, a native Kansan and onetime Republican, seeks to answer some broader American riddles: Why do so many of us vote against our economic interests? Where's the outrage at corporate manipulators? And whatever happened to middle-American progressivism? The questions are urgent as well as provocative. Frank answers them by examining pop conservatism—the bestsellers, the radio talk shows, the vicious political combat—and showing how our long culture wars have left us with an electorate far more concerned with their leaders' "values" and down-home qualities than with their stands on hard questions of policy. A brilliant analysis—and funny to boot—What's the Matter with Kansas? presents a critical assessment of who we are, while telling a remarkable story of how a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs came to convince a nation that they spoke on behalf of the People. *Los Angeles Times
Author: Ruby Shamir Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 1524738085 Category : Juvenile Nonfiction Languages : en Pages : 32
Book Description
From ballots to bonfires, from suffrage to stumping, this kid-friendly picture book filled with fun facts and historical trivia shows why voting is so important and why America gets to call its government a body of, by, and for the people. Did you know that Election Day is on Tuesday because that was the best day for farmers to vote? Or that George Washington was our only elected president who ran unopposed? Or that Native Americans were only given the right to vote in 1924? It's all true! We hear a lot about political campaigns on the news, but there's tons to know about elections beyond the politics of each race. Who gets to vote? Who gets to run? What do elected officials do once they're in office--and what do candidates do if they lose? Why do people fight so hard for the right to vote? In this kid-friendly, fact-filled book, young readers will find out how Americans choose their leaders, local and federal, and why elections should matter to them, even if they can't vote (yet)! Praise for What's the Big Deal About Elections: "An informative introduction to the importance of voting, and a great choice for group reading choice before election season." --School Library Journal "An empowering choice." --Kirkus Reviews "This latest entry into the What's the Big Deal about . . . series is an upbeat discussion starter." --Booklist
Author: John Seery Publisher: Penn State Press ISBN: 0271056800 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 202
Book Description
Under the Constitution of the United States, those with political ambitions who aspire to serve in the federal government must be at least twenty-five to qualify for membership in the House of Representatives, thirty to run for the Senate, and thirty-five to become president. What is the justification for these age thresholds, and is it time to consider changing them? In this provocative and lively book, John Seery presents the case for a constitutional amendment to lower the age barrier to eighteen, the same age at which citizens become eligible to vote. He divides his argument into three sections. In a historical chapter, he traces the way in which the age qualifications became incorporated in the Constitution in the first place. In a theoretical chapter, he analyzes the normative arguments for office eligibility as a democratic right and liberty. And in a political chapter, he ruminates about the real-world consequences of passing such an amendment and the prospects for its passage. Finally, in a postscript, he argues that younger citizens in particular ought to be exposed to this fundamental issue in civics.
Author: Steven Hill Publisher: Psychology Press ISBN: 0415931940 Category : Elections Languages : en Pages : 381
Book Description
Fixing Elections is a refreshing blueprint to resurrect our founders' democratic vision by adopting common-sense changes already instituted in other democracies. It will change the way you think about American politics.
Author: Emiliano Grossman
Author: Emiliano Grossman
Author: Benjamin Ginsberg
Author: Emiliano Grossman
Author: Leticia Bode
Author: Karl Rove
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Author: Thomas Frank
Author: Ruby Shamir
Author: John Seery
Author: Steven Hill