Negretto provides the first systematic explanation of the origins of constitutional designs from an analytical, historical and comparative perspective. Based on analysis of constitutional change in ...Latin America from 1900 to 2008 and four detailed case studies, Negretto shows the main determinants of constitutional choice are the past performance of constitutions in providing effective and legitimate instruments of government and the strategic interests of the actors who have influence over institutional selection. The book explains how governance problems shape the general guidelines for reform, while strategic calculations and power resources affect the selection of specific alternatives of design. It emphasizes the importance of events that trigger reform and the designers' level of electoral uncertainty for understanding the relative impact of short-term partisan interests on constitution writing. Negretto's study challenges predominant theories of institutional choice and paves the way for the development of a new research agenda on institutional change.
This new study of senates in small powers across the North Atlantic shows that the establishment and the reform of these upper legislative houses have followed remarkably parallel trajectories. ...Senate reforms emerged in the wake of deep political crises within the North Atlantic world and were influenced by the comparatively weak positions of small powers. Reformers responded to crises and constantly looked beyond borders and oceans for inspiration to keep their senates relevant.
Is it possible to advance democracy by empowering ordinary citizens to make key decisions about the design of political institutions and policies? In 2004, the government of British Columbia embarked ...on a bold democratic experiment: it created an assembly of 160 near-randomly selected citizens to assess and redesign the province's electoral system. The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly represents the first time a citizen body has had the power to reform fundamental political institutions. It was an innovative gamble that has been replicated elsewhere in Canada and in the Netherlands, and is gaining increasing attention in Europe as a democratic alternative for constitution-making and constitutional reform. In the USA, advocates view citizens' assemblies as a means for reforming referendum processes. This book investigates the citizens' assembly in British Columbia to test and refine key propositions of democratic theory and practice.
Parliamentary democracy is the most common way of organizing delegation and accountability in contemporary democracies. Yet knowledge of this type of regime has been incomplete and often ...unsystematic. Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies offers new conceptual clarity on the topic. Taking principal-agent theory as its framework, the work illustrates how a variety of apparently unrelated representation issues can now be understood. This procedure allows scholarship to move well beyond what have previously been cloudy and confusing debates aimed at defining the virtues and perils of parliamentarism. This new empirical investigation includes all 17 West European parliamentary democracies. These countries are compared in a series of cross-national tables and figures, and 17 country chapters provide a wealth of information on four discrete stages in the delegation process: delegation from voters to parliamentary representatives, delegation from parliament to the prime minister and cabinet, delegation within the cabinet, and delegation from cabinet ministers to civil servants. Each chapter illustrates how political parties serve as bonding instruments, which align incentives and permit citizen control of the policy process. This is complemented by a consideration of external constraints, such as courts, central banks, corporatism, and the European Union, which can impinge on national-level democratic delegation. The concluding chapters go on to consider how well the problems of delegation and accountability are solved in these countries. Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies provides an unprecedented guide to contemporary European parliamentary democracies. As democratic governance is transformed at the dawn of the twenty-first century, it illustrates the important challenges faced by the parliamentary democracies of Western Europe.
Why do politicians frequently heed the preferences of small groups of citizens over those of the majority? Breaking new theoretical ground, Benjamin Bishin explains how the desires of small groups, ...which he calls "subconstituencies," often trump the preferences of much larger groups.
Demonstrating the wide applicability of his "unified theory of representation," Bishin traces politicians' behavior in connection with a wide range of issues, including the Cuban trade embargo, the extension of hate-crimes legislation to protect gay men and lesbians, the renewal of the assault-weapons ban, and abortion politics. In the process, he offers a unique explanation of when, why, and how special interests dominate American national politics.
Gender, Informal Institutions and Political Recruitment Bjarnegard, E
Politiska partier och politisk representation ur ett genusperspektiv. Betydelsen av byråkratisering i kandidatnomineringsprocessen,
02/2013
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Parliaments around the world are still overwhelmingly populated by men, yet studies of male dominance are much rarer than are studies of female under-representation. In this book, men in ...politics are the subjects of a gendered analysis. How do men manage to hold on to positions of power despite societal trends in the opposite direction? And why do men seek to cooperate mainly with other men? Elin Bjarnegård studies how male networks are maintained and expanded and seeks to improve our understanding of the rationale underlying male dominance in politics. The findings build on results both from statistical analyses of parliamentary composition worldwide and from extensive field work in Thailand. A new concept, homosocial capital, is coined and developed to help us understand the persistence of male political dominance.
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The readers of the book on Gender, Politics and Institutions by Krook and Mackay (2011, Palgrave Macmillan) should be interested in this book, since it speaks with the same institutional language, but delves deeper into how institutions actually work in specifically gendered ways. It adds a gendered perspective to the growing neo-institutionalist literature on informal institutions, exemplified in Informal Institutions & Democracy by Helmke and Levitsky (2006, John Hopkins University Press). Readers of The Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinity, edited by Kimmel, Hearn and Connell (2005, Sage Publications) have probably noted the absence of political studies.
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ELIN BJARNEGÅRD is Assistant Professor at the Department of Government, Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research interests include Informal institutions, Gender issues and Thai Politics.
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In this book, men in politics are the subjects of a gendered analysis with Elin Bjarnegård exploring how male networks are maintained and expanded, seeking to improve our understanding of the rationale underlying male dominance in politics. The role of informal institutions in unpredictable political settings are explored.
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'This fascinating new book broadens our horizons in a number of ways. It firstly challenges us to think about male dominance rather than female under-representation in politics, using a range of methods and data derived from detailed empirical research. Second it develops a concept of homosocial capital and uses it in novel ways to to give us significant new insights into the gendered impact of clientelism and informal institutions on candidate selection. This book is an important addition to the gender and politics scholarship and deserves to be widely read.' Georgina Waylen, Professor of Politics, University of Manchester, UK 'The relation between gender equality, corruption and clientelism in democratic governance is as important as it is fascinating. In this theoretically sophisticated and empirically impressive work, Elin Bjarnegård presents a novel understanding not only for why male dominance in democratic politics can be reproduced through clientelistic network, but also how the specific mechanisms between informal power and democratic representation operate' Bo Rothstein, August Röhss Chair in Political Science, Göteborg University, Sweden. 'Throwing fresh light on the age-old puzzle of male dominance in elected office, this book provide a new theoretical framework by developing the concept of homosocial capital, often known as 'old boys networks', which are particularly useful for men seeking to get ahead in countries with clientalistic politics. Drawing upon evidence from global trends, the study also utilizes insights drawn from in-depth case-study of Thai politics. The clear, informative and illuminating study gives new insights into the challenges which need to be overcome to achieve gender equality in elected office' Pippa Norris, Mcquire Lecturer in Comparative Politics John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, USA and ARC Laureate Fellow and Professor of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney, Australia
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This book explains male dominance in politics by focusing on the role of informal institutions in political recruitment
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Upholding Male Parliamentary Dominance Revisiting Patterns Of Gendered Representation Structure Of The Book Studying Men And Masculinities In Politics Constructing Homosocial Capital Clientelism And Unpredictability Clientelism As A Likely Producer Of Homosocial Capital Clientelism And Male Dominance Institutional Enablers Of Clientelism Combining Methods The Quantitative Approach The Qualitative Approach The Representation Of Men Worldwide Capturing Clientelism – Measuring The Immeasurable? The Models, Data And Operationalizations Clientelism And Male Parliamentary Dominance Results And Implications Of The Quantitative Study Situating The Thai Case The Thai Gender Paradox Democratic Instability In Thailand Informal Influence Assessing The Clientelist Political Logic The Thai Case: Clientelism And Male Dominance Candidate Selection In Thai Political Parties The Importance Of Candidate Selection The Rules Of The Game Who Decides? Summarizing Thai Candidate Selection Clientelist Networks And Homosocial Capital The Role And Function Of Clientelist Networks Network Maintenance And Homosocial Capital Theorizing Homosocial Capital The Gendered Consequences Of Clientelist Competition The Added Value Of Homosocial Capital Concluding Remarks A Summary Of The Findings The Contributions Of The Book Interviews References Notes
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The book addresses an old topic in a new way: gender and politics here means male dominance in politics. The book explains how men have managed to hold on to political power rather than why women are stil largely absent The book combines a statistical analysis of over 400 elections worldwide, with an indepth analysis of localized political networks in Thailand (based on 150 interviews). This combination of methods in one and same book, addressing one and the same research question, is very rare The book launches a new concept: homosocial capital. This concept has a wide applicability across many fields and draws from literature on social capital and homosociality. It is used to explain and rationalize the tendency of men to interact with other men in order to preserve power It is one of few works on Thai politics that focuses on gender. It also ties gender inequalities together with the political turbulence in Thai politics The book takes a new look at democratization and shows that semi-democracies often are weak, both in terms of institutional strengths and gender equality
The main aim of the book is to assess and explain the extent to which political parties across Europe as a whole succeed in representing diverse voters. We note two important features of the European ...political landscape that complicate the task of assessing party representation and that require its reassessment. First, the emergence of new democracies in post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe point to the possibility that representation is not only differentially achieved in West and East but may also be attained by different mechanisms. Second, parties in both West and East must now seek to represent voters that are increasingly diverse, specifically between partisan and independent supporters. We refer to the challenges of representation of diverse voters as the strain of representation’. The evidential basis for the empirical analysis are expert surveys that were conducted in 24 European countries on party positions that were merged with other available data on voters, party characteristics, and country conditions. The results point to both the representational capacities of parties in West and East and to the strain that parties face in representing diverse voters.
The Second Reform Act, passed in 1867, created a million new voters, doubling the electorate and propelling the British state into the age of mass politics. It marked the end of a twenty year ...struggle for the working class vote, in which seven different governments had promised change. Yet the standard works on 1867 are more than forty years old and no study has ever been published of reform in prior decades.
This study provides the first analysis of the subject from 1848 to 1867, ranging from the demise of Chartism to the passage of the Second Reform Act. Recapturing the vibrancy of the issue and its place at the heart of Victorian political culture, it focuses not only on the reform debate itself, but on a whole series of related controversies, including the growth of trade unionism, the impact of the 1848 revolutions and the discussion of French and American democracy.
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