New Forms of Democracy?
The Reform and
Transformation of Democratic Institutions:
A Research
Conference
May 17-18,
2002, UC Berkeley Institute of European Studies
ABSTRACTS OF CONFERENCE
PAPERS
Introduction:
New Forms of
Democracy? Reform and Transformation of
Democratic Institutions
Russell J. Dalton
The past quarter century has seen two concurrent trends with major potential consequences for Western democracies: decreased interest and participation in the institutions of representative democracy, and a groundswell of demand for institutional reforms to expand citizen involvement in political decision making. There is a potential for a real transformation in the democratic process, but the breadth of these changes and their policy and institutional implications remain uncertain. This project asks whether contemporary changes are really transforming the foundations of the democratic process, or whether these alterations are accommodating popular pressures without altering the basic nature of representative democracy. Is the potential for reform truly being realized, and if so, what are the broader implications for the nature and practice of democracy?
Political Parties and the Rhetoric and Realities of
Democratization
Miki Caul Kittilson and Susan E. Scarrow
Are calls for political reform and direct democracy reflected in changes in the way political parties themselves operate? This paper examines the rhetoric of democratization invoked by political parties in their campaign documents, the constitutions that govern their internal operations, and the methods by which they select candidates. Over the past forty years, parties throughout the Western democracies have indeed shifted their rhetoric and rules to statements that more favorably mention citizen involvement and procedures that are more representative and open to participation.
Changing Party Access to Politics
Shaun Bowler, Elisabeth Carter, and David M. Farrell
Are electoral systems worldwide changing to reflect the demand for democratic reform? Using a comprehensive analysis of changes to election laws in the OECD countries over the past forty years, this paper finds that laws have changed significantly concerning ballot access, access of political parties to the media, and state subsidization of political parties and campaigns. However, the result of these changes is decidedly mixed: the changes create a more liberal environment for all political parties, and therefore hypothetically make it easier for new political actors to enter the system. However, these laws also flush established parties with resources, benefiting them disproportionately compared to smaller parties.
Non-Party Elections
Susan E. Scarrow
Has the call for political reform led to the decline of party label as a way to organize citizens’ preferences? This paper investigates changes in the extent to which political parties occupy central mediating roles in the electoral procedures of contemporary democracies, and asks whether we see any increase in the degree to which electoral institutions permit or even require citizens to make choices without, or in addition to, the choice of party label. The paper finds limited but nevertheless unmistakable institutional change in the direction of “unmediated democracy”—through movement toward constitutional and legislative referendums and direct election of executives at the national and sub-national levels. In addition, a great deal of symmetry is found in countries’ institutional choices for unmediated democracy at the local and national levels.
Chris Ansell and Jane Gingrich
Calls for reform in the electoral arena have been paralleled by demands for “direct democracy” in the administrative realm. Many of the facets of this “administrative revolution”—including its contradictory impulses—can be understood through the lens of populism. We distinguish between two different versions of populism--market populism and democratic populism. Market populism is associated broadly with deregulation, privatization, and other attempts to reorganize the state’s monopoly over certain kinds of services and functions. In contrast, democratic populists seek to guarantee popular sovereignty by ensuring strict democratic accountability and by keeping the democratic process open and transparent. In this paper, we use these conceptions of populism to examine two varieties of administrative reform in OECD countries: the reform of public administration, and the reform of the overarching structure of the state.
Knowledge is Power
Bruce Cain, Sergio Fabbrini, and Patrick Egan
The call for political reform in Western democracies has been accompanied by passage of freedom of information laws in almost all OECD countries, the great majority of which have been enacted in just the past twenty years. This paper examines the institutional and political characteristics that lead to these laws’ passage, and undertakes case studies to analyze the nature and extent of the use of these laws by democratic citizens. In some nations, freedom of information laws appear to have left unaltered the deference traditionally granted to bureaucratic authority.
Henrik P. Bang
The challenge faced by hypermodern political systems is to enable more and more organizations, individuals and communities to engage in their rule, transforming or reforming their identities and conducts so that they become amenable to this rule—a phenomenon I call culture governance. Most of the calls for political reform in Europe—for example, ‘EU Good Governance’ or ‘The Third Way,’ are just so many examples of this culture governance. Under culture governance, authority is not only hierarchical and bureaucratic but also communicative and negotiable. Political parties must thus be able to combine concerns for government and governance. This can be done by recognizing that the kind of individualist-oriented ‘hit and run’ politics that characterizes engagement in public-private partnerships. Public projects involving civil society and citizens must therefore be connected with a politics of presence.
Rachel Cichowski and Alec Stone Sweet
In recent decades, the authority of courts to review the acts of public authorities - including those of legislatures, executives, and administrative agencies - has deepened in established democracies and spread to new ones, sustaining important debates about the democratic legitimacy of judicial power. Scholars, lawyers, and the judges themselves routinely produce elaborate justifications for judicial review, arguments that are just as regularly countered by opponents in the academy, at the bar, or on the bench. This paper examines the relationship between representative democracy and judicial authority through the following questions: To what extent can private actors activate judicial institutions to pursue more diffuse, public policy interests, and why has such use grown over time? What are the main factors that explain cross-national variation in such use? And finally, to what extent has judicial lawmaking altered how other policymaking bodies function?