Critical Review of Gerring and Thacker’s Centripetal Theory of Democratic Governance

Critical Review of Gerring and Thacker’s Centripetal Theory of Democratic Governance PDF

Author: Alberto De Luigi

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2015-05-19

Total Pages: 1

ISBN-13: 1512278750

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In this essay it is proposed a critical analysis of Gerring and Thacker’s Centripetal Theory of Democratic Governance (2008). There is a fundamental ambiguity concerning the association between the name of the theory – “Centripetalism”, according to the authors a mix of authority and inclusion – and its substantial and practical contents. It will be debated Gerring and Thacker’s claim to have conceived a “refinement of Lijphart’s consensus model”; in fact the centripetal theory is actually incompatible with Lijphart’s power sharing model and, in many respects, the opposite. It will also be presented a critic of Gerring and Thacker’s methodology for what concerns causal mechanisms and aggregation of variables at the basis of the empirical verification of the theory, showing why their centripetal theory of democratic governance can be considered too far-reaching (but even too less characterized by its own peculiar traits) to have a real explanatory power.

Centripetal Democracy

Centripetal Democracy PDF

Author: Joseph Lacey

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-03-31

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0192517147

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Centripetal democracy is the idea that legitimate democratic institutions set in motion forms of citizen practice and representative behaviour that serve as powerful drivers of political identity formation. Partisan modes of political representation in the context of multifaceted electoral and direct democratic voting opportunities are emphasised on this model. There is, however, a strain of thought predominant in political theory that doubts the democratic capacities of political systems constituted by multiple public spheres. This view is referred to as the lingua franca thesis on sustainable democratic systems (LFT). Inadequate democratic institutions and acute demands to divide the political system (through devolution or secession), are predicted by this thesis. By combining an original normative democratic theory with a comparative analysis of how Belgium and Switzerland have variously managed to sustain themselves as multilingual democracies, this book identifies the main institutional features of a democratically legitimate European Union and the conditions required to bring it about. Part One presents a novel theory of democratic legitimacy and political identity formation on which subsequent analyses are based. Part Two defines the EU as a demoi-cracy and provides a thorough democratic assessment of this political system. Part Three explains why Belgium has largely succumbed to the centrifugal logic predicted by the LFT, while Switzerland apparently defies this logic. Part Four presents a model of centripetal democracy for the EU, one that would greatly reduce its democratic deficit and ensure that this political system does not succumb to the centrifugal forces expected by the LFT.

Power Diffusion and Democracy

Power Diffusion and Democracy PDF

Author: Julian Bernauer

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-05-16

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 1108483380

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Presents a theoretically and methodologically sophisticated remapping and analysis of political-institutional power diffusion in democracies.

Democratic Governance

Democratic Governance PDF

Author: James G. March

Publisher:

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13:

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Going beyond democratic theory, March and Olsen draw on social science to examine how political institutions create and sustain democratic solidarity, identities, capabilities, accounts, and adaptiveness; how they can maintain and elaborate democratic values and beliefs - and how governance might be made honorable, just, and effective. They show how democratic governance is both preactive and reactive - creating interests and power as well as responding to them - and how it shapes not only an understanding of the past and an ability to learn from it, but even history itself. By exploring how governance transcends the creation of coalitions that reflect existing preferences, resources, rights, and rules, the authors reveal how it includes the actual formation of these defining principles of social and political life.

Direct democracy

Direct democracy PDF

Author: Matt Qvortrup

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2015-11-01

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 152610279X

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Should citizens be allowed to propose legislation? Should they even be allowed to recall politicians if they do not live up to their expectations? These questions and many others form the subject of this timely book. In addition to presenting an up to date review of the empirical literature, Direct democracy provides a survey of the political philosophers who have theorised about this subject. It is the central tenet in the book that the demand for direct democracy is a consequence of the demand for more consumer choices. Like consumers want individualised products, so voters want individualised and bespoke policies. Described by the BBC as "The world’s leading expert on referendums", the author, Matt Qvortrup, draws on his experience as a political advisor to the US State Department, as well as his extensive academic knowledge of direct democracy.

Party Ideologies in America, 1828-1996

Party Ideologies in America, 1828-1996 PDF

Author: John Gerring

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2001-02-05

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 9780521785907

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This book, first published in 1998, presents historical analysis of the ideologies of major American parties from the early-nineteenth century onwards.

Democratic Governance

Democratic Governance PDF

Author: Mark Bevir

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2010-04-26

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1400836859

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Democratic Governance examines the changing nature of the modern state and reveals the dangers these changes pose to democracy. Mark Bevir shows how new ideas about governance have gradually displaced old-style notions of government in Britain and around the world. Policymakers cling to outdated concepts of representative government while at the same time placing ever more faith in expertise, markets, and networks. Democracy exhibits blurred lines of accountability and declining legitimacy. Bevir explores how new theories of governance undermined traditional government in the twentieth century. Politicians responded by erecting great bureaucracies, increasingly relying on policy expertise and abstract notions of citizenship and, more recently, on networks of quasi-governmental and private organizations to deliver services using market-oriented techniques. Today, the state is an unwieldy edifice of nineteenth-century government buttressed by a sprawling substructure devoted to the very different idea of governance--and democracy has suffered. In Democratic Governance, Bevir takes a comprehensive look at governance and the history and thinking behind it. He provides in-depth case studies of constitutional reform, judicial reform, joined-up government, and police reform. He argues that the best hope for democratic renewal lies in more interpretive styles of expertise, dialogic forms of policymaking, and more diverse avenues for public participation.

Democratic Governance and Economic Performance

Democratic Governance and Economic Performance PDF

Author: Dino Falaschetti

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2009-06-02

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 0387787070

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Conventional wisdom warns that unaccountable political and business agents can enrich a few at the expense of many. But logically extending this wisdom implies that associated principals – voters, consumers, shareholders – will favor themselves over the greater good when ‘rules of the game’ instead create too much accountability. Democratic Governance and Economic Performance rigorously develops this hypothesis, and finds statistical evidence and case study illustrations that democratic institutions at various governance levels (e.g., federal, state, corporation) have facilitated opportunistic gains for electoral, consumer, and shareholder principals. To be sure, this conclusion does not dismiss the potential for democratic governance to productively reduce agency costs. Rather, it suggests that policy makers, lawyers, and managers can improve governance by weighing the agency benefits of increased accountability against the distributional costs of favoring principal stakeholders over more general economic opportunities. Carefully considering the fundamentals that give rise to this tradeoff should interest students and scholars working at the intersection of social science and the law, and can help professionals improve their own performance in policy, legal, and business settings.

Democracy and the Limits of Self-Government

Democracy and the Limits of Self-Government PDF

Author: Adam Przeworski

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2010-06-07

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 113948897X

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The political institutions under which we live today evolved from a revolutionary idea that shook the world in the second part of the eighteenth century: that a people should govern itself. Yet if we judge contemporary democracies by the ideals of self-government, equality and liberty, we find that democracy is not what it was dreamt to be. This book addresses central issues in democratic theory by analyzing the sources of widespread dissatisfaction with democracies around the world. With attention throughout to historical and cross-national variations, the focus is on the generic limits of democracy in promoting equality, effective participation, control of governments by citizens, and liberty. The conclusion is that although some of this dissatisfaction has good reasons, some is based on an erroneous understanding of how democracy functions. Hence, although the analysis identifies the limits of democracy, it also points to directions for feasible reforms.