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Enhancing Democracy

Author: Gonzalo Delamaza

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2014-11-01

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1782385479

Since the end of the Pinochet regime, Chilean public policy has sought to rebuild democratic governance in the country. This book examines the links between the state and civil society in Chile and the ways social policies have sought to ensure the inclusion of the poor in society and democracy. Although Chile has gained political stability and grown economically, the ability of social policies to expand democratic governance and participation has proved limited, and in fact such policies have become subordinate to an elitist model of democracy and resulted in a restrictive form of citizen participation.

Improving Democracy Assistance

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2008-07-26

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0309117364

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Over the past 25 years, the United States has made support for the spread of democracy to other nations an increasingly important element of its national security policy. These efforts have created a growing demand to find the most effective means to assist in building and strengthening democratic governance under varied conditions. Since 1990, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has supported democracy and governance (DG) programs in approximately 120 countries and territories, spending an estimated total of $8.47 billion (in constant 2000 U.S. dollars) between 1990 and 2005. Despite these substantial expenditures, our understanding of the actual impacts of USAID DG assistance on progress toward democracy remains limited-and is the subject of much current debate in the policy and scholarly communities. This book, by the National Research Council, provides a roadmap to enable USAID and its partners to assess what works and what does not, both retrospectively and in the future through improved monitoring and evaluation methods and rebuilding USAID's internal capacity to build, absorb, and act on improved knowledge.

Democracy and Interest Groups

Author: G. Jordan

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2007-08-24

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 0230223249

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Democracy and Interest Groups assesses the contribution that interest groups make to the democratic involvement of citizens and the generation of social capital. The authors draw on new surveys of groups and members and more unusually with non-participants. It also makes use of in-depth interviews with campaign group leaders and organizers.

Seeing Women, Strengthening Democracy

Author: Magda Hinojosa

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-07-17

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 0197526969

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Under what conditions do citizens most effectively connect to the democratic process? We tend to think that factors like education, income, and workforce participation are most important, but research has shown that they exert less influence than expected when it comes to women's attitudes and engagement. Scholars have begun to look more closely at how political context affects engagement. This book asks how contexts promote women's interest and connection to democracy, and it looks to Latin America for answers. The region provides a good test case as the institution of gender quotas has led to more recent and dramatic increases in women's political representation. Specifically, Magda Hinojosa and Miki Caul Kittilson argue that the election of women to political office--particularly where women's presence is highly visible to the public--strengthens the connections between women and the democratic process. For women, seeing more "people like me" in politics changes attitudes and orientations toward government and politics. The authors untangle the effects of gender quotas and the subsequent rise in women's share of elected positions, finding that the latter exerts greater impact on women's connections to the democratic process. Women citizens are more knowledgeable, interested, and efficacious when they see women holding elected office. They also express more trust in government and in political institutions and greater satisfaction with democracy when they see more women in politics. The authors look at comparative data from across Latin America, but focus on an in-depth case study of Uruguay. Here, the authors find that gender gaps in political engagement declined significantly after a doubling of women's representation in the Senate. The authors therefore argue that far-reaching gender gaps can be overcome by more equitable representation in our political institutions.

Fixing Democracy

Author: Javier Corrales

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0190868899

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The study of institutions, a core concept in comparative politics, has produced many rich and influential theories on the economic and political effects of institutions, yet it has been less successful at theorizing their origins. In Fixing Democracy, Javier Corrales develops a theory of institutional origins that concentrates on constitutions and levels of power within them. He reviews numerous Latin American constituent assemblies and constitutional amendments to explore why some democracies expand rather than restrict presidential powers and why this heightened presidentialism discourages democracy. His signal theoretical contribution is his elaboration on power asymmetries. Corrales determines that conditions of reduced power asymmetry make constituent assemblies more likely to curtail presidential powers, while weaker opposition and heightened power asymmetry is an indicator that presidential powers will expand. The bargain-based theory that he uses focuses on power distribution and provides a more accurate variable in predicting actual constitutional outcomes than other approaches based on functionalism or ideology. While the empirical focus is Latin America, Fixing Democracy contributes a broadly applicable theory to the scholarship both institutions and democracy.

Deliberation, Democracy, and Civic Forums

Author: Christopher F. Karpowitz

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-11-13

Total Pages: 415

ISBN-13: 1107046432

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This book focuses on how to improve equal and public participation in a range of innovative citizen forums that could revitalize democracy around the world.

Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions Catching the Deliberative Wave

Author: OECD

Publisher: OECD Publishing

Published: 2020-06-10

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 9264725903

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Public authorities from all levels of government increasingly turn to Citizens' Assemblies, Juries, Panels and other representative deliberative processes to tackle complex policy problems ranging from climate change to infrastructure investment decisions. They convene groups of people representing a wide cross-section of society for at least one full day – and often much longer – to learn, deliberate, and develop collective recommendations that consider the complexities and compromises required for solving multifaceted public issues.

Enhancing Democracy with Coalition Governments and Politics

Author: Ndwakhulu Stephen Tshishonga

Publisher: Information Science Reference

Published: 2024

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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Political coalition formation is a global strategy employed by leaders and parties in their pursuit of power. This practice takes on particular significance in post-colonial Africa, where coalition governments have emerged as responses to challenges faced by the electoral base of liberation parties. In countries like Congo Kinshasa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Mauritius, South Africa, and the Kingdom of Lesotho, coalition politics serves as a model for conflict resolution and democratic governance. Enhancing Democracy With Coalition Governments and Politics delves into this complex landscape, thoroughly investigating the pivotal role of coalition governments formed both before and after elections. It sheds light on the challenges posed to dominant liberation movements and the urgent need for a radical agenda to address corruption, maladministration, and the abuse of political power. The book focuses on Africa's pursuit of sound electoral democracy and democratic governance. Enhancing Democracy With Coalition Governments and Politics aims to conceptually understand coalition governments, trace their historical evolution in Africa, interrogate the triggers for coalition formation, assess their impact on electoral democracy, and explore coalition politics at both local and national levels. By providing theoretical and empirical insights, the book equips policymakers, practitioners, scholars, and researchers in the fields of Politics, Sociology, Public Administration, and Development Studies with tools to comprehend, form, manage, and sustain political coalitions as vehicles for democratic governance. The book covers a range of topics, from theoretical discourses underpinning coalition politics to factors influencing coalition formation, approaches and models, challenges faced by coalitions, and their impact on service delivery and governance. It explores the nature of coalitions within different regimes, examining conditions for their sustainability and evaluating their democratic implications. This comprehensive analysis, as presented in Enhancing Democracy With Coalition Governments and Politics , addresses the needs of a diverse audience, including policymakers in government, private sectors, and civil society, as well as scholars and researchers in academic institutions specializing in political and social sciences. Ultimately, the book aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of coalition governments in enhancing democracy in various political contexts.

Promoting Democracy

Author: Stuart S. Nagel

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 9780739101650

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This is the democracy volume in a three-volume set on peace, prosperity and democracy. The author uses specific issues such as exporting the Bill of Rights from the United States, pro-democracy movements, the use of trade to encourage respect for human rights, and international copyright piracy to construct a polyvalent framework of analysis. In this examination of political and social policy from both a domestic and international perspective, Stuart Nagel has created an important and lasting contribution to the field of public policy studies.

Participatory Governance in the EU

Author: K. Lindgren

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2011-09-13

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 0230347797

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An empirical assessment of whether participatory governance reforms within the EU enhance or endanger democracy. Many consider allowing civil society to take an active role in EU policy-making to offer the most effective means of enhancing democracy in the EU, whereas others argue that such attempts deepen the EU's democratic deficit.