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Although we tend to use the terms "representative democracy" and
"democracy" as synonyms, Michael Mezey maintains that they are not.
Democracy means that the people govern; representative democracy
means that the people elect others to govern for them. This raises
the question of the extent to which representative government
approximates democracy-a question that turns on the relationship
between representatives and those whom they represent. Mezey
reviews the literature on the meaning of representation and its
relationship to issues of citizen control. In the empirical
sections that follow, he draws on data from the United States
Congress and from legislatures outside the United States to discuss
the extent to which the composition of a legislature reflects the
demography of its nation. The author also examines a legislature's
various political and economic interests and the extent to which
representatives are responsive to specific requests for assistance
from their constituents and to constituent opinions on public
policy questions. He further looks at the effect that interest
groups, political parties, and election systems have on the
relationship between representatives and their constituents.
Finally, Mezey addresses the criticisms that have been leveled
against representative institutions: that they are slow to act,
inefficient and uninformed when they do act, that they are too
inclined to do what is popular rather than what is necessary and,
conversely, that their members are too removed from the opinions of
their constituents and therefore unfaithful to their democratic
obligation to respond to the wishes of those whom they represent.
Rich in thoughtful analysis, Representative Democracy incorporates
normative, empirical and comparative perspectives on
representation. It is perfectly suited for use in an upper-level
course on the legislative process or Congress.
This book explores the increasing use of Constituency Development
Funds (CDFs) in emerging democratic governments in Africa, Asia,
the Caribbean, and Oceania. CDFs dedicate public money to benefit
parliamentary constituencies through allocations and/or spending
decisions influenced by Members of Parliament (MPs). The
contributors employ the term CDF as a generic term although such
funds have a different names, such as Electoral Development funds
(Papua New Guinea), Constituency Development Catalyst Funds
(Tanzania), Member of Parliament Local Area Development Fund
(India), and the like. In some ways, the funds resemble the ad hoc
pork barrel policy making employed in the US Congress for the past
200 years. However, unlike earmarks, CDFs generally become
institutionalized in the government s annual budget and are
distributed according to different criteria in each country. They
enable MPs to influence programs in their constituencies that
finance education, and build bridges, roads, community centers,
clinics and schools. In this sense, a CDF is a politicized form of
spending that can help fill in the important gaps in government
services in constituencies that have not been addressed in the
government s larger, comprehensive policy programs. This first
comprehensive treatment of CDFs in the academic and development
literatures emerges from a project at the State University of New
York Center for International Development (SUNY CID). This project
has explored CDFs in 19 countries and has developed indicators on
their emergence, operations and oversight. The contributors provide
detailed case studies of the emergence and operations of CDFs in
Kenya, Uganda, Jamaica, and India, as well as an analysis of
earmarks in the U.S. Congress, and a broader analysis of the
emergence of the funds in Africa. They cover the emergence,
institutionalization, and accountability of these funds, analyze
key issues in their operations, and offer provisional conclusions
of what the emergence and operations of these funds say about the
democratization of politics in developing countries and current
approaches to international support for democratic governance in
developing countries."
This book argues that the current relationship between the
president and the Congress has adversely affected the capacity of
the U.S. political system to produce good public policy. It
discusses how policies are affected by the manner in which the
president and the Congress share political power.
Although we tend to use the terms 'representative democracy' and
'democracy' as synonyms, Michael Mezey maintains that they are not.
Democracy means that the people govern; representative democracy
means that the people elect others to govern for them. This raises
the question of the extent to which representative government
approximates democracy-a question that turns on the relationship
between representatives and those whom they represent. Mezey
reviews the literature on the meaning of representation and its
relationship to issues of citizen control. In the empirical
sections that follow, he draws on data from the United States
Congress and from legislatures outside the United States to discuss
the extent to which the composition of a legislature reflects the
demography of its nation. The author also examines a legislature's
various political and economic interests and the extent to which
representatives are responsive to specific requests for assistance
from their constituents and to constituent opinions on public
policy questions. He further looks at the effect that interest
groups, political parties, and election systems have on the
relationship between representatives and their constituents.
Finally, Mezey addresses the criticisms that have been leveled
against representative institutions: that they are slow to act,
inefficient and uninformed when they do act, that they are too
inclined to do what is popular rather than what is necessary and,
conversely, that their members are too removed from the opinions of
their constituents and therefore unfaithful to their democratic
obligation to respond to the wishes of those whom they represent.
Rich in thoughtful analysis, Representative Democracy incorporates
normative, empirical and comparative perspectives on
representation. It is perfectly suited for use in an upper-level
course on the legislative process or Congress.
This book looks at the relationship between Congress and the
president and how this interaction shapes public policy. The
relationship between the president and the Congress has been under
discussion as long as the U.S. Constitution has existed. It has
been a discussion in which presidents, congressional leaders,
Supreme Court justices, scholars
Selecting political leaders by popular election is an unquestioned
hallmark of representative democracies-the institutional
manifestation of Lincoln's promise of a government of the people
and by the people. But in 2016, Lincoln's promise seems to have
given way to Hamilton's nightmare-with his worries that popular
elections would produce demagogues who paid an "obsequious court to
the people," appealing to their passions and prejudices rather than
to their reason. This book examines the commitment to the widest
level of participation among the largest number of citizens in the
selection of the president. It looks at two salient characteristics
of our current presidential election environment that bring the
wisdom of this commitment into question: the declining influence of
political parties and the communication revolution in the form of
the internet, social media, and cable television. Ultimately, Mezey
asks whether our now fully democratized presidential selection
process has in fact diminished the quality of our presidential
candidates and the campaigns they run, whether the turn to
demagoguery that the founders feared has materialized, what the
consequences of our presidential selection process have been for
American government, and whether or not it would be valuable to
rethink our wholehearted commitment to popular election of the
president. His answers do not topple our commitment to popular
elections but rather point the way toward improving the quality of
both participation and democracy.
Irina Khmelko, Frederick Stapenhurst, and Michael L. Mezey have
assembled an authoritative guide to the declining institutional
capacities of legislatures around the world. Case studies represent
a diverse sample of countries, ranging from newer democracies
emerging from the post-communist world to more established but at
times fragile democracies in Asia. Although largely focused on
newer democratic systems, readers will be able to identify key
factors that explain the general global trend toward the
empowerment of executives at the expense of national legislatures.
The cases, although different from one another, identify several
factors that have explained the erosion of legislative power,
including historical legacies, institutional design, economic
factors, external factors, political polarization, personalization
of politics, and the rise of populism. Original data and the
presentation of testable theoretical propositions about the growing
imbalance between executives and national legislatures moves the
field in a promising new direction. Legislative Decline in the 21st
Century will be of interest to students and scholars of Legislative
Studies and Comparative Politics. Lessons drawn from these case
studies will allow policy makers to explore new solutions that can
lead to the improved quality of democracy in countries around the
world.
Irina Khmelko, Frederick Stapenhurst, and Michael L. Mezey have
assembled an authoritative guide to the declining institutional
capacities of legislatures around the world. Case studies represent
a diverse sample of countries, ranging from newer democracies
emerging from the post-communist world to more established but at
times fragile democracies in Asia. Although largely focused on
newer democratic systems, readers will be able to identify key
factors that explain the general global trend toward the
empowerment of executives at the expense of national legislatures.
The cases, although different from one another, identify several
factors that have explained the erosion of legislative power,
including historical legacies, institutional design, economic
factors, external factors, political polarization, personalization
of politics, and the rise of populism. Original data and the
presentation of testable theoretical propositions about the growing
imbalance between executives and national legislatures moves the
field in a promising new direction. Legislative Decline in the 21st
Century will be of interest to students and scholars of Legislative
Studies and Comparative Politics. Lessons drawn from these case
studies will allow policy makers to explore new solutions that can
lead to the improved quality of democracy in countries around the
world.
Selecting political leaders by popular election is an unquestioned
hallmark of representative democracies-the institutional
manifestation of Lincoln's promise of a government of the people
and by the people. But in 2016, Lincoln's promise seems to have
given way to Hamilton's nightmare-with his worries that popular
elections would produce demagogues who paid an "obsequious court to
the people," appealing to their passions and prejudices rather than
to their reason. This book examines the commitment to the widest
level of participation among the largest number of citizens in the
selection of the president. It looks at two salient characteristics
of our current presidential election environment that bring the
wisdom of this commitment into question: the declining influence of
political parties and the communication revolution in the form of
the internet, social media, and cable television. Ultimately, Mezey
asks whether our now fully democratized presidential selection
process has in fact diminished the quality of our presidential
candidates and the campaigns they run, whether the turn to
demagoguery that the founders feared has materialized, what the
consequences of our presidential selection process have been for
American government, and whether or not it would be valuable to
rethink our wholehearted commitment to popular election of the
president. His answers do not topple our commitment to popular
elections but rather point the way toward improving the quality of
both participation and democracy.
The role legislatures play in the public policy-making process is
of central concern to political scientists. Conventional wisdom
claims that all legislatures except perhaps the US Congress are
either marginal to the policy-making process or becoming
increasingly so. In Legislatures in the Policy Process leading
specialists in comparative government reassess this view and
significantly advance research on the influence of legislatures. In
the opening chapter, David Olson and Michael Mezey identify three
categories of variables - external influences, internal influences
and policy attributes - which can affect the policy-making role of
legislatures. They specify sixteen hypotheses that describe the
relationship between these variables and the policy participation
of legislatures. In subsequent chapters, these hypotheses are
examined through a series of individual and comparative country
studies which focus upon the role of the legislatures in various
aspects of economic policy making. These include the influence of
the French, German, British and US legislatures on monetary policy;
the role of the Brazilian Congress and Indian Parliament in
computer and electronics policy and the part played by the Polish
Sejm in labour policy.
The role legislatures play in the public policy-making process is
of central concern to political scientists. Conventional wisdom
claims that all legislatures except perhaps the US Congress are
either marginal to the policy-making process or becoming
increasingly so. In Legislatures in the Policy Process leading
specialists in comparative government reassess this view and
significantly advance research on the influence of legislatures. In
the opening chapter, David Olson and Michael Mezey identify three
categories of variables - external influences, internal influences
and policy attributes - which can affect the policy-making role of
legislatures. They specify sixteen hypotheses that describe the
relationship between these variables and the policy participation
of legislatures. In subsequent chapters, these hypotheses are
examined through a series of individual and comparative country
studies which focus upon the role of the legislatures in various
aspects of economic policy making. These include the influence of
the French, German, British and US legislatures on monetary policy;
the role of the Brazilian Congress and Indian Parliament in
computer and electronics policy and the part played by the Polish
Sejm in labour policy.
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