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The benefits of using a quantitative comparative approach to studying representative democracy are explained. An overview of comparative perspectives of studying politics is presented; it is claimed that comparative approaches must strive to clarify the subject under study & the theoretical point of departure. Informed by Ronald Dahl's conceptualization of polyarchy, a framework for empirically determining the extent of democracy within multiple democratic political systems is presented. A cross-national analysis of factors that influence the extent of democracy within a democratic system is performed, illustrating that high levels of human development & economic success are effective in increasing a system's "democraticness." Nevertheless, it is acknowledged that several other factors, eg, the age of a democracy & voter turnout, can also determine the amount of democraticness within a given democratic system. 10 Tables, 4 Figures, 1 Appendix. J. W. Parker

Parliamentary democracy has been widely embraced by politicians & especially by the scholarly community but remains less widely understood. In this essay, I identify the institutional features that define parliamentary democracy & suggest how they can be understood as delegation relationships. I propose two definitions: one minimal & (or ideal-typical). In the latter sense, parliamentary democracy is a particular regime of delegation & accountability that can be understood with the help of agency theory, which allows us to identify the conditions under which democratic agency problems may occur. Parliamentarism is simple, indirect, & relies on lessons gradually acquired in the past. Compared to presidentialism, parliamentarism has certain advantages, such as decisional efficiency & the inducements it creates toward effort. On the other hand, parliamentarism also implies disadvantages such as ineffective accountability & a lack of transparency, which may cause informational inefficiencies, & whereas parliamentarism may be particularly suitable for problems of adverse selection, it is a less certain cure for moral hazard. In contemporary advanced societies, parliamentarism is facing the challenges of decaying screening devices & diverted accountabilities. 1 Figure, 52 References. Adapted from the source document.

Classical republican theories are monadic in the sense of seeing in each political regime a set of typical operating characteristics. There is disagreement as to what those characteristics are and specifically whether republican governments are more likely to be aggressive or peace loving. We group these two views as (democratic) mobilization theory versus (republican) checks theory and argue, first, that each can help us understand the finer structure of republican government; second, that they are not contradictory but can be combined in various ways in the same institutions; and third, that they offer the prospect of deepening our understanding of what is called the democratic peace proposition.