Suchergebnisse

This volume addresses the contrast between the view that elections are a mechanism to hold government accountable and the view that they are a means to ensure that citizens' views and interests are properly represented in the democratic process. The general conclusion of the book is that formal political institutions are less relevant for people's attitudes and behaviour than often presumed. Rather than formal political institutions like the electoral system, it seems to be characteristics of the party system like polarization and the clarity of responsibility that really matter

In 2004 the European Union was enlarged with ten new member states, eight of them previously communist states in Central and Eastern Europe. This enlargement was without precedent in the history of the Union and its predecessors. It is still to be seen how well the institutions as well as the citizens of the Union are able to cope with the consequences of this operation. The authors of this volume evaluate the effect of that enlargement on its legitimacy. They do so by assessing the effects of enlargement on the functioning of the process of political representation in the European Union and on.

This is a comparison of the dynamics of electoral behaviour across a wide range of European countries over the past 40 years. Leading scholars come together to assess how voting patterns have changed in six established democracies: Britain Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Norway

THE ANALYSIS OF CHANGES IN VOTING BEHAVIOR IS OFTEN BASED UPON RECALL DATA. THE NOTE OF RELIABILITY OF THIS TYPE OF DATA IS QUESTIONED. RECALL DATA UNDERESTIMATE THE NUMBER OF CHANGES IN PARTY CHOICE. NO EVIDENCE HAS BEEN FOUND THAT THE USE OF RECALL DATA HAS ANY CONSEQUENCES FOR THE STUDY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE STABILITY OF PARTY CHOICE & SUCH VARIABLES AS POLITICAL INTEREST, POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE, & EDUCATION. THE ANALYSIS OF THE RELIABILITY OF QUESTIONS ON TURN-OUT IS NOT CONCLUSIVE. THERE ARE VERY STRONG INDICATIONS THAT IN EACH ELECTION STUDY NONVOTERS GIVE LESS RELIABLE ANSWERS THAN VOTERS. THIS UNRELIABILITY IS ESPECIALLY HIGH WHEN RECALL DATA ARE USED. 11 TABLES. HA.

How severe a problem is what may be called the democratic deficit of the European Union? This volume elaborates a conceptual framework for the empirical analysis of the alleged democratic deficit.

In this book, a group of leading scholars analyzes the functioning of modern democracies by focusing on two basic principles: political representation and policy congruence. Drawing on recent survey data from a variety of national and international research projects, they demonstrate how political representation works and mostly leads to a fair degree of policy congruence between citizens and their representatives. They also present new insights on the sources of satisfaction with democracy and the impact of the economy on elections and political trust. This book is published on the occasion of the retirement of Jacques Thomassen as distinguished professor of political science at the University of Twente. The contributors include Russell Dalton, Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Pippa Norris, Ola Listhaug, Hanne Marthe Narud, Jan van Deth, Peter Mair, Cees van der Eijk, Hermann Schmitt, Sören Holmberg and Rudy Andeweg. Martin Rosema, Bas Denters and Kees Aarts are affiliated with the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD) and the Institute for Innovation and Governance Studies (IGS) at the University of Twente.

This volume provides a state-of-the-art assessment of citizens' beliefs in the legitimacy of modern Western democracies, an overview of current explanations of fluctuations in these beliefs (both over-time and cross-national), and a perspective on fruitful future lines of investigation into political legitimacy.