Search Results

Parliamentary government is the most common way to organize delegation and accountability in contemporary democracies. Parliamentary government is a system of government in which the prime minister and his or her cabinet are accountable to any majority of the members of parliament and can be voted out of office by the latter. Parliamentary democracy is a chain of delegation and accountability, from the voters to the ultimate policy makers, in which at each link (stage), a principal (in whom authority is originally) delegates to an agent, whom the principal has conditionally authorized to act in his or her name and place. The parliamentary chain of delegation is characterized by indirectness and singularity (i.e. at each link of the parliamentary chain, a single principal delegates to a single agent). At each stage of this chain, delegation problems (such as adverse selection and moral hazard) can occur.

This chapter discusses the possible roads to democratization of the EU that have been suggested in the literature by assessing eight different models of democracy such as federalism, parliamentary democracy, and majority rule. The ability of each model to encapsulate the EU system (descriptive strengths) is evaluated, then each is assessed for its ability to address the socio-psychological deficit of the union.

This last chapter addresses the puzzle of why parliamentary democracy has become the legitimacy standard for the EU when there is no demos. We witness a development from a situation in which democracy served as a guiding norm for national systems only, to one where democracy has become an increasingly relevant standard also for evaluating the EU. Following its empowerment, the European Parliament, together with national parliaments, is part of a European multi‐level parliamentary field. But why has the reform process taken the form of support for a parliamentarian model of representative democracy when central conditions for it to work properly are not in place? The solution to the puzzle is sought in the normative thrust of the parliamentary principle as the main embodiment of popular rule. But the lingering question is whether there can be democracy based on an empowered parliament without a political community.

Juan Linz examines the same theme of anti‐party sentiments among citizens in contemporary democracies as did the previous chapter, but from an entirely different perspective. He starts by looking at the fundamental differences between the roles played by parties in presidential and parliamentary democracies, and notes that each type of party system also generates different critiques of parties. Notwithstanding, these differences among party systems and between presidential and parliamentary democracies, Linz notes that parties everywhere have become the focus of a remarkably similar litany of complaints and criticisms, and asks to what extent these represent expressions of reasoned concerns over the shortcomings of the actual performance of parties, and conversely, to what extent they reflect ambiguous, confusing, or even self‐contradictory evaluations by citizens based upon unreasonable expectations or a lack of understanding of the complexities and cross‐pressures that parties are subjected to in performing their many roles in democratic politics. On the basis of survey data from Spain and Latin America, he suggests that the increase in negative attitudes towards political parties maybe less attributable to the behaviour of parties themselves than it is to inconsistencies or outright contradictions among relevant beliefs held by citizens, to unrealistic expectations concerning the extent to which parties can achieve a series of demanding objectives, or to the increasing number of the functions that parties must play in representative democracies. The main sections of the chapter are: Attitudes towards parties: paradoxes, contradictions, and ambiguities; Personalization of politics and professionalization of politics; Parties, money, and party democracy; and Distrust of parties and the legitimacy of democracy.

Focuses on how and why parliamentary systems of governance have accommodated constitutional review. The American and European models of constitutional review are contrasted, and the history, structure, and function of European constitutional courts are surveyed. The necessity of review in defending human rights and its conceptualization as a means of completing the constitution over time are found to be particularly important across these cases, but factors explaining the variance in the judicialization of European law‐making are also identified. The chapter ends with a discussion of the main determinants of European constitutional politics.

Substantial cross‐national variations have been demonstrated in political support/institutional confidence; the aim of this chapter is to investigate why these major differences between countries exist. It identifies at least three separate schools of thought seeking to explain this phenomenon: the role of cultural values, government performance, and political institutions. Comparisons are made among a broad range of political systems, drawing on the 1981–4, 1990–1 and 1995–7 World Values Surveys, the Latinobarometer and the Eurobarometer, and various support hypotheses are advanced (support for the party in government; dependence on level of democratization; differences between presidential and parliamentary systems (executive structure); variation with party system; differences between federal and unitary state structures; and variation with electoral system) and tested. The findings indicate that institutional confidence is most likely to be highest in parliamentary democracies characterized by plurality electoral systems, two‐party or moderate multi‐party systems, and unitary states, and that these relationships are confirmed even after controlling for differences in levels of economic development and post‐material values; social background and education are also related to institutional confidence, while the influence of socioeconomic status and gender are very modest. The results replicate one of the main theoretical principles of Anderson and Guillory (1997)—that winners express more confidence in the system than losers, and they also show that majoritarian institutions tend to produce greater institutional confidence than consociational arrangements.

The choice of a parliamentary form of government around which Indian democracy came to thrive is the outcome of a complex process of intellectual churning. Parliamentary institutions were not an evolutionary complex in India and the reasons that leaders advanced for their choice of such institutions was not an attachment to colonial legacies either. Elections are the principal mechanisms of sustaining and regenerating these institutions. What prompted India to opt for parliamentary democracy in spite of it being closely tied up with the colonial regime? How did the mode of election in a deeply diverse and inegalitarian polity affect the institution of parliamentary government over time? These are some of the issues that are examined in detail in this chapter. This chapter also highlights the nexus between the electoral processes in India and the Parliament on the one hand, and political parties and the Parliament on the other.

Since the retirement of President Kekkonen in 1981, a process of piecemeal constitutional reform has strengthened the core concept of parliamentary government at the expense of the old quasi‐monarchical elements in the Finnish political system; this modernization process has been propelled by a concern to avoid the possibility of a recurrence of the ‘enlightened despotism’ of the Kekkonen era, and has been aided by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Recent constitutional changes have also enhanced the involvement of the prime minister and government in the performance of the federative (foreign policy) function; above all, the institutional adaptation required by membership of the EU has emphasized the bicephalous character of the Finnish political executive in a way reminiscent of interwar practice. Political factors, notably the ability of the party system to deliver stable majority coalitions, have worked in the same direction, and indeed arguments have been made in favour of the abolition of the whole institution of the presidency. With parliament having recently accepted the main findings of the Nikula Committee's report and restricted the president's involvement in the process of coalition‐building, as well as vesting the government with powers jointly to manage foreign policy, it is clear that Finland is en route to becoming an orthodox parliamentary democracy: the head of state has lost his exclusive charge of the federative function; his involvement in the legislative process is limited and exceptional; and even his executive powers—particularly his powers of appointment—have been restricted in recent years. The different sections of the chapter are: Constitution‐Making 1917–1919: A Monarchical Republic?; The Shift to a President‐Dominant System, 1940–1987; From President‐Dominant to Pluralist Foreign Policy‐Making, 1987–1998; and Towards a Ceremonial Presidency?

This chapter explores the national antecedents to European integration by looking at the postwar constitutional settlement of administrative governance on the national level in more detail. It begins by describing the constitutional crises of the interwar period. The first section surveys the strains placed on traditional conceptions of separation of powers during the interwar period (the so-called ‘crisis of parliamentary democracy’) and the role of functionalism as an idée-force in both domestic public-law debates and international-relations theory. This discussion focuses particularly on the views of Carl Schmitt and David Mitrany. The chapter then turns to the elements of the postwar constitutional settlement: the phenomenon of delegation and the redefinition of the role of constitutional legislatures (parliaments); the role of the chief executive in providing ‘plebiscitary leadership’ for the growing technocratic-administrative sphere; and finally the emergence of courts as mechanisms to ensure constitutional commitments to individual rights and collective democratic structures. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the system of ‘mediated legitimacy’ as essential to the constitutional stabilization of administrative governance in the postwar decades, on which European integration would also subsequently build.

This chapter explains how the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan devised and actively disseminated their own rhetorical and ideological subsets of democracy, presented under the guises of “presidential democracy” in Kazakhstan, “consultative democracy” in Kyrgyzstan, and the “Uzbek model of democracy” in Uzbekistan. It discusses the essence of these local democratic varieties, as well as strategies used by these governments to defend their alternative models of democracy and different standards for assessing it. Although these models, which have delegitimized Western conceptions of democracy and efforts at international democratization, do have distinctive features, several characteristics are shared in all three nations. Similarities include a deep ethnic heritage, a strong state personified by a strong leader, the prioritization of security and economic development over political modernization, and the principle of gradual political reform. This chapter posits that, by defining what counts as democracy and democratization and linking these notions to history and culture, the Central Asian leaders not only reinforce their own understanding of their political rule but also foster knowledge of democracy and attitudes about democratization among the people targeted by national democracy frames.

The Indian judiciary may view itself as the custodian of the constitution and act as the balance between the contending levels and powers of a complex array of public institutions. Eventually the composition of the judiciary and sustenance of the conditions of its endurance are formulated and given concrete shape by the Parliament. The Lok Sabha is the epicentre of Parliament, and its public presence has grown enormously over the years. It was not easy for India to opt for parliamentary democracy as there was no precedence. Recent literature on Indian politics has highlighted the rise of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) to prominence from the 1980s onwards. The tendency to assert pluralism or diversity cannot be seen as an attempt to promote a notion of nationalism distanced from individual rights or a post-modern tendency of de-centring of the nation or the consequence of the global turn of Indian polity.

This book looks at the lives and works of Josef Redlich (1869-1936) and Lewis Namier (1869-1936), noted anti-nationalist historians — a minority position in an age when nationalism was at its apogee in Central and Eastern Europe. Redlich and Namier were both anglophiles and passionate advocates of representative self-government. They increasingly saw Great Britain as an extraordinarily stable island of liberty in stark contrast to a dark, despotic Europe, where authoritarianism was intermittently broken by revolutions and peace ripped apart by nationalisms. Ultimately, their differences in personal temperament and philosophical assumptions led them to opposing conclusions about the viability of multinational federations, international comity, and the prospects of parliamentary democracy in continental Europe. This book focuses on their arguments against nationalism as well as their concern for political liberty and parliamentary democracy — all unpopular positions in Central and Eastern Europe during their lifetimes. Another focus of the book is the two historians' evolving attitudes towards the Habsburg monarchy and Great Britain.

The lives of Josef Redlich and Lewis Namier were so intertwined with the demands for individual freedom and national liberation from dynastic absolutism which first took centre stage politically in the Habsburg lands in 1848. These demands reached an apogee during World War I, and resulted in the dismantling of the multinational Habsburg monarchy and the establishment of democratic nation-states in Europe. Contrary to the dominant intellectual trends of their times, Redlich and Namier argued that nationalism was inimical to political liberty and that the sovereignty of the people could lead to even worse tyrannies than that of absolute monarchy. They were anti-nationalist historians in an age of nationalism, and staunch defenders of parliamentary democracy in an era when it came under attack from both the political right and left. Furthermore, Redlich and Namier regarded Great Britain as the paragon of political liberty and its parliament as the Mother of Parliaments.