Reforming Democracies: Six Facts About Politics That Demand a New Agenda (Leonard Hastings Schoff Lectures) - Hardcover

Chalmers, Douglas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0231162944 ISBN 13: 9780231162944

Publisher: Columbia University Press, 2013

Synopsis

Even well-established democracies need reform, and any successful effort to reform democracies must look beyond conventional institutions―elections, political parties, special interests, legislatures and their relations with chief executives―to do so.

Expanding a traditional vision of the institutions of representative democracy, Douglas A. Chalmers examines six aspects of political practice relating to the people being represented, the structure of those who make law and policy, and the links between those structures and the people. Chalmers concludes with a discussion of where successful reform needs to take place: we must pay attention to a democratic ordering of the constant reconfiguration of decision making patterns; we must recognize the crucial role of information in deliberation; and we must incorporate noncitizens and foreigners into the political system, even when they are not the principal beneficiaries.

About this title

Book Description

Expanding our common understanding of the institutions of representative democracy, Douglas A. Chalmers examines six crucial aspects of political practice that are not included in the usual understanding of democratic institutions. They concern who the people are, how law and policy is made, and how the people are linked to that process. Chalmers argues that if we want to reform democracies, even ones considered established, we need to reform the democratic ordering of decision-making networks outside the legislatures and executives, to reconsider the role of information in law and policy deliberation, and to incorporate stake-holding noncitizens and foreigners into the political system.

About the Author

Douglas A. Chalmers has written articles and books on German and Latin American politics and is coeditor of The New Politics of Inequality in Latin America: Rethinking Participation and Representation. The former chair of the Department of Political Science and director of the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University, he now teaches in Columbia's Core Curriculum and leads organizations devoted to making retirement the new phase of faculty professional life.

About this edition

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0231162944
• ISBN 13: 9780231162944
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192