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Strengthening Canadian Democracy
Reconsidering provincial and federal debates about democratic reform alternatives.
Establishing the Rules of the Game
There are an astonishing variety of election laws across contemporary democratic societies. In Establishing the Rules of the Game, Louis Massicotte, André Blais, and Antoine Yoshinaka provide the first thorough examination of these laws. The study incorporates original data collected from more than sixty democracies around the world, and touches on oft-ignored, yet extremely important, aspects of election laws. The countries covered by the study include Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Romania, and the United Kingdom. The authors focus on six dimensions of election laws: the right to vote, the right to be a candidate, the electoral register, the ag...
Reforming Parliamentary Democracy
Parliamentary government's continuity is rooted in enduring principles such as citizen representation and accountability to the legislature. But parliamentary systems have evolved in response to changes in the societies they govern and in citizens' views about democratic practices. In this title, the authors demonstrate how, in their respective countries, parliamentary governments have combined stability with the capacity to adapt to such changes. They provide analyses of reforms to parliamentary institutions and governance in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The authors address issues of representation - the move to a proportional electoral system in New Zealand, the unsuccessful attempt to establish a domestic head of state in Australia, and the reform of the British House of Lords - and demonstrate that citizens increasingly want legislative institutions to more closely reflect the societies they serve. To discuss responsiveness, the governance of indigenous communities and their place within the broader society in Canada and New Zealand are examined.
The People's House of Commons
Canada's House of Commons has come under considerable attack in recent years. Many critics have contended that the House has been unresponsive to public opinion, and that its party leaders have too much control, while leaving individual MPs essentially powerless. The House has also faced challenges by the courts since the introduction of the Charter, a powerful bureaucracy equipped with specialized knowledge, and new telecommunications systems that are redefining the transfer of information. Through an examination of academic, judicial, political, and legal commentary, The People's House of Commons explores the role of the House as a public institution. While addressing much of the criticism...
Elections Today
News from the world of elections.
Faces on the Ballot
One of the key shifts in contemporary politics is the trend towards greater personalization. Collective actors such as political parties are losing relevance. Citizens are slowly dealigning from these actors, and individual politicians are therefore growing in importance in elections, in government, within parties, and in media reporting of politics. A crucial question concerns how this new pattern could be restructuring politics over the long run - notably, whether the personalization of politics is changing the institutional architecture of contemporary democracies. The authors show that the trend towards personalization is indeed changing core democratic institutions. Studying the evoluti...
Underprivileged Voters and Electoral Exclusion in Contemporary Europe
This volume investigates the reasons behind voter turnout inequalities in contemporary Europe. It looks at the socioeconomic factors that can inhibit electoral participation at the individual level, and how these factors interact with the institutional constraints regulating access to the electoral arena, and considering the changes affecting the class system and occupational opportunities. The volume also reflects on the long-term effects of the 2008 Great Recession on the stability of democracy and the individual lives of voters, who are often deprived of institutional representation and left with the choice between anti-system protest and disengagement from politics.
The Canadian Senate in Bicameral Perspective
The Canadian Senate in Bicameral Perspective is the first scholarly study of the Senate in over a quarter century and the first analysis of the upper house as one chamber of a bicameral legislature. David E. Smith's aim in this work is to demonstrate the interrelationship of the two chambers and the constraints this relationship poses for Senate reform. He analyses past literature on the Senate and current proposals for reform - such as a Triple-E Senate - and compares Canada's upper chamber with those of Australia, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom, noting a revival of interest in Canada and abroad in upper chambers and bicameralism. Drawing on parliamentary debates and committee reports, as well as a range of broad secondary sources, The Canadian Senate in Bicameral Perspective examine the Canadian Senate within the international context, shedding light on its role as a political institution and arguing for a renewed investigation into its future.
Where Have All the Voters Gone?
As the confusion over the ballots in Florida recently demonstrated, American elections are complex and anything but user-friendly. This has led to a decline in voter turnout. In this text Wattenberg confronts the question of what low participation rates means for democracy.
Power Shift
The Message of POWER SHIFT: Fed up with politics-as-usual? Most Canadians are. They (83%) want their MP to represent them and not a party in the House of Commons. Political parties, however, do not consider reforms that would shift significant power from them to citizens. Professor Lyon, breaking the party silence, speaks strongly in support of the interests of his fellow citizens. Drawing on years of experience as a political activist and political scientist, he shows both why and how the desire of Canadians for this new form of representation should be acted on, now. He does this by presenting readers with a detailed model of the new politics. He argues that adopting the model would establish the close collaborative relationship of citizens, their MPs, cabinet and civil servants needed to strengthen the performance of government. Professor Lyon urges politicians to respect the desire of citizens for fundamental change. Party politics is, he states, l9th century politics, and fails to meet the needs of today. Citizen politics for the 21st century is what he proposes and, he argues, Canada stands on the cusp of making the change to them.
