Inequality in the public priority perceptions of elected representatives

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Julie Sevenans ◽  
Karolin Soontjens ◽  
Stefaan Walgrave
Author(s):  
Thushara Dibley ◽  
Michele Ford

This introductory chapter focuses on the collective contribution of progressive social movements to Indonesia's transition to democracy and their collective fate in the decades since. This sets the scene for the case studies to follow. It also explains how the relationship between social movements and democratization is understood in this context. Social movements consist of networks involving a diverse range of actors, including individuals, groups, or organizations that may be loosely connected or tightly clustered. Democratization, meanwhile, is a process through which a polity moves toward “a system of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their elected representatives.”


Author(s):  
Mark Liptrott

This chapter evaluates the UK government strategy to promote electronic voting through the public policy process as an integral part of the e-government agenda to enhance participatory democracy. It argues that the formulation of the present policy is flawed as it lacks a diffusion strategy to enhance the likelihood of policy adoption. The electoral modernisation policy arose from concerns regarding the falling voter turnout at elections and is being introduced via local authorities through a series of voluntary pilot schemes. If issues influencing local authority pilot participation are not resolved e-voting may be permanently rejected by local elected representatives and so will not be available to citizens. This author identifies variables influencing pilot participation and suggests a revised public policy model incorporating selected diffusion concepts at the formulation stage of the linear policy process. The model is used to propose recommendations to enhance the likelihood of voluntary adoption of a policy introduced by central government for voluntary implementation by local government.


2011 ◽  
pp. 759-772
Author(s):  
Lucas Walsh

This article examines some of the challenges faced by local government during the development and implementation of a relatively new area of e-democratic innovation in Australia: e-consultation. E-consultation is seen as a valuable way through which a two-way relationship can be developed and enhanced between citizens and elected representatives. It involves the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs), such as the Internet, to extend and/or enhance political democracy through access to information, and to facilitate participation in democratic communities, processes, and institutions. Drawing on a case study of the Darebin eForum in Victoria, Australia, this article focuses on the role of public servants as moderators of this local form of e-consultation. The discussion has three parts: online policy consultation is defined within the context of e-democracy; some of the ways that e-consultation challenges the roles of the public service, elected representatives, and citizens are outlined; and the author then argues for an e-consultation strategy that is situated within a continuum of citizen engagement that is ongoing, deliberative, educative, and inclusive.


2001 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-82
Author(s):  
M S Sriram

The case discusses the issues of autonomy and accountability in the healthcare division of a local self-government. It highlights the underlying tension between the elected representatives' need to control the division and the executive's need for basic functional and financial autonomy in developing and maintaining the division as a useful and responsive facility to the public. It raises questions as to the concept of cost and responsibility centres in local self-governments and what happens when one of the responsibility centres starts generating revenue and becomes a truly profit centre. Since the basic nature of the service is more of a responsibility — do the surpluses generated by the new profit centre get ploughed back to the same facility or should it get into the general pool of the Panchayat? If the argument is that it should be ploughed back to the responsibility centre to improve the overall facilities of the division, then should the objectives of the division be redefined and what should be the most appropriate institutional mechanism to grant autonomy for a division that is doing well? How would these mechanisms work in the long run? The case tries to sensitize the discussants to the issues and tensions that emerge in a well-managed division of a local-self-government. It also raises the larger issue of autonomy and accountability in democratic institutions.


1991 ◽  
Vol 67 (6) ◽  
pp. 691-697
Author(s):  
Ilan Vertinsky ◽  
Donald A. Wehrung ◽  
Shelby Brumelle

This paper describes the results of a survey of desired and perceived priorities for public silvicultural investments in British Columbia. The objective of the survey was to examine the extent to which non-timber benefits command the attention of the public and of managers in government and industry having responsibility for silvicultural investment. To reflect the "public view," elected representatives from local governments were surveyed. The industry sample consisted of senior foresters, while the government sample consisted of managers at both headquarters level and in the different forest regions and districts. The study revealed that non-timber benefits commanded attention in all the groups studied but, not surprisingly, the mean priority weights varied among groups. Surprisingly, however, only a few regional differences in priorities for silvicultural investments were discovered.


1991 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 682-685 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Keene

Healthcare providers need to be aware of the facts regarding the environmental impact of regulated medical wastes and be prepared to voice concern over unnecessary and costly regulations. The wash-ups of waste, a small percentage of which was medical waste, on the beaches on New York and New Jersey in the summers of 1987 and 1988 prompted an immediate response by state and federal governments. Although it was demonstrated that this medical waste did not originate in healthcare facilities,' the public demanded that their elected representatives do something about what they perceived to be the degradation of the environment and a risk to public health caused by “uncontrolled dumping” of “medical wastes” into the ocean. As a result of these and other occurrences, several environmental concerns regarding the treatment and disposal of medical waste were voiced by the public and acknowledged by the legislators. These included the following: aesthetic damage to the environment; potential public health problems associated with infectious agents in medical waste; and potential environmental contamination with hazardous chemicals and radioactivity associated with medical wastes.


Author(s):  
John M. de Figueiredo ◽  
Edward H. Stiglitz

This chapter examines to what extent agency rulemaking is democratic. It identifies four major theoretical approaches to administrative rulemaking: the unitary executive theory, emphasizing presidential control and accountability; the structure and process school of thought, emphasizing congressional control; the insulation perspective, holding that the public interest and democratic values are often best advanced by limiting political control over administrative agencies; and the deliberative perspective, arguing that rulemaking is the “best hope” for achieving a vision of deliberative democracy. Each theory is evaluated in light of two normative benchmarks: a “democratic” benchmark based on voter preferences, and a “republican” benchmark based on the preferences of elected representatives. It then evaluates how the empirical evidence lines up in light of these two approaches. The chapter concludes with a discussion of avenues for future research.


Author(s):  
Cristina E. Parau

This chapter concludes the volume. In normative terms, the Judiciary revisions imposed on CEE since 1989 (and now the West) exhibit an unmistakable pattern: they transfer political power away from majoritarian institutions to non-majoritarian ones, from elected officials to judges; exclude the ‘sovereignty people’ from a voice in the Judiciary’s make-up; and insulate judges from accountability and liability to democratic boundaries. This Template amounts to the Americanization of the European Judiciary, and reflects the Network Community’s ambition to rule through the Judiciary (in Europe, but perhaps globally). In causal terms, a nexus was discovered explaining the Template’s puzzling ubiquity: the agency of a class of transnational elites sharing a collective identity and solidarity; their paradigmatic assumptions about the Judiciary’s role in democracy, and the coerciveness of their hegemonic discourses, which the public is unable to fathom or negotiate. The Network’s motivation is not solely the aspiration to solve mankind’s problems, but the all-too-human will to the power to arbitrate between all other political actors. A crucial but ‘invisible’ causal factor was the omission by the main veto players, elected representatives in parliaments, to forestall their own disempowerment.


2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-279
Author(s):  
Sara M Gregg

Abstract The turn of the twentieth century brought a significant expansion of the nation-state, as the U.S. Congress passed new homestead laws that experimented with adapting land policy to regional conditions. That focus on creating opportunity on challenging, non-irrigable terrain presents a striking contradiction to the firsthand experiences of the western legislators who argued in support of the bill. Elected representatives from these districts justified larger acreages by candidly acknowledging the geophysical realities of the western landscape—those climatic and topographic conditions that were the most frequently cited challenges to settlers in the West—even as they argued that land law should be made more flexible to support new farms and ranches. Adapting to the limits of the western landscape became a paramount goal of legislators who drafted federal land policy, ultimately contributing to expanding the reach of the expert and interventionist state and signaling a new era in regional development.


1977 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 545-567 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lois G. Schwoerer

The Convention Parliament, the revolutionary tribunal of the English Revolution of 1689, prohibited the printing of news of its affairs and barred the public from its debates. Authors, printers and publishers, however, defied these orders and published unlicensed accounts of speeches, votes, committee reports, and the membership of the Convention. Although the laws and administrative procedures which the later Stuarts had used to restrict the press were still in effect, they were not enforced. During the weeks of political crisis, quantities of news-sheets, newspapers and tracts reporting parliamentary news and political opinion appeared. At a time of growing scholarly and popular interest in the Glorious Revolution, it may be useful to examine the relationship between parliament and press. Although studies of the early press and of parliamentary reporting have been made, no detailed examination of these matters during the months of political upheaval in the winter of 1688–9 has been undertaken. Two central questions suggest themselves. How did the politically conscious public learn about what was happening in Westminster where their elected representatives and the peers of the realm were meeting to resolve the crisis facing the nation? What was the attitude of those representatives and peers to having information about their affairs spread beyond their chambers? The answers to such questions may deepen understanding of the Convention and of one aspect of the part played by the press in the Revolution.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document