Popular Control of Senatorial Elections

1905 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 577
Author(s):  
George N. Haynes
Keyword(s):  
Popular Control ◽  
Senatorial Elections

Institutions and Popular Control of Public Policy

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
John G. Matsusaka
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Popular Control

Contain the Wealthy and Patrol the Magistrates: Restoring Elite Accountability to Popular Government

2006 ◽  
Vol 100 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN P. McCORMICK
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Selection Methods ◽  
Formal Institutions ◽  
Popular Government ◽  
Political Trials ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Popular Control

Modern republics neglect to establish formal institutions that prevent wealthy citizens from exerting excessive political influence and they abandon extra-electoral techniques traditionally employed to keep office-holders accountable. Inspired by Guicciardini's and Machiavelli's reflections on the Roman, Venetian, and Florentine constitutions, this article highlights three forgotten practices that facilitate popular control ofbotheconomic and political elites: magistrate appointment procedures combining lottery and election, offices or assemblies excluding the wealthy from eligibility, and political trials enlisting the entire citizenry in prosecutions and appeals. I present a typology of regimes that evaluates the wealth containment potential of various magistrate selection methods, and propose a hypothetical reform supplying the U.S. Constitution with a “Tribunate” reminiscent of elite-accountability institutions in pre-eighteenth-century popular governments.

Popular Access to the Decision‐making Process in Switzerland: The Role of Direct Democracy

1979 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjorie Mowlam
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Political Choices ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Popular Control

CENTRAL TO THE STUDY OF DEMOCRATIC POLITICS IS THE IDEA of popular control over the activities of elites. More specifically, how can the preferences of citizens be aggregated into a political choice for a government policy or government personnel? Popular control, the effects of citizen participation in political life, is the basis of a major value orientation in the discipline: the notion of participant democracy. The degree of citizen participation becomes the key to the nature of democracry in a society : the more participation, the more democratic the political life of a country becomes. Political participation may take a variety of forms, e.g., running for office, holding office,voting, soliciting votes, and campaigning for, or contributing funds to, I the party of one's choice. However, voting is the most emphasized aspect of citizen participation, since it is the only form of active participation many engage in. The limitations placed on voting as a mechanism for popular control over political choices are well documented. Voters do not choose when to vote, nor the agenda. They have minimal input into the selection of candidates and the choice of issues which divide the parties at elections. Public participation in the selection and resolution of important policy issues between elections is severely restricted.

Must Egalitarians Condemn Representative Democracy?

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-198
Author(s):  
Adam Lovett ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Ordinary Citizens ◽  
Popular Control

Many contemporary democratic theorists are democratic egalitarians. They think that the distinctive value of democracy lies in equality. Yet this position faces a serious problem. All contemporary democracies are representative democracies. Such democracies are highly unequal: representatives have much more power than do ordinary citizens. So, it seems that democratic egalitarians must condemn representative democracies. In this paper, I present a solution to this problem. My solution invokes popular control. If representatives are under popular control, then their extra power is not objectionable. Unfortunately, so I argue, in the United States representatives are under loose popular control.

Why Constituent Power?

2020 ◽  
pp. 17-40
Author(s):  
Markus Patberg
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
Constitutional Development ◽  
Popular Participation ◽  
Constitutional Politics ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
Methodological Challenges ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Popular Control

This chapter addresses the question of why a theory of constituent power in the EU is needed. While the EU has long since taken on a constitutional character, this is in no way reflected in adequate popular participation in decisions about its basic legal order. The EU is shaped through a combination of intergovernmental treaty making and integration through law that sidelines citizens. Constitutional mutation further decouples the EU’s constitutional development from popular control and shields fundamental decisions from democratic contestation. To capture the legitimacy gap that opens up here, the chapter introduces an understanding of constituent power as political autonomy at the level of constitutional politics. It argues that European integration is based on a usurpation, with constituted powers operating as de facto constituent powers. As executives and courts shape the EU in a largely self-referential manner, citizens are deprived of a crucial dimension of political autonomy. The chapter concludes with preliminary considerations on a theory of constituent power in the EU, addressing substantive and methodological challenges involved in its elaboration, as well as possible objections to the project as such.

Who Votes for Dynastic Candidates? Philippine Senatorial Elections

2018 ◽  
pp. 102-118
Author(s):  
Clarissa C. David ◽  
Ma. Rosel S. San Pascual
Keyword(s):  
Senatorial Elections

Beyond representativeness? Trends in political representation

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
RUDY B. ANDEWEG
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
General Trend ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Dynamic Relationship ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Popular Control

The ascendancy of proportional representation as the electoral system of choice, and pervasive concerns with the demographic representativeness of parliaments, both testify to the importance that is attached to ‘descriptive’ or ‘microcosmic’ representation in politics, despite persistent doubts about its desirability. This paper makes three points. First, representation as representativeness presupposes the existence of stable and meaningful social or political collectivities, which can be reflected in the composition of parliament, and this condition is undermined by the general trend towards individualization, which can be observed throughout Western Europe. Second, this trend necessitates a conceptualization of political representation not as a state, but as a dynamic relationship between the citizen and the representative. This relationship can be characterized both by its direction (from below or from above), and by the moment at which popular control is exercised (before or after the representative's period in office). Third, it is argued that both growing uncertainty about citizen preferences and the transformation of political parties into para-statal agencies push towards representation from above; and that both growing unpredictability of the political agenda and European integration push towards ex-post popular control. These developments call for greater attention to mechanisms of accountability in representative democracies.

Some "Necessary Conditions" for Popular Control of Public Policy: A Critique

Polity ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Burstein
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Popular Control
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