Power Diffusion and Democracy
Institutions, Deliberation and Outcomes
Published on 26. April 2019
Book
Hardback
302 pages
978-1-108-48338-4 (ISBN)
Description
Departing from the established literature connecting the political-institutional patterns of democracy with the quality of democracy, this book acknowledges that democracies, if they can be described as such, come in a wide range of formats. At the conceptual and theoretical level, the authors make an argument based on deliberation, redrawing power diffusion in terms of the four dimensions of proportionality, decentralisation, presidentialism and direct democracy, and considering the potential interactions between these aspects. Empirically, they assemble data on sixty-one democracies between 1990 and 2015 to assess the performance and legitimacy of democracy. Their findings demonstrate that while, for example, proportional power diffusion is associated with lower income inequality, there is no simple institutional solution to all societal problems. This book explains contemporary levels of power diffusion, their potential convergence and their manifestation at the subnational level in democracies including the United States, Switzerland, Germany and Austria.
Reviews / Votes
'Power Diffusion and Democracy is an enormously impressive work - a comparative masterpiece. It's a theoretically and methodologically sophisticated analysis of the political-institutional arrangements in more than sixty democracies. The authors convincingly link the concept of deliberation, which matches my own work on the politics of accommodation, to the framework of patterns of democracy. The wide and deep database, the various analytical perspectives and the important findings make this book an essential reading for anyone interested in the mechanisms of power diffusion in democracies.' Arend Lijphart, University of California, San Diego '... the book is of high interest for advanced students and scholars in the field of assessing democratic quality especially regarding power diffusion and deliberation. Further Bernauer's and Vatter's book will also be of interest to those interested in actor-centered institutionalism. Finally, the book is also recommended for scholars of other social science disciplines, as it draws on sociological aspects of inclusion, such as income equality and migrant integration.' Ingrid Heidlmayr-Chegdaly, DemocratizationMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises; 18 Tables, black and white; 53 Line drawings, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
596 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-108-48338-4 (9781108483384)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
05/2019
Cambridge University Press
€73.99
Available for download
Julian Bernauer | Adrian Vatter
Power Diffusion and Democracy
Institutions, Deliberation and Outcomes
E-Book
05/2019
Cambridge University Press
€111.99
Available for download
Persons
Julian Bernauer is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Data and Methods Unit of the Mannheimer Zentrum fuer Europaeische Sozialforschung (MZES), Universitaet Mannheim. His research has been published in journals such as Comparative Political Studies, the European Journal of Political Research, West European Politics and Electoral Studies. Adrian Vatter is Professor of Political Science (Swiss politics) at the Institute of Political Science, Universitaet Bern, Switzerland. He has published in the British Journal of Political Science, European Journal of Political Research, European Union Politics, European Political Science Review, the Journal of European Public Policy, Party Politics, Publius, and West European Politics, among others.
Content
1. Introducing power diffusion in democracies; 2. A theory of power diffusion, deliberation and democracy; 3. A taxonomy of power diffusion; 4. Performance; 5. Legitimacy; 6. Explaining power diffusion; 7. Convergence; 8. Subnational power diffusion; 9. Conclusions.