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Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies

Edited by Kaare Strom, Wolfgang C. Müller, and Torbjörn Bergman

Price: £29.00 (paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-19-929160-1
Publication date: 19 January 2006
784 pages, 65 tables, 11 line illus., 234x156 mm
Series: Comparative Politics
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Description

First-ever survey in the English language of the institutions of democratic delegation in West European parliamentary democracies
Unprecedented cross-national investigation of governing political parties, legistlative procedures, electoral systems, and civil service accountability
Essential reference point for all those working on the Politics of Western Europe, and will shape the debate in this field for years to come

Comparative Politics is a series for students and teachers of political science that deals with contemporary issues in comparative government and politics. The General Editors are Max Kaase, Professor of Political Science, Vice President and Dean, School of Humanities and Social Science, International University Bremen, Germany; and Kenneth Newton, Professor of Comparative Politics, University of Southampton. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research.

Today, parliamentarism is the most common form of democratic government. Yet knowledge of this regime type has been incomplete and often unsystematic. Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies offers new conceptual clarity on the topic.

This book argues that representative democracies can be understood as chains of delegation and accountability between citizens and politicians. Under parliamentary democracy, this chain of delegation is simple but also long and indirect. Principal-agent theory helps us to understand the perils of democratic delegation, which include the problems of adverse selection and moral hazard. Citizens in democratic states, therefore, need institutional mechanisms by which they can control their representatives. The most important such control mechanisms are on the one hand political parties and on the other external constraints such as courts, central banks, referendums, and supranational institutions such as those of the European Union. Traditionally, parliamentary democracies have relied heavily on political parties and presidential systems more on external constraints.

This new empirical investigation includes all seventeen West European parliamentary democracies. These countries are compared in a series of cross-national tables and figures, and seventeen country chapters provide a wealth of information on four discrete stages in the delegation process: delegation from voters to parliamentary representatives, delegation from parliament to the prime minister and cabinet, delegation within the cabinet, and delegation from cabinet ministers to civil servants. Each chapter illustrates how political parties serve as bonding instruments which align incentives and permit citizen control of the policy process. This is complemented by a consideration of external constraints. The concluding chapters go on to consider how well the problems of delegation and accountability are solved in these countries. They show that political systems with cohesive and competitive parties and strong mechanisms of external constraint solve their democratic agency problems better than countries with weaker control mechanisms. But in many countries political parties are now weakening, and parliamentary systems face new democratic challenges.

Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies provides an unprecedented guide to contemporary European parliamentary democracies. As democratic governance is transformed at the dawn of the twenty-first century, it illustrates the important challenges faced by the parliamentary democracies of Western Europe.

Readership: Scholars and students of political science, especially of parliamentary democracy; academics interested in West European politics, political behaviour, and institutions

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

List of Contributors

Section 1: Introduction and Theory

1. Parliamentary Democracy: Promise and Problems , Wolfgang C. Muller, Torbjorn Bergman, and Kaare Strom

2. Delegation and its Perils , Arthur Lupia

3. Parliamentary Democracy and Delegation , Kaare Strom

4. Democratic Delegation and Accountability: Cross-National Patterns , Torbjorn Bergman, Wolfgang C. Muller, Kaare Strom, and Magnus Blomgren

Section 2: Country Chapters

5. Austria: Imperfect Parliamentary Democracy but Fully-Fledged Party Democracy , Wolfgang C. Muller

6. Belgium: Delegation and Accountability under Partitocratic Rule , Lieven de Winter and Patrick Dumont

7. Denmark: Delegation and Accountability in Minority Situations , Erik Damgaard

8. Finland: Polarized Pluralism in the Shadow of a Strong President , Tapio Raunio and Matti Wiberg

9. France: Delegation and Accountability in the Fifth Republic , Jean-Louis Thiebault

10. Germany: Multiple Veto Points, Informal Co-ordination, and Problems of Hidden Action , Thomas Saalfeld

11. Greece: 'Rationalizing' Constitutional Powers in a Post-Dictatorial Country , Georgios Trantas, Paraskevi Zagoriti, Torbjorn Bergman, Wolfgang C. Muller, and Kaare Strom

12. Iceland: A Parliamentary Democracy with a Semi-Presidential Constitution , Svanur Kristjansson

13. Ireland: 'O What a Tangled Web...' - Delegation, Accountability, and Executive Power , Paul Mitchell

14. Italy: Delegation and Accountability in a Changing Parliamentary Democracy , Luca Verzichelli

15. Luxembourg: A Case of More 'Direct' Delegation and Accountability , Patrick Dumont and Lieven De Winter

16. The Netherlands: Rules and Mores in Delegation and Accountability Relationships , Arco Timmermans and Rudy B. Andeweg

17. Norway: Virtual Parliamentarism , Kaare Strom and Hanne Marthe Narud

18. Portugal: Changing Patterns of Delegation and Accountability under the President's Watchful Eyes , Octavio Amorim Neto

19. Spain: Delegation and Accountability in a Newly Established Democracy , Carlos Flores Juberias

20. Sweden: From Separation of Power to Parliamentary Supremacy - and Back Again? , Torbjorn Bergman

21. The United Kingdom: Still a Single 'Chain of Command'? The Hollowing Out of the 'Westminster Model' , Thomas Saalfeld

Concluding Section

22. Dimensions of Citizen Control , Kaare Strom, Wolfgang C. Muller, Torbjorn Bergman, and Benjamin Nyblade

23. Challenges to Parliamentary Democracy , Kaare Strom, Wolfgang C. Muller, and Torbjorn Bergman

Authors, editors, and contributors

Edited by Kaare Strom, Professor of Political Science, University of California, San Diego,
Wolfgang C. Müller, Professor, Department of Government, University of Vienna, and
Torbjörn Bergman, Senior Lecturer in Political Science, Umeå University

Links to web resources and related information

More in the same subject area:
Political structures: democracy
EU & European institutions
Political structure & processes
Political science & theory
Comparative politics

The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.