By popular demand : revitalizing representative democracy through deliberative elections

The Resource By popular demand : revitalizing representative democracy through deliberative elections
Label
By popular demand : revitalizing representative democracy through deliberative elections
Title remainder
revitalizing representative democracy through deliberative elections
Statement of responsibility
John Gastil
Creator
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
John Gastil challenges conventional assumptions about public opinion, elections, and political expression in this persuasive treatise on how to revitalize the system of representative democracy in the United States. Gastil argues that American citizens have difficulty developing clear policy interests, seldom reject unrepresentative public officials, and lack a strong public voice. Our growing awareness of a flawed electoral system is causing increased public cynicism and apathy. The most popular reforms, however, will neither restore public trust nor improve representation. Term limits and campaign finance reforms will increase turnover, but they provide no mechanism for improved deliberation and accountability. Building on the success of citizen juries and deliberative polling, Gastil proposes improving our current process by convening randomly selected panels of citizens to deliberate for several days on ballot measures and candidates. Voters would learn about the judgments of these citizen panels through voting guides and possibly information printed on official ballots. The result would be a more representative government and a less cynical public. America has a long history of experimentation with electoral systems, and the proposals in By Popular Demand merit serious consideration and debate
Member of
Cataloging source
N$T
Dewey number
324.6/3/0973
Government publication
government publication of a state province territory dependency etc
Index
index present
Language note
English
LC call number
JK1764
LC item number
.G37 2000eb
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
  • dictionaries
  • bibliography
Structured data from the Bibframe namespace is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by University of Missouri Libraries. Additional terms may apply to data associated with third party namespaces.
Processing Feedback ...