Representation: elections and beyond

347 Pages·2013·1.65 MB·English

by  Jack H. Nagel, Rogers M. Smith

Repre sen ta tion
DEMOCRACY, CITIZENSHIP,
AND CONSTITUTIONALISM
Rogers M. Smith and Mary L. Dudziak, Series Editors
REPRESENTATION
Elections and Beyond
Edited by
Jack H. Nagel
and
Rogers M. Smith
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright © 2013 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used
for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this
book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written
permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104- 4112
www .upenn .edu /pennpress
Printed in the United States of America
on acid- free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Representation : elections and beyond / edited by Jack H. Nagel and
Rogers M. Smith — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (Democracy, citizenship, and constitutionalism)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 0- 8122- 4514- 1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Political participation—United States—History—21st century.
2. Elections—United States—History—21st century. I. Nagel, Jack H.
II. Smith, Rogers M., 1953— III. Series
JK1764.R455 2013
324.6'3—dc23 2012041496
CONTENTS
Introduction. Th e Multiplying Challenges of Modern Repre sen ta tion
Rogers M. Smith and Jack H. Nagel 1
I. REPRE SEN TA TION THROUGH ELECTIONS 13
Chapter 1. Evaluating U.S. Electoral Institutions
in Comparative Perspective
André Blais 15
Chapter 2. Are American Elections Suffi ciently Democ ratic?
. Hodgson Dennis F. Th ompson 26
Chapter 3. Barriers to Voting in the Twenty- First Century
Alexander Keyssar 39
Chapter 4. Uneven Democracy: Turnout, Minority Interests,
and Local Government Spending
Zoltan Hajnal and Jessica Trounstine 59
Chapter 5. Fairness and Bias in Electoral Systems
Anthony McGann 90
Chapter 6. Po liti cal Party Organizations, Civic Repre sen ta tion,
and Participation
Georgia Kernell 114
II. REPRE SEN TA TION BEYOND ELECTIONS 137
Chapter 7. Th e Paradox of Voting— for Republicans: Economic
Ine q uali ty, Pol itic al Org an iz at ion, and the American Voter
Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson 139
vi Contents
Chapter 8. A Demo cratic Balance: Bureaucracy, Po liti cal Parties,
and Po liti cal Repre sen ta tion
Pradeep Chhibber and Susan L. Ostermann 166
Chapter 9. Th e Closing of the Frontier: Po liti cal Blogs,
the 2008 Election, and the Online Public Sphere
Matthew Hindman 192
Chapter 10. Th e Technological Basis of Or gan i za tion al Membership:
Repre sen ta tion of Interests in the New Media Age
Dave Karpf 215
Chapter 11. Th e Principle of Aff ected Interests: An Interpretation
and Defense
Archon Fung 236
Chapter 12. Citizen Representatives
Mark E. Warren 269
Notes 295
List of Contributors 315
Index 319
Ac know ledg ments 339
Repre sen ta tion
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Introduction: The Multiplying Challenges
of Modern Repre sen ta tion
Rogers M. Smith and Jack H. Nagel
In any democracy, the central problem of governance is how to inform, or-
ga nize, and represent the opinions of the public so as to promote core values
of pop u lar control over leaders, equality among citizens, and competent gov-
ernance. Th e authors of the Federalist Papers contended that modern repub-
lics improved on ancient democracies in part through novel systems of
pol itic al repres ent at ion that achieved both popu l ar control and civic equality
suffi ciently, while also protecting against incompetence (Hamilton, Madi-
son, and Jay 2009: 43, 51– 52, 321– 22). Th ey also stressed that this third goal
was achieved primarily through “the total exclusion of the people, in their
collective capacity,” from any role in directly deciding on laws and govern-
ment policies (322, italics in original).
Th ey meant that in the new American republics, including the states and
the new national constitutional system, the citizenry’s elected representa-
tives would do all the governing. Th e people’s role was simply to select the
right representatives— and, of course, not all the people even participated in
those proc esses. It is an understatement to say that these views on how early
American forms of democ ratic repres ent at ion might cure what the Federal-
ist authors saw as the evils most incident to popu l ar government have since
been heavily contested and in important respects altered, even as many of
the conditions aff ecting modern democ ratic societies have changed dra-
matically. Yet it is not true that the representative institutions created for
the world’s fi rst large- scale demo cratic republic have been wholly rejected,
2 Introduction
within or outside the United States. Instead, much is still contested and un-
resolved. Complex questions of proper forms of repre sen ta tion remain cen-
tral both to modern democ ratic theory and to modern democ ratic practices.
Th is volume explores a wide range of those questions—a wider range
than most studies of democ ratic repres ent at ion do. Attention, both popu l ar
and scholarly, oft en focuses on voting as the central and essential proc ess in
representative democracy. American pol itic al science, in part icu l ar, has ex-
plored in depth the beliefs and behavior of voters. And not inappropriately:
voting is indeed essential, and several chapters h ere show there are serious
reasons to be concerned about obstacles to voting that remain, and that in
some cases are being added, in the American republics with which the au-
thors of the Federalist were concerned.
Even so, demo cratic repre sen ta tion fully understood encompasses a
great deal more than just voting behavior, and indeed more than just for-
mally competitive elections. As other chapters show, democ ratic governance
at least seems to imply electoral systems that allocate offi ces in ways that
accurately and equally refl ect the preferences of citizens, as well as po liti cal
parties that generate candidates whom citizens desire to have as their repre-
sentatives. It requires government bureaucracies that actually deliver the
programs and ser vices authorized by the people’s elected representatives.
It may well demand a civil society in which some citizens are not so much
better or ga nized and established within po liti cal communications and
decision- making systems that they eclipse most others— and perhaps a civil
society in which many more private as well as public organizations are in-
ternally demo cratic. It is also hard to escape the conclusion that demo cratic
repre sen ta tion requires active pop u lar decision- making on systems of
demo cratic repre sen ta tion themselves— something that rarely occurs.
Yet in the twenty-fi rst century, innovations are burgeoning in all these
areas—i n voting laws and practices, in electoral systems, in administrative,
po liti cal, and civil organizations, in the communication pro cesses that
shape public opinion, even in democ ratic devices for deciding on structures
of democ ratic representation—t hough change in this last, perhaps most
important regard, is coming at a far less dizzying pace than in other areas.
Th e twelve chapters in this volume, written by scholars in pol itic al science,
history, po liti cal theory, and communications whose work spans three con-
tinents as well as national, provincial, and municipal governments, collec-
tively provide a fascinating overview of these issues and developments. Th ey
explore a rich array of the ways in which the beliefs and preferences of