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  3. Theories of Institutional Design

Social scientists have been increasingly concerned with the ways in which social and political institutions shape the patterns of individual interactions that produce social phenomena and with the ways in which those institutions emerge from such interactions. This series is devoted to the exploration of the more normative aspects of these issues. Theories of Institutional Design, published in association with the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, is multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, both in the institutions on which it focuses, and in the methodologies used to study them.

  • General Editors: Robert E. Goodin, Australian National University, Canberra
  • Advisory Editors: Brian Barry, Russell Hardin, Carole Pateman, Barry Weingast, Keith Dowding, Australian National University, Claus Offe, Susan Rose-Ackerman, Jeremy Waldron, New York University School of Law

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21 results in Theories of Institutional Design

Page 1 of 2

Oral Democracy
  • Deliberation in Indian Village Assemblies
  • Paromita Sanyal, Vijayendra Rao
  • Published online:
    18 December 2018
    Print publication:
    20 December 2018
  • Oral Democracy studies citizens' voices in civic and political deliberations in India's gram sabhas (village assemblies), the largest deliberative institution in human history. It analyses nearly three hundred transcripts of gram sabhas, sampled within the framework of a natural experiment, allowing the authors to study how state policy affects the quality of discourse, citizens' discursive performances and state enactments embodied by elected leaders and public officials. By drawing out the varieties of speech apparent in citizen and state interactions, their analysis shows that citizens' oral participation in development and governance can be improved by strengthening deliberative spaces through policy. Even in conditions of high inequality and illiteracy, gram sabhas can create discursive equality by developing the 'oral competence' of citizens and establishing a space in which they can articulate their interests. The authors develop the concept of 'oral democracy' to aid the understanding of deliberative systems in non-Western and developing countries. This title is also available as Open Access.

Deliberative Democracy Now
  • LGBT Equality and the Emergence of Large-Scale Deliberative Systems
  • Edwina Barvosa
  • Published online:
    02 June 2018
    Print publication:
    07 June 2018
  • While millions feel politically marginalized, there is evidence that democracy is evolving into a conversation-based, public-centered practice called deliberative democracy. In this new form of democracy, public discussion, conscious reflection, and collective choice drive democratic governance and have the power to override democratic dysfunction. Illustrating this emerging possibility with examples from 28 years of US public engagement on LGBT equality, this book offers a practical model for the growth of deliberative democracy in which everyone can take part. It identifies the necessary social catalysts, the role of social networks and technology, and key pathways to addressing unconscious bias, hidden fears, and identity based polarization as they were overcome in the LGBT case. It demonstrates how each person can gain voice and influence in a deliberative democracy in which people once again become the true source of political power. This book will interest anyone who cares about the future of democracy.

Critical Elitism
  • Deliberation, Democracy, and the Problem of Expertise
  • Alfred Moore
  • Published online:
    04 July 2017
    Print publication:
    22 June 2017
  • Democracies have a problem with expertise. Expert knowledge both mediates and facilitates public apprehension of problems, yet it also threatens to exclude the public from consequential judgments and decisions located in technical domains. This book asks: how can we have inclusion without collapsing the very concept of expertise? How can public judgment be engaged in expert practices in a way that does not reduce to populism? Drawing on deliberative democratic theory and social studies of science, Critical Elitism argues that expert authority depends ultimately on the exercise of public judgment in a context in which there are live possibilities for protest, opposition and scrutiny. This account points to new ways of looking at the role of civil society, expert institutions, and democratic innovations in the constitution of expert authority within democratic systems. Using the example of climate science, Critical Elitism highlights not only the risks but also the benefits of contesting expertise.

Deliberative Systems
  • Deliberative Democracy at the Large Scale
  • Edited by John Parkinson, Jane Mansbridge
  • Published online:
    05 August 2012
    Print publication:
    05 July 2012
  • 'Deliberative democracy' is often dismissed as a set of small-scale, academic experiments. This volume seeks to demonstrate how the deliberative ideal can work as a theory of democracy on a larger scale. It provides a new way of thinking about democratic engagement across the spectrum of political action, from towns and villages to nation states, and from local networks to transnational, even global systems. Written by a team of the world's leading deliberative theorists, Deliberative Systems explains the principles of this new approach, which seeks ways of ensuring that a division of deliberative labour in a system nonetheless meets both deliberative and democratic norms. Rather than simply elaborating the theory, the contributors examine the problems of implementation in a real world of competing norms, competing institutions and competing powerful interests. This pioneering book will inspire an exciting new phase of deliberative research, both theoretical and empirical.

The Theory of Institutional Design
  • Edited by Robert E. Goodin
  • Published online:
    05 August 2012
    Print publication:
    26 January 1996
  • Problems of institutional design and redesign, structuring and restructuring, acquired particular poignancy through recent developments from eastern Europe to southern Africa. At the same time, scholars in each of several disciplines - political science, economics, sociology, history and philosophy - have increasingly come to appreciate the important independent role that is, and should be, played by institutional factors in social life. In this volume, disparate theories of institutional design given by each of those several disciplines are synthesized and their peculiar power illustrated. Through analysis of examples ranging from changes in the British welfare state through the transition of eastern European societies to the reward structure of the modern university, the contributors emphasize the important interpenetration of normative and empirical issues in theories of institutional design.

Exits, Voices and Social Investment
  • Citizens’ Reaction to Public Services
  • Keith Dowding, Peter John
  • Published online:
    05 May 2012
    Print publication:
    12 April 2012
  • Over fifty years ago, Albert Hirschman argued that dissatisfied consumers could either voice complaint or exit when they were dissatisfied with goods or services. Loyal consumers would voice rather than exit. Hirschman argued that making exit easier from publicly provided services, such as health or education, would reduce voice, taking the richest and most articulate away and this would lead to the deterioration of public services. This book provides the first thorough empirical study of these ideas. Using a modified version of Hirschman's account, examining private and collective voice, and viewing loyalty as a form of social investment, it is grounded on a dedicated five-year panel study of British citizens. Given government policies over the past decade or more which make exit easier from public providers, this is a timely publication for all those who care about the quality of government services.

Just Institutions Matter
  • The Moral and Political Logic of the Universal Welfare State
  • Bo Rothstein
  • Published online:
    01 June 2011
    Print publication:
    13 February 1998
  • In this book Bo Rothstein seeks to defend the universal welfare state against a number of important criticisms which it has faced in recent years. He combines genuine philosophical analysis of normative issues concerning what the state ought to do with empirical political scientific research in public policy examining what the state can do. Issues discussed include the relationship between welfare state and civil society, the privatization of social services, and changing values within society. His analysis centres around the importance of political institutions as both normative and empirical entities, and Rothstein argues that the choice of such institutions at certain formative moments in a country's history is what determines the political support for different types of social policy. He thus explains the great variation among contemporary welfare states in terms of differing moral and political logics which have been set in motion by the deliberate choices of political institutions. The book is an important contribution to both philosophical and political debates about the future of the welfare state.

Corporations, Crime and Accountability
  • Brent Fisse, John Braithwaite
  • Published online:
    11 March 2010
    Print publication:
    28 January 1994
  • In modern society corporate activities frequently result in serious harm, whether to the environment, to victims of industrial accidents, or to persons who suffer loss from fraudulent operations. In such cases who should be held responsible, the corporation or individual employees? This book explains why accountability is rarely imposed under the present law, and proposes solutions which would help to extend responsibility to a wide range of actors. The authors develop an Accountability Model under which the courts and corporations work together to achieve accountability across a broad front.

Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies
  • Rebuilding the Ship at Sea
  • Jon Elster, Claus Offe, Ulrich K. Preuss
  • Published online:
    20 January 2010
    Print publication:
    13 March 1998
  • The authors of this book have developed a new and stimulating approach to the analysis of the transitions of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia to democracy and a market economy. They integrate interdisciplinary theoretical work with elaborate empirical data on some of the most challenging events of the twentieth century. Three groups of phenomena and their causal interconnection are explored: the material legacies, constraints, habits and cognitive frameworks inherited from the past; the erratic configuration of new actors, and new spaces for action; and a new institutional order under which agency is institutionalized and the sustainability of institutions is achieved. The book studies the interrelations of national identities, economic interests, and political institutions with the transformation process, concentrating on issues of constitution making, democratic infrastructure, the market economy, and social policy.

Democratic Innovations
  • Designing Institutions for Citizen Participation
  • Graham Smith
  • Published online:
    19 January 2010
    Print publication:
    02 July 2009
  • Can we design institutions that increase and deepen citizen participation in the political decision making process? At a time when there is growing disillusionment with the institutions of advanced industrial democracies, there is also increasing interest in new ways of involving citizens in the political decisions that affect their lives. This book draws together evidence from a variety of democratic innovations from around the world, including participatory budgeting in Brazil, Citizens' Assemblies on Electoral Reform in Canada, direct legislation in California and Switzerland and emerging experiments in e-democracy. The book offers a rare systematic analysis of this diverse range of democratic innovations, drawing lessons for the future development of both democratic theory and practice.

Deliberative Politics in Action
  • Analyzing Parliamentary Discourse
  • Jürg Steiner, André Bächtiger, Markus Spörndli, Marco R. Steenbergen
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    13 January 2005
  • 'Deliberative politics' refers to the role of conversation and arguments in politics. Until recently discussion of deliberative politics took place almost exclusively among political philosophers, but many questions raised in this philosophical discussion cry out for empirical investigation. This book provides the first extended empirical study of deliberative politics, addressing, in particular, questions of the preconditions and consequences of high level deliberation. Using parliamentary debates in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States as an empirical base, the authors measure the level of deliberation by constructing a 'Discourse Quality Index'. As deliberative politics moves to the forefront of political theory, this book makes an important contribution to deliberative democracy.

Designing Deliberative Democracy
  • The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly
  • Edited by Mark E. Warren, Hilary Pearse
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    07 February 2008
  • Is it possible to advance democracy by empowering ordinary citizens to make key decisions about the design of political institutions and policies? In 2004, the government of British Columbia embarked on a bold democratic experiment: it created an assembly of 160 near-randomly selected citizens to assess and redesign the province's electoral system. The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly represents the first time a citizen body has had the power to reform fundamental political institutions. It was an innovative gamble that has been replicated elsewhere in Canada and in the Netherlands, and is gaining increasing attention in Europe as a democratic alternative for constitution-making and constitutional reform. In the USA, advocates view citizens' assemblies as a means for reforming referendum processes. This book investigates the citizens' assembly in British Columbia to test and refine key propositions of democratic theory and practice.

Post-Communist Democratization
  • Political Discourses across Thirteen Countries
  • John S. Dryzek, Leslie Templeman Holmes
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    13 June 2002
  • Democracy is not just a matter of constitutions, parliaments, elections, parties and the rule of law. In order to see if or how democracy works, we must attend to what people make of it, and what they think they are doing as they engage with politics, or as politics engages them. This book examines the way democracy and democratization are thought about and lived by people in China, Russia and eleven other countries in the post-communist world. It shows how democratic politics (and sometimes authoritarian politics) work in these countries, and generates insights into the prospects for different kinds of political development. The authors explore the implications for what is probable and possible in terms of trajectories of political reform, and examine four roads to democratization: liberal, republican, participatory and statist. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of comparative politics, political theory and post-communist studies.

Putting Trust in the US Budget
  • Federal Trust Funds and the Politics of Commitment
  • Eric M. Patashnik
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    17 August 2000
  • In the United States many important programs are paid from trust funds. At a time when major social insurance funds are facing insolvency, this book provided the first comprehensive study of this significant yet little-studied feature of the American welfare state. Equally importantly, the author investigates an enduring issue in democratic politics: can current officeholders bind their successors? By law, trust funds, which get most of their money from earmarked taxes, are restricted for specific uses. Patashnik asks why these structures were created, and how they have affected political dynamics. He argues that officeholders have used trust funds primarily to reduce political uncertainty, and bind distant futures. Based on detailed case studies of trust funds in a number of policy sectors, he shows how political commitment is a developmental process, whereby precommitments shape the content of future political conflicts. This book will be of interest to students of public policy, political economy and American political development.

Policy-Making and Diversity in Europe
  • Escape from Deadlock
  • Adrienne Héritier
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    28 November 1999
  • Policy-Making and Diversity in Europe examines the European polity and its policy-making processes. In particular, it asks how an institution which is so riddled with veto points manages to be such an active and aggressive policy maker. Héritier argues that the diversity of actors' interests and the consensus-forcing nature of European institutions would almost inevitably stall the decision-making process, were it not for the existence of creative informal strategies and policy-making patterns. Termed by the author 'subterfuge', these strategies prevent political impasses and 'make Europe work'. The book examines the presence of subterfuge in the policy domains of market-making, the provision of collective goods, redistribution and distribution. Subterfuge is seen to reinforce the primary functions of the European polity: the accommodation of diversity, policy innovation and democratic legitimation. Professor Héritier concludes that the use of subterfuge to reconcile unity with diversity and competition with co-operation is the greatest challenge facing European policy-making.

Democratic Devices and Desires
  • Geoffrey Brennan, Alan Hamlin
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    13 April 2000
  • This book offers an account of key features of modern representative democracy. Working from the rational actor tradition, it builds a middle ground between orthodox political theory and the economic analysis of politics. Standard economic models of politics emphasise the design of the institutional devices of democracy as operated by essentially self-interested individuals. This book departs from that model by focusing on democratic desires alongside democratic devices, stressing that important aspects of democracy depend on the motivation of democrats and the interplay between devices and desires. Individuals are taken to be not only rational, but also somewhat moral. The authors argue that this approach provides access to aspects of the debate on democratic institutions that are beyond the narrowly economic model. They apply their analysis to voting, elections, representation, political departments and the separation and division of powers, providing a wide-ranging discussion of the design of democratic institutions.

Social Traps and the Problem of Trust
  • Bo Rothstein
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    06 October 2005
  • A 'social trap' is a situation where individuals, groups or organisations are unable to cooperate owing to mutual distrust and lack of social capital, even where cooperation would benefit all. Examples include civil strife, pervasive corruption, ethnic discrimination, depletion of natural resources and misuse of social insurance systems. Much has been written attempting to explain the problem, but rather less material is available on how to escape it. In this book, Bo Rothstein explores how social capital and social trust are generated and what governments can do about it. He argues that it is the existence of universal and impartial political institutions together with public policies which enhance social and economic equality that creates social capital. By introducing the theory of collective memory into the discussion, Rothstein makes an empirical and theoretical claim for how universal institutions can be established.

Deliberative Policy Analysis
  • Understanding Governance in the Network Society
  • Edited by Maarten A. Hajer, Hendrik Wagenaar
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    15 May 2003
  • What kind of policy analysis is required now that governments increasingly encounter the limits of governing? Exploring the contexts of politics and policy making, this 2003 book presents an original analysis of the relationship between state and society, and new possibilities for collective learning and conflict resolution. The key insight of the book is that democratic governance calls for a new deliberatively-oriented policy analysis. Traditionally policy analysis has been state-centered, based on the assumption that central government is self-evidently the locus of governing. Drawing on detailed empirical examples, the book examines the influence of developments such as increasing ethnic and cultural diversity, the complexity of socio-technical systems, and the impact of transnational arrangements on national policy making. This contextual approach indicates the need to rethink the relationship between social theory, policy analysis, and politics. The book is essential reading for all those involved in the study of public policy.

The Politics of Quasi-Government
  • Hybrid Organizations and the Dynamics of Bureaucratic Control
  • Jonathan G. S. Koppell
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    04 September 2003
  • Hybrid organizations, governmental entities that mix characteristics of private and public sector organizations, are increasingly popular mechanisms for implementing public policy. Koppell assesses the performance of the growing quasi-government in terms of accountability and control. Comparing hybrids to traditional government agencies in three policy domains - export promotion, housing and international development - Koppell argues that hybrid organizations are more difficult to control largely due to the fact that hybrids behave like regulated organizations rather than extensions of administrative agencies. Providing a rich conception of the bureaucratic control problem, Koppell also argues that hybrid organizations are intrinsically less responsive to the political preferences of their political masters and suggests that as policy tools they are inappropriate for some tasks. This book provides a timely study of an important administrative and political phenomenon.

Democracy in Divided Societies
  • Electoral Engineering for Conflict Management
  • Benjamin Reilly
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    13 September 2001
  • Democracy is inherently difficult in societies divided along deep ethnic cleavages. Elections in such societies will often encourage 'centrifugal' politics which reward extremist ethnic appeals, zero-sum political behaviour and ethnic conflict, and which consequently often lead to the breakdown of democracy. Reilly examines the potential of 'electoral engineering' as a mechanism of conflict management in divided societies. He focuses on the little-known experience of a number of divided societies which have used preferential, vote-pooling electoral systems - such as Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland and Fiji. Examination of these cases shows that electoral systems which encourage bargaining between rival political actors, which promote the development of broad-based, aggregative political parties and which present campaigning politicians with incentives to attract votes from a range of ethnic groups can, under certain conditions, encourage the development of moderate, accommodatory political competition in divided societies.

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