Responsive Democracy
Responsive Democracy

Author: Jeeyang Rhee Baum

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2011-02-10

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 0472025732

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"Responsive Democracy is a pioneering contribution to the political analysis of administrative law in East Asia. Both political scientists and legal academics will greatly benefit from the author's in-depth analysis of the intersection between presidential power and administrative law in the contrasting cases of South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines." ---Susan Rose-Ackerman, Yale University Law School "Baum's book is a very significant contribution because it focuses on a part of the world that has often been neglected in studies of democratization. It focuses attention on the nuts and bolts of what we mean by democratic consolidation and responsiveness. Indeed, if more political science were written with this clarity, we would all enjoy reading the literature much more!" ---Joseph Fewsmith, Boston University Under what conditions is a newly democratic government likely to increase transparency, accountability, and responsiveness to its citizens? What incentives might there be for bureaucrats, including those appointed by a previously authoritarian government, to carry out the wishes of an emerging democratic regime? Responsive Democracy addresses an important problem in democratic transition and consolidation: the ability of the chief executive to control the state bureaucracy. Using three well-chosen case studies---the Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan---Jeeyang Rhee Baum explores the causes and consequences of codifying rules and procedures in a newly democratic government. In the Philippines, a president facing opposition has the option of appointing and dismissing officials at will and, therefore, has no need for administrative procedure acts. However, in South Korea and Taiwan, presidents employ such legislation to rein in recalcitrant government agencies, and, as a consequence, increase transparency, accountability, and responsiveness. Moreover, as Baum demonstrates by drawing upon surveys conducted both before and after implementation, administrative procedural reforms in South Korea and Taiwan improved public confidence in and attitudes toward democratic institutions. Jeeyang Rhee Baum is a Research Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Adaptive Governance
Adaptive Governance

Author: Ronald D. Brunner

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 0231136250

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Drawing case studies, the authors of this work examine how adaptive governance breaks the gridlock in natural-resource policy. Unlike scientific management, which relies on science as the foundation for policies made through a central authority, adaptive governance integrates other types of knowledge into the decision-making process. The authors emphasize the need for open decision making, recognition of multiple interests in questions of natural-resource policy, and an integrative, interpretive science to replace traditional reductive, experimental science.

Rethinking Democratic Accountability
Rethinking Democratic Accountability

Author: Robert D. Behn

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2004-05-26

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 9780815798101

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Traditionally, American government has created detailed, formal procedures to ensure that its agencies and employees are accountable for finances and fairness. Now in the interest of improved performance, we are asking our front-line workers to be more responsive, we are urging our middle managers to be innovative, and we are exhorting our public executives to be entrepreneurial. Yet what is the theory of democratic accountability that empowers public employees to exercise such discretion while still ensuring that we remain a government of laws? How can government be responsive to the needs of individual citizens and still remain accountable to the entire polity? In Rethinking Democratic Accountability, Robert D. Behn examines the ambiguities, contradictions, and inadequacies in our current systems of accountability for finances, fairness, and performance. Weaving wry observations with political theory, Behn suggests a new model of accountability—with "compacts of collective, mutual responsibility"—to address new paradigms for public management.

Towards the Local Government’s Integrated Accountability Framework
Towards the Local Government’s Integrated Accountability Framework

Author: Habib Muhammad Shahib

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-01-29

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 9813366176

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This book shows the growing phenomenon and the broad impact of socio-environmental conflicts in the grassroots communities—farmers, fishermen and urban poor—in Indonesia, as the effects of government’s development strategies based on neoliberal and New Public Management (NPM) views without a clear accountability system or socio-environmental accountability practices and reports are becoming apparent. Inspired by the emancipatory socio-environmental accounting discourse, which focuses on the socio-local context in developing alternative models of accountability based on local views and people's aspirations, this book uses research methodology based on the principles put forth by Indonesian national hero and critical scholar Tan Malaka to develop a framework of integrated accountability for the local government. This book fills the present gap in English publications that analyse the intents and outcomes of the public management reforms in Indonesia with regard to socio-environmental issues, as a basis for further research at the international level as well as policymaking in Indonesia. As the Indonesian government has recently undertaken key structural and accounting reforms in the public sector, this book is a timely and valuable read for graduate students, researchers,- and policymakers.

Elections and Democracy
Elections and Democracy

Author: Jacques Thomassen

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2014-07-03

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0191025631

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Elections and Democracy addresses the contrast between two different views on representative democracy. According to the first view elections are a mechanism to hold government accountable. In the second view elections are primarily a means to ensure that citizens' views and interests are properly represented in the democratic process. The majoritarian and consensus models of democracy are the embodiment in institutional structures of these two different views of democracy. In the majoritarian view the single most important function of an election is the selection of a government. The concentration of power in the hands of an elected majority government makes it accountable to the people. In consensus models of democracy, or proportional systems, the major function of elections is to elect the members of parliament who together should be as representative as possible of the electorate as a whole. The criterion for the democratic quality of the system is how representative parliament really is. The book explores how far these different views and their embodiment in institutional structures influence vote choice, political participation and satisfaction with the functioning of democracy. The volume is based on data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), a comparative study across 36 countries. The general conclusion of the book is that formal political institutions are less relevant for people's attitudes and behavior than often presumed. Rather than formal political institutions like the electoral system it seems to be characteristics of the party system like polarization and the clarity of responsibility that really matter. The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) is a collaborative program of research among election study teams from around the world. Participating countries include a common module of survey questions in their post-election studies. The resulting data are deposited along with voting, demographic, district, and macro variables. The studies are then merged into a single, free, public dataset for use in comparative study and cross-level analysis. The set of volumes in this series is based on these CSES modules, and the volumes address the key theoretical issues and empirical debates in the study of elections and representative democracy. Some of the volumes will be organized around the theoretical issues raised by a particular module, while others will be thematic in their focus. Taken together, these volumes will provide a rigorous and ongoing contribution to understanding the expansion and consolidation of democracy in the twenty-first century. Series editors: Hans-Dieter Klingemann and Ian McAllister