A global ‘associational revolution’ appears to be underway in many parts of the world and the rise of private voluntary organizations is beginning to have significant impacts on many nations’ democratic governance (Salamon, 1993; Kim, 2003). The rise of third sector organizations (TSOs) or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the decline of nationstates are changing not only the way societ...

This paper is based upon the STeM MUDIA report, Prognastic study of media content usage – The users role in online news, by Brian Trench and Gary Quinn, July 2002. The study aimed to establish, if in the context of more immediately interactive media technologies, a demand-driven, or more dialogic information practice can be, or is being developed, and how this sits with established professional...

E-government is a way for governments to use the new technologies to provide citizens, businesses, and government agencies with more convenient access to government information and services, to improve the quality of the services and to provide greater opportunities to participate in democratic institutions and processes. The Webocrat System which will be designed and implemented within the Web...

Previous studies have found large negative e¤ects of direct democracies on government spending. Since they do not control for preference heterogeneity, these estimates su¤er from omitted variable bias. If citizens in areas with stronger direct democracy have lower tastes for government, the restraining e¤ect of institutions is overstated. Exploiting a unique dataset in Switzerland, we demonstra...

It is claimed that Internet technology offers governments the opportunity to engage citizens online and bridge the growing gap between citizens and the state. In the current climate of citizen disengagement this is a potentially important prospect. Academic studies into e-government tend to follow a well-trodden path of technology acceptance, citizens’ willingness and ability to use public serv...

This essay explores the roots of redistributive social solidarity in the developed democracies. Banting and Kymlicka (this volume) define social solidarity as a worldview widespread among the populace, with civic, democratic and redistributive dimensions, whereby individuals tolerate views and practices they dislike, accept democratic decisions even if those run counter to their beliefs or inte...

a r t i c l e i n f o Available online xxxx JEL classification: D72 D78 H44 H73 Keywords: Electoral cycles Electricity supply Night lights India We present evidence from India showing that state governments induce electoral cycles in electricity service provision. Our data and research strategy allow us to build on models of political business cycles and targeted distribution in two important w...

Since the early decades of the 20 th century, an element of international relations has been the notion that democratic ideals are universal and that their spread across the globe can be encouraged by governments. One of the more recent expressions of the idea has been the “democracy promotion” programs funded by official aid agencies of developed democracies, but the idea has changed and evolv...

The article shows how judicial review has expanded around the globe from the United States, Western Europe, and Japan to become a regular feature of constitutional design in Africa and Asia. Although the formal power to exercise judicial review is now nearly universal in democratic states, courts have varied in the extent to which they are willing to exercise this power in practice. After decad...

We provide an political-institutional explanation for the enormous variance in the extent to which democratic governments redistributes income from rich to poor. In addition to the number of veto points, which has been emphasized in the existing literature, we show the importance of the skill system and of the electoral system. The nature of skills is important because it determines the demand ...