Legislative voting and accountability / John M. Carey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Carey, John M., author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in comparative politics.

Cambridge studies in comparative politics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Legislative bodies--Voting.

Legislative bodies.

Representative government and representation.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 199 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Other Title:

Legislative Voting & Accountability

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Summary:

Legislatures are the core representative institutions in modern democracies. Citizens want legislatures to be decisive, and they want accountability, but they are frequently disillusioned with the representation legislators deliver. Political parties can provide decisiveness in legislatures, and they may provide collective accountability, but citizens and political reformers frequently demand another type of accountability from legislators - at the individual level. Can legislatures provide both kinds of accountability? This book considers what collective and individual accountability require and provides the most extensive cross-national analysis of legislative voting undertaken to date. It illustrates the balance between individualistic and collective representation in democracies, and how party unity in legislative voting shapes that balance. In addition to quantitative analysis of voting patterns, the book draws on extensive field and archival research to provide an extensive assessment of legislative transparency throughout the Americas.

Contents:

To whom are legislators accountable?

Collective accountability and its discontents

The supply of visible votes

Demand for visible votes

Counting votes

Explaining voting unity

The individual-collective balance.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 181-193) and index.

ISBN:

1-107-20041-5

9786612001635

0-511-47997-2

1-282-00163-9

0-511-81007-5

0-511-48077-6

0-511-47757-0

0-511-47612-4

0-511-47909-3

OCLC:

476234549