Representative Government Books

The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans

William R. Everdell

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Editorial Review:

Written in clear, lively prose, The End of Kings traces the history of republican governments and the key figures that are united by the simple republican maxim: No man shall rule alone. Breathtaking in its scope, Everdell's book moves from the Hebrew Bible, Solon's Athens and Brutus's Rome to the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson and the Watergate proceedings during which Nixon resigned. Along the way, he carefully builds a definition of "republic" which distinguishes democratic republics from aristocratic ones for both history and political science. In a new foreword, Everdell addresses the impeachment trial of President Clinton and argues that impeachment was never meant to punish private crimes. Ultimately, Everdell's brilliant analysis helps us understand how examining the past can shed light on the present.

"[An] energetic, aphoristic, wide-ranging book."—Marcus Cunliffe, Washington Post Book World

"Ambitious in conception and presented in a clear and sprightly prose. . . . [This] excellent study . . . is the best statement of the republican faith since Alphonse Aulard's essays almost a century ago." —Choice

"A book which ought to be in the hand of every American who agrees with Benjamin Franklin that the Founding Fathers gave us a Republic and hoped that we would be able to keep it."-Sam J. Ervin, Jr.

BEYOND WESTMINSTER CONGRESS: THE NORDIC EXPERIENCE (PARLIAMENTS & LEGISLATURES)

PETER ESAIASSON

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Editorial Review:

n Beyond Westminster and Congress, thirteen scholars characterize parliamentary life and procedures in five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. Although there are important institutional similarities among the five systemsall have unicameral parliaments that share common roots in the political history of the regionthere are theoretically interesting differences among the five systems as well. These similarities and differences make the Nordic countries particularly interesting subjects for analysis.

The book had its genesis at the Nordic Political Science Association Conference in Oslo in 1993, where several of the contributors met to discuss the possibility of coordinating parliamentary surveys already underway in some of the Nordic countries. The five-nation project Nordic Legislature and Legislators was started shortly thereafter, and members of the research group met on several occasions over the next few years to organize their research. The collaborative nature of this project makes it a particularly valuable contribution to our understanding of how parliaments work.

The book begins by setting the Scandinavian parliaments in their historical and national settings. Part 1 analyzes political representation in the Nordic countries, focusing on the links between representatives and the represented. Part 2 analyzes parliamentary organization, the different roles of committees, parties, and leadership. In part 3, the analysis turns to parliamentary decision making, including the influence of interest groups and the executive. Finally, the authors consider relations between the national parliaments and the larger European setting, including representation in the European Parliament.

The Personal Vote: Constituency Service and Electoral Independence

Bruce Cain, John Ferejohn, Morris Fiorina

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Editorial Review:

Modern legislators are increasingly motivated to serve their constituents in personal ways. Representatives act like ultimate ombudsmen: they keep in close touch with their constituents and try to cultivate a relationship with them based on service and accessibility. The Personal Vote describes the behavior of representatives in the United States and Great Britain and the response of their constituents as well. It shows how congressmen and members of Parliament earn personalized support and how this attenuates their ties to national leaders and parties.

The larger significance of this empirical work arises from its implications for the structure of legislative institutions and the nature of legislative action. Personalized electoral support correlates with decentralized governing institutions and special-interest policy making. Such systems tend to inconsistency and stalemate. The United States illustrates a mature case of this development, and Britain is showing the first movements in this direction with the decline of an established two-party system, the rise of a centrist third party, greater volatility in the vote, growing backbench independence and increasing backbench pressure for committees and staff.

This book is essential for specialists in American national government, British politics, and comparative legislatures and comparative parties.

Crisis at the Polls: An Electoral Reform Handbook

Robert M. Hardaway

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If free and fair elections are the heart of our prized democratic system of government, the integrity of our electoral system must be beyond question. Yet all too often, flaws in the administration of our elections have undermined public confidence in the results. This volume is virtually unique in focusing closely on the procedural problems of our electoral system, including those posed by the computerization of voting systems. The author analyzes events in the electoral history of the United States (and, tangentially, of certain other nations) to reveal the particular dynamics of democratic electoral systems that permit purportedly free and fair elections to subvert rather than express the public will. Past electoral crises shedding light on our electoral deficiencies are chronicled in detail, allowing the author to diagnose systemic failures that can, he contends, be remedied in order to strengthen our democratic system. Chapters focus on current laws and procedures regarding voter registration, provisional ballots, absentee ballots, computerized voting systems, and the Electoral College. The author recommends specific reforms in all these areas that will safeguard our democratic heritage and ensure that the voice of the people is heard. The book presents often-complex material in lucid prose, illuminating issues vital to democracy. BLSystematic exploration of election administration BLHistorical and comparative perspective BLChronology BLGlossary BLAnnotated bibliography of print and electronic materials for further study

Representative Government in Modern Europe

Michael Gallagher, Michael Laver, Peter Mair

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Uniting theory and application, the third edition of Representative Government in Modern Europe continues the tradition of previous editions by first examining the themes, debates, developments and structures driving European politics, and then investigating the way in which the theories behind them are manifested, comparing the historical development, distinct interpretations and present condition of several major European governments. A thematically arranged text which introduces readers to current debates among those who analyze European politics, the 3rd edition of Representation Government in Modern Europe delves into the evolution of European politics as we embark on the 21st century. Since the last edition, astonishing changes have occurred on the political scene in Europe. Democratic transformations have taken place throughout the East, along with the emergence of a strong European Union. These two topics, as well as the state of economics in the region, have dominated the previous decade in Europe and are discussed throughout the 3rd edition.

Voice, Trust, and Memory

Melissa S. Williams

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Does fair political representation for historically disadvantaged groups require their presence in legislative bodies? The intuition that women are best represented by women, and African-Americans by other African-Americans, has deep historical roots. Yet the conception of fair representation that prevails in American political culture and jurisprudence--what Melissa Williams calls "liberal representation"--concludes that the social identity of legislative representatives does not bear on their quality as representatives. Liberal representation's slogan, "one person, one vote," concludes that the outcome of the electoral and legislative process is fair, whatever it happens to be, so long as no voter is systematically excluded. Challenging this notion, Williams maintains that fair representation is powerfully affected by the identity of legislators and whether some of them are actually members of the historically marginalized groups that are most in need of protection in our society.

Williams argues first that the distinctive voice of these groups should be audible within the legislative process. Second, she holds that the self-representation of these groups is necessary to sustain their trust in democratic institutions. The memory of state-sponsored discrimination against these groups, together with ongoing patterns of inequality along group lines, provides both a reason to recognize group claims and a way of distinguishing stronger from weaker claims. The book closes by proposing institutions that can secure fair representation for marginalized groups without compromising principles of democratic freedom and equality.

The Blue Guitar: Political Representation and Community

Nancy L. Schwartz

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Americans conceive of the process of political representation as operating like a "transmission belt." Elections convey citizens' preferences unchanged into the legislative assembly and thereby allow them to participate, through their representatives, in the political affairs of the nation. This conception stands firmly in the tradition of liberal thought, as does much theory about political representation. In that tradition, government is defined primarily in terms of power, and elections are little more than the means by which that power is transferred from the people to their representatives.

In The Blue Guitar (the title alludes to a poem by Wallace Stevens), Nancy L. Schwartz offers a radically new understanding of representation. As she sees it, representatives should be—and, in the past, have been—more than mere delegates or trustees of individual desires and interests and the process of representation more than the appropriation of power and control. Ideally, representation should transform both representative and citizen. Representatives should be caretakers of the community, not the watchdogs of special interest groups or individuals. Citizens in turn should feel increased personal responsibility for the whole that membership in the community entails. Moreover, representatives should serve as founders of their constituencies, constituting communities whose members value citizenship as an end in itself.

In her analysis, Schwartz canvasses the political experience of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance city-states to discover the communitarian meaning of citizenship, and she draws on classical political theory from Plato to Rousseau and Hegel, on the political sociology of Marx and Weber, and on such contemporary theorists as Arendt and Pitkin. Schwartz also enters the controversy over whether local, state, and national legislators should be selected by district or at-large elections. After examining a set of key Supreme Court cases on voting rights and district elections, she proposes that representatives come from single-member geographic districts.

FREEDOM AND FEDERALISM

FELIX MORLEY

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An Introduction to, and Survey of, Federalism 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

An excellent survey of Federalism, exploring its origin and development in the United States, as well as the prospects for Federalism around the world. Morley discusses the evils of centralized democracy, and how democracy is controlled by Federalist principles, in the interest of individual rights. He then goes on to explain the effects of the Fourteenth and Sixteenth Ammendments, and the policies of FDR. Factors to restore Federalism in the U.S. are also discussed. Highly educational, and its 1960 copyright makes it more interesting for younger readers, offering a window into the cold war outlook of the 1950's

Federalism: A Distinctively American Contribution to Political Science 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

~Freedom and Federalism~ is an intriguging perspective of federalism than and now... Felix Morley was a prominent conservative journalist and editor for Human Events. Freedom and Federalism was first published in 1950's and offers an honest assessment of federalism since the inception of the American Republic in 1787. "Federalism," affirms Morley, "is a distinctively American contribution to political art," which makes the reconciliation of liberty and order possible. He also critiques 'democracy' and 'democratism' with a brutally honest and prudent wisdom, which makes Morley a brilliant citizen-statesmen in the spirit of the founding fathers.

"In Morley's eyes," the cover notes, "a government of free men is like a strong-standing arch. The solid stones of which it is built is called freedom. Neither the building blocks of individual liberty nor the arch of freedom will stand secure without the keystone of federalism. It is federalism that holds up the arch. It is federalism that makes possible the preservation of both liberty and freedom. And the name of the arch is Republic-not Democracy." This book affirms that America was founded as a Republic, not a Democracy. Edmund Randolph avows, "The general object," of the constitutional convention, was "to provide a cure for the evils under which the United States labored; that in tracing these evils to their origin, every man had found it in the turbelence and follies of democracy." "The U.S. was conceived and framed as a constitutionally limited federal republic with limits not only on the powers of government but on that of majority rule. Succinctly stated, the fundamental purpose of government was to protect life, liberty and property. The founders were weary of unchecked democracy, majoritarian tyranny and the redistributive threat that democracy posed to property rights. In an absolute democracy, everything is potentially up for a vote, including your God-given natural rights. Under republican government, the rule of law is supreme and the rights of the individual are paramount. Thus, as Morley recognizes, the founders made few concessions to democracy and sought to localize it. Even Thomas Jeffesron, purported to be the most 'democratic' of the founders recognizes that "A democracy [is] the only pure republic, but impracticable beyond the limits of a town."

Morley analyzes Rousseau's concept of the "general will," which is a pretense for legitimizing majoritarian tyranny under the auspices of 'totalitarian democracy.' He points out how the design of federalism thwarts a general will. Morley also has no delusions of grandeur about federalism today. (Note that this book was written in the 1950's.) He rightly recognizes a steady erosion of original intent and the principles of federalism has led to centralization and a precariously unconstitutional balance of power between the federal government and states. It is little wonder that the word 'federal' has taken on a pejorative context while exemplifying centralization and bureaucracy. The word 'Federal' was derived from the Latin 'Foedus,' which translates to 'covenant' and thus 'Federalism' and 'Constitutionalism' goes hand in hand.

The culmination of big government machinations such as the Civil War, Reconstruction, New Deal, and the Great Society has usurped the constitutional order and has in many cases reduced the states to mere creatures of the federal government. Morley offers insights on historical developments such as the the Civil War, the problems presented by the 14th Amendment for jurisprudence, the nationalizing effects of commercialization, war preparation, empire building which began after the Civil War and went full circle under Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

The Meaning of American Federalism: Constituting a Self-Governing Society

Vincent Ostrom

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The Modern Presidency and Crisis Rhetoric (Praeger Series in Political Communication)

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Editorial Review:

This volume examines how presidents from Truman to Bush rhetorically approached and managed political, military, judicial, legislative, and economic crises during their presidencies. Editor Amos Kiewe assembles new essays by communications scholars who look at rhetoric initiated during national crises, and account for various rhetorical developments affected by crises, changes in presidential rhetoric, and rhetorical and situational crisis constraints. Their studies suggest similarities in rhetoric in different types of crises, and yield resources for postulating patterns of crisis rhetoric. Each chapter's author presents a crisis rhetoric "case study," analyzing initial strategies and tactics, shifts in rhetorical tactics, adjustments of discourse to particular phases in the crises, and unique rhetorical approaches designed to accommodate unexpected turns of events. The contributors discuss how presidents use rhetorical inventions, flip-flops, face-saving posturing, and even silence to diffuse crises. Specific topics include Eisenhower's response to the constitutional crisis in Little Rock, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall crisis, Johnson and the Kennedy assassination, Nixon and Watergate, and Bush and the Persian Gulf Crisis. Recommended for political scientists and communication theorists.