Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies

Presents a comprehensive account of the institutions of democratic delegation in West European parliamentary democracies. Written by an international team of contributors, this book provides cross-national investigations of West European political institutions since 1945.

Klappentext

Comparative Politics is a series for students and teachers of political science that deals with contemporary issues in comparative government and politics. The General Editors are Max Kaase, Professor of Political Science, Vice President and Dean, School of Humanities and Social Science, International University Bremen, Germany; and Kenneth Newton, Professor of Comparative Politics, University of Southampton. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. Today, parliamentarism is the most common form of democratic government. Yet knowledge of this regime type has been incomplete and often unsystematic. Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies offers new conceptual clarity on the topic. This book argues that representative democracies can be understood as chains of delegation and accountability between citizens and politicians. Under parliamentary democracy, this chain of delegation is simple but also long and indirect. Principal-agent theory helps us to understand the perils of democratic delegation, which include the problems of adverse selection and moral hazard. Citizens in democratic states, therefore, need institutional mechanisms by which they can control their representatives. The most important such control mechanisms are on the one hand political parties and on the other external constraints such as courts, central banks, referendums, and supranational institutions such as those of the European Union. Traditionally, parliamentary democracies have relied heavily on political parties and presidential systems more on external constraints. This new empirical investigation includes all seventeen West European parliamentary democracies. These countries are compared in a series of cross-national tables and figures, and seventeen country chapters provide a wealth of information on four discrete stages in the delegation process: delegation from voters to parliamentary representatives, delegation from parliament to the prime minister and cabinet, delegation within the cabinet, and delegation from cabinet ministers to civil servants. Each chapter illustrates how political parties serve as bonding instruments which align incentives and permit citizen control of the policy process. This is complemented by a consideration of external constraints. The concluding chapters go on to consider how well the problems of delegation and accountability are solved in these countries. They show that political systems with cohesive and competitive parties and strong mechanisms of external constraint solve their democratic agency problems better than countries with weaker control mechanisms. But in many countries political parties are now weakening, and parliamentary systems face new democratic challenges. Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies provides an unprecedented guide to contemporary European parliamentary democracies. As democratic governance is transformed at the dawn of the twenty-first century, it illustrates the important challenges faced by the parliamentary democracies of Western Europe.

Zusammenfassung
This is the most ambitious and comprehensive account of the institutions of democratic delegation in West European parliamentary democracies. An international team of contributors provides unprecedented cross-national investigations of West European political institutions from 1945 until the present day.

Inhalt

• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Section 1: Introduction and Theory
• 1: Wolfgang C. Müller, Torbjörn Bergman, and Kaare Strøm: Parliamentary Democracy: Promise and Problems
• 2: Arthur Lupia: Delegation and its Perils
• 3: Kaare Strøm: Parliamentary Democracy and Delegation
• Section 2: Survey
• 4: Torbjörn Bergman, Wolfgang C. Müller, Kaare Strøm, and Magnus Blomgren: Democratic Delegation and Accountability: Cross-National Patterns
• 5: Wolfgang C. Müller: Austria: Imperfect Parliamentarism but Fully-Fledged Party Democracy
• 6: Lieven de Winter and Patrick Dumont: Belgium: Delegation and Accountability under Partitocratic Rule
• 7: Erik Damgaard: Denmark: Delegation and Accountability in Minority Situations
• 8: Tapio Raunio and Matti Wiberg: Finland: Polarized Pluralism in the Shadow of a Strong President
• 9: Jean-Louis Thiébault: France: Delegation and Accountability in the Fifth Republic
• 10: Thomas Saalfeld: Germany: Multiple Veto Points, Informal Co-ordination, and Problems of Hidden Action
• 11: Georgios Trantas, Paraskevi Zagoriti, Torbjörn Bergman, Wolfgang C. Müller, and Kaare Strøm: Greece: 'Rationalizing' Constitutional Powers in a Post-Dictatorial Country
• 12: Svanur Kristjánsson: Iceland: A Parliamentary Democracy with a Semi-Presidential Constitution
• 13: Paul Mitchell: Ireland: 'O What a Tangled Web...' - Delegation, Accountability, and Executive Power
• 14: Luca Verzichelli: Italy: Delegation and Accountability in a Changing Parliamentary Democracy
• 15: Patrick Dumont and Lieven De Winter: Luxembourg: A Case of More 'Direct' Delegation and Accountability
• 16: Arco Timmermans and Rudy B. Andeweg: The Netherlands: Rules and Mores in Delegation and Accountability Relationships
• 17: Kaare Strøm and Hanne Marthe Narud: Norway: Virtual Parliamentarism
• 18: Octavio Amorim Neto: Portugal: Changing Patterns of Delegation and Accountability under the President's Watchful Eyes
• 19: Carlos Flores Juberías: Spain: Delegation and Accountability in a Newly Established Democracy
• 20: Torbjörn Bergman: Sweden: From Separation of Power to Parliamentary Supremacy - and Back Again?
• 21: Thomas Saalfeld: The United Kingdom: Still a Single 'Chain of Command'? The Hollowing Out of the 'Westminster Model'
• Section 3: Analysis and Conclusion
• 22: Kaare Strøm, Wolfgang C. Müller, Torbjörn Bergman, and Benjamin Nyblade: Dimensions of Citizen Control
• 23: Kaare Strøm, Wolfgang C. Müller, and Torbjörn Bergman: Challenges to Parliamentary Democracy