scholarly journals Elite Identity and Political Accountability: A Tale of Ten Islands

2020 ◽  
Vol 130 (631) ◽  
pp. 1995-2029
Author(s):  
Jean-Paul Carvalho ◽  
Christian Dippel

Abstract Emancipation of slaves in the 1830s transformed the political elites of the British Caribbean plantation islands. New elites were more accountable to the citizenry. We develop a theory in which two factors limit and possibly reverse the effect of this on political outcomes, with legislators: (i) ‘stepping up’ to pass extractive policies; and/or (ii) weakening democratic institutions. The theory is supported by an historical analysis of ten Caribbean plantation islands, based on original archival data on legislator race, occupation and roll-call voting. Eventually, all assemblies that experienced a significant change in composition dissolved themselves and converted to British ‘Crown Rule’.

Author(s):  
Cristina Lafont

This chapter considers purely epistemic conceptions of deliberative democracy. For advocates of this approach the value of democratic procedures is a function of the quality of their outcomes. They also assume that the quality of outcomes is a function of the quality of the knowledge generated by the best decision makers. On this basis, epistocrats recommend that citizens blindly defer to the political decisions of experts (be it political elites or a representative sample of the population) to reach better political outcomes. This approach misses the democratic significance of public deliberation. By reducing the epistemic function of deliberation to the aim of figuring out the best policies, it disregards another crucial epistemic function of deliberation—ensuring that the policies in question can be justified to those who must comply with them and without whose cooperation the intended outcomes will not materialize. Thus, if we care about outcomes we must abandon the temptation of the “expertocratic shortcut” and focus on improving the processes of opinion- and will-formation in which citizens participate so that better outcomes can actually be achieved.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael T. Rock

Political elites in East Asia have opted for a set of democratic institutions with a strong majoritarian bias that privilege efficiency and accountability over representativeness. Some have labeled these democracies “democratic developmental states.” Because the political architects of East Asia's democratic developmental states have met at least some of their objectives, it is time to ask, What has been the impact of the shift to majoritarianism on growth? I answer this question empirically by demonstrating that the contribution to growth from majoritarian democratic institutions in East Asia is as large as that from the region's developmentally oriented authoritarian governments.


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Tausanovitch ◽  
Christopher Warshaw

Over the past decade, a number of new measures have been developed that attempt to capture the political orientation of both incumbent and nonincumbent candidates for Congress, as well as other offices, on the same scale. These measures pose the possibility of being able to answer a host of fundamental questions about political accountability and representation. In this paper, we examine the properties of six recent measures of candidates’ political orientations in different domains. While these measures are commonly viewed as proxies for ideology, each involves very different choices, incentives, and contexts. Indeed, we show that there is only a weak relationship between these measures within party. This suggests that these measures are capturing domain-specific factors rather than just candidates’ ideology. Moreover, these measures do poorly at distinguishing between moderate and extreme roll call voting records within each party. As a result, they fall short when it comes to facilitating empirical analysis of theories of accountability and representation in Congress. Overall, our findings suggest that future research should leverage the conceptual and empirical variation across these measures and avoid assuming they are synonymous with candidates’ ideology.


2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nasiwan Nasiwan

Before the General Election to choose the legislative members, that is held on April 5, 2005 and President General Election, that is held on June 5 and September 20, 2004, there was a political phenomenon, which then popularly said "a political contract. " The political contract was initiated by some elements of 'the civil society', which were the important components of the political power of pro-reform community. Looking at the cultural side, the existence of the political contract in the development of Indonesian politics implied that there was a change in cognitive, affective and evaluation  orientation of some of Indonesian people in their attitudes and political habits to be more rational.  The emergence of the more-rational political orientation was also pushed by the previous political experience of ''being betrayed by the political elite ', just like in 1999 General Election at the reform era. The chance also rose after the changes in the system of General Election that introduced the district and proportional system, and the direct president election that rose up the important of people's vote and aspiration. The changes had pushed the political elites to approach the people, fit themselves with the people's rhythm and dynamism, including the aspiration for political transparency and political accountability by willing to sign the political contract. 


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 113-118
Author(s):  
Bekim Baliqi

Abstract This research aims to explore the relationship between the universities and political elite formation based on the case study of Kosovo. The key questions raised throughout the research are; how do the universities influence the formation of the political elites and how were the elites changed throughout time? Analysing these relationships in different periods, each with a different impact on the elite building processes, namely from the establishment of the University of Prishtina until recently. Central assumption here is that higher education institutions were the catalyst in the transformation of the political elites. Being a vital source of power, a control over it represents also a struggle for power between the rival forces with different political outcomes. Theoretical framework consists of John Higley approach on the elite formation, based in the context of post-conflict and divided society, such as Kosovo case.


Author(s):  
Wendy J. Schiller ◽  
Charles Stewart

This chapter integrates findings on indirect elections with current scholarship on the impact of the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment and onset of direct elections. It constructs a comprehensive counterfactual analysis that helps demonstrate what the political outcomes would have been with direct elections in place since the founding, and in contrast, what Senate elections would look like after 1913 if indirect elections were still in place. It also addresses the question of whether U.S. senators represented states as units and responded to state governmental concerns more under the indirect system than they do under direct elections. It argues that indirect election had little impact on the Senate's overall partisan composition prior to 1913. Contrary to widespread belief, had direct election been in effect during the years immediately preceding the Seventeenth Amendment's passage, Republicans, not Democrats, would have benefited.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
abdul muiz amir

This study aims to find a power relation as a discourse played by the clerics as the Prophet's heir in the contestation of political event in the (the elections) of 2019 in Indonesia. The method used is qualitative based on the critical teory paradigm. Data gathered through literary studies were later analyzed based on Michel Foucault's genealogy-structuralism based on historical archival data. The findings show that, (1) The involvement of scholars in the Pemilu-Pilpres 2019 was triggered by a religious issue that has been through online social media against the anti-Islamic political system, pro communism and liberalism. Consequently create two strongholds from the scholars, namely the pro stronghold of the issue pioneered by the GNPF-Ulama, and the fortress that dismissed the issue as part of the political intrigue pioneered by Ormas NU; (2) genealogically the role of scholars from time to time underwent transformation. At first the Ulama played his role as well as Umara, then shifted also agent of control to bring the dynamization between the issue of religion and state, to transform into motivator and mediator in the face of various issues Practical politic event, especially at Pemilu-Pilpres 2019. Discussion of the role of Ulama in the end resulted in a reduction of the role of Ulama as the heir of the prophet, from the agent Uswatun Hasanah and Rahmatan lil-' ālamīn as a people, now shifted into an agent that can trigger the division of the people.


Author(s):  
Мохаммад Исаак Шафак

Аннотация: В данной статье автор исследовал феномен победы действующего президента Мохаммада Аршаф Гани, выигравшего во второй раз президентские выборы у своих оппонентов, его персональные качества в отличие от его оппонентов, проигравших выборы на пример Абдуллы Абдуллы. Названы глубинные причины возникновения политического кризиса, как недоговороспособность политических элит Афганистана, разрозненных личными и местечковыми интересами своих кланов. Сделан анализ, почему годами оставаясь у власти, оппоненты Ашрафа Гани, не использовали свои властные полномочия не улучшили политическую ситуацию Афганистана. Автором приведены аналитические выводы их отрицательного влияния на развитие политических процессов, это связано большей частью для сохранения собственных корыстных интересов и благ. Автор на примере анализа деятельности президента и его оппонентов на выборах, выразил собственное экспертную оценку вокруг сложившийся политической ситуации вновь избранного действующего президента Ашрафа Гани Ахмадзая, как политической персоны, выделив его слабые и сильные стороны и оппонентов. Ключевые слова: феномен победы, политический кризис, выборы. Аннотация: Автордун бул илимий макаласында, Мохаммад Ашраф Ганидин экинчи мөөнөткө 2019 -жылы 28-сентябрда болуп өткөн президенттик шайлоодо атаандаштарын утушу, Абдулла Абдулла жана да башка оппонентеринин президенттик шайлоодогу жеке сапаттарын изилдеген. Ооган саясий элитасынын ар түрдүү жеке жана ичи тардык, кызгануу сыяктуу эле кызыкчылыктарын, саясий башаламандык кыймылы жөнүндө жана ошол себептер менен саясий кризис курчуунун негизги себептерин атады. Алардын (эски элитанын) бийликте калуу максатында кыймылдарынын терс таасири тууралуу аналитикалык корутунду көрсөттү, бул инсандар негизинен өздөрүнүн жеке керт башынын кызыкчылыктары менен пайдасын сактоо менен байланыштуу, шайлоодо президенттин иш-аракеттери жана оппоненттери боюнча сереп-талдоо жазылган. Ооганстандагы саясый кырдаал жакшырган жок, саясий жараяндар таатал боюнча калууда, Ашраф Гани менен оппоненттеринин күчтүү жактарын жана кемчиликтери касиеттери жөнүндө, учурдагы Ооганстанда саясий кырдаал тууралуу өзүнүн серебин билдирди. Түйүндүү сөздөр: жеңүүнүн феномени, саясий кризис, шайлоо Annotation: In this article, the author explored the phenomenon of victory of incumbent President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, who won the second time the presidential election against his opponents, his personal qualities, unlike his opponents, who lost theelection by the example of Abdullah Abdullah. The underlying causes of the political crisis are identified as the lack of maturity of the political elites of Afghanistan, fragmented by the personal and local interests of their clans. An analysis is made of why staying in power for years, opponents of Ashraf Ghani, did not use their power, did not improve the political situation in Afghanistan, the author gives analytical conclusions of their negative impact on the development of political processes, this is mainly due to preserving their own selfish interests and benefits. The author, using an example of analysis of the activities of the president and his opponents in the elections, expressed his own expert assessment around the current political situation of the newly elected incumbent president Ashraf Gani Ahmadzai as a political person, highlighting his weaknesses and strengths and opponents. Keywords: the phenomenon of victory, political crisis, elections.


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