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Comparative Politics Changes and challenges t o representative democracy Leadership, Audience democracy , presidentialization. Luca Verzichelli / Alessandro Chiaramonte Comparative Political Institutions Academic year 2016-2017.
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Comparative PoliticsChanges and challenges to representative democracyLeadership, Audience democracy, presidentialization Luca Verzichelli / Alessandro Chiaramonte Comparative PoliticalInstitutions Academicyear 2016-2017
A Pyrros’ victoryfor the democraticmodel?Heritage of XX century and newchallenges • After 1975: global challenges and increaseof “ungovernableissues” fortraditionaldemocracies • Increaseof the grey area of “quasi-democraticregimes”. Otherdemocracies in permanenttransitionswithoutconsolidation • Complexityof policy making • Crisisof mass party organizations • Exponentialincreaseofpoliticalmistrust
Redefining all the representative institutions? • Reintroducing the argument of the decline of representative institutions (quest for participatoy democracy and deliberative democracy) • Decline of party-democracy and emphasis on public opinion (Manin) • Counter-democracy and new social pluralism (Rosanvallon) • Still a relevant role of representative institution but challenges from social complexity, immigration, apathy.
Presidentialization of parliamentary democracyAn old story? • Prime ministers with stable majorities tent to act like presidents with reduced accountability to parliamentary members • They increasingly used media to keep the “campaign spirit” and prolong the honey moon with the public opinion • They always know that there won’t be a “no confidence” vote against them if they keep given conditions under control • Personality use to matter more than policy, party (or even ideology) since decades
Audience democracy Manin, principles of representative government 1996 • Metamorphoses and not crisis of parliamentary democracy • Crucial aspect: “maturity” of public opinion • Modernization and its effect on the delegation chain • Divide between politics perceived as “leader issues” and politics to be shared with ordinary people
Causesofpresidentialization (Poguntke and Webb 2005) • Internationalization of politics • Growth of the State (but not of State’s resources) • Changing structure of mass communication • Erosion of (some) traditional cleavage politics