When Citizens Decide: Lessons from Citizen Assemblies on Electoral Reform

ISBN-13: 9780199567843 / Angielski / Twarda / 2011 / 208 str.

Patrick Fournier; Henk Van Der Kolk; R. Kenneth Carty

Opis

Three unprecedented large-scale democratic experiments have recently taken place. Citizen assemblies on electoral reform were conducted in British Columbia, the Netherlands, and Ontario. Groups of randomly selected ordinary citizens were asked to independently design the next electoral system. In each case, the participants spent almost an entire year learning about electoral systems, consulting the public, deliberating, debating, and ultimately deciding what specific institution should be adopted.

O autorze

Patrick Fournier is principal investigator for the next two Canadian Election Studies, and was co-investigator of the CES for the 2004, 2006, and 2008 elections. He is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the Université de Montréal. His research interests include political behaviour, political psychology, citizen competence, opinion change, and survey methodology. Henk van der Kolk co-directed the Dutch Parliamentary Election Studies in 1998, 2006, and 2010. He is Associate Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Twente. In 2006, he was involved in educating the citizen assembly on electoral reform in the Netherlands. His research interests are: electoral systems, electoral behavior, political participation, and local politics. R. Kenneth Carty has held the Brenda & David McLean Chair in Canadian Studies, served as the Director of the UBC Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions, and is a past President of the Canadian Political Science Association. He is Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia. He is a specialist on the structure, organization, and behaviour, of political parties and competitive party systems. André Blais is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a past President of the Canadian Political Science Association. He is Professor in the Department of Political Science at the Université de Montréal. He holds a Canada Research Chair in Electoral Studies. He is the principal investigator for the Making Electoral Democracy Work project. His research interests are elections, electoral systems, turnout, public opinion, and methodology. Jonathan Rose served as the Academic Director of the Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform. He is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Studies at Queen's University. He has held visiting positions at Victoria University of Wellington, the International Study Centre, and Kwansei Gakuin University. His research interests include Canadian politics, mass media, political communication, political advertising, and propaganda.