Paper
ELECTORAL REFORM AND DEMOCRATIC ENGAGEMENT
Published Nov 1, 2008 · M. Steven
Representation
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Abstract
Nobel Economics Laureate, Amartya Sen, has argued that democracy is the twentieth century’s greatest achievement (1999: 3–4). It is by far the most popular form of political system globally, defined first and foremost by open and fair electoral participation—the purest concept of representation—and also by freedom of speech and movement. Yet, at what should be its ‘moment of triumph’, there instead hangs a question mark over its quality in advanced industrial western states. Perhaps the most obvious aspect to this problem is that, despite elections constituting the most pivotal element of what defines democracy, partisan identification has been in steady decline for several decades in countries with long-established systems of democratic governance (Dalton and Wattenberg 2000; Webb et al. 2002), while electoral turnout itself has been falling since the 1990s (Blais 2007). This decline is interpreted by many as being especially problematic when we consider that age also appears to be an important factor—younger people seem to be less and less likely to vote, while the demographic of party memberships is now skewed heavily towards the upper end of the age spectrum (Dalton 2008: 86). In issue 44(2) of Representation, Michael Saward comments on the ‘widespread sense that we are facing a crisis of representation’ (2008: 93). As a consequence, a considerable amount of scholarly attention has been devoted to the question of how to improve levels of democratic engagement in countries like the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) where democracy is prized as something intrinsically linked to national identity and a highly successful global export (Putnam 2000; Stoker 2006). Indeed, a number of solutions are possible within the context of British politics: introducing term limits for elected politicians to revive the concept of politics being about public service rather than careerism; greater constitutional reform, including the introduction of a fully elected upper chamber, as well as devolving more power away from London and closer to people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; and, most directly, electoral reform—which would do away with the existence of ‘safe seats’ where there seems little point in people voting at all. With that last point in mind in particular, this special issue of Representation, a journal with a long and distinguished record of publishing informed contributions to the debate on electoral systems, focuses, as a case study, on a political system where such questions are especially pertinent—one of the constituent parts of the UK: Scotland. Since May 2007, four different voting systems have been operating in Scotland—making it effectively one of the world’s most prominent electoral reform testing laboratories. With a relatively homogeneous electorate of four million voters and a Northern European political culture which is sometimes compared to that of the Nordic states (Arter 2004), any lessons to be learned here about civic engagement clearly cannot be replicated in every system of democratic governance. Nevertheless, case studies are important in political science—for example, it is widely
Electoral reform in Scotland has shown promise in improving democratic engagement, with a focus on reducing'safe seats' and promoting greater civic engagement.
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