Abstract
Representation, secured through routine, regular competitive elections, lies at the heart of parliamentary democracy, the main institutional framework of European political systems. Elections provide the mechanism for selecting those who will act on behalf of their electorates. One ‘free election’ is predicated upon the notion of a subsequent free election, ensuring that power continues to reside with the people, providing them with both a means for judging the quality and responsiveness of their representation and a method of orderly succession in government. It is this assumption of continuation that builds representation and accountability into the liberal democratic system: the electoral mechanism becomes a continual process for ensuring that representatives act for those whom they were elected to serve and are accountable to them (with accountability tested at the next election). Elections ‘implant uncertainty in the minds of representatives’.1 Thus the routinisation of the electoral process is a condition of modern democracy.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
David Judge, Representation. Theory and Practice in Britain, London: Routledge, 1999, p. 11.
Leon D. Epstein, Political Parties in Western Democracies, New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1980 (rev. ed.), pp. 19–45.
Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation. Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe, London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, p. 56.
A. Schedler, ‘What is Democratic Consolidation?’ Journal of Democracy, vol. 9, no. 2, April 1998, pp. 91–107.
Larry Diamond, ‘Introduction: In Search of Consolidation’ in Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner, Yun-han Chu, and Hung-mao Tien, eds, Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies. Themes and Perspectives, London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997, p. xxv.
Scott Mainwaring and Timothy R. Scully, ‘Introduction: Party Systems in Latin America’ in Scott Mainwaring and Timothy Scully, eds, Building Democratic Institutions. Party Systems in Latin America, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995, pp. 1–34.
Compare Gábor Tóka, ‘Political Parties in East Central Europe’ in Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner, Yun-han Chu, and Hung-mao Tien, eds, Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies. Themes and Perspectives, London; The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997, pp. 93–134.
Vicky Randall and Lars Svâsand, ‘Party Institutionalisation and the New Democracies’, Paper presented to the ECPR Joint Session of Workshops, Mannheim, March 1999.
S.M. Lipset, ‘The Indispensability of Parties’, Journal of Democracy, vol. 11, 2000, pp. 48–55.
José Ramón Montero and Richard Gunther, ‘Introduction: Reviewing and Assessing Parties’ in Richard Gunther, José Ramón Montero and Juan J. Linz, eds, Political Parties. Old Concepts and New Challenges, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 3–8.
Matthew Soburg Shugart and John M. Carey, Presidents and Assemblies. Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 55–75.
M. Steven Fish, ‘The Executive Deception: Superpresidentialism and the Degradation of Russian Politics’ in Valerie Sperling, ed., Building the Russian State. Institutional Crisis and the Quest for Democratic Governance, Boulder: Westview Press, 2000, pp. 178–9.
Vladimir Gelman, ‘Electoral Democracy in Russia’, Russia on Russia, Issue 3, October 2000, p. 68.
William V. Smirnov, ‘Democratization in Russia: Achievements and Problems’ in Archie Brown, ed., Contemporary Russian Politics: A Reader, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 527.
Thomas F. Remington, The Russian Parliament. Institutional Evolution in a Transitional Regime, 1989–1999, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
Neil Robinson, Russia. A State of Uncertainty, London: Routledge, 2002.
Ilya Prizel, ‘Ukraine’s Hollow Decade’, East European Politics and Societies, vol. 16, no. 2, spring 2002, pp. 363–85.
David Farrell, Electoral Systems: A Comparative Introduction, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001.
John Ishiyama and Ryan Kennedy, ‘Superpresidentialism and Political Party Development in Russia, Ukraine, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan’, Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 53, no. 8, 2001, pp. 1177–91.
Sarah Birch, ‘The Effects of Mixed Electoral Systems in Eastern Europe’, Paper presented at the 30th Annual Conference of the University Association for Contemporary European Studies, Budapest 7–9 April, 2000.
Neil Robinson, ‘Classifying Russia’s Party System: The Problem of “Relevance” in a Time of Uncertainty’, The Joumal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, vol. 14, nos 1, 2, 1998, p. 174.
Sarah Birch, Frances Millard, Marina Popescu, and Kieran Williams, Embodying Democracy. Electoral System Design in Post-Communist Europe, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002, p. 151.
Gary Cox and Matthew McCubbins, ‘The Institutional Determinants of Economic Policy Outcomes’ in Stephan Haggard and Matthew D. McCubbins, eds, Presidents, Parliaments, and Policy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 37.
Radosław Markowski, ‘Democratic Consolidation and Accountability: News from Eastern and Central European Democracies’ in Radosław Markowski and Edmund Wnuk-Lipiński, eds, Transformative Paths in Central and Eastern Europe, Warsaw: Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Science and Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 2001, pp. 70–1.
Jose Antonio Cheibub and Adam Przeworski, ‘Democracy, Elections, and Accountability for Economic Outcomes’ in Adam Przeworski, Susan C. Stokes, and Bernard Manin, eds, Democracy, Accountability, and Representation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 225.
Maurice Duverger, Political Parties. Their Organization and Activity in the Modem State (1951), New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1963, p. xxxvi.
Nicholas Pano, ‘The Process of Democratization in Albania’ in Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott, eds, Politics, Power, and the Struggle for Democracy in South-East Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 304–48.
M. Steven Fish, ‘The Dynamics of Democratic Erosion’ in Richard D. Anderson Jr, M. Steven Fish, Stephen E. Hanson and Philip G. Roeder, Post-Communism and the Theory of Democracy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001, Table 3.1, p. 46.
Zoltan Barany, ‘Bulgaria’s Royal Elections’, Journal of Democracy, vol. 13, no. 2, 2002, pp. 141, 152.
Grigory Yavlinski, ‘Going Backwards’, Journal of Democracy, vol. 12, no. 4, October 2001, p. 79.
Archie Brown, ‘Evaluating Russia’s Democratization’ in Archie Brown, ed., Contemporary Russian Politics: A Reader, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 568.
Neil Robinson, Russia. A State of Uncertainty, London: Routledge, 2002.
Michael McFaul, ‘The Fourth Wave of Democracy and Dictatorship. Noncooperative Transitions in the Postcommunist World’, World Politics, vol. 54, January 2002, p. 236.
Alexander Lukin, ‘Electoral Democracy or Clanism?’ in Archie Brown, ed., Contemporary Russian Politics: A Reader, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 544.
Lilia Shevtsova, ‘Russia’s Hybrid Regime’, Journal of Democracy, vol. 12, no. 4, October 2001, p. 68.
Nadia Diuk and Myroslava Gongadze, ‘Post-Election Blues in Ukraine’, Journal of Democracy, vol. 13, no. 4, 2002, p. 158.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2004 Frances Millard
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Millard, F. (2004). Introduction: Representation, Political Parties, and the Quality of Democracy. In: Elections, Parties and Representation in Post-Communist Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230000865_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230000865_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-50996-6
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-00086-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)