Results by title
5 books match the query 'Grofman, Bernard Norman'
Domestic Perspectives on Contemporary Democracy
Edited by Peter F. Nardulli
University of Illinois Press, 2007
In looking at the remarkable proliferation of democracies since 1974, this volume offers important insight into the challenges and opportunities that democracy faces in the twenty-first century. Distinguished contributors detail difficulties that democracies face from within and how they deal with them. Among the contemporary threats to democracy emanating from internal sources are tensions arising over technology and its uses; ethnic, religious, and racial distinctions; and disparate access to resources, education, and employment. A democratically elected government can behave more or less democratically, even when controlling access to information, using legal authority to aid or intimidate, and applying resources to shape the conditions for the next election. With elections recently disputed in the United States, Mexico, Lebanon, and the Ukraine, debates about the future of democracy are inescapably debates about what kind of democracy is desired.
Contributors are W. Lance Bennett, Bruce Bimber, Jon Fraenkel, Brian J. Gaines, Bernard Grofman, Wayne V. McIntosh, Peter F. Nardulli, Mark Q. Sawyer, Stephen Simon, Paul M. Sniderman, and Jack Snyder.
[more]
Elections in Australia, Ireland, and Malta under the Single Transferable Vote
Reflections on an Embedded InstitutionShaun Bowler and Bernard Grofman, Editors
University of Michigan Press, 2000
The Single Transferable Vote, or STV, is often seen in very positive terms by electoral reformers, yet relatively little is known about its actual workings beyond one or two specific settings. This book gathers leading experts on STV from around the world to discuss the examples they know best, and represents the first systematic cross-national study of STV. Furthermore, the contributors collectively build an understanding of electoral systems as institutions embedded within a wider social and political context, and begins to explain the gap between analytical models and the actual practice of elections in Australia, Ireland, and Malta. Rather than seeing electoral institutions in purely mechanical terms, the collection of essays in this volume shows that the effects of electoral system may be contingent rather than automatic. On the basis of solid empirical evidence, the volume argues that the same political system can, in fact, have quite different effects under different conditions.
Contributors to the volume are Shaun Bowler, David Farrell, Michael Gallagher, Bernard Grofman, Wolfgang Hirczy, Colin Hughes, J. Paul Johnston, Michael Laver, Malcom Mackerras, Michael Maley, Michael Marsh, Ian McAllister, and Ben Reilly.
Shaun Bowler is Professor of Political Science, University of California, Riverside. Bernard Grofman is Professor of Political Science, University of California, Irvine.
[more]
Elections in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan under the Single Non-Transferable Vote
The Comparative Study of an Embedded InstitutionBernard Grofman, Sung-Chull Lee, Edwin A. Winckler, and Brian Woodall, Editors
University of Michigan Press, 1999
In recent years there has been a marked resurgence of interest in the effects of electoral laws on important aspects of politics such as party competition. In this volume, a distinguished group of scholars looks at the impact of one set of electoral rules--the single non-transferable vote--on electoral competition in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Under this plan citizens are allowed one vote even though there is more than one seat to be filled. In comparative studies of the adoption and rejection of the single nontransferable vote and the consequences of its use across different settings, the contributors explore the differences in the operation and effects of the application of the same rule in different countries. Arguing that any single feature of a political system is embedded in a political structure and cannot be understood in isolation, the authors demonstrate how the same rule can have different consequences depending on the context in which it operates. The contributors offer fresh insights into the comparative study of political institutions as well as into the operation of particular electoral rules.
In addition to the editors, the contributors include Kathleen Bawn, John Boland, Jean-Marie Bouissou, Gary Cox, John Fu-Sheng Hsieh, Arend Lijphart, Emerson Niou, Steven R. Reed, and Frances Rosenbluth, among others.
Bernard Grofman is Professor of Political Science, University of California at Irvine. Edwin A. Winckler is at the East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Brian Woodall is Assistant Professor in the School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology. Sung-Chull Lee is Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of California at Irvine.
[more]
Information, Participation, and Choice
An Economic Theory of Democracy in PerspectiveBernard Grofman, Editor
University of Michigan Press, 1993
Anthony Downs's An Economic Theory of Democracy is one of the handful of books that reshaped political science in the post-World War II period. Information, Participation, and Choice traces the influence of Downs's ideas on subsequent research on voters, candidates, and parties in the United States and elsewhere. Since their publication in 1957, Downs's seminal ideas -- tweedledum and tweedledee politics and the "rationality" of political ignorance and nonparticipation on the part of voters--have shaped an ongoing debate about how politics actually work. The debate pits a public-choice model inspired by microeconomic precepts against a traditional textbook model that presumes a responsible, informed, and civic-minded citizenry and a set of elected officials motivated by concern for the public interest and policy convictions. The essays comprising Information, Participation, and Choice, by leading political scientists and economists, provide both a summary of Downs's key theoretical insights and an empirical examination of how well models inspired by Downs accurately describe U.S. political competition for Congress and the presidency. Bernard Grofman is Professor of Political Science and Social Psychology, University of California, Irvine.
[more]
Political Science as Puzzle Solving
Bernard Grofman, Editor
University of Michigan Press, 2001
Each of the essays in this volume addresses a particular empirical puzzle involving decisions or outcomes that, at least on the surface, seem difficult (if not impossible) to explain. In the first three essays, the authors look at the behavior of an individual or an organization such as trade union or political party that, at first blush, does not seem to make sense: Why would a political leader gamble on a vote of confidence that he didn't need to call and the failure of which would seriously harm his party's future prospects? Why would a trade union conduct a strike that it knows it can't win? Why didn't the Japanese Socialist party modify its platform to attract more voters so as to give it a chance of holding power in Japan? The authors show that behavior that appears irrational is not really so once we understand the full context in which the behavior is embedded. The fourth essay asks how a major empire--the Soviet empire--could have dissolved so quickly. Here the explanation involves an interesting new theory: the power of "decisive inaction." The final essay elaborates a formal model of equilibrium behavior in the social welfare system to consider the empirical puzzle of why increasing unemployment benefits often appear not to significantly increase the attractiveness of the unemployment option. The contributors are Miriam Golden, Kaare Strom, Masaru Kohno, Richard Anderson, George Tsebelis and Roland Stephen. Bernard Grofman is Professor of Political Science and Social Psychology, University of California, Irvine.
[more]