Defining Democracy Voting Procedures in Decision-Making, Elections a
Defining Democracy looks both at the theory of why and the history of how different voting procedures have come to be used – or not, as the case may be – in the three fields of democratic structures: firstly, in decision-making, both in society at large a
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Peter Emerson
Defining Democracy Voting Procedures in Decision-Making, Elections and Governance Second Edition
Peter Emerson The de Borda Institute 36 Ballysillan Road Belfast BT14 7QQ Northern Ireland [email protected]
ISBN 978-3-642-20903-1 e-ISBN 978-3-642-20904-8 DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-20904-8 Springer Heidelberg Dordrecht London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2011939483 1st edition: # Peter Emerson 2002, published by The de Borda Institute 2nd edition: # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
To the intellectual diversity of our species, even if its place in the spectrum, which ranges from the stone to the divine, is so very very small.
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Foreword: To the Second Edition
I am delighted to see that Peter Emerson has continued to advocate consensual politics. This second edition, with its additional information on Rwanda and elsewhere, is an even more potent argument for reform of the adversarial structures which still serve in so many parliaments and international gatherings. As the reader may know from my writings elsewhere, I have long since been an advocate of proportional voting. Given the current difficulties in Belgium, however, not to mention the precarious state of the power-sharing arrangements in so many conflict zones, I am drawn more and more to consider the potential of the more pluralist voting procedures outlined in these pages. Arend Lijphart La Jolla California USA January 2011
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Foreword: Democracy versus Majority Rule
I am very pleased to write this foreword to Peter Emerson’s important and stimulating new book Defining Democracy. My research has focused on the comparative study of democratic institutions for many years, and I often find that the concept of democracy is defined and used either much too broadly or much too narrowly. An egregious example of the latter is that while, in principle, there is virtually unanimous agreement that one of the most basic criteria of democracy, if not the most important criterion, is universal suffrage, in practice many people use the term to describe political systems where the righ
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