Description
Book SynopsisA new taxonomy of democratic architectures, which reconnects deliberation to the study of patterns of democracy. Whether readers are interested in satisfaction with democracy, income inequality, subnational architectures or geographic factors in institutional design, this book gives fresh insights based on a database encompassing sixty-one countries.
Trade Review'Power Diffusion and Democracy is an enormously impressive work - a comparative masterpiece. It's a theoretically and methodologically sophisticated analysis of the political-institutional arrangements in more than sixty democracies. The authors convincingly link the concept of deliberation, which matches my own work on the politics of accommodation, to the framework of patterns of democracy. The wide and deep database, the various analytical perspectives and the important findings make this book an essential reading for anyone interested in the mechanisms of power diffusion in democracies.' Arend Lijphart, University of California, San Diego
'… the book is of high interest for advanced students and scholars in the field of assessing democratic quality especially regarding power diffusion and deliberation. Further Bernauer's and Vatter's book will also be of interest to those interested in actor-centered institutionalism. Finally, the book is also recommended for scholars of other social science disciplines, as it draws on sociological aspects of inclusion, such as income equality and migrant integration.' Ingrid Heidlmayr-Chegdaly, Democratization
Table of Contents1. Introducing power diffusion in democracies; 2. A theory of power diffusion, deliberation and democracy; 3. A taxonomy of power diffusion; 4. Performance; 5. Legitimacy; 6. Explaining power diffusion; 7. Convergence; 8. Subnational power diffusion; 9. Conclusions.
