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Democracy&SocieyVolume 2 Issue 1 Fall 2004

Representation Revisited:Introduction to the Case against Electoral Accountability

By Jane Mansbridge

oncerns about a democratic deficit in Europe and low electoral turn-out in the United States have generated cries for greater electoral ac-countability and more electoral democracy. But electoral democracy has

significant flaws that make it a poor response to the need for thoughtful popularconsent to specific policies. Fortunately, other acceptable and legitimate formsof legislative, judicial, and bureaucratic representation require little or no formalelectoral accountability. A greater stress on these alternatives would probablyincrease integrity in political office, popular deliberation in political processes,and continuing mutual communication between representatives and represent-ed. Such alternatives have normatively attractive features in themselves and thepotential to generate forms of consent that appropriately supplement elections.

The public often responds to problems in democracy by wanting to tighten the tiesbetween voters and representatives (e.g. through term limits) and, on the other sideof the equation, the legislature and the bureaucracy. Political scientists and norma-tive theorists also focus on elections as the primary tool of democracy. This paper,by contrast, argues against too great a focus on electoral democracy and reduceddelegation. It turns instead to other tools to establish consent,

A Publication of the Center for Democracy and the Third Sector

Electoral Systemsand Real Prices:Panel Evidence for the OECDCountries, 19702000

3

In This Issue

Book Reviews

[Continued, Page 12]

Georgetown University

2 Setting an AgendaBy Steven Heydemann

33 Center Highlights

Through the 1950s, marketers conceptionof a mass market had encouraged themto emphasize what united Americanconsumers. But, the embrace of marketsegmentation thereafter lent market-place recognition to social and culturaldivisions among Americans.

How far-reaching was the impact of thisfundamental shift from mass marketingto market segmentation? Did marketers

commitment to fragmenting the massmarket have consequences for otherrealms of postwar American experience,particularly politics? Given the central-

ity of mass consumption to the largerpolitical culture we have been callingthe Consumers Republic, one mightvery well expect a spillover. And indeed,astute observers of American society af-ter World War II noticed that mass mar-keting was becoming more and moreentangled in other aspects of life, espe-cially politics, illuminating a potentialconnection between market structureand political structure. In the 1940s, PaulLazarsfeld and his

Democracy & Society is pleased to present the following except of Lizabeth Cohens research on

the political implications of consumer trends in American society. Cohens history provides important

insights into the complex relationship between citizens and consumers. The excerpt printed below

is taken from A Consumers Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America,

Vintage Books, New York, 2003.

23 Ordinary People in ExtraordinaryTimes: The Citizenry and theBreakdown of Democracyby Nancy Bermeo

25 Civil Societyby Michael Edwards

26 Restructuring World Politics:Transnational Social Movements,Networks, and Normsby Sikkink, Khagram, & Riker

27 The State of Democratic Theory

by Ian Shapiro28 A Consumers Republic:

The Politics of Mass Consumption inPostwar America by Lizabeth Cohen

29 Rethinking Democratic Accountabilityby Robert D. Behn

30 NGOs and Organizational Changeby Alnoor Ebrahim

By Ronald Rogowski, Eric C.C. Chang& Mark Andreas Kayser

5 The Transformation of

Democratic RepresentationBy Mark Warren & Dario Castiglione

6 Hollowing Out Civil Society?Government Contracting andSocial CapitalBy Sheila Suess Kennedy &Wolfgang Bielefeld

8 Commercialization of VoluntaryOrganizations and Members

Participation: The Case ofNorwegian Voluntary SportOrganizationsBy Bernard Enjolras

32 CID:A Major New CDATS Survey

[Continued, Page 14]

Segmenting Voters

in Political MarketsBy Lizabeth Cohen

C


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Georgetown University | The Center for Democracy and the Third Sector

Setting an Agenda

The start of a new academic year is a goodtime to think again about the broad purposeof a center like CDATS and what were try-

ing to accomplish. Our aim, quite simply, is to buildCDATS into a center that will promote creativeideas about the relationship between democracyand the third sector; actively connect research, ad-vocacy, and policy through outreach work and theengagement of policy and advocacy communities inour projects; train a cohort of graduate students atboth the Masters and Ph.D. levels to pursue careers,academic and otherwise, focusing on third sectorissues; and strengthen a community of researcherson democracy, governance, and civil society by sup-porting the professional development of promising

junior scholars.

The vision (so to speak) is to create new, usable knowl-edge about the third sector and its relationship to gov-ernance and democracy. We hope to strengthen theconceptual and data infrastructure of research on de-mocracy and civil society; create sustainable channels

of communication between researchers, advocacy com-munities, and policy makers; improve understandingsof the third sectors role in democratic life among thoseentering careers in government, business, and the non-profit sector; and help establish the field more firmlywithin higher education, beginning with GeorgetownUniversity, but extending over time into other institu-tions as well. Among our core purposes are strengthen-ing research capacity in the study of democracy and civilsociety, consolidating the presence of research on issuesconcerning the third sector and democracy more firmlyin the social sciences, and improving the applied use of

research in current debates about the state of democracyand civil society in America and around the world.

These are ambitious aims, to be sure. Fortunately, webenefit from a strongly supportive university setting. Asfirst steps, we have established a Ph.D. program throughGeorgetown Universitys Government Department, aredeveloping an M.A. program in Democracy Studies,and sponsor a number of internal and external fel-lowship programsalongside of a full complement of

seminars, lectures, and workshops that draw in audi-ences from all around the greater Washington area. Allof these activities require, and receive, the active sup-port of administrators, faculty, students, and staff inthe Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the College,and Georgetowns Public Policy Institute.

In addition, we are working to develop a portfolio ofresearch projects, along three main lines: (1) the qualityof democracy and democratic life, with an emphasis onhow civil societies affect the quality of democratic life;(2) legitimacy, representation, and accountability in thethird sector, and (3) understanding the forces that areshaping and transforming third sector institutions. Theseareas are broad enough to encompass a wide range ofconcerns, but not so open ended that our work losesdirection and becomes fragmented. Though distinct,they overlap sufficiently to form an integrated whole.In each area, we have a number of initiatives under-way. These include our Citizenship, Involvement, andDemocracy survey project directed by Professor MarcM. Howard, a series of activities on homeland securityand democracy, a major workshop on the transforma-tion of representation that was held last June, and anew Inter-University Workshop on Accountability andthe Nonprofit Sector that we have launched this termin collaboration with the Institute for Governance andAccountabilities at Virginia Polytechnic Institute andState University. The workshop addresses the third ofour core concerns, and is intended to promote innova-tive research on the effects of an emerging account-ability regime on institutions in the nonprofit sector.

This issue of the newsletter focuses on our two otherissue areas. It includes a set of articles on the com-mercialization of political lifea phenomenon withdirect implications for the quality of democracyandon the transformation of representation. Once again,the newsletter contains articles and reviews fromGeorgetown faculty and students, and also from fac-ulty based at other institutions. We are grateful forpermission to use their work and pleased with howthe issue turned out. And, as always, we welcome yourcomments and feedback. Last but not in any sense least,

I want to thank David Madland and Nicole Love fortheir superb work as editors ofD&S.

Steven Heydemann (Ph.D, U. Chicago) has served as director

of CDATS since its opening in 2003. Previously he directed the

SSRC Program on Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector. From

1997-2001 he taught at Columbia University. His research

focuses on democratization and economic reform in the Middle

East, and on the relationship between institutions and

economic development.

From the Director

Steven Heydemann


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Second, cross-sectional data cannot rule out a more en-during spurious relationship between electoral systems andreal prices. Countries with majoritarian and proportionalsystems exhibit systematic differences in many character-istics. Majoritarian electoral systems, for example, mightsimply be an instrument for British colonial heritageaninfluence that, together with its liberal market ideals, mightexplain both electoral arrangements and price levels. Panel

data, such as those introduced here, permit fixed-effectmodels that absorb country-specific influences not ar-ticulated in the earlier specifications, and thereby assuageconcerns about omitted variables. The implicit natural ex-periments of countries that switched electoral systems, butlittle else, during the panel period should hopefully allayskepticism about such omitted variables.

A third and final problem arising from the systematic dif-ferences between countries of each electoral category is out-of-sample extrapolation. As Daniel Ho (2003) has noted,the price effect claims of the earlier paper often extendedbeyond what could be supported by the cross-sectionaldata. Because majoritarian countries differ so systematical-ly from PR countries, inferences about the effect that ma-

joritarian electoral arrangements have on prices extendedbeyond the available data range of the member countries ofthe other electoral system. Again, here the panel data in ourcurrent research at least partly remedy the problem: whencountries change electoral systems, as several do in ourpanel sample, they provide overlapping variation to bothelectoral system categories. Given the contrast between theearlier Rogowski and Kayser findings and those of otherauthors noted above, more rigorous investigation promisesconsiderable possible payoffs for our understanding of the

role of electoral institutions in social welfare.

Our new research extends the earlier empirical analysis topanel data for twenty-three OECD countries over the pe-riod 1970-2000. This specification allows us to control forcountry fixed-effects and to incorporate the over-time ef-fects of the within-country changes in electoral systems: theshift from SMD to PR in France (1986) and New Zealand(1994); and from PR to SMD (or predominantly SMD) inFrance (1988), Italy (1993), and Japan (1994). The resultsof our study strongly support the original conjecture andgive us a better idea of how electoral-system change within

a country affects consumer power and real prices. Perhapsmost importantly, the panel analysis, again after a varietyof robustness checks, suggests that the long-term effect ofa within-country change in electoral system is, at a mini-mum, virtually identical (i.e., about a ten per cent changein prices) to that identified in the earlier cross-sectionalanalysis as prevailing between countries with different elec-toral systems.

Moreover we are able to establish, as the earlier study didnot: (a) the likely effects of a change of electoral system in

a single county and (b) the short- vs. long-term impactand the length of time required to reach the new equilib-rium. We attach particular importance to the present find-ing that the long-term effects of electoral systems are atleast as strong as the cross-sectional ones that the earlierstudy established. Finally, the present study, by exploitingthe fortuitous fact that several OECD countries changedelectoral systems in the 1980s and 1990s, substantially rem-

edies problems of systematic differences between PR andSMD systems.

We emphasize again that the price effects established hereimply nothing about the overall welfare effects of the twoelectoral systems: the higher prices that prevail under PRmay well be offset by higher wages, more generous wel-fare benefits, the de-commodification of labor (Esping-Anderson 1990), or similar effects. We also remain agnosticabout the precise mechanism by which PR raises, and SMDlowers, prices. While we suspect that PR systems are char-acterized by greater tolerance for cartels, covert protectionand inefficient retailing, and while Scartascini (2002) hasshown, in a representative sample of 65 countries, tharegulatory barriers to entry are significantly higher in PRsystems than under SMD, it could equally be the case thathigher real prices in PR countries are driven by strongerunions and higher wages, or by a propensity for overvaluedexchanged rates4.

Obviously, many questions remain to be answered. But wetake it by now as highly likely that, among the economicallyadvanced democracies, more majoritarian systems producepolicies markedly friendlier to consumers, and less favorable toproducers, than do systems of proportional representation.

Ronald Rogowski, Professor of Political Science, UCLA;

Eric C. C. Chang, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Michigan

State University; Mark Andreas Kayser, Assistant Professor of

Political Science, University of Rochester

Endnotes

1 Purchasing power parity over exchange rate (PPP/XR).

2 These include GDP per capita, trade openness, exchange-rate stickiness,

and market size.

3 National Bureau for Economic Research (www.nber.org) and Economic

Cycle Research Institute, (www.businesscycle.com/pdfs/

0012-businessChron.PDF).

4 Even more strongly, Hall, Iversen, Soskice, Estevez-Abe, and others (see,

for a representative set of papers, Hall and Soskice 2001) have argued co

gently that PR is the linchpin of an organized market economy charac

terized by anti-competitive mechanisms, and that these structures are so

intermeshed with educational, labor-market, and political institutions a

to be almost impervious to change. Lewis (2004) establishes the impor-

tance of competition and retail-sector efficiency for overall growth of

productivity and income.

Electoral Systems and Real Prices Rogowski, Chang & Kayser

Rogowski, Continued on Page 11


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Democracy & Society |Volume 2 Issue 1 | Fall 2004

By Mark Warren & Dario Castiglione

A. Why Revisit Representation?

In the modern period, democracywas established in the form of repre-sentative democracy based on elec-tions of political representatives anda universal franchise. Representative

forms of democracy were based on two elements. First, theelectoral form enabled democracy within large, integratedpolitical units with large populations. Second, the electoralrepresentative form established a viable if uneasy balancebetween the pressures of social and political democratiza-tion and the rule of professional political elites. Owing inpart to these functions, we have come to understand demo-cratic representation as having two key characteristics:

Representation involves a principal-agent relationship(the representatives stood for and acted for the rep-resented), mainly though not exclusively on a territorialand formal basis, so that democratic governments wereresponsive to the interests and opinions of the people.

Democratic representation legitimatized political pow-er so that it could be exercised responsibly and with adegree of accountability, while providing citizens some

control over its deployment.

The standard form of democratic representation is thatenacted through regular (territorially based) elections,which provide a mechanism for citizens to select their of-ficials and entrust them with the running of public affairs.The assumption is that the representatives will (or should)faithfully carry on the business of government by reflect-ing (representing) the electors interests, values and opin-ions. In fact, political representation has never been such asimple mechanism since it has always taken on a numberof compensatory forms. The relationship between citizen

and representative has been enabled and mediated by masspolitical parties, class-based groups, interest groups, andcorporatist organizations. In addition, public spheres andcivil society organizations have mediated public opinionso that mechanisms of representation have never simplyaggregated citizens preferences, but also formed and trans-formed them. Nonetheless, under the assumptions of therepresentative model of democracy, those political activi-ties subject to democratic controls and input were focusedon electoral-based representation.

Recent changes in patterns of politics, however, throw intoquestion the adequacy of the representative model of de-

mocracy. Two of these changes involve the scale and com-plexity in processes of decision-making in modern society:

Increasingly powerful transnational players and deci-sion-making arenas tend to escape the reach of (nation-based) democratic representation.

An increasing number of collective decision-making ar-eas and issues, at both the national and supranationallevel, are now under the control of specialized and expertbodies with only loose connections to the traditional in-stitutions of political representation.

Two other changes have to do with the ways people relateto their political community:

The simple political egalitarianism on which the insti-

tutions and mechanisms of modern representative de-mocracy were established has given way to increasingdemands for group recognition as well as for forms ofequality related directly to peoples needs, characteristics,identities, and conditions. This has resulted in a morecomplex discourse of political and social representationfor which simple egalitarian and universalistic stan-dards seem no longer adequate.

There has been a diffusion of more informal structures andopportunities for democratic representation and influence.This partly reflects the diminished role of formal political

structures in social decision-making, but also the increas-ing diversification of the forms of association in modernsocieties as well as postmaterial ideals and culture.

Owing to these changes, it is no longer possible to representand aggregate the interests, opinions, and values of the citi-zens through simple (territorially-based) electoral mecha-nisms. Nor does it seem likely that the standard model ofrepresentative democracy can describe and assess emerg-

The Transformation ofDemocratic Representation

Summary Report of theCDATS Workshop on

The Transformation

of Democratic

Representation held at

Georgetown University,

4-5 June 2004.

Warren, Continued on Page 20

Recent changes in patternsof politics throw into question the

adequacy of the representativemodel of democracy


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degree upon the adequacy of their networksupon theextent of their social capital. That dependence raises im-portant questions: What if the increasing use of nonprofitagencies to deliver government services is changing thecharacter of those agencies? Do those changes erode theirability to generate social capital and contribute to demo-cratic self-government?

Government contracts in the United States now accountfor nearly 40% of all voluntary sector income, and by someestimates 80% of the income of social-service-providingnonprofits. Steven Rathgeb Smith and Michael Lipsky(1993) were among the first to explore a variety of issuesraised for government and the nonprofit sector by virtue ofthe increasing reliance of the latter upon government con-tracts: Although government funding of nonprofit serviceorganizations dates to the colonial period, only in the last25 years did this government-nonprofit strategy emerge asa widespread and favored tool of public service delivery.

In recent years significant attention hasbeen paid to the management and con-tracting challenges posed by privatizedservice delivery methods (Kennedy &Bielefeld 2002; Dannin 2001; GAO 1997),and to the implications for the doctrine ofstate action and constitutional account-ability (Metzger 2003; Kennedy 2001).However, other possible effects of this gov-ernance shift have been less fully explored.The following five issues are worthy of se-rious research in the coming years:

(1) There is little or no scholarship investigating whetherparticipation in government itself, by serving on boards,and commissions, ad hoc committees and the like, facili-tates production of bridging social capital. Certainly, suchservice may bring citizens into contact with persons theyotherwise might not meet, and the common experience ofservice has the potential to generate trust and reciprocity.However, as government outsources, it relies less on suchboards and commissions and more on experts holdingthe relevant contracts (Kennedy 2001). These arenas fordemocratic deliberation are hollowed out.

(2) When nonprofit organizations contract with the state,they become accountable in ways that are qualitatively dif-ferent from the accountability owed to board membersand even donors. Government requirements such as fiscalreporting undoubtedly improve the efficiency and manage-ment practices of the nonprofit involved. The question iswhether the more businesslike organizations that emergeare still able to provide the benefitsincluding, but notlimited to, social capital generationthat truly voluntaryassociations afford. Is there a point at which a nonprofitloses its identity as a voluntary organization, and becomes

simply a differently-constituted arm of the state? If so, whatare the consequences?

(3) Many criticisms of contemporary contracting re-volve around questions of accountability (Kennedy 2001;Dannin 2001). If, as some have argued, government trans-parency and accountability are compromised by contract-ing regimes, one potential consequence is increased citizen

distrust of government agencies and their contractualpartners. The generation of trust and reciprocity are es-sential attributes of social capital, and if we are erodingtrusthollowing out nonprofit organizationssocialcapital suffers.

(4) Emerging evidence suggests that privatization-cum-contracting may be stifling grass-roots advocacy effortsby private, voluntary organizations. (GAO, Cremson andGinsberg 2002; Gittel 1980) In democratic systems, citi-zenship implies participation in democratic deliberation; if

contracting depresses such participation,we must ask whether the consequence isto diminish both social capital and thecapacity for democratic deliberation.

(5) To the extent that nonprofits or NGOsbecome financially dependent upongovernment contracts, opportunitiesfor decision-making may shift from thevoluntary association to the government,diminishing occasions for democraticdecision-making. Board decision-mak-ing shifts from setting policy to imple-

menting government directives. What are the implications

of such a shift for the development of democratic habits?

It would be possible to frame these five hypothetical ques-tions very differently. It is possible that government contract-ing may bring more citizens into contact with democraticpolicy processes, may enlarge and extend the networks ofwhich they are members, and thus may increase, rather thandiminish, social capital formation and citizen awarenessof the importance of collective action. For example, somescholars have suggested that in community developmentorganizations partnering with government, the capacity todevelop social capital improved. Furthermore, there are a

wide variety of organizations within the general category ofnonprofit. Service-providing organizations may have verydifferent experiences with contracting than other types ofnonprofits. Also, nonprofits that contract with local gov-ernments may have a different experience than those doingbusiness with a federal agency.

Finally, social capital itself is a double-edged sword, andsome nonprofit organizations encourage social solidarity

Kennedy, Continued on Page 19

What ifthe increasinguse of nonprofit agencies to

deliver government services

is changing the character

of those agencies? Do those

changes erode their ability

to generate social capital and

contribute to democratic self-

government?

Hollowing Out Civil Society? Kennedy & Bielefeld


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By Bernard Enjolras

Voluntary organiza-tions providing ser-vices, irrespective of

the field in which they op-erate, are confronted with atrend towards commercial-ization. The term commer-cialization refers to the factthat a growing proportionof voluntary organizationsincome is coming from the

sale of services within a competitive market. On the oth-er hand, voluntary organizations claim to be democraticbodies, and democracy within voluntary organizationsis said to contribute positively to societal democracy. Atfirst glance, there is a contradictory relation between thevoluntary organizations trend to commercialization andits democratic functioning. Even if the link between de-mocracy internal to voluntary organizations and societal

democracy is not straightforward, theoretical arguments(Putnam 1993) and empirical evidence (Almond andVerba 1963) support the idea that the contribution ofvoluntary organizations to societal democracy increaseswith active participation within these organizations. Byweakening participation within voluntary organizations,commercialization may threaten the specific contribu-tion of voluntary organizations to societal democracy.

This article summarizes the main results of a study (Enjolras,2001) to measure the degree of commercialization of theNorwegian voluntary mass-sport organizations and to as-sess the extent to which their commercialization may en-danger their internal democratic functioning.

Commercialization

Two dimensions of commercialization have to be distin-guished. On the one hand, commercialization may occur as

the result of the development by voluntary organizations ofcommercial activities in order to finance the production ofthe collective (mission-related) output. On the other handcommercialization may also occur as the result of a transformation of the relationship between the organization andits members from participation to consumption. Indeedmembers of the organization can either participate in theorganization or buy the services of the organization andbehave as customers. In the former case the transactionsbetween members and the organization are based on thereciprocity principle whereas in the latter the transactionsare based on the market principle.

In Norway, sport has been traditionally organized on a vol-untary basis. With 29 percent of all organizations and 26percent of members, sport organizations form the largestfield within the Norwegian voluntary sector. Voluntary la-bor continues to represent the main resource of the sectorIn 1998, there were 613,000 active volunteers who con-tributed 42 million work-hours in the local sports clubs(Enjolras & Seippel 1999). The voluntary sports organiza-

tions are democratic member-based organizations that aimto foster local participation and activities. These mass-spororganizations are not as yet professionalized to any greatextent (Enjolras & Seippel 1999).

At the outset of the study I expected voluntary sports orga-nizations activities to become increasingly commercializedLocal voluntary clubs are already facing competition with

new commercial (for-profit) actors which have invadedthe sports industry, particularly the fitness sector. In ad-dition, due to the process of individualization that characterizes modern societies, two factors push in the directionof a substitution of participation within voluntary sportorganizations by a consumption of sport services. Firstindividuals face an increasingly diversified set of choicesSecond they experience an increasing press over their timeand the way they allocate it among different activities. Asthe rarity of time increases one could expect that choicemakers would choose activities which are less time con-

Commercialization of VoluntaryOrganizations and Members Participation:

The Case of Norwegian Voluntary Sport Organizations

The contribution of voluntary sports organizations

to the social fabric and to democracy may be erodedby commercialization


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suming. Since consumption requires less time and fewer re-sources than participation, commercialization is expectedto expand. This commercialization is problematic however,since the contribution of voluntary sports organizations tothe social fabric and to democracy may be eroded by com-mercialization.

I view voluntary organizations as multi-product organiza-

tions potentially producing three types of goods (Weisbrod,1998): a preferred collective good (the organizations mis-

sion-related output), a preferred private good, and a non-preferred private good (potential sources of revenue forfinancing the mission-related output). In this approachthe private goods are produced in order to cross-subsidizethe collective good.

In order to conceptualize the way the collective good isfunded, it is possible to distinguish between three types oftransaction (Polanyi, 1957a; Polanyi 1957b; Zelizer, 1998):commercial transactions where money is used as com-pensation in exchange for a good or a service; entitlementwhere money, goods or services are allocated according toa predefined right to a share; and reciprocal transactionswhere money, goods or services are mutually exchangedas a result of the norm of reciprocity, i.e. the obligation

to requite what has been given (Gouldner 1960; Fehr andGcher, 1998).

Each type of transaction corresponds to a type of resourcefor voluntary organizations. Public funding involves entitle-ment-based transactions, donations, and voluntary work in-volves reciprocal transactions, whereas and revenues fromsales involve commercial transactions. Commercializationwill then be defined as the process leading to the replace-ment of transactions based on reciprocity or entitlement bytransactions involving compensation (i.e. sale in a market).

In other words, the production and consumption of goodsand services is no longer realized by means of voluntary in-volvement, gift or domestic relations but by means of mar-ket exchange (buying and selling). Commercialization mayoccur at the organizational level as the share of resourcescoming from sales.

Given the two ways by which voluntary organizations maybecome commercialized (increased commercial incomeand marketization of the relationships with members),two related problems are interesting to investigate. First,

does commercialization lead to a reduction of voluntary re-sources? Second, does commercialization entail a lower rateof participation in democratic decision-making organs?

Empirical Research

The empirical analysis is aimed at testing the propositionsand hypothesis drawn from the theoretical analysis. The

specificity of this analysis consists of using data at both theorganizational (voluntary sport organizations) and at the

individual levels (their members). The data was extractedfrom the Survey of Norwegian mass sport organizationsand their members (Enjolras & Seippel, 1999) based ontwo representative samples of 294 voluntary organizationsand 1,216 members of these organizations. Two surveyswere implemented one at the organizational level (sportclubs) and one at the individual (clubs members) level.

The first issue investigated was to determine whether acrowding-out effect between voluntary work and commer-cialization took place. The results of the empirical analysis(Enjolras, 2001) displayed interesting features relative to thedeterminants of volunteers participation. First, both whenit comes to the decision to participate as volunteer and to theamount of time devoted to volunteering, the results show,

contrary to what is commonly predicted by economic theo-ries of voluntary labor supply, that individuals with a highvalue of time volunteer more. The effects of commercializa-tion on voluntary work indicate the presence of a crowdingout effect between voluntary work and commercial income.In other words, increased commercialization leads to a re-duction of voluntary work. But individuals volunteer morewhen other volunteers increase their voluntary contribu-tion. Members do not free ride and seem to respond to thecollective effort in order to produce the club good.

The second issue involves the relation of participation in the

Assembly General of members (AGM) to commercializa-tion. The results of the empirical analysis (Enjolras, 2001)show that individuals with a high value of time are morelikely to participate. This reflects the known fact that indi-viduals with higher incomes are also those having higherpolitical skills and those who participate more in volun-tary organizations decision-making organs. Participationincreases with age and women participate less than men.The level of commercialization of the organization has anegative impact on participation. This effect may be par-tially due to a size effect. Bigger organizations and more

Commercialization of Voluntary Organizations... Enjolras

Subject to the pressures of modern life, individuals do not alwayshave the time for participating in voluntary organizations and prefer

market mechanisms which are less time-consuming


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Commercialization of Voluntary Organizations... Enjolras

References

Almond, G.A. and Verba, S. (1963). The Civic Culture. Boston: Little, Brown

and Company.

Enjolras, B. (2001). Community-Based Economy, Market and Democracy. Oslo:

Institute for Social research.

Enjolras, B. and Seippel, . (1999). Frivillighet, kommersialisering og profes-

jonalisering: utfordringer i norsk idrett.Oslo: Institute for Social Research.

Fehr, E. and Gchter, S. (1998). Reciprocity and Economics: The Economic

Implications of Homo Reciprocans. European Economic Review42: 845-859

Gouldner, A.W. (1960). The Norm of Reciprocity: A Preliminary Statement.

American Sociological Review25(2): 161-178.

Klepp, A. (1982). Reciprocity and Integration into a Market Economy: An

Attempt at Explaining Varying Formalization of the Dugnad in Pre-in-

dustrial Society. Ethnologia Scandinavica 12: 85-94.

Norddlum, H. (1980). The Dugnad in the Pre-industrial Peasant

Community. Ethnologia Scandinavica 10: 102-112.

Polanyi, K. (1957a). The Great Transformation. Beacon Hill: Beacon Press.

Polanyi, K. (Ed.) (1957b). Trade and Market in the Early Empires. New York:

The Free Press.

Putnam, R.D. (1993).Making Democracy Work, Princeton: Princeton

University Press.

Uhlaner, C.J. (1989). Relational Goods and Participation: Incorporating

Sociability into a Theory of Rational Action. Public Choice 62: 253-285.

Weisbrod, B.A.. (Ed.) (1998). To Profit or Not to Profit: The Commercial

Transformation of the Nonprofit Sector. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Zelizer, V. (1998). How Do We Know Whether a Monetary Transaction Is a

Gift, an Entitlement or Compensation? In A. Ben-Ner & L. Putterman

(Eds.), Economics, Values and Organizations. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Electto receive theelectronic version of

Democracy & Society

To sign up, go to www.georgetown.edu/centers/cdats/mailinglist.htmor email us [email protected]

CDATS Visiting Fellows Call for Applications

CDATS is pleased to announce the third annualvisiting faculty fellowship competition for the2005-2006 academic year. Fellowships will pro-vide support for scholars, researchers, and spe-cialists with experience equivalent to a Ph.D. topursue research on all aspects of the relationshipbetween, and interactions among, democraticgovernance and the third sector.

The Center will award a maximum of two visit-ing faculty fellowships. The term of the fellow-ship is for one academic year. Fellowships will

typically begin no later than September 1 andend no earlier than May 31. For more informa-tion, download an Application Package fromour website at http://www.georgetown.edu/cen-ters/cdats/visitors.htm. All application materi-als must be received by CDATS no later thanJanuary 15, 2005.

References

Esping-Andersen, Gsta. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism.

Princeton University Press.

Ho, Daniel. 2003. Majoritarian Electoral Systems and Consumer Power: A

Matching Rejoinder. Mimeo. June 11.

Rogowski, Ronald, and Mark Andreas Kayser. 2002. Majoritarian Electoral

Systems and Consumer Power: Price-Level Evidence from the OECD

Countries.American Journal of Political Science 46: 526-39.

Scartascini, Carlos. 2002. Political Institutions and Regulation: An Inquiry on

the Impact of Electoral Systems on the Regulation of Entry. Working Paper,

Inter-American Development Bank. October.

Rogowski, Continued from Page 4


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arguing for selection systems that favor integrity in publicoffice, for institutions of direct participation, and for con-tinuing communication between representatives and rep-resented. The approach differs from the usual alignmentof democratic theories on a spectrum from aristocratic toparticipatory by choosing institutions from different spac-

es along this spectrum on the criterion of their capacity togenerate thoughtful, deliberative consent.

No one can be perfectly represented by another. This exis-tential dilemma is particularly vivid in the two-party sys-tem at election time, when many voters cannot find eithera party or a candidate to represent their favored collectionof policies. In a multi-party system, this disjunction is re-duced at election time but increased later, when the voter,having picked a candidate who more closely represents hisor her favored policies, is betrayed through legislativecompromise.

The sense of betrayal is perhaps greatest when expandedbureaucracies produce outcomes that no one seems towant (e.g., detailed regulations from Brussels on the

size of apples) and when corporate and wealthy interestsexploit their inevitably greater access to legislators. Thesefailures in the democratic process generate repeated callsfor more democracyfor shorter tethers on legislatorsand bureaucrats, for term limits, and, in an earlier era, forinitiative, referendum, and recall.

Yet electoral democracys dirty little secretsshort timehorizons, reliance on sound-bites, dependence on fund-ingmake more electoral democracy a flawed response tomany of the current problems with representation. Manyfeatures of electoral systems (e.g., the need to raise money,

the expectation that representatives should promote districtinterests, and selection for individuals who have fire in thebelly and are willing to put up with personal vilification)discourage selecting and maintaining in office individualswith integrity and concern for the common good. Otherfeatures (e.g., negative advertising and vilifying opposinggroups) actively undermine the process of securing respon-sible consent from the citizenry on negotiated solutionsto collective problems. Thus elections are not always themost effective vehicles of consent, especially when consentderives from recognizing oneself in either the process or

the outcome. In permanently and deeply divided societiesmoreover, electoral systems have great difficulty producinglegitimacy.

Nor is more accountability, in the specific sense of giving citizens more and heavier sanctions to wield againstelected or appointed officials, often the best answer to theseproblems. Too much accountability of this classic sort may

actually undermine the internal motivation to act in thepublic interest, just as too much supervision and too manyquid pro quo rewards undermine intrinsic motivation inthe non-political realm.

Transparency also has flaws, because pure sunshine(fully transparent negotiation) often undermines the creative deliberation that yields viable solutions to problemsNegotiators need closed doors to try out potential solutionsfrom which they may later back away, to acknowledge theneeds of the other side in language that their constituentsmight consider betrayal, and to develop the mutual trustthat forms one strand of a successful negotiation. In manycases, transparency of rationale is more important for consent than transparency of negotiation.

Many distrust delegation for the same reason that they distrust closed doors. But delegation is a normatively justifiable and highly practical tool of government in any societycharacterized by the division of labor, as long as certainconditions are met in both initiating and continuing thatdelegation.

The democratic deficit, including controlling the effectsof wealth, is thus often better solved by revising the incentives for representatives and devising new vehicles ofconsent than by increasing electoral democracy, classic ac

countability, and transparency or by reducing delegationThe goal of reducing the democratic deficit should be tobring the representatives actions closer to what would betheir constituents enlightened preferences and to bring theconstituents closer both to their own enlightened preferences and to a state of responsible comfort with (consentto) legitimate deviations from those preferences.

Certain normatively praiseworthy and politically effectiveforms of legislative, judicial, and bureaucratic representation operate with little or no effective accountability. In the

The sense of betrayal isperhaps greatestwhen expanded bureaucracies

produce outcomes thatno one seems to want

Mansbridge, Continued from Page 1

Representation Revisited Mansbridge

This paperargues against toogreat a focus on

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Segmenting Votes in Political Markets Cohen

techniques to politics to come out of this election would beon the ground, not on the air. It was the development of adirect-mail strategy by Richard Viguerie and other politicalconservatives that made targeting audiences with particu-lar messages much more precise than was possible withtelevision advertising and other traditional media.

Although the Nixon-Lodge ticket had experimented with

direct mailing to various address lists in 1960 with mixedresults, it was Goldwaters campaign that launched the firstsuccessful large-scale direct-mail solicitation, posting morethan 15 million fundraising appeals and raising $5.8 mil-lion. Viguerie further refined the methods of direct mailby taking the names of the 12,500 Americans who hadcontributed more than $50 to Goldwaters campaign andbuilding from there. He first used hislist to fundraise for the conservative

youth organization, Young Americansfor Freedom, and as his meticulouslyassembled lists grew over the sixtiesand seventies, so too did the right-

wing candidates and causes he helpedpromote. George Wallaces successin 1972 in particular was creditedto Vigueries sharpshooting withhis computerized letters. (By 1977,Viguerie had compiled more than 30 million names of con-servative-leaning individuals and employed three hundredpeople at the Richard A.Viguerie Company and its varioussubsidiaries.) Political organizations of other conservativecandidates, most notably Ronald Reagan and Pat Buchanan,and issue-driven political action committees (PACs, suchas Gun Owners of America, the Moral Majority, and the

National Tax Limitation Committee) perfected the scienceof direct mail, delivering specially tailored messages evermore accurately to the most appropriate constituents. Intime, Democratic candidates such as George McGovernand liberal groups such as Common Cause and the NationalOrganization for Women would mount successful direct-mail campaigns as well. When Reagan assured recipientsof his invitation to join the Republican Presidential TaskForce, at an annual price tag of $120, with the compliment,

Im not asking everyone to join this clubonly proud, flag-waving Americans like you, he did more than flatter. Likelythey had been carefully selected through cross-tabulating

of their income, residence, age, past political views, maga-zine subscriptions, church affiliation, and so forth.9

Republican campaigners expanded the basic strategy ofmarket segmentationidentifying demographic and life-style clustersbeyond direct mail fundraising to recruit-ing potential voters in Richard Nixons 1968 campaign forpresident. Determined not to replay the defeat of 1960,Nixon and his campaign teamnoteworthy for its experi-enced talent drawn from television and advertisingusedthe latest polling and market research techniques to divide

the American electorate into voter blocs that could be solddifferent images of the candidate, images conveyed especially well through new-style television ads made up ofemotion-grabbing collages of still photographs and othericonography set to dramatic soundtracks. Televised commercials targeting the South, where Nixon was in a dogfightwith independent candidate and racial extremist GeorgeWallace, spoke in regional code words and images about

busing, crime, and the Supreme Court, according tohis southern campaign manager, Fred LaRue, and hencewere used very selectively, never in the North. In anothersegmentation scheme, Nixons campaign hired nationallyfamous country-and-western artists to record ballad typesongs for broadcast on radio and television, arranged sothat stanzas addressing different issues could be added or

dropped as the local situation requiredCiting a basic principle of market segmentation, LaRue cautioned, Youcould spend a million dollars on songslike that and its wasted money unless

you get them played in the right spots

You got to get that on or adjacent tocountry and western programs. Eitherthat or wrestling. Thats a special kindof audience. . . .What you do for thosepeople would not appeal to other kinds

of people and vice versa. Similarly, Nixons ethnic specialist, twenty seven-year-old Kevin Phillips, devoted himselfto identifying where the groups are and then we decidehow to reach them. What radio station each listens to, andso forth. Fearing he had started too late in the 68 campaign to nail down what he called group susceptibilityhe predicted that by seventy two I should have it broken

down county by county across the whole country so welbe able to zero in on a much more refined target. 10

Market segmentation techniques were not only implemented in candidate campaigns in the 1960s and 1970sthey were also called on to help mobilize voters aroundcontroversial issues. For example, in what proved to be asuccessful battle defeating an anti-union right to workreferendum in Missouri in 1978, a cluster system was usedto identify union sympathizers. According to a disapproving U.S.News & World Report, Missouris labor leadersworked together under a campaign plan that was designed

for them by a Washington political consultant. . . .With advertising, direct mail, telephone contacts and door-to-doorsolicitations, the unions directed their message only intofavorable areasunion households, blue-collar neighborhoods and the black community. This strategy means thatthey place[d] their local TV commercials around toughguy shows like Baretta.11 Carefully pitched campaignsby California conservatives in the late 1970s helped collectthe necessary signatures to put Proposition 7, a pro-deathpenalty measure, and Proposition 13, Howard Jarviss mas

It was the campaigns ofdown-home, grandfatherly

Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952

and again in 1956 that broughtmass marketing fully into the

political arena


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1

Office,Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, July 21, 1979, pp. 1445

52. On the development of the direct marketing strategy in advertising,

before it was picked up by campaigners, see Wundeman,Being Direct.

10 On Nixons campaign in 1968, see Joe McGinnisss classic The Selling of

the President(New York: Trident, 1969), pp. 12025; Neil Gabler, Life the

Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality(New York: Knopf, 1999),

pp. 102104. The Nixon campaigns Man in the Arena hour-long tele-

vision programs, featuring Nixon answering citizens questions, were

also broadcast by regional grouping of stations, not nationally, to fa-cilitate the tailoring of shows: Diamond and Bates, The Spot, p. 170 and

more generally pp. 15384.

11 New Battle Over Compulsory Unionism, U.S. News & World Report,

Oct. 30, 1978, p. 81; Larson, The Naked Consumer, pp. 22223; Right-

to-Work Fight: High Stakes, Little Logic, Washington Post, Oct. 31,

1978; and from St. Louis Post-Dispatch:Right-to-Work, Oct. 8, 1978;

Catholics Form Group for Right to Work, Oct. 24, 1978; Right-to-

Work Campaigns Intensified, Nov. 6, 1978; Right-to-Work Soundly

Defeated, Nov. 8, 1978.

12 Sabato, Rise of Political Consultants, p. 232; The Power of the Aging in

the Marketplace, BW, Nov. 20, 1971, pp. 5, 57.

13 My assessment of the impact of political marketing techniques on

the American political system has benefited from John Judis, The

Pressure Elite: Inside the Narrow World of Advocacy Group Politics,

The American Prospect, Spring 1992, pp. 1529; Robert V. Friedenberg,

Communication Consultants in Political Campaigns: Ballot Box

Warriors (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), particularly pp. 95126, with

the Miami case described on p. 100; James Davison Hunter, Culture

Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York: Basic Books, 1991),

pp. 16370; Gillian Peele, Campaign Consultants, Electoral Studies 1

(1982): 358; Sabato, Rise of Political Consultants, pp. 231, 241; Diamond

and Bates, The Spot, pp. 15152, 37395; Michael T. Hayes, Interest

Groups: Pluralism or Mass Society? in Allan J.Cigle and Burdett A.

Loomis, eds., Interest Group Politics (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1983),

pp. 1125; Larsen,Naked Consumer, pp. 21524; Westbrook, Politics as

Consumption, passim, and p. 164 on the law of minimal effects. What

he calls new-style campaigning and its larger political consequences

are straightforwardly laid out for practitioners in Daniel Sheas elec-

tioneering manual, Campaign Craft: The Strategies, Tactics, and Art of

Political Campaign Management(Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996). For evi-

dence that identifying and catering to electoral market niches remains a

thriving business, see James Bennet, The Guru of Small Things,NYT

Magazine, June 18, 2000, pp. 6065, on pollster Mark Penn, whose data

helped transform the Clinton presidency into a service provider for

various niche voters. Now hes thinly slicing New Yorkers to get Hillary

to the Senate. For an analysis of the shift from voter mobilization to

activation (by electoral niches), see Steven E. Schier, By Invitation Only:

The Rise of Exclusive Politics in the United States (Pittsburgh: University

of Pittsburgh Press, 2000).

14 Lizabeth Cohen,Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago,

19191939(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

of a sort highly inimical to democratic processes. A morefinely-grained investigation of these questions will neces-sarily distinguish between those attributes of both bridg-ing and bonding social capital thought to be supportiveof democratic self-governance and those thought to bedestructive of it.

Whatever the caveats, however, the five topics above needto be explored with careful, empirical research. Milward(1994) has suggested that contracting produces a hollowstate. If contracting also is hollowing out an essentialcomponent of civil society, that possibility deserves schol-arly attention.

Sheila Suess Kennedy, Associate Professor, andWolfgang

Bielefeld, Professor, in the School of Public & Environmental Affairs

at Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis.

References

Backman, Elaine V. and Smith, Steven Rathgeb. 2000. Healthy

Organizations, Unhealthy Communities?Nonprofit Management &

Leadership, vol. 10, no. 4, Summer

Bielefeld, Wolfgang. 2004. Social Capital. In Dwight F. Burlingame (Ed.)

Encyclopedia of Philanthropy in the US. San Francisco: ABC-CLIO

Publishing. Pp.440-447.

Cremson, Matthew and Ginsburg, Benjamin. 2002. Downsizing Democracy:

How America Sidelined its Citizens and Privatized Its Public. Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins University Press.

Kennedy, Sheila Suess and Bielefield,Wolfgang. 2002. Government Shekels

Without Government Shackles? The Administrative Challenges of

Charitable Choice. Public Administration Review. Vol. 62 #1

Kennedy, Sheila Suess. Accountability: The Achilles Heel. 2001. To

Market, To Market: Reinventing Indianapolis. Ingrid Richie and Sheila

Suess Kennedy, eds. Lanham, MD: University Press of America

Kennedy, Sheila Suess. 2001. When Is Public Private? State Action,

Privatization, and Public-Private Partnerships George Mason Civil

Rights Law Review, Vol. 11 #2, Spring 2001.

Milward, Brinton. 1994. Nonprofit Contracting and the Hollow State.

Public Administration Review, Jan/Feb. Vol. 54, No. 1.

Portes, Alejandro. 1998. Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in

Modern Sociology.Annual Review of Sociology24:1-24.

Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of

American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Smith, Stephen Rathgeb and Lipsky, Michael. 1993.Nonprofits For Hire: The

Welfare State in the Age of Contracting. Cambridge: Harvard University

Press.

Stolle, Dietlind and Rochon, Thomas R. 2001. Are All Associations Alike?

Member Diversity, Associational Type, and the Creation of Social

Capital. Pp. 143156 in. Beyond Tocqueville: Civil Society and the Social

Capital Debate in Comparative Perspective. Edited by Bob Edwards.

Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.

United States General Accounting Office. 1997. Privatization Lessons

Learned. Washington, D.C.

Kennedy, Continued from Page 7

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and exit, as well through the opportunity structures createdby formal institutions. The question of what entitles groupsto act as representatives is increasingly important as pow-erful bodies such as the EU and UN provide standing forthese groups as civil society representatives within formalpolitical processes.

7. Temporal dimensions of representation. Because repre-

sentation includes authorization for representatives to usetheir judgment on behalf of the represented, the nature ofrepresentation has an irreducible temporary dimension.The dimension may be understood in terms of the relation-ship between authorization (a representative is authorizedto speak for or vote on behalfof an individual, group, set ofinterests, etc.) and account-ability(a representative givesan account of his/her actionsand is judged or sanctionedby those in whose interestshe/she acted).

C. Issue complexes

While it is likely that the con-ceptual issues above will needto be refined to meet emerg-ing challenges of represen-tation, they should be refined in relation to problems, orcomplexes of issues. Some of these might provide the focusfor research agendas.

1. The role of accountability in representation. Account-

ability has a crucial role in representation, since it is throughthis process that citizens maintain their powers of sanctionover those who represent them. In modern democracies,however, practices of accountability tend toward sub-op-timal extremes. On the one hand, it is extremely difficultfor electors to hold their representatives accountable eitherfor their decisions on specific issues or for the political en-vironments and institutions their practices create. On theother hand, in a mass-media-saturated environment, poli-ticians often seem to pander to irrational swings in publicopinion. In this respect, the electronic revolution presentsboth dangers and opportunities. New research on electoral

accountability shows that this is a much more complex pro-cess than traditional democratic theory tends to portray,and certainly suggests a need for rethinking the question ofhow accountability mechanisms relate to representation.

2. New forms of accountability. The growth of informalforms of representation suggests that we should identify themeans and mechanisms of accountability in order to judgewhether these forms can be identified as democratic, andwhether we should judge them as contributions to democ-racy. Traditional forms of accountability may come to play

new roles; market-based, or exit accountability may havea key place within group accountability; internal groupdemocracy/representation may also be important. Theremay be other kinds of accountability that have democraticimportance. For example, are there informal but effectivehorizontal forms of accountabilitypeers answering topeersthat might function in democratic ways? Can ac-countability be the result of a network of voluntary or-

ganizations that police each other and public standards? Inwhat ways does democratic accountability relate to the in-troduction of mechanisms of organizational performanceand organizational learning typical of the private sectorand of the new managerialism in the public sector?

3. Group accountabil-ity and role obligations ofgroup representatives. As asubset of the previous topic,it seems important to con-ceive new forms of groupaccountability, particularlywith regard to voluntaryorganizations and advocacygroups. Two contemporarytrends indicate the impor-tance of group accountabil-ity. On the one hand, theseorganizations are taking on

representative functions that were traditionally performedby public institutions. As a consequence, their representa-tiveness has become an issue. On the other hand, increas-ing demand for group accountability is contributing tochanges in both the way organizations work internally and

the mechanisms of their accountability.

4. Equality and inequality in representation. As points ofaccess and opportunities for participation multiply, so doresource requirements for participationeducation, mon-ey, time, and social capital. Group representatives often fillthis void. But it is unclear whether increasing the open-ness of the political system helps or harms equal inclusion.Unorganized and latent issues and groups may lose out.In addition, if institutions are opened to more represen-tation without being designed to unify responsibility fordecisions, accountability may become so diffuse that repre-

sentation loses its egalitarian and democratic value. One ofthe crucial elements to explore is the connection betweenunofficial and official power and how this works in relationto the empowerment of disadvantaged groups. What formsof group organization and representation are most likelyto generate power for those who are least represented informal political institutions?

5. Institutional opportunity structures for informal rep-resentation. Institutions create incentives that bring groupsinto existencefor example, by requiring citizen input

The Transformation of Democratic Representation Warren & Castiglione

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into administrative processes. Depending upon patterns ofinteraction between official and unofficial power; however,these forms of representation may shade into unwarrantedforms of corporatism, and groups may be co-opted. A re-search project might focus on: (a) existing criteria for grouprepresentation within formal processes, and (b) whethercriteria could be developed that would equalize representa-tive opportunities, e.g., by requiring that groups themselves

have a representative/democratic structure with respect totheir representative claims, or that they develop broadercoalitions in order to have access to formal processes.

6. The representation of public opinion. In deliberativeaccounts of democracy, public opinion has forcebut itshould count as democratic only when it develops a pub-lic qualitythat is, when it is the result of public discourse.Opinion polls, deliberative polls, and the media make rep-resentative claims to public opinion, and seek authorizationfrom it. What, exactly, can representation and accountabil-ity mean in this increasingly important context?

D. Research and Networking Activities

The CDATS Workshop in June was meant as the firstof a series of initiatives on the Transformation ofRepresentation. It is CDATS intention to help promoteother such initiatives, and encourage the formation of anetwork of researchers working in this area. At present, wesuggest three ways of proceeding.

1. Develop a loose network through the promotion of otherinitiatives. By organizing other moments of discussionon issues of representation, we hope to carry on the con-

versation started at the June workshop. This would allowus, and other researchers who may want to participate infuture initiatives, to verify if, as we originally suggested,there is a need for new studies on representation, reflect-ing important developments in our democratic practicesand institutions. Andrew Rehfeld is organizing a series ofpanels on the topic at the Midwest Conference next April,and we hope this can be the first opportunity for someof us to carry on the discussion. We will also explore thepossibility of connecting with other similar networks,such as the Collaborative Democracy Network, as sug-gested by Iris Young.

2. Promote integrated research projects on representation.One other aim is to promote empirical research that istheoretically informed. CDATS is particularly interestedin setting up a research project on new regimes of ac-countability. In the short term, it is sponsoring, togetherwith Virginia Tech, an Inter-University Workshop onAccountability and the Nonprofit Sector. In the medi-um-term, it aims to set up an in-depth research projecton the same topic. We would hope that the Network mayfunction as a place through which we can exchange ideas

and research results. To this end, CDATS Website andits Democracy and SocietyNewsletter are open to contri-butions and information on research and initiatives onrepresentation and accountability.

3. Build a new theoretical agenda.Following more directlyfrom the June workshop, we would like to pursue thequestion of a new theoretical agenda for the study of

democratic representation. We are therefore planningsome other moments of discussion (including the panelsorganized by Andrew Rehfeld at MPSA) so that we canarrive at a publication outlining such a new theoreticaagenda.

Mark Warren, Professor of Government at Georgetown University

(on leave); Dario Castiglione, CDATS Visiting Faculty Fellow and

Senior Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Exeter.

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These recommendations, while useful, are not ultimatelyconvincing as comprehensive strategies to address thetough challenges that Edwards raises in Civil Society. Thebooks greatest value lies in offering readers an opportu-nity to walk down the intellectual pathways of civil soci-ety development alongside a leading practitioner, sharingwhat he has learned, his insights, and his frustrations.Edwardss hard-eyed, critical, realistic, and ultimately

hopeful view of civil societys role in building the goodsociety underscores not only the importance of buildingcivil society but also the real limits on the outsiders abilityto influence it.

Restructuring World Politics: Transnational SocialMovements, Networks, and Norms. Edited by Sikkink,Khagram, & Riker. Minneapolis: University of MinnesotaPress, 2002.

Review by Jonathan Monten, Ph.D. Candidate,


This edited volume conceptu-alizes and assesses the impactof transnational advocacy

groups on international politics.According to the editors, the pri-mary goal of transnational civilsociety is to create, strengthen, im-plement, and monitor internationalnorms. The groups that constitutethis emerging civil society are of in-

creasing interest to students of international relations:

whereas other political actors in the international systemare motivated by the self-interested pursuit of power orprofit, transnational advocacy groups are distinguishedby their pursuit of principled beliefs about right andwrong, and attempt to influence state behavior accord-ingly. This volume brings together the diverse perspec-tives of scholars, activists, and policymakers to showhow these groups address key issue areas such as labor,the environment, human rights, and democratization.

As is customary, the editors begin by establishing a concep-tual framework within which the empirical chapters can be

situated, in this case a typology of transnational collectiveaction. Khagram, Riker, and Sikkink argue that collectiveaction can take the form of international networks, coali-tions and advocacy campaigns, and social movements, dif-ferentiated primarily by mechanism of change employed:information exchange, informal contacts, and coordinatedtactics. These techniques form an interesting area of re-search because these groups command none of the materialresources associated with political power, and must insteadrely on other means: legitimacy, strategic framing, etc. Theempirical chapters then explore how specific transnational

networks and campaigns attempt to influence policies andagendas, the causal conditions in which they succeed or failand the problems and complications they encounter.

This volume makes two contributions to a growing lit-erature on transnational civil society and the third sectorSubstantively, the research findings provide further evi-dence that transnational activity by the civil society sector

matters, challenging the predominantly state-centric viewof international politics. The contributors present a rangeof cases where nongovernmental actors attempt to changethe norms and the practices of governments, private firmsand international organizations, in issue areas as diverse asanti-dam projects in India to pro-democracy movementsin Indonesia. The most interesting chapters address whatare traditionally regarded as the hard cases for this re-search program: the high politics of military and securitycompetition. For example, Daniel Greens chapter on theprocess by which NGOs surrounding the Helsinki agree-ments influenced reformers within the Soviet Union andultimately contributed to the end of the Cold War shouldbe required reading for those who eulogized the deathof Ronald Reagan with the thesis that the assertion ofAmerican power in the 1980s induced the collapse of theSoviet Union.

Theoretically, the volume contributes to our understand-ing of the origins of international norms. The first wave ofconstructivist research in the international relations sub-field was criticized for being overly structural; in its zeal todemonstrate that norms mattered, early constructivist workfocused primarily on how an international social structureshaped and influenced states, and ignored the processes by

which agents created or influenced norms of appropriatebehavior. The conceptual claims and empirical evidencepresented in this volume suggests that this gap in the con-structivist research program can be filled by a better under-standing of non-governmental activism and advocacy.

Nonetheless, Restructuring World Politics is undermined bya problem that continues to plague the study of transna-tional civil society and the third sector: the authors openlysympathize with the normative agenda of the groups andcampaigns under consideration. In general, this sympa-thy raises two flaws; methodologically, scholars tend to

be drawn only to cases of success, creating a severe selec-tion bias problem, and substantively, case studies tend tofocus on instances of good or positive norms, leaving anempirical gap in our understanding of different kinds ofnormative change. By including cases of both success andfailures, Khagram, Sikkink, and Riker admirably avoid thefirst problem, but not the second. Those interested in howbad norms are created and exert influence in the interna-tional system will have to wait for a more creative collectionof transnational case studies.

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Finally, the remarkably dense style of prose found in manyof the chapters (and especially the first by the editors) willmake this book impenetrable to all but the most dedicatedof specialists; for the sake of the subfield, one hopes it is notintrinsic to the topic. This book will be useful primarily forthose interested in a template for understanding transna-tional civil society, or who have a specific interest in one ofthe empirical areas included.

The State of Democratic Theory. By Ian Shapiro.Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.

Review by Ricardo Cruz-Prieto, Ph.D. Candidate,


Democratic theory has seena remarkable renaissanceduring the last two decades,

witnessing the emergence of newperspectives as well as the creativereformulation of older ones. By thelast decade of the Cold War, IanShapiro tells us, democratic theorydid not seem to be going anywhereinteresting or worthwhile. The

Third Wave of democratization and the processes ofdemocratic consolidation changed this by directing newinterest and energies to the study of democracy, further-ing a reinvigoration that had begun in political theory adecade before with the work of philosophers like JohnRawls and Jrgen Habermas.

In The State of Democratic Theory, Shapiro attempts a pre-cise assessment of the literature developed during theselast years, which proceeds from the difficult intersectionof normative and explanatory perspectives. The book of-fers both more and less than this explicit aim. To a largeextent, it provides a well-crafted defense and reformulationof the reform agenda of the competitive pluralist brandof American Liberalism, framed within a critique of someof the current influential positions among democraticscholars and activists. The approach is minimalist, insti-tutional-reform oriented, and well rooted in Robert Dahland Joseph Schumpeter, with an incisiveness that brings to

mind the work of Albert O. Hirschman. It assumes a com-monsensical tone and the skepticism about overambitiousprojects proper to this tradition. It insists on the need forthe redesign, not the reinvention, of institutions.

Shapiro criticizes many of the most significant positions inthe literature, from liberal constitutionalism to Madisonianand Tocquevillian arguments. In fact, one of the refreshingaspects of this book is to find sober criticism of some of theemerging conventional wisdom in democratic theory.

In examining the centrality of independent courts in new de-mocracies, for example, Shapiro notices that their popularitymay have more in common with the popularity of indepen-dent banks than with the protection of individual freedoms[by functioning as devices that signal for investors that] thecapacity of elected officials to interfere in redistributive policyor interfere with property rights will be limited (21).

He shows particular skepticism about the adequacy of theclaims of deliberative democrats and civil society advocates.Most of the criticisms are not entirely new, but are effective-ly argued and nicely brought together by his perspective.

Normatively, Shapiro notices that there is no evidence tosupport the expectation that the outcomes of deliberationwill provide better public policy and increased agreement.He argues that the conclusions reached by the proponentsof deliberation about what the results of political dialoguecould or should be appear to be fully dependent on thedifferent assumptions embraced by the argument. He hintsat the notion that the claims of these authors about theconclusions of deliberative politics are alien to the actualindividuals who should be part of it, thus imposing a con-ception that belongs to the theoretician or attempting totransform the participants, in either way depending on aparticular substantive notion of the common good thatprecedes deliberation.

Empirically, Shapiro suggests that an overly inclusive pro-cess of deliberation can risk the attainment of the goalspursued, by providing powerful opposing interests withpositions and power for vetoing or complicating the pro-cess. In practice, deliberation could become another form

of domination by favoring those more adept and bettersituated to participate in dialogue processes in detrimentof other groups. In these ways, deliberative processes canfavor the status quo or recreate domination. Deliberationcould also bring to light previously hidden disagreementsthat would increase conflict instead of reducing it. WhileShapiro discounts central parts of the arguments providedby deliberative democrats, he presents useful criticism.

The problem with the conceptions of deliberative and ag-gregative democrats, Shapiro says, is their Rousseaunianconception of democracy that involves a notion of the

common good that depends on the possibility of discover-ing the general will of society. This expectation rests uponimplausible expectations about rationality and a miscon-strual of what stable democratic politics require (10).

The mistake begins by forgetting that politics is fundamentallyabout power relations and conflicts of interest. Thus, Shapirosresponse is to propose a minimalist conception of democracyas a means of managing power relations so as to minimizedomination. Accordingly, the common good is that whichthose with an interest in avoiding domination share (3).

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Now, the question about deliberation becomes how andon what settings it diminishes domination. Deliberation iscostly, low in efficiency and burdensome, so it should notbe imposed on citizens while there are other alternativesthat can solve the problems. Shapiro finds, however, thatgiven certain prerequisites deliberation is desirable as partof democratic politics.

First, to work, the shaping of deliberative mechanisms shouldhave a presumption in favor of insiders wisdom ( 2.2)as opposed to an amorphous civil society, where even gov-ernmental functions are part of a division of labor. Second,deliberation can function as an intermediate form of regu-lation. Disadvantaged groups could demand the establish-ment of deliberative processes in cases in which their basicinterests can be affected: strengthening the hand of thosewhose basic interests are threatened, government can shiftthe balance of incentives indirectly (47). It is only those whohave a direct interest in the issue and who have some form ofexpertise who should be involved in deliberative processes.

These are very interesting suggestions. Unfortunately, inthis book Shapiro does not clarify the model enough, sothat notions like insiders and basis interest remain un-clear. Additionally, in trying to find its usefulness, Shapirotransforms deliberation into bargaining, which is morecompatible with the traditional pluralist model.

The section on Power and Democratic Competition isa forcefully developed defense of Schumpeterianism as atheory of democratic politics: in a world in which poweris ubiquitous, structured competition beats the going alter-natives (148). Shapiro argues that the problems identified

with American democracy have to do not with this mini-malist conception, but with insufficient competitiveness inthe system. He provides very cogent and convincing criti-cism of bipartisanism and bipartisan consensus, campaignfinancing and supervising institutions formed by the par-ties themselves, all of which reduce competition and erodethe value of opposition politics.

In this context, judicial review should be limited to pre-venting subversions of democracy by ensuring that theprinciple of affected interests is not undermined throughdisenfranchising legitimate voters when their basic inter-

ests are at stake (66).

In terms of description, the last two chapters, in whichthere is less of an agenda, are the best developed. The litera-ture on transitions and consolidation is very well reviewedand analyzed. Shapiros skepticism about the reach of ourknowledge is particularly appropriate for its assessment.Here also his reasonable suspicions about the prejudice inthe literature in favor of the virtues of negotiated transi-tions are instructive.

The last chapter is a very interesting exposition about therelation between democracy and redistribution. The intu-ition that the larger the income inequality, the less likely arestrong redistributive politics is well explored. The prover-bial call for ingenuity and political will adequately closesthis section.

The State of Democratic Theory offers a fresh look at the

main issues and concerns of the literature, as well as someincisive criticism of the emerging conventional wisdom inthis area. Shapiro also offers a resourceful and cogent re-statement of the best intuitions of the tradition of Americancompetitive pluralism in terms of current debates. In asense, the book is a call for returning to more traditionalways of presenting democratic theory in this academic tra-dition, one more centered in governmental institutions andmarket-like equilibriums of power. He also presents an in-teresting series of suggestions for democratic institutionaengineering aimed at the American political system.

A Consumers Republic: The Politics of MassConsumption in Postwar America. By Lizabeth Cohen.New York: Vintage Books, 2003.

Review by Carin Larson, Ph.D. Candidate, Georgetown University

Bemoaning Americas consu-mer culture is a popularpastime in some halls of aca-

demia. Sociologists lament the con-sumer mentality that reduces groupidentity to a matter of purchasing

preferences. Political scientists leapinto an analysis of capitalism and de-mocracy when the President of theUnited States points to shopping as

the means to fight terror. Even theologians grieve thepre-packaged religion offered by contemporary places oworship that treat congregants as consumers and God asthe ultimate product. Erich Fromm once said, Modernman, if he dared to be articulate about his concept ofheaven, would describe a vision which would look likethe biggest department store in the world.

Lizabeth Cohen brilliantly weaves these disciplines (andthen some) together in her historical analysis of the rise ofpostwar consumerism. The Consumers Republic, as Cohencalls it, is essentially an economy, a culture, and a politicasystem centered on mass consumption as a means to free-dom, democracy, and egalitarianism. The abstraction mosaptly describes the period of time following World War IIwhen politicians turned to consumers to revive the economy. Her premise is that the hoopla surrounding mass con-sumption, both then and today, has grave consequences forhow citizens interact with one another and their expecta-

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tions for government. Cohen offers a step-by-step analysisof how postwar prosperity likened consumerism with pa-triotism, but then unexpectedly contributed to inequalitiesacross class, race, and gender lines. To be sure, Cohen makeslittle attempt to hide her enthusiasm for such figures asRalph Nader and her disfavor for Reagonomics, yet overallCohen does not stray from the facts. Her account of post-war history reads like a story not meant as a call to action

but meant simply to illuminate our understanding of massconsumption and its relevance to the shaping of Americanvalues and politics. To that end, she is successful.

Drawing from her personal experiences growing up in NewJersey, Cohen traces three waves leading to the rise of theConsumers Republic, all taking place in the 20th century,and then speculates, albeit briefly, about the impact of massconsumption for the 21st century. New Jersey is a particu-larly relevant setting for her discussion as it is the birthplaceof the suburban mall. Cohen opens her analysis during theProgressive Era at the turn of the century. At this time,consumers were emerging as a new category of citizens.Citizens groups pressured the federal government to pro-tect them from rising prices and poor working conditions.Writing in 1906, Upton Sinclair bleakly describes the situ-ation in The Jungle: So from the top to bottom the place issimply a seething cauldron of jealousies and hatreds; thereis no loyalty or decency anywhere about it, there is no placein it where a man counted for anything against a dollar.The government responded by passing the Pure Food andDrug Act and the Meat Inspection Act in 1906.

It was during and immediately following World War II,Cohen argues, that the good consumer, good patriot re-

lationship was solidified. Women and blacks were the firstbeneficiaries of this mentality, says Cohen, as they wereable to assert their civic worth through their buying power.This was especially true while the men were away at war.By mobilizing as consumers, African Americans partici-pated in a broader political culture of dissent where theconsumer became viewed as a legitimate and effectiveagent of protest, particularly for women and blacks whowere marginalized from the mainstreams of politics andthe labor movement (53). Cohen offers great insight intohow mass consumption became the arena for the fight forequality, particularly among African-Americans. Equality

first meant an equal right to buy things. For a time, boy-cotts were effective and the Consumers Republic offeredhope for women and minorities who used their position asconsumers to achieve recognition in the public sphere. Butin the 1950s, with the GI Bill offering financial benefits toveterans, most of whom were white males, inequalities andsegregation not only resumed, but intensified.

Perhaps Cohens most impressive contribution to the litera-ture is found in her discussion of suburbanization duringthis time. She intricately outlines how suburbanization, as

a result of the home being the prized consumer possession,contributed to greater inequalities. The socioeconomichierarchy of communities that arose from the commodi-fication of home intensified the inequitable effects of thelocalism that had long been a feature of American, and par-ticularly New Jerseys, political culture. As residents retreatedinto suburbs defined by the homogeneity of their popula-tions and the market values of their homes, the barriers they

erected against outsiders grew higher, and their conceptionof the public good correspondingly narrowed (228).Focusing on New Jersey, including maps and analysis of thephysical landscape, Cohen goes on to explain how suburban-ization led to a commercialized, privatized, and feminizedpublic space summed up in two words: the mall. Suddenly,free speech in the public sphere butted heads with propertyrights. The newly configured landscape sharply contradictedthe original goals of the Consumers Republic.

It is not surprising, as Cohen points out, that in the 1970sa Boy Scout merit badge for consumer buying debuted.Consumer consciousness remained intact even after a peri-od of deregulation of the marketplace in the 1980s and 90s.Cohens analysis of the Consumers Republic putters out asshe reaches present-day America. She offers no solution tothe inequ

Mansbridge Castiglione Warren 2004 Representation Revisited

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