Wrestling with Democracy: Voting Systems as Politics in the Twentieth-Century West Contributor(s): Pilon, Dennis (Author) |
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ISBN: 1442613505 ISBN-13: 9781442613508 Publisher: University of Toronto Press OUR PRICE: $49.40 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: April 2013 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Political Science | History & Theory - General - Political Science | World - General |
Dewey: 321.809 |
Series: Studies in Comparative Political Economy & Public Policy (Paperback) |
Physical Information: 1" H x 6" W x 9" (1.30 lbs) 408 pages |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Though sharing broadly similar processes of economic and political development from the mid-to-late nineteenth century onward, western countries have diverged greatly in their choice of voting systems: most of Europe shifted to proportional voting around the First World War, while Anglo-American countries have stuck with relative majority or majority voting rules. Using a comparative historical approach, Wrestling with Democracy examines why voting systems have (or have not) changed in western industrialized countries over the past century. In this first single-volume study of voting system reform covering all western industrialized countries, Dennis Pilon reviews national efforts in this area over four timespans: the nineteenth century, the period around the First World War, the Cold War, and the 1990s. Pilon provocatively argues that voting system reform has been a part of larger struggles over defining democracy itself, highlighting previously overlooked episodes of reform and challenging widely held assumptions about institutional change. |
Contributor Bio(s): Pilon, Dennis: - Dennis Pilon is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at York University. |