2009 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
Assessing Electoral Democracy
Published in:
Elections and Voters
Apart from their consequences for policy and selection of personnel, elections affect the relationship of citizens to their political system. In Powell’s (2000) words they are ‘instruments of democracy’. To what extent can we judge how well they fulfil this role? And, to the extent that we can do so, how do various systems perform in relation to each other?