Importing Democracy: Ideas from Around the World to Reform and Revitalize American Politics and Government (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780313363375)

This unique work brings together a comparative analysis of American institutions, a tour of the world's political systems, and a manifesto for reform, offering insights on democracy that could revitalize U.S. politics and government.

The United States has always taken pride in being a model of democracy. However, presidential systems are more closely associated with dictatorship and single-party rule in other parts of the world like Latin America and Africa. Indeed, democratic practices more often flourish in parliamentary systems, and the United States remains the only advanced, industrialized democracy with a presidential system instead of a parliamentary organization.

Each of the 21 chapters in Importing Democracy: Ideas from Around the World to Reform and Revitalize American Politics and Government highlights a feature of a foreign nation's political system that is absent in the U.S. system. Chapters also draw on brief case studies from countries as diverse as Australia, Brazil, Iceland, India, Germany and South Africa. Importing Democracy explores whether American politics and government might be enhanced by incorporating a multiparty system, a simplified Constitutional amendment process, parliamentary practices of accountability, proportional representation elections, presidential votes of "no confidence," restraints on judicial power, and much more.

Author: Raymond Smith
ISBN-10: 0313363374
ISBN-13: 9780313363375
Publisher: Praeger
Language: English
Published: 06/02/2010
Pages: 264
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.20w x 1.00d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 06/01/2011
Reference and Research Bk News 08/01/2010 pg. 158