Table of Contents

Introduction / Patti Tamara Lenard and Richard Simeon

1 The Democratic Deficit: Canada and the United States in Comparative Perspective / Pippa Norris

2 Citizen Expectations and Democratic Performance: The Sources and Consequences of Democratic Deficits from the Bottom Up / Neil Nevitte and Stephen White

3 Defining and Identifying a “Democratic Deficit” / David Beetham

4 Democracy in American Elections / Michael McDonald

5 “Can Canada’s Past Electoral Reforms Help to Understand the Debate over Its Method of Election?” / John C. Courtney

6 Regulating Political Finance in Canada: Contributions to Democracy? / Lisa Young

7 Campaign Finance Reform in the United States / Robert C. Boatright

8 Imperfect Legislatures / David C. Docherty

9 Democracy’s Wartime Deficits: Presidential Prerogatives and Liberal Democracy in America / Daniel J. Tichenor

10 The “Centre” of the Democratic Deficit: Power and Influence in Canadian Political Executives / Graham White

11 Extending the Franchise to Non-Citizen Residents in Canada and the United States: How Bad is the Democratic Deficit? / Patti Tamara Lenard and Daniel Munro

12 Citizen Representation and the American Jury / Ethan J. Leib and David L. Ponet

13 Supplementary Democracy? Democratic Deficits and Citizens’ Assemblies / Amy Lang and Mark E. Warren

14 Reflections on the “Democratic Deficit” in Canada and the United States / Simone Chambers and Patti Tamara Lenard

Index

Promotional Information

In light of calls to make democracy more open to citizen participation, this timely book seeks to measure and evaluate the democratic deficit on both sides of the border.

About the Author

Patti Tamara Lenard is an assistant professor of applied ethics at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. Richard Simeon is a professor emeritus in the Political Science Department at the University of Toronto.

Contributors: Robert C. Boatright, Simone Chambers, John C. Courtney, David C. Docherty, Amy Lang, Ethan J. Leib, Michael McDonald, David Munro, Neil Nevitte, Pippa Norris, David Ponet, Daniel Tichenor, Mark Warren, Graham White, Stephen White, and Lisa Young

Reviews

Imperfect Democracies offers a broad and unprecedented comparison of democratic institutions in Canada and the United States that will considerably advance scholarly debate about democracy in each country.  It is both substantive and accessible as an exploration of what the “democratic deficit” means in each country.
*Jonathan Malloy, author of Between Colliding Worlds: The Ambiguous Existence of Government Agencies for Aboriginal and Women’s Policy*

Imperfect Democracies combines theoretical studies of the “democratic deficit” with approaches that use survey data and are more behaviouralist. The authors, many of whom are leaders in their fields, address a timely subject, and the Canada-US comparison makes a novel contribution. The volume will be useful for students of comparative politics, democratic institutions, or Canada-US politics courses.
*Jonathan Rose, co-author of When Citizens Decide: Lessons from Citizens Assemblies*