This book examines how established democracies have responded to citizen demands for greater access, transparency, and accountability. In a series of coordinated chapters, a team of international collaborators assesses the extent of institutional reform in contemporary democracies, and evaluates how the core actors of representative democracy are responding to the new structures. Different sections examine change in electoral institutions and practices, and in citizen input and influence through non-electoral institutions such as courts, bureaucracies, and Freedom of Information laws. Concludi ... More

This book examines how established democracies have responded to citizen demands for greater access, transparency, and accountability. In a series of coordinated chapters, a team of international collaborators assesses the extent of institutional reform in contemporary democracies, and evaluates how the core actors of representative democracy are responding to the new structures. Different sections examine change in electoral institutions and practices, and in citizen input and influence through non-electoral institutions such as courts, bureaucracies, and Freedom of Information laws. Concluding chapters put the observed changes in theoretical perspective, and ask whether they constitute a transformation of democracy.