The two most influential traditions of contemporary theorizing about democracy, social choice theory and deliberative democracy are generally thought to be at loggerheads, in that one demonstrates the impossibility, instability or meaninglessness of the rational collective outcomes sought by the other. We argue that the two traditions can be reconciled. After expounding the central Arrow and Gibbard–Satterthwaite impossibility results, we reassess their implications, identifying the conditions under which meaningful democratic decision making is possible. We argue that deliberation can promote these conditions, and hence that social choice theory suggests not that democratic decision making is impossible, but rather that democracy must have a deliberative aspect.

The theoretical literature presents conflicting expectations about the effect of globalization on national democratic governance. One view expects globalization to enhance democracy; a second argues the opposite; a third argues globalization does not necessarily affect democracy. Progress in explaining how globalization affects democracy requires confronting these theoretical positions with data. We assess empirically the effects of globalization on the level of democracy from 1970 to 1996 for 127 countries in a pooled time-series cross-sectional statistical model. The effects of four national aspects of globalization on democracy are examined: trade openness, foreign direct investment inflows, portfolio investment inflows and the spread of democratic ideas across countries. We find that trade openness and portfolio investment inflows negatively affect democracy. The effect of trade openness is constant over time while the negative effect of portfolio investment strengthens. Foreign direct investment inflows positively affect democracy, but the effect weakens over time. The spread of democratic ideas promotes democracy persistently over time. These patterns are robust across samples, various model specifications, alternative measures of democracy and several statistical estimators. We conclude with a discussion of policy implications.

This article examines social cleavages and the impact of political legacies on Chile's post-authoritarian party system. In contrast to society-oriented approaches to party system formation, we argue that cleavage appearance in a party system depends on political agency, which can even (re)create social identities and social conflicts. The Chilean case illustrates this point; the structure of the party system is deeply influenced by distinctive political legacies of the authoritarian period. The cleavage between those who supported authoritarian rule and those who opposed it has powerfully shaped the party system during the new democratic period.

In post-authoritarian Chile (1990–2001), a societal approach does not adequately explain the formation of cleavages or the contours of the party system. A class cleavage has appeared between the governing coalition and the conservative opposition, but this cleavage is politically constructed and maintained. The Chilean case also shows that it is important to examine the ways in which political elites craft party systems from above during the transition period. Political agency from the supply side played a decisive role in emphasizing or diminishing some of the political and cultural conflicts existing after the authoritarian experience and, therefore, an essential role in party system formation in post-authoritarian Chile.

Analyses of the economic transformation of the Polish economy and of the 1993 elections to the parliament suggest it is possible to proceed with pro-market and democratic reforms simultaneously. As demonstrated by the Polish case, the key to this process is the rate at which new enterprises are created. These enterprises, not the privatization of existing ones, are primarily responsible for the creation of a growing private economy. This evolving new economy, securely based and growing, creates a pro-reform constituency in the regions where it occurs. This constituency supports pro-reform parties. The Polish case offers important lessons about the reform process and about the way economies and political constituencies co-evolve.

Mixed-member proportional election systems give voters two choices – one for a party candidate in a first-past-the-post single-member constituency election and the other for a party list in a multi-member constituency. Some will vote a straight ticket (i.e. vote for the same party at each contest); others may vote a split-ticket. Although such an electoral system has been operating in Germany since 1953, very little work has been done on variations between constituencies in either the volume of split-ticket voting or the direction of the switching involved. Using an entropy-maximizing method, this article reports estimates of the pattern of straight-ticket and split-ticket voting in each of Germany's 328 constituencies at the 1998 federal elections. Analyses of the variations show that the patterns are consistent with patterns of party strength at the constituency level: the stronger a party's performance at the 1994 election, the better its ability to retain the support of straight-ticket voters in 1998, to limit the out-flows of split-ticket voters, and to attract split-ticket voters who supported another party in the list contest.

Sunday, 29 October 1994 was cool, partly cloudy, and almost warm when the sun was out, a pleasant autumn day in Washington. Clusters of sightseers strolled along Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House, others sat across the street in Lafayette Square, some of them paying concessionaires to have themselves photographed beside life-size images of President Bill Clinton and his wife. At approximately 2.55 p.m., a man in a long, bulky, tan trench coat stood next to the wrought-iron fence, gazing intently towards the White House. He had been standing there for nearly an hour when two young boys on a field trip ran to a spot near him, pointing excitedly towards a small group of men in dark suits strolling near the north portico of the White House. ‘That looks like Bill Clinton,’ one of them said. ‘Yeah it does,’ replied the other.

At that moment, the man near the fence, pushed the boys aside, slipped a semiautomatic assault rifle from beneath his coat, extended its folding stock, and began firing at the person he mistakenly believed was President Clinton. Running back and forth along the fence as he fired, the shooter quickly emptied a clip of thirty rounds at his intended victim as bystanders scattered in panic, one of them leaving unattended an infant in a baby carriage. When he stopped to insert another thirty-round clip, a very courageous tourist, Michael Rokosky, tackled him from behind. As they struggled on the sidewalk, two other courageous bystanders joined Rokosky, subduing the attacker before uniformed Secret Service officers arrived. No one had been injured.Another bystander cooly recorded the whole event on videotape. As he was being handcuffed, Francisco Martin Duran spoke for the first time: ‘I wish you had shot me,’ were his only words. Meanwhile, President Clinton was watching a televised football game on the opposite side of the White House, unaware until he was informed moments later by his Secret Service detail of what had happened.The account is drawn from, White House Security Review Public Report: Francisco Martin Duran, http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/ustreas/usss/t1pubrpt.htm, p. 1. Hereafter cited as White House Security Report Website.