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This article seeks to stimulate a fresh and inter-disciplinary debate which revolves around the need to move from a ‘senseless democracy’ that is insufficiently attuned to the dilemmas and challenges of fostering meaningful political engagement to a more ‘sensory democracy’. It achieves this by first exploring and dissecting recent works within democratic theory that emphasise the role of ‘watching’ and ‘listening’ within sociopolitical relationships. It then goes on to develop a set of constructive criticisms by applying insights drawn from the fields of practical aesthetics and applied theatre. Not only does this exercise allow us to take the analytical lens far beyond the focus on voice-based forms of expression that have hitherto dominated political analysis, it demonstrates the value of inter-disciplinary scholarship in exposing sensory-subtleties that raise distinctive questions for both politics ‘as theory’ and politics ‘as practice’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers a systematic analysis of the comparative trajectory of international democratic change. In particular, it focuses on the resulting convergence or divergence of political systems, borrowing from the literatures on institutional change and policy convergence. To this end, political-institutional data in line with Arend Lijphart’s (1999, 2012) empirical theory of democracy for 24 developed democracies between 1945 and 2010 are analyzed. Heteroscedastic multilevel models allow for directly modeling the development of the variance of types of democracy over time, revealing information about convergence, and adding substantial explanations. The findings indicate that there has been a trend away from extreme types of democracy in single cases, but no unconditional trend of convergence can be observed. However, there are conditional processes of convergence. In particular, economic globalization and the domestic veto structure interactively influence democratic convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While clear lines of accountability are normally considered a sine qua non of any modern democracy, this article argues that too much accountability can be as problematic as too little. Through the application of a number of analytical ‘hooks’ drawn from the accountability studies literature, it argues that if the coalition government’s rhetorical commitment to a shift from a ‘Big State’ to a ‘Big Society’ is implemented, it may well flounder due to its inability to reconcile the centrifugal forces of devolution and localism with the centripetal forces of political accountability and public expectation. Indeed, without a more aggressive, sophisticated and indeed honest approach to accountability, the ‘Big Society’ is unwittingly likely to forge an even ‘Bigger State’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article attempts to make a bold and provocative argument not just about the state of accountability research as a field of inquiry but also about the gap that has apparently emerged between the governors and the governed (and the professional responsibilities of scholars beyond academe in terms of public engagement). It emphasizes that “too much accountability can be as problematic as too little” and asks whether it is possible that the transition from “representative” to “monitory” democracy, which is reflected in an increasingly dense and aggressive “accountability industry” (constitutional watchdogs, audit processes, ethical guardians, investigatory agencies, regulatory boards, freedom of information legislation, quasi-judicial commissions, etc.), has actually contributed to the erosion of public support for politicians, political processes, and political institutions? It therefore seeks to challenge a number of “self-evident truths” and dares to be a little brave, to fly some kites, and risk the inevitable misunderstanding and deliberate criticism that attempting to say something different entails. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]