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Drawing on recent research in the United Kingdom and the Canadian province of British Columbia, this article focuses on the politics of electoral reform: the strategic maneuvering by political elites to prevent and facilitate change. Through a comparative analysis of two highly majoritarian polities in which dominant executives have, since 1997, adopted contrasting reform trajectories, the article suggests that previous analyses of this topic have underemphasized the role of political agency and ideational change. In order to demonstrate this argument, the article develops and refines a process-based approach by embedding it within a framework that recognizes the interplay between context, agency, and structure. Not only does this approach deepen our understanding of executive veto points, majoritarian modification, and aversive constitutionalism, but it also sensitizes scholars to the role and power of political cultures and dominant ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many advanced liberal democracies exhibit 'democracy deserts' in which high levels of social exclusion among large sections of the population are compounded by low levels of democratic engagement. How to reverse declining levels of electoral participation and widespread public disenchantment with politics therefore forms a defining element of contemporary comparative politics. It is in this context that the processes and methods associated with 'deliberative democracy' have become significant. Whereas most research in this field has focused on experiments at the local or community level, this article utilises a comparative case-study approach to examine the recent use of deliberative mechanisms in relation to constitutional issues. By comparing the establishment of citizen's assemblies with varying powers to review and make recommendations on electoral reform in the Canadian province of British Columbia and in the Netherlands and then contrasting this with a polity where a highly-majoritarian elite has reneged on pre-election commitments to review the electoral system (the United Kingdom), this article contributes a distinctive perspective to broader debates on public disengagement, deliberative democracy, political geography, majoritarian modification and electoral reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]