The Advantages of Pure Forms of Parliamentary Democracy over Mixed Forms

It is often said that parliament shouldrepresent the opinions found in thepopulation and that government should beheld accountable for its political program.It is shown that these two goals rely ontwo different basic models of democracywhich are not fully compatible with eachother: the model of a pure representativedemocracy and the model of a pure two partycompetition. Unaccountable governments,voter alienation, strategic voting, andgovernmental instability are shown to beconsequences of this institutional mix.These problems may be avoided with reformsin the direction of one or the other basicmodel.     

THE HUMAN EQUATION IN EARTHQUAKE PREDICTION AND WARNINGS

For natural disasters such as hurricanes and tornados, prediction systems and public warning programs have been operational for many years. Earthquake prediction, however, is only an emerging technology. Given the potential for catastrophe in a large earthquake and the great difficulty in specifying time, location and magnitude of impact, certain substantial policy problems emerge; hence, the maximum benefit of scientific earthquake predictions is realized. Policy planners must concentrate on public education and the creation of organizational linkages which would comprise the public warning information system (i.e., how and what is said, and monitoring public response to any warning). Most important is that the issue of prediction-warning be addressed now since planning can produce benefits even if no predictions are issued.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: America's Choice 2000: Entering a New Millenium edited by William Crotty. The Perfect Tie: The True Story of the 2000 Presidential Election by James W. Ceaser and Andrew E. Busch.     

Transnational Protest: Australia and the 1960s

Transnational Protest: Australia and the 1960s . By Jon Piccini (London: Palgrave, 2016), pp.251, £72.00 (hb).