Traditional Political Institutions and Democracy: Reassessing Their Compatibility and Accountability
Traditional Political Institutions and Democracy: Reassessing Their Compatibility and Accountability
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DOI：
10.1177/0010414019852686
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发表时间：
2019-10-01
影响因子：
5
通讯作者：
Holzinger, Katharina
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Baldwin, Kate;Holzinger, Katharina
本文回顾了理解传统政治制度的重要框架，这些框架对其与民主的兼容性做出了悲观的评估。传统的政治机构通常被认为是不负责任的，因为它们是由不民主的领导人领导的，他们不受选举的制裁。然而，利用来自TradGov Group数据集的新信息（一项对目前拥有传统政治机构的1400多个民族的当代实践的专家调查），我们表明，这些机构包含自己独特的问责机制。在大多数情况下，决策是协商一致的，领导者必须以各种方式为他们的行为负责。我们对理解传统领导人表现质量的选举问责框架提出了挑战，相反，我们认为，只要传统政治机构采用包容性的决策过程，其领导人与其所代表的社区有很强的非选举联系，它们就可以与民主相容，甚至对公民负责。
This article revisits prominent frameworks for understanding traditional political institutions which make pessimistic assessments about their compatibility with democracy. Traditional political institutions are often assumed to be unaccountable because they are led by undemocratic leaders who are not subject to electoral sanctioning. However, drawing on new information from the TradGov Group dataset, an expert survey on the contemporary practices of more than 1,400 ethnic groups that currently have traditional political institutions, we show that these institutions contain their own distinct mechanisms of accountability. In a majority of cases, decision-making is consensual and leaders must account for their actions in various ways. We challenge the electoral accountability framework for understanding the quality of traditional leaders' performance, instead arguing that traditional political institutions can be compatible with democracy and even accountable to their citizens insofar as they adopt inclusive decision-making processes and their leaders have strong nonelectoral connections to the communities they represent.