Imperfect Democracies: The Democratic Deficit in Canada and the United States.

• Author: Hooper, Tom
• Position: Book review

Imperfect Democracies: The Democratic Deficit in Canada and the United States by Patti Tamara Lenard and Richard Simeon, UBC Press, Vancouver, 2013, 360pp.

Reforming the Senate, ensuring backbench MPs have a voice, alternative voting systems to first-past-the-post, and election finance reform are all issues that Canadians have debated since our inception as a nation. Likewise, the power of the executive branch, a do-nothing congress, political finance & Super PACs, and reforming the legal system have preoccupied policy-makers in the US. In each case, these reforms are debated on the basis that they will, or will not, help to create a more democratic society.

In Imperfect Democracies, various authors explore the many aspects of what is perceived as a "democratic deficit" in both Canada and the US. Drawing on a rich body of recent literature, these scholars explore a diverse array of themes from citizen expectations, electoral reform, campaign finance, the balance of powers, and the jury system. The 19 contributors conclude that in our fallible democracy, there exists a "democratic deficit," or in other words, a separation between citizen expectations of their democracy and the actual performance of their democratic institutions. This collection is not designed to be the answer to a long held historical question regarding the state of democracy in Canada and the US, but rather is designed to reorient the debate in order to "guide future research into the nature of democratic dissatisfaction" (327). Nor is this book endeavouring to place a value judgment on the relative merits of Canadian and American democracies; although both experience a perceived democratic deficit, neither is deemed better or worse; yet citizens in Canada and the US do not complain of a deficit in the same ways. The democratic deficit, then, stems from both a broader institutional skepticism held by citizens of most western democracies (beginning roughly 40 years ago), as well as historical differences that have shaped and defined each nation's democratic institutions (and as such, each nation's citizen expectations of those institutions).

This book is recommended for students of politics (from upper-year undergraduates onward), scholars, policy-makers and politicians, or anyone contemplating the difference between what we expect of our democratic institutions and what...