Center for the Study of Democracy

The popular pressures for reforms of the democratic process have mounted across the OECD nations over the past generation. In response, democratic institutions are changing, evolving, expanding in ways that may alter the structure of the democratic process. These changes include reforms of the electoral process, the expansion of referendums, introduction of open government provisions, and more access points for direct political involvement. Indeed, some observers claim that we are witnessing the most fundamental transformation of the democratic process since the creation of mass democracy in the early 20th Century. This essay reviews the evidence of how democratic institutions and processes are changing, and considers some of the larger implications of these reforms for the nature of democracy. This essay is adapted from the edited volume, Democracy Transformed? Expanding Political Opportunities in Advanced Industrial Democracies (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2003).