Cost of Democracy: Changing Aspects of Modern Democracy
Hiroshi Shiratori (Hosei University) “Cost of Democracy: Changing Aspects of Modern Democracy”
Hiroshi Shiratori’s paper, “Cost of Democracy: Changing Aspects of Modern Democracy”, discusses the cost of democracy through analysis of the party system and cleavages in modern democracies from a point of view of sub-culture-based politics. Following the end of the Cold War modern democracies have experienced changes in their party systems. The coming of age of the neo-liberal policy regime during this period has triggered the questioning of the efficiency of democracy. Subsequently there has been a growth in ‘New Right’ political parties seeking reductions in the size of the state and increases in government efficiency with the Progressive Parties in the Nordic countries and the Japan Restoration Party in Japan as notable examples. These new parties are said to represent the structural changes occurring in modern democracies. By placing these structural changes in the context of Stein Rokkan’s structural cleavages, Shiratori argues that new cleavages have developed in modern democracies under the neo-liberal policy regime and that these new cleavages are finding political expression in the rapid development of ‘New Right’ parties.