Politics of Recall Elections

This edited volume presents the first comprehensive analysis of recall processes which have spread globally since the end of the Cold War, and which are now re-configuring the political dynamics of electoral democracy. Drawing on the expertise of country experts, the book provides a coherent and theoretically informed framework for mapping and evaluating this fast-evolving phenomenon. While the existing literature on the subject has so far focused on isolated single-country studies, the collection brings recall experiments to centre stage as it relates them to current crises in the traditional variants of representative democracy. It explains why the spread of recall innovations is set to continue, and to pass a threshold from inattention to urgent engagement. The authors further provide original insights into the rationale for recall, as well as guidance on minimising the accompanying risks.

Yanina Welp is Associate Researcher in the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy, Graduate Institute, Geneva, Switzerland. Her main areas of study are the introduction and practices of mechanisms of direct and participatory democracy, and digital media and politics. She has published extensively on these topics in academic journals such as International Political Science Review, Democratization and Revista Española de Ciencia Política and books.Laurence Whitehead is Senior Research Fellow in Politics at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, UK, and editor of the Oxford Studies in Democratisation series. His publications include the books Democratisation: Theory and Experience (2002), and Let the People Rule? Direct Democracy in the Twenty-First Century (with Y. Welp, 2017), as well as the article "Recall of Elected Officeholders: The Growing Incidence of a Venerable, but Overlooked, Democratic Institution" published in Democratization (October 2018).