Term Limits and Legislative Representation

Virtually all legislative theory is built on the assumption that politicians are first and foremost reelection-seekers, and because so few countries have ever limited legislative reelection, this assumption has rarely been questioned. As a result, political science has been ill-equipped to offer insights on the impact of legislative term limits. Term Limits and Legislative Representation tests the central arguments made by both supporters and opponents of such reform by examining the experience of Costa Rica, the only long-term democracy to impose term limits on legislators, and by providing extensive comparisons with legislatures in Venezuela and the United States. Professor Carey challenges claims made about the effects of term limits on political careers, pork barrel politics, and the effectiveness of political parties in passing their programs.

Table of Contents:
Part I. Term Limits and Comparative Politics: 1. The electoral disconnection?; 2. Institutions and electoral reform: comparing the cases; Part II. The Latin American Cases: 3. Term limits and political careers; 4. Term limits and particularism; 5. Term limits and legislative party cohesiveness; Part III. Term Limits and the United States: 6. The last term problem; 7. Applying lessons about term limits.

About the Author :
John M. Carey is John Wentworth Professor in the Social Sciences at Dartmouth College. He has also taught at the Universidad Católica de Chile, the University of Rochester, Washington University in St Louis, Harvard University, and at the Fundación Juan March in Madrid, Spain. His interests are comparative politics, elections, and Latin American politics. His research focuses on institutional design and democratic representation. Carey's books include Legislative Voting and Accountability (Cambridge, 2009), Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics (with Matthew Shugart, Cambridge, 1992), Executive Decree Authority (also with Shugart, Cambridge, 1998) and Term Limits in the State Legislatures (with Richard Niemi and Lynda Powell). He has published articles in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, Perspectives on Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Electoral Studies, Party Politics, Comparative Politics, Latin American Politics and Society, Public Choice, Estudios Publicos, Political y Gobierno, the Revista de Ciencias Politicas, and the Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, as well as chapters in twenty edited volumes. Data and results from his research are available on his website (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~jcarey/).

Review :
"...a wonderful example of the value of comparative political analysis....Through well-organized, clearly written comparative analysis of the Costa Rican and Venezuelan political systems he creates an empirical basis for predicting what effect term limits could have on politics in the United States....Carey uses an innovative comparative method to advance greatly the theoretical and practical debate about term limits. But this book goes beyond that topic and will be of interest to scholars studying party cohesiveness and institutional design." American Political Science Review "Carey observes and applies multivariate statistical analysis to a large number of politicians, and his core theoretical argument comes from the U.S. legislative literature." Barry Ames, Latin American Research Review