Jason Stuart Maloy

Professor and Kaliste Saloom Endowed Chair of Political Science, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

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About Jason

Maloy’s research investigates the linkage between democratic ideals and democratic institutions such as electoral systems; judicial systems; legislatures; and policy juries (a.k.a. citizen assemblies). Maloy's most recent book; Smarter Ballots (Palgrave Macmillan; 2019); offers a realist theory of election reform in the service of democratic accountability. Maloy's other recent projects include voting experiments to compare alternative types of ballot reform and cross-national comparisons of the impacts of varieties of democracy on policy outcomes such as war and peace; human rights; and ecological degradation.

Contributions | No Jargon Podcast | In the News | Publications

Contributions

More Expression, Less Error Alternative Ballots Outperform Status Quo

Key Findings Brief, April 2021

What 19th-Century Populists Can Teach Americans about the Roots of Partisan Dysfunction

Basic Facts Brief, April 2014

In the News

Opinion: "There’s More Voter Participation in the Jungle," Jason Stuart Maloy, The Advocate, April 13, 2021.

Guest on KLFY-News, November 8, 2016.

Publications

"Smarter Ballots Electoral Realism and Reform" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

Offers a comparative overview of elections research on the US, UK, Australia, Spain, Ireland, etc. Translates the results of academic research on elections worldwide for non-specialist scholars. Provides specific recommendations for electoral reform in response to the insights of electoral constructivism

"Intermediate Conditions of Democratic Accountability: A Response to Electoral Skepticism" Politics & Governance 3, no. 2 (2015): 76-89.

Builds on scholarly research that questions the ability of elections to make politicians accountable to voters in order to develop a "top ten" list of institutions where reform proposals could modify electoral processes to increase democratic accountability.

"Linkages of Electoral Accountability: Empirical Results and Methodological Lessons" Politics & Governance 2, no. 2 (2014): 13-27.

Reviews scholarly literature on both sides of the debate about whether periodic competitive elections can and do place effective sanctions in voters' hands to hold governments accountable, concluding that the growing trend of electoral skepticism has the better evidence and argument behind it.

"Democratic Statecraft: Political Realism and Popular Power " (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Explains how realistic theories of political power have been used to support democratic regimes, rather than oligarchic or autocratic systems, in five key episodes in the history of ideas, including the Populist movement in the United States in the 1880’s and 90’s.

"Real Utopias in a Gilded Age: The Case of American Populism" New Political Science 34 (2012): 372-379.

Describes the Populists’ proposals for reforming American political and economic institutions in the 1880’s and 90’s, and compares them to proposals for “emancipatory” and “participatory” democracy around the world today.

"The First Machiavellian Moment in America" American Journal of Political Science 55 (2011): 450-462.

Analyzes debates over unicameralism and impeachment in the early Massachusetts colony (from 1630 to 1650) between pro- and anti-democratic factions of puritans, with the pro-democratic side borrowing ideas about popular accountability from the works of Niccolo Machiavelli.