Just what is it about the political system that needs improving? Political theorists have long been convinced that a successful democratic governmental system will accomplish three tasks: (1) It will make good decisions; (2) it will be perceived as legitimate; and (3) it will help the people in society become better people. In considering systemic reforms, as we do in this chapter, we are not implying that the American political system is a failure; rather, we are recognizing only that the extent to which any democracy is accomplishing these three tasks can always be improved and that every effort should be made to do so. But the first goal of any reformer should be to do no harm, and, on the basis of the findings presented in Part II, we fear that the reform proposals currently attracting the most attention would actually do significant harm.

REFORMING (OR IMPROVING) AMERICAN POLITICS

Ideas for improving the political system are probably about as numerous as people, but to help organize the various types of changes that could be preferred, we offer Figure 7.1. In this figure, the governing process is divided into two steps: predecision consideration and the decision itself. The key players in each step can either be the people themselves or elites. Though overly simplistic, this conceptualization at least makes it possible to categorize reforms according to the particular procedure advocates want to modify.