Democratic government is about making choices. Sometimes those choices involve the distribution of benefits. At other times they involve the imposition of some type of loss-a program cut, increased taxes, or new regulatory standards. Citizens will resist such impositions if they can, or will try to punish governments at election time. The dynamics of loss imposition are therefore a universal-if unpleasant-element of democratic governance.

Leslie A. Pal is professor and director, School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University.

R. Kent Weaver is professor of public policy and government at Georgetown University; senior fellow in Governmental Studies at The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC; and the coeditor of Do Institutions Matter?