Abstract
(a) Central institutions /Institutions centrales
62.378 ADIDA, Claire L. —
Why do some immigrant minorities in the developing world integrate into their host societies whereas others face exclusion and hostility? This article offers new insights on the determinants of political identity and group relations in ethnically diverse societies through the lens of South-to-South migration. Using original data from surveys and interviews collected during twelve months of field research in West Africa and a unique empirical strategy that allows for single-group cross-country and single-country cross-group comparisons, this article tests the relationship between cultural proximity and immigrant exclusion. The analysis indicates that cultural similarities between immigrants and their hosts may limit immigrant integration because they motivate community leaders to highlight group boundaries. [R, abr.]
62.379 AHRAM, Ariel I. —
This article uses a sequential mixed method approach to examine the origins and persistence of paramilitaries and state-sponsored militias in the developing world. Combining comparative case studies of Southeast Asia and the Middle East with statistical analysis, it shows that revolutionary decolonization produces more decentralized and localized force structures, while direct inheritance of colonial armies leads to more conventional force structures. Subsequently, the level of competition within the regional system influences whether a state can persist in the use of paramilitaries or must transition to a more centralized, conventional force. [R]
62.380 AIDUKAITE, Jolanta —
The paper reviews recent socio-economic changes in the 10 new EU member states of Central and Eastern Europe and the earlier and latest debates on the emergence of the post-communist welfare state regime. It asks two questions: are the new EU member states more similar to each other in their social problems encountered than to the rest of the EU world? Do they exhibit enough common socio-economic and institutional features to group them into the distinct/unified post-communist welfare regime that deviates from any well-known welfare state typology? [R, abr.]
62.381 ALARCÓN, Rafael —
In his compelling piece, [Abstr. 62.531], R. Smith argues that the greater the degree to which the US has coercively constituted the identities of non-citizens in ways that have made having certain relationships to America fundamental to their capacities to lead free and meaningful lives, the greater the obligations to US has to facilitate those relationships. Over the last hundred years, many rural communities in Mexico have been constituted more by US immigration policy and the labor demands of US employers than by similar policies and economic factors in Mexico. According to Smith, this means that Mexicans may be owed “special access” to American residency and citizenship, ahead of the residents of countries less affected by US policies, and in ways that should justify leniency toward underdocumented Mexican immigrants. [R]
62.382 AMAR, Paul —
This article analyzes sexual harassment politics in the global south as a crucial laboratory for testing and reformulating the mix of emancipatory and repressive governance practices that constitute contemporary gender-sensitive “human security” regimes. In Egypt, between 2003 and 2010, internationalist feminist campaigns advocated anti-harassment projects that demonized working-class youth masculinities as well as “disreputable” public femininities in an attempt to intensify the policing of the city and discipline public sociability. Through a politics of respectability and “strange bedfellow” processes of NGO-ization, this state-allied, pro-enforcement project demobilized class-based movements for democratic change. By contrast, inventive Egyptian organizations adapted UN gender doctrines and legal mechanisms to their own purposes, mobilizing mass campaigns that critiqued frameworks of police protection and social respectability. [R, abr.]
62.383 ANCKAR, Dag —
Since the adoption in 2000 of a new constitution, as the president has lost most of his/her considerable powers, Finland no longer fits the semi-presidential pattern. Fragments of that pattern still prevail, as the conduct of foreign affairs is now vested jointly in the directly elected president and the government, the implication being that two institutions which both derive their powers from the people share responsibility for a central policy sector. The Finnish solution to resolve the potential conflict in semi-presidential politics between the presidency and government is to confer on parliament the right to act as arbitrator. This solution evidently contributes to a subsequent weakening of the position of the president in Finnish politics. [R, abr.]
62.384 ARCHIBUGI, Daniele; FILIPPETTI, Andrea —
Are EU countries converging in terms of their innovative effort? To what extent is the current economic downturn impairing the convergence across the E countries in innovation performance? Using macro and micro data, this article shows that the EU Member States have converged in their innovative potential over the 2004–2008 period. The economic crisis of Autumn 2008 has an impact on innovative investment in almost all EU countries, but the catch-up countries are the most affected, leading to increasing divergence. The danger of growing disparities in innovative capabilities may lead to divergence also in income and well-being. The article discusses some of the innovation policies that can be carried out at the EU level to facilitate cohesion. [R]
62.385 ARNOLD, Kathleen —
The author considers the struggles of immigrant labor in the 21st c., arguing that two of the most common policy responses to growing immigrant populations, the US Guest Worker Program and the Border Industrial Program, are undemocratic, formalizing immigrants' exclusion from the political process, denying them rights typically granted to national workers, and exposing them to potential abuses of power. Such policies represent the “denationalization” of state territory, where certain formal rules are suspended for immigrants within the state's boarders; this does not mean that the state has lost authority in an era of increased labor migrations, but on the contrary, indicates an expansion of state authority over immigrant workers. [R] [See Abstr. 62.346]
62.386 ARSAVA, A. Füsun —
At present, fundamental rights are provided at regional and universal levels apart from national constitutions. This article deals with the relationship between the EU and ECHR giving an example of provision of fundamental rights on regional level and the provisions of German Constitution that comprehensively provides fundamental rights and therefore exemplifies the EU provisions on fundamental rights. [R]
62.387 ASMUSSEN, Nicole —
Female and minority judicial nominations take longer and are less likely to be confirmed, yet presidents eagerly seek such nominations. I account for this puzzle by building a model in which senators face costs for opposing female and minority nominees. I predict that such nominations are more likely when the gridlock interval is large. Using appellate nominations from 1977 to 2004, I find that Republican presidents are more likely to pursue these nominations during periods of high gridlock. Furthermore, accounting for the gridlock interval erases the differences in confirmation duration and success between female/minority nominees and white male nominees. [R]
62.388 ATM, Obaidullah —
In this paper a modest attempt is made to trace the reorganization process that Bangladesh Parliament has undergone through donors initiatives in almost two decades, and ascertain the current status as such, and to assess the perspective of undergoing further reform efforts. [R]
62.389 AUGHEY, Sean —
[US] President B. Obama's election produced great optimism for progress on human rights. But halfway through his term of office, Obama deserves a mixed review. [R]
62.390 AVCI, Gamze; ÇARKOĞLU, Ali —
This article presents the objectives, contents and main findings of an issue on the “transformative power” of the EU in Turkey. We discuss how this publication differs in its approach to Turkish-EU relations. Finally, we examine and connect the key findings of the individual articles, with the purpose of illustrating the logic and pace of (EU-related) domestic reforms in Turkey. [R] [Introduction to a thematic issue on “Turkey and the European Union: accession and reform. Part I, edited by the authors” [Part II: Abstr. 62.647] [See also Abstr. 62.420, 442, 445, 464, 981, 1086, 1116, 1147, 1167, 1218]
62.391 BADRU, Ronald Olufemi —
Behind the anxiety concerning sovereignty loss, the questions posed by Carl Schmitt are hiding in plain sight, and the author explores them in relation to contemporary politics in Nigeria. In his account, Schmitt's concern with the sovereign and his maintenance of power points directly to issues of the personal power of the sovereign and its power-political consequences. This moral egoism has damaged the fabric of Nigerian politics; the alternative he presents is a moral altruism, which he elaborates via Aristotle, Aquinas, and Kant. [R] [See Abstr. 62.17]
62.392 BAE Sangmin —
Why do countries with similar cultures and political institutions respond differently to international norms? The varied responses among East Asian democracies to the growing international movement to abolish the death penalty show that Japan has been the most resistant, while Taiwan and South Korea have moved closer to embracing the international human rights norm. The movement in these latter countries toward a moratorium on capital punishment has little to do with public opinion, which generally favors retaining the death penalty. Rather, it reflects specific domestic political contexts, especially the power and autonomy of the executive and the experience of a drastic regime-change, that open the way for rethinking human rights norms. [R]
62.393 BAILER, Stefanie —
Reasons identified in relation to representatives' decisions to use parliamentary questions range from challenging the government, raising citizen-oriented concerns, disseminating one's name among constituents, controlling the government, and asking for information. To disentangle these motivations, this paper investigates whether MPs with more direct electoral links, stronger representational orientations or higher career ambitions tend to ask more questions. They are analyzed using a new dataset on all parliamentary questions from the legislative period 2003–07 in the Swiss Lower House, the Nationalrat. Parliamentary questions are often used to gather information from the executive more than to represent citizens' concerns. It is particularly the less experienced and the ambitious MPs who use this forum as an information platform to demonstrate their activity, to gain attention and to prepare legislative acts. [R] [See Abstr. 62.193]
62.394 BAKER, Keith; RUBIN, Ellen V. —
Using the accountability framework developed by B. Romzek, M. Dubnick, and colleagues [B. Romzek, M. Dubnick, “Accountability in the public sector: lessons from the challenger tragedy”, Public Administration Review 47(3), May-June 1987: 227–238; B. Romzek, P. Ingraham, “Cross pressures of accountability: initiative, command and failure in the Ron Brown plane crash”, ibid. 60(3), May-June 2000: 240–253], this article considers the creation and operation of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). The CPA's short duration and the difficult circumstances of Iraq combined to pose fundamental challenges to the normal expectations for accountable behavior of a federal agency. With minimal plans in place for governing Post-invasion Iraq, the CPA had little structure and few institutional expectations to influence its behavior. This lack of guidance, combined with the CPA's de facto reporting relationships and noncareer staff, led to the maximization of political accountability, whereas professional accountability was secondary. [R]
62.395 BAMFORTH, Nicholas, ed. —
Editor's introduction, pp. 79–85. Articles by Richard BELLAMY, “Political constitutionalism and the Human Rights Act”, pp. 86–111; Paul CRAIG, “Political constitutionalism and the judicial role: a response”, pp. 112–131; Christopher FORSYTH, “The definition of Parliament after Jackson: can the life of Parliament be extended under the Parliament Act 1911 and 1949?”, pp. 132–143; N. W. BARBER, “The afterlife of parliamentary sovereignty”, pp. 144–154; T.R.S. ALLAN, “Questions of legality and legitimacy: form and substance in British constitutionalism”, pp. 155–162; Alison L. YOUNG, “Sovereignty: demise, afterlife, or partial resurrection?”, pp. 163–171; Aileen KAVANAGH, “Constitutionalism, counterterrorism, and the courts: changes in the British constitutional landscape”, pp. 172–199; Christopher McCRUDDEN, “Multiculturalism, freedom of religion, equality, and the British constitution: the JFS [Jews' Free School] case considered”, pp. 200–229; Iain McLEAN and Scot PETERSON, “Entrenching the establishment and free exercise of religion in the written UK constitution”, pp. 230–250; Peter LEYLAND, “The multifaceted constitutional dynamics of UK devolution”, pp. 251–273.
62.396 BARVOSA, Edwina —
The question of how to understand and address longstanding — and at times violent — hostility toward Mexican immigrants in the US remains pressing. R. Smith [Abstr. 62.531] describes a just immigration policy, one that could ease anti-immigrant conflict, based on obligations upon the US government that arise from its coercive shaping of the social identities and aspirations of Mexican immigrants. Smith focuses on the conflicts between intersecting and contradictory factors that affect identity-formation among immigrants, but a focus on similar conflicts among those who hold strong anti-immigrant views suggests that such contradictions may also be animating anti-Mexican immigrant hostility. Among the most important of these many be those arising from the American dream — a formative narrative cloaks underlying economic instabilities, exploitation, and widespread vulnerabilities. [R, abr.]
62.397 BERTELLI, Anthony M.; GROSE, Christian R. —
While the [US] president's relationship to Congress has been carefully studied, the broader executive branch has received far less attention in that context. Scholars rely on assumptions about the relationship between the president and cabinet departments that remain untested. We construct the first statistical portrait of executive branch ideology by estimating ideal points for members of Congress, presidents, and the heads of cabinet-level departments between 1991 and 2004 in a Bayesian framework. We empirically assess claims about the composition of the president's administrative team and the influence of institutions on the ideology of principal executive decision makers. We also test an important claim regarding the trade-off between ideological congruence and budgetary authority to demonstrate the utility of our estimates for other scholars. [R, abr.]
62.398 BIDELEUX, Robert —
Far from being uniform and amenable to broad generalizations, the consequences of the international economic crisis of 2008–10 for the post-communist states have been strikingly diverse, and the policy responses of these countries to those crises have been correspondingly varied. The 11 Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries, and the 10 post-communist states admitted into the EU in 2004 or 2007, were affected in different ways by the economic crisis and offered different responses to it. These widely differing impacts and responses can be satisfactorily explained and conceptualized in terms of relatively concrete and tangible differences in the structures of power, resources, opportunities, incentives and constraints that have emerged in these two broad groupings of countries. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on “The international crisis and the post-Soviet states”, edited and introduced, pp. 335–337, by Valentina FEKLYUNINA and Stephen WHITE. See also Abstr. 62.447, 473, 474, 478, 515, 635, 816, 865, 1062, 1063, 1191, 1224, 1234, 1258]
62.399 BILGIN, Mert —
This paper focuses on the shift in Turkey's energy policy and analyzes the development of energy mix, investments plan and pipelines. The paper indicates how energy security, which was originally conceived as an input of development, became a strategic tool for Turkey's regional and foreign relations. It elaborates Turkey's actual energy strategy, which has recently been introduced by the state authorities. The article addresses investment opportunities and restraints with a particular focus on pipeline politics. It ends by identifying Turkey's assumptions about the future. The conclusion points out the consistencies and contradictions between Turkey's energy security and its aspiration to benefit from pipeline politics. [R]
62.400 BIRNBAUM, Pierre —
To preserve the explanatory value of state-type as a specific variable, I show how “strong” and “weak” states remain largely loyal to their respective logics. Contrary to the understanding that the necessities of governance are inducing homogenization of state-types, I stress the relevance of Weber's paradigm, which confers crucial importance on the “cultural code/state” pair both over the long term and regardless of public policy constraints. Though France's strong state has slightly revised its attitude on the separation of church and state, it has insisted on keeping public space entirely secular, whereas the weak American state, which moved to establish stricter separation between church and state, is not engaging in a real process of differentiation, as that would run counter to its general logic in a society anchored more deeply than ever in the religious. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.156]
62.401 BJORGE, Eirik —
The evolution of rights under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has in recent years engendered the question of how far national supreme courts ought to go in interpreting the Convention standards evolutively. Examining the jurisprudence of national supreme courts in the UK, France, and Germany, the article examines this question both “normatively”, by way of looking at the external exigencies of the Strasbourg jurisprudence, and “descriptively”, by way of looking at what in point of fact the national courts have done in this regard. The three nation al judiciaries studied here have approached this in various ways. The common theme is that all three systems have gone very far in taking onboard a national concept of the ECHR precept of “evolutive interpretation”. [R, abr.]
62.402 BLANK, Stephen —
Russia's political-economic structure is a neo-Tsarist patrimonial one that fuses together power and position in traditional, even medieval ways. As a result, its economy is hobbled by pervasive systemic corruption, misrule, and chronic sub-optimal outcomes. Of necessity, these outcomes have a profound impact on Russian security and defense agendas. This article focuses on the relationship between these pathologies of Russian governance and the security and defense situation in regard to Russia's positions in the Russian Far East (RFE) and in comparison with China. It argues that these security and defense outcomes arising out of these pathologies of misrule are undermining Russia's basis for independent action in the Far East and its ability to assume not only a strong security and defense posture in that region, but also its ability to play an independent role in Asia. [R]
62.403 BLIDOOK, Kelly; Matthew, KERBY —
The systematic study of parliamentary questions, their strategic uses and their consequences remains largely unexplored by political scientists. Drawing on the wider theoretical literature on political roles and political representation, this research examines the relationship between parliamentary questions and political roles in Canada. Using data compiled from the 34th–37th Canadian federal parliaments, a negative binomial regression model of parliamentary question-asking demonstrates that Canadian MPs are both socialized into their roles and that they rationally adapt their behavior to meet their political needs particularly with respect to electoral motivations. However, the empirical results emphasize rationally adapted behavior more than role socialization. [R] [See Abstr. 62.193]
62.404 BONNEY, Norman —
The accession and coronation oaths legitimate the monarchy and the UK political system but perpetuate a religious settlement originally legislated over 300 years ago. Some elements have been subsequently adjusted to reflect the changing composition of the union and in the 20th c. influences from the “dominions” have led to changes in the religious elements which have a questionable legal basis in the UK and significant domestic consequences. A major public review of them is necessary if they are to be adapted suitably for the changed circumstances of the contemporary era. [R]
62.405 BOUCHET, Nicolas —
Like White House victims of midterm shellackings before him, President B. Obama spent much of November [2010] seeking respite on the world stage, from Lisbon to Jakarta, from Seoul to Delhi. On each occasion he returned to a Washington basking in an Indian summer that contrasted with a distinctly frosty domestic political climate. [R]
62.406 BOURBLANC, Magalie —
Through the study of public programs for water-quality restoration in Cõtes-d'Armor, the author underlines that despite the introduction of new environmental objectives in regional agricultural policy, continuity prevails over the dynamics of change. This continuity can be explained through the mobilization of an analysis focused on the policy instruments designed to achieve these new objectives. The analysis shows the extent to which these instruments obey pre-conceived ideological frames of reference, thereby confirming the sociological neo-institutionalist approach. It nevertheless highlights the current emancipation of these instruments. It concludes on the need to consider an “instrument dependence” phenomenon rather than the “path dependence” one. [R]
62.407 BRÜCKER, Herbert; SCHRÖDER, Philipp JH —
This article examines the political economy of selective immigration policy in a model where decision-makers are uncertain about the characteristics of migrants. The analysis focuses on two questions: (1) how does a selective immigration policy affect the number of immigrants who are admitted by the receiving country; (2) how does a selective immigration policy in one country affect immigration policies in other countries. We find (1) that countries with selective immigration policies ceteris paribus tend to admit more migrants than countries without such policies, and (2) that neighboring countries will follow each other in implementing selective immigration policies, i.e. there is diffusion. These theoretical findings are supported by evidence from an econometric panel analysis of immigration policies in 15 OECD countries in the period from 1980 to 2005. [R]
62.408 BRYM, Robert J.; ANDERSEN, Robert —
Israeli counterinsurgency doctrine holds that the persistent use of credible threat and disproportionate military force results in repeated victories that eventually teach the enemy the futility of aggression. The doctrine thus endorses classical rational choice theory's claim that narrow cost-benefit calculations shape fixed action rationales. This paper assesses whether Israel's strategic practice reflects its counterinsurgency doctrine by exploring the historical record and the association between Israeli and Palestinian deaths due to low-intensity warfare. In contrast to the expectations of classical rational choice theory, the evidence suggests that institutional, cultural and historical forces routinely override simple cost-benefit calculations. [R, abr.]
62.409 CAMERLENGO, Quirino —
“Judicial wisdom” as an analytical concept is relatively new to legal studies. This paper examines the various manifestations of wisdom in the judgments of the Italian Constitutional Court, set out in terms of balance, prudence, knowledge and experience while this is an unusual way to explore the structure and functioning of such a court. Certain aspects of the Court's activities that help to reinforce its legitimacy within the broader democratic system can be grasped more easily. This is particularly important at a time when the Italian Constitutional Court has been confronted with a series of politically sensitive decisions that risk portraying it as favoring one side of the political divide over the other. [R]
62.410 CHIOU Fang-Yi —
Almost all informational theories of legislative organization assume that the [US] House [of Representatives] floor commits to a special rule for floor consideration prior to a committee proposal. Employing T.W. Gilligan and K. Krehbiel's theoretical framework (“Asymmetric information and legislative rules with a heterogeneous committee”, American Journal of Political Science 33(2), May 1989: 459–490; Abstr. 40.70), we demonstrate that whether or not to assume this procedural commitment has a profound impact on our understanding of how the floor can structure the committee's incentives to reveal information. In particular, several of Krehbiel's primary hypotheses [“Are [US] congressional committees composed of preference outliers?”, American Political Science Review 84(1), March 1990: 149–163; Abstr. 40.3862] generally do not hold without procedural commitment. Underscoring the key role of procedural commitment in informational theories, our results not only open up important avenues through which to construct a more defensible foundation for informational theory but also offer the hope of reconciling discrepancies between theoretical predictions and empirical regularities. [R]
62.411 CLASEN, Jochen; GOERNE, Alexander —
Between 2003 and 2005, German labor-market policy was subjected to the most far-reaching reform since the 1960s. Some commentators have interpreted the changes introduced as signaling a departure from the traditional “Bismarckian” paradigm in German social policy. For others, the new legislation has contributed and consolidated an ever-more pervasive trend of dualization within the German welfare state. In this article, we contest both interpretations. First, we demonstrate that traditional social insurance principles remain a dominant element within unemployment protection. Second, we show that German labor-market policy is less rather than more segmented today than it was a decade ago. [R]
62.412 COHEN, Elizabeth F. —
The uncertain political status of America's millions of undocumented immigrants and their children has exposed deep and ongoing disagreement about how US citizenship should be accorded to foreign-born persons. I identify the principle of jus temporis, a law of measured calendrical time, that has worked in concert with jus soli and consent to construct citizenship law since the nation's founding. Jus temporis translates measured durations of time such as “time in residence” or “time worked” into entitlement to rights and status. I create temporal algorithms in which measured calendrical time plus additional variables (e.g., physical presence, education, or behavior) equals consent to citizenship. I explore recent scholarly references to temporal principles and trace the history of how jus temporis was invoked by the nation's first Supreme Court jurisprudence on citizenship and the first Congressional debates about immigration and naturalization. [R, abr.]
62.413 COLÓN-RIOS, Joel I. —
The author takes a socio-theoretical look at the use of Schmitt's principle of constituent power, as described within his Constitutional Theory, within Latin American courts. He demonstrates that this principle has been used creatively both to justify an unchecked popular will to alter the constitution through extraordinary measures and to limit political power, placing strict limitations on how constitutional amendments are to be made. [R] [See Abstr. 62.468]
62.414 COULAM, Robert F.; FELDMAN, Roger D.; DOWD, Bryan E. —
The [US] Medicare program faces a serious challenge: it must find ways to control costs but must do so through a system of congressional oversight that necessarily limits its choices. We look at one approach to prudent purchasing — competitive pricing — that Medicare has attempted many times and in various ways since the beginning of the program, and in all but one case unsuccessfully due to the politics of provider opposition working through Congress and the courts. We look at some related efforts to change Medicare pricing to explore when the program has been successful in making dramatic changes in how it pays for health care. A set of recommendations emerges for ways to respond to the impediments of law and politics that have obstructed change to more efficient payment methods. [R, abr.]
62.415 DAASE, Cindy —
Relying on the example of the Governance and Economic Management Assistance Programme for Liberia (GEMAP) this article analyzes whether and under which conditions a shared sovereignty arrangement can serve as a veritable tool of international involvement to create sustainable (socio)economic development in a state emerging from conflict. Focusing on (socio-economic and fiscal problems as a threat to the peace process the article analyzes the GEMAP Agreement of 2005 which was negotiated between the National Transition Government of Liberia (NTGL) and international donor organizations. The paper argues that GEMAP is an example of a far-reaching shared sovereignty arrangement that could serve as a (role)model for future co-operations between external donors and post-conflict countries. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.86]
62.416 DANDOY, Régis —
This contribution explains the numbers of written questions in the Belgian House of Representatives (1995–2007). Important variations over time, party and coalition formula have been observed and “classic” explanations — such as the size of the parliamentary party group, the linguistic group or the majority vs. opposition status of the party — only partly explain these observed variations. It is argued here that parliamentary party group unity and discipline is an important factor in shaping patterns of questioning. The findings of the statistical analysis confirm that disciplined and cohesive parties are more active in questioning the government than other parties. [R] [See Abstr. 62.193]
62.417 DEBUS, Marc; MÜLLER, Jochen; OBERT, Peter —
The development towards a “Europe of the Regions” is accompanied by a complex system of cooperation and interdependence between the different levels of policy-making. We ask how European integration affects the party composition of regional governments. We argue that the EU classification system of regions — the “Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics” (NUTS) — establishes incentives to form similar coalition governments among regions that belong to the same NUTS area. We test our argument by analyzing government formation in the Czech regions and thus in one EU member state whose regions benefit financially from EU structural policy. There is empirical evidence to support our main hypotheses. [R, abr.]
62.418 DeSIPIO, Louis —
The provocative question by R. Smith [Abstr. 62.531] is whether the tortured history of US-Mexican relations and the racialized context of Mexican immigrant reception can best be ameliorated through targeted immigration policies that would create added opportunities for Mexican migrants relative to others. I argue that the current, more universally-principled system of US immigration policy, supplemented by an inclusive legalization program, can better serve the needs of potential Mexican migrants and Mexican immigrants resident in the US. Also, I am more skeptical than Smith is about the depths of Mexico's commitment to seeking binational strategies to address the needs of its émigrés abroad. [R]
62.419 DICKSON, Bruce J. —
The current Chinese leadership is dramatically changing its development model in three distinct but interrelated ways. These three areas provide key insights into how the Chinese leadership may seek to keep itself in power, interact with key social groups, and relate with the outside world. [R]
62.420 DIMITROVA, Antoaneta L. —
This article highlights the lessons from the EU's eastern enlargement relevant for Turkey. The EU's approach to candidates, developed during the last enlargement, was founded on asymmetry, objectivity and conditionality, with the latter evolving as the key policy tool. Clearly, some of the tools and rules of the previous enlargement cannot work as well with Turkey. The article examines the mechanisms underlying the success of conditionality and sketches some of the scope conditions needed for it to work in Turkey's case. Ultimately, the success of conditionality will depend on EU credibility and the preferences of domestic actors, which are more heterogeneous than in Central and Eastern European states. [R] [See Abstr. 62.390]
62.421 DRAGON, Stéphanie —
This paper asks whether the democratic legitimacy of the CCNE is adequate with respect to its role. An empirical analysis addresses the activities of the Committee, which exercises real normative influence on the decision-making process in the field of biomedicine. But the legitimacy of the CCNE is insufficient, as its advisory opinions often go far beyond its designated task. That being said, the independence of the Committee should not be interpreted as a democratic deficiency, as the independence of the CCNE is essential for its purpose. The analysis indicates that the Committee has been effective in developing independent positions on bioethical issues. So far, the CCNE's primary inadequacy, however, has been its failure to integrate the larger public in discussions of these issues. [R, abr.]
62.422 DZIDUSZKO-ROŚCISZEWSKA, Anna —
Although freedom of speech as defined by the First Amendment of the US Constitution seems absolute, it has been limited as a result of social and religious change. The limitation clauses were not the outcome of legal rules, but resulted from specific situations in domestic policy. In creating these limitations, judges often have had to revise the decisions of lower courts, or ever revise decisions of the Supreme Court.
62.423 EBINGER, Falk; GROHS, Stephan; REITER, Renate —
This paper evaluates the impact of differing decentralization strategies —political, administrative and horizontal — on administrative performance subsequent to reform. It presents core results from a comprehensive research project on the impact of decentralization in three European countries. The project developed and applied an analytical framework for the measurement of the effects of national decentralization policies on local government performance. A total of six reform ventures were scrutinized in French, German and English local communities applying a multidimensional set of performance measures. Surprisingly, many of the theoretical assumptions about the effects of decentralization strategies could not be confirmed. Moreover, straightforward relations were not discovered between decentralization strategies and performance effects but between policy fields, political interests and the time elapsed since the reform and performance. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.164]
62.424 EMBACHER, Serge —
Concerning the [German] federal government's “national engagement strategy”, this critical analysis finds that current engagement policy no longer aims at strengthening democratic communities and promoting participative impulses in the framework of a cooperative understanding between state, industry and civil society. It rather focuses on making use of supposedly apolitical voluntary “helpers” to state purposes and is geared towards controlling processes and maintaining power. The change in how the federal family policy is connected with the “national forum for engagement and participation” is proof of it. The idea of a solidary society supposes that state activity and civil engagement not only complement each other, but are mutually dependent. The author cautions that the trend towards more participation and understanding in the relationship between state and society is irreversible and will overtake those who ignore it. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.202]
62.425 ERTUGAL, Ebru; DOBRE, Ana Maria —
This article examines the institutional and governance effects of regional policy reforms in Roman ia and Turkey during their respective periods as EU candidate countries. First, the article disentangles the relative impact of EU conditionality in the area of regional policy in two candidate countries from different enlargement rounds. Second, it investigates the outcomes of regional reforms while identifying the factors facilitating these reforms. The findings suggest that regional reform outcomes in Romania and Turkey show striking similarities, despite differences in the credibility of EU conditionality. Therefore, it argues that the constellations of domestic political actors and the existing domestic institutional structures matter more than EU conditionality in explaining the similarity in reform outcomes. [R]
62.426 ESHBAUGH-SOHA, Matthew; MILES, Thomas —
[US] Presidents go public frequently to increase their success in Congress. Yet scholars know little about when presidents speak within the legislative process or why. If presidential speeches are indeed a source of power for presidents, then presidents are likely to use them throughout the legislative process, not speak only to affect final passage. We argue that presidents speak generally to meet broad electoral and political goals, but target speeches according to their goals at each stage of the legislative process: to frame the debate at the agenda-setting stage, to push bills out of committee, and to finalize support from legislators at the roll call stage. We analyze 116 bills between 1989 and 2004, supplemented by Bush Library archival data and a case study of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. [R, abr.]
62.427 FABBRINI, Federico —
The Treaty of Lisbon modified the composition of the European Parliament (EP), but entered into force only after the elections for the seventh renewal of the EP (4–7 June 2009). By the Protocol amending the Protocol on the Transitional provision attached to the European treaties, the member states have however decided to give immediate effect to some of the innovations contained in the Lisbon Treaty, notably the introduction of 18 additional seats in the EP for 12 countries, without waiting for the European elections of June 2014. By its Law 2/2011, Italy has implemented the European protocol and has set up the domestic procedures for the attribution of the additional seat allocated to it. The article analyzes the novelties introduced by the European Protocol and by Law 2/2011 that implements it, within the framework of the European and national legislation for the election of the EP and the constitutional transformation inaugurated by the Lisbon Treaty. [R]
62.428 FARGANIS, Dion; WEDEKING, Justin —
Criticism of [US] Supreme Court confirmation hearings has intensified considerably over the past two decades. In particular, there is a growing sense that nominees are now less forthcoming and that the hearings have suffered as a result. We challenge that conventional wisdom. Based on a comprehensive content-analysis of every question and answer in all of the modern confirmation hearings, we find only a mild decline in the candor of recent nominees. Moreover, we find that senators ask more probing questions than in the past, and that nominees are now more explicit about their reasons when they choose not to respond — two factors that may be fueling the perception that evasiveness has increased in recent years. We discuss the normative implications of our findings [and] outline future research. [R, abr.]
62.429 FINLAYSON, Alan —
This article demonstrates a governmentality approach to policy, taking as an example the Child Trust Fund devised and implemented by the New Labour government in the UK. In making sense of such a policy we should, as interpretive theories of governance tell us, pay attention to the ideas and beliefs that shaped it and to the longer genealogy that made those ideas possible. It is important to study a policy not only as an outcome of the actions of various agents but also as a cause of events in the domains into which it enters. Examining how policies “emerge” out of a complex of activities, and how they then become a part of these, is a vital complement to other methodologies, and enables us to ask broad political-theoretical questions of both policy and politics. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.21]
62.430 FLECKENSTEIN, Timo; SAUNDERS, Adam M.; SEELEIBKAISER, Martin —
Britain and Germany have been experiencing significant changes in the nature of work and welfare since the 1990s. There have been compelling indications of a dual transformation of welfare constituted not only by a far-reaching retrenchment in unemployment insurance but also by a remarkable expansion in family policy. These developments have their functional underpinnings in accelerating de-industrialization with a declining proportion of the male workforce with specific skills as well as in service-sector growth and rising female labor-market participation characterized by an increase in general skills. This dual transformation in welfare and employment patterns suggests that the process of de-industrialization has initiated significant path adjustments unanticipated in the existing comparative political economy literature. [R, abr.]
62.431 FOLEY, Edward B. —
The resolution of Minnesota's disputed 2008 US Senate election offers a model from which other states can benefit in a similar dispute. Minnesota employed impartial and balanced institutions, its State Canvassing Board and three-judge trial court, to conduct the recount and subsequent litigation of this Senate election. The lack of partisan bias in the composition and deliberation of these institutions was, by far, the overriding factor in making the eventual outcome of the election legitimate in the eyes of the losing side as well as the winners. This article develops a set of procedures that can achieve the same impartial fairness of Coleman v. Franken but within the strict time constraints essential for presidential elections (and also suitable for senatorial, gubernatorial and other statewide elections). [R, abr.]
62.432 FROMONT, Michel —
A comparison between the French Constitutional Council and the German Constitutional Court reveals few differences in their conception of sovereignty, but more in how the constitutional nature of legislation is evaluated. For historical reasons, the German Basic Law does not use the word “sovereign ty”. The French Constitution of 1958 uses it, even “national sovereignty”, several times. The German Court silently accepts the constitutionality of EU legislation because it seeks to avoid conflicts with the European institutions. The French Constitutional Council does not review its constitutionality, because of the primacy of international treaties.
62.433 FRYE, Timothy M.; IWASAKI, Ichiro —
We propose three ideal types of business-state relations in a transition economy and explore the impact of government directors on corporate boards for firm behavior. Using a unique dataset of joint-stock companies in Russia, we find that the presence of government directors on corporate boards is more consistent with a “collusion” ideal type of relations between firms and the state than with a managerial discipline or rent-extraction ideal type. The state sends directors to firms that both extract resources from the state, but that also provide important benefits and services to the state. [R]
62.434 GAINS, Francesca; STOKER, Gerry —
This article examines the work of ministerial special advisers who play a key but underresearched role in transmitting policy ideas in government. We argue that this focus is necessary to challenge the reification of neoliberalism as an explanatory determinant of policy-making. Initially we discuss the literature on the transmission of social science ideas into policy-making, contrasting this with a governmentality approach. We then consider the role of UK special advisers, illustrating this empirically by drawing on advisers' reflections of their role. We conclude by highlighting ambiguity, inconsistency and agency in the take-up and deployment of ideas in policy-making. [R] [See Abstr. 62.21]
62.435 GILBERT, Robert E. —
L.B. Johnson's legislative record is perhaps as extraordinary as that of F.D. Roosevelt, making him one of the most effective legislative leaders in American history. Johnson, however, became emotionally overwrought in response to the war in Vietnam that came to dominate his administration. As a leader with narcissistic traits, he was deeply unsettled by the attacks he suffered during this period. He became obsessed with enemies and convinced that they were engaged in plots against him. Overall, during the last eight years of his political career, and applying diagnostic criteria specified by the American Psychiatric Association, Johnson increasingly exhibited behavior patterns that conform to those associated with paranoia. The paranoid reactions he showed as president seem to have been those of a wounded narcissist. [R, abr.]
62.436 GOLDSTEIN, Joel K. —
[US] presidents play the critical role in determining who will serve as justices on the Supreme Court and their decisions inevitably influence constitutional doctrine and judicial behavior long after their terms have ended. Scholars have focused relatively little attention on how presidents decide who to nominate. This article adopts an intermediate course between the works which tend to treat the subject historically without identifying recurring patterns and those which try to reduce the process to empirical formulas which inevitably obscure considerations shaping decision. The article argues that a more analytically useful approach views the selection as turning upon the interaction of three variables —pool, context and presidential idiosyncrasy — each of which consists of a variety of other factors. This article examines Supreme Court nominations since 1900 to develop these points. [R, abr.]
62.437 GONZALEZ-VICENTE, Ruben —
In the last decade, responding in part to an important increase in the number of Chinese state-owned enterprises operating overseas, the study of China's international relations has gained academic prominence. Research often emphasizes the ways in which domestic characteristics of the Chinese state shape the nature of its transnational engagement. However, the transformations experienced by the state in processes of internationalization remain largely under-researched. This article problematizes the internationalization of the Chinese state, analyzing it as a process of gradual re-territorialization, which induces power redistributions and cultural transformations. Using a variety of examples for illustrate purposes, and drawing upon multidisciplinary work on the state, the article argues that the Chinese state is undergoing a process of decentered internationalization that is the effect of an entrepreneurial statehood rationale. [R, abr.]
62.438 GÖRENER, Aylin Ş.; UCAL, Meltem Ş. —
R.T. ErdoĞan is clearly the most controversial figure in recent Turkish political history. His preponderance in political life is remarkable even by Turkish standards. Because Erdogan is powerful and has effectively weakened most internal checks on his power, any attempt to explain Turkey's recent foreign policy outcomes [must] consider his leadership impact. This study investigates Erdogan's worldview and leadership style, and evaluates their impact on his government's policy processes and outputs. We employ the Leadership Trait Analysis technique to construct the leadership profile of Erdogan through content-analysis of his verbal records while in office. Our understanding of AKP-era Turkey is enhanced if we offer a systematic and rigorous account of Erdogan's personality: he presents a clear example of the importance of taking individual-level variables seriously in foreign policy analysis. [R]
62.439 GREENAWAY, John —
Alcohol issues have risen in political salience in Britain in recent years. This article relates the 2003 English and Welsh Licensing Act to some theories about the influence of ideas on the policy process. The policy originated as a regulation and trading one but was broadened to fit into New Labour's modernization agenda. The legislation soon became laden with expectations and forebodings, both political and social, that went far beyond its original remit and, once the media had latched on to it, became highly controversial with the accent placed upon “24-hour drinking”. The history of the legislation shows how the intellectual framing and departmental policy are intertwined and how Béland's idea of “road maps” being used by policy entrepreneurs has some resonance. [R, abr.]
62.440 GROVE, Andrea —
Despite Zimbabwe's economic and political system having been in freefall since 2000, by the elections of 2008, and even now in 2011, the country's president, R. Mugabe, still rallies support from portions of the population. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change garnered much international and domestic support, but it took until February 2009 to get Mugabe to share power. Puzzling too for Western observers was the reluctance of African states, especially South Africa, to push Mugabe to abide by democratic norms until late in the game, threatening new initiatives by the African Union and in southern Africa. This article explores the strategies that Mugabe used until a few years ago to play foreign and domestic actors and contexts off each other in order to maintain total control. [R, abr.]
62.441 GUILLÉN LÓPEZ, Enrique —
This article aims to analyze the electoral system of the Congress of Deputies from the point of view of constitutional principles. The first part refers to representation, proportionality, integration, governability, the expression of political pluralism and the equality of votes. The second part analyzes these principles in their relations to the recent reform proposal of the electoral system. Discussion of the electoral system must be constant in democracy, and a more politically viable solution must be sought that can achieve the highest possible level of these principles. [R]
62.442 GÜRSOY, Yaprak —
Turkish civil-military relations entered a new phase starting with the first EU-induced reforms in 1999, and have gained a new momentum since 2007. This article first introduces the amendments to Turkish civil-military relations, then asks how much the constitutional and legal amendments have affected the political autonomy of the military. The article takes the indicators of military autonomy into consideration as a whole and argues that legal amendments have not introduced any changes to one-third of the military prerogatives. In those areas where some adjustments have been made, either more reforms must follow or democratic practices must endure the test of time. [R] [See Abstr. 62.390]
62.443 GUTKOWSKI, Stacey —
Little has been said in the IR literature so far about the connections between secular ideas and identification of risk. However, there are striking parallels. “Western”, secular discourse(s) have framed Islamist terrorism as slippery, uncontainable, mysterious and strange. Similarly, risks are often described as “diverse, amorphous and qualitative”. Starting from this observation, this article explores connections between ongoing conversations about the politics of risk and insights from the emerging literature on secularism and international politics. Using the British “Prevent” agenda of 2005–2009 as a case study, it asks how it is that political secularism and cultural secularity have contributed to perceptions of danger emanating from the Muslim population. It explores the potential implications of these perceptions for state security policy. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.52]
62.444 HALE, Henry E. —
Presidential constitutions, through an information effect and a focal effect, generate expectations of future informal power that encourage clientelist networks to coordinate law-disregarding practices around a “single pyramid” of power led by the president. The information and focal effects of divided-executive constitutions, by contrast, create expectations that complicate the coordination of clientelist networks around a single patron, promoting “competing-pyramid” politics. To isolate the impact of formal constitutional design and rule out other causes, a tightly controlled process-tracing paired comparison is employed using Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan during 2005–2010, explaining why Ukraine's Orange Revolution produced a true democratic opening (even if short-lived) while Kyrgyzstan's Tulip Revolution did not. [R, abr.]
62.445 HALE, William —
This paper assesses and explains the relative strength of internal and external factors in the improvement of Turkey's human rights regime. After 1999, the EU, which required Turkey to conform to the Copenhagen criteria of civil liberties as a precondition for the start of accession negotiations, has been by far the most important element, resulting in the passage of an impressive raft of constitutional and legal reforms between 2001 and 2004. After 2005, when accession talks officially began, the pace of reform slackened markedly, as the accession process became more problematic. Nonetheless, in 2010, another package of constitutional reforms was enacted, suggesting that the cause of reform has now acquired a powerful internal dynamic. [R] [See Abstr. 62.390]
62.446 HANSEN, Martin Ejnar —
Membership of committees is in most parliaments a gift within the reach of the party groups. Yet, both theoretically and empirically, little is known about committee allocation in parliaments. Using theories from the literature of the US Congress, a framework for analysis of the committee assignments in Dáil Éireann is presented. The paper first analyzes what factors influence the allocation of Teachta Dálas (TDs) to Dáil committees. Second, it analyzes to what extent the participation of TDs in committee changes over time. The former analysis corroborates results found in other parliaments; few factors seem to have an influence. The latter analysis confirms that the participation of TDs changes over time and seems to be tied in with the changing scope and influence of the committee system. [R, abr.]
62.447 HANSON, Philip —
Examination of Russia's experience of the economic crisis and its future economic prospects reveals evidence that the sharp fall in GDP in 2008–2009 was the result of the business world's perceptions of risk, conditioned by institutional weaknesses; it cannot be blamed simply on the fall in oil prices. Analysis of sources of growth, and of policy and reform options, indicates that the development of Russian GDP in 2010–2020 is likely to be slower than in 1998–2008; radical economic and political reform is unlikely, but partial economic reform may be capable of generating some improvements in performance. [R] [See Abstr. 62.398]
62.448 HARMAN, Sophie —
This article considers the role of conditional cash transfers as a mechanism of governing health risk by buying behavior change in sexual practice. Conditional cash transfers are identified as a potential solution to the problem of HIV-prevention, and look likely to be applied throughout countries with high prevalence rates in sub-Saharan Africa. The article considers the implications of two pilot studies in Tanzania and Malawi for governing the risk of HIV-infection. It outlines the problem of behavior change and individual rationality, the potential of conditional cash transfers as a relatively inexpensive program with high outcomes, and some of the limitations and implications of these initiatives for individual bodies, rationality and global health governance. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.255]
62.449 HERBERT, Jon —
J. Lipman-Blumen's understanding of toxic leadership and her public comments on the G.W. Bush administration offer us an explanation of recent events in US politics. This article develops a narrative rooted in Lipman-Blumen's work, but in doing so, brings the “toxic leadership” approach into question. Lipman-Blumen's emphasis on the psychological shortcomings of leaders and followers as the driving forces in US politics is scrutinized in an explanation that stresses how the structural forces at work in US politics, particularly its separated system and increasing partisanship, encourage the practice of toxic leadership. The article moves the responsibility for toxic leadership away from psychological failings of president and populace and more to factors inherent to the US political system. [R] [See Abstr. 62.124]
62.450 HORNIG, Eike-Christian —
Given the joint-decision trap and consensus democracy in the German party state, the implementation of direct democracy opens institutionally a way to circumvent the tactically motivated blockades by political parties in favor of problem-solving behavior. The international comparison of constitutional reforms in complex political systems reveals that disconnected arenas of negotiation and decision contribute to the success of reform attempts by compelling parties to act in a less self-serving manner. The instruments of direct democracy in Western Europe provide that result, as shown by the comparison of party motives in initiating a public vote. In particular, the mandatory referendum is less prone to tactically motivated party politics owning to its institutional construction. By enlarging the procedures of constitutional amendment, and mandatory referendum could exhibit these qualities at the national level in Germany. [R]
62.451 HU, Henry L. —
Internet service providers (ISPs) have played an important role in China's internet regulation regime. This article illustrates how ISPs are governed to serve the government's regulatory goals. This involves examining some of the most extraordinary and profound insights concerning internet governance: the theories of the layers principle, the end-to-end argument and the generative internet. Chinese ISPs have been dependent rather than neutral regulatory intermediaries of the government. Moreover, in addition to telecommunication carriers, the radio and television networks affiliated to the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) are to become a new type of ISP that is capable of choking the free spirit of the internet, as recently demonstrated by the far-reaching policy of “network convergence”. [R, abr.]
62.452 HUGH-JONES, David —
D. Sanders, H. Clarke, M. Stewart and P. Whiteley [ibid. 64(1), Jan. 2011: 5–23; Abstr. 61.2147] simulate the 2010 election under the Alternative Vote (AV). Their results show large gains for the Liberal Democrats. I alter their methodology to make the estimation of voters' first preferences under AV more accurate. With this change, the Liberal Democrats gains are considerably smaller, on the order of 10 seats or less. Bootstrap estimation shows that a Lib-Lab majority coalition would probably not have been feasible under AV. [R] [See also the response of the authors of the original article, pp. 767–768]
62.453 HUME, Robert J. —
I compare institutional and policy explanations for the enactment of [US] state constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriage. Although I expect routine policy considerations to affect the adoption of amendments, I also expect adoption to be influenced by attributes of state institutions, in particular, the capacity of state high courts to produce decisions favoring marriage equality. Using event-history analysis, I find that the initial consideration of amendments is driven by policy considerations but that adoption is also guided by institutional considerations, such as the professionalization of state high courts. [R, abr.]
62.454 HUMMEL, Patrick —
This paper considers how the welfare of voters is affected under an Electoral College system when some [US] state elects to award electoral votes in proportion to the number of votes received by each candidate rather than awarding all electoral votes to the winner of the state. I show that a majority of voters in that state is made worse off as a result of the change. I also give conditions under which voters in other states are made better or worse off as a result of the change. [R]
62.455 HUNOLD, Christian; LEITNER, Steven —
Proposals for large-scale solar thermal plants in Southern California [US] have won enthusiastic government support. Public debate on this technology's environmental consequences has been notably muted, however. Why have environmentalists found it so difficult to secure ecologically sound siting processes for large-scale solar thermal plants? Instead of representing a shift toward environmental stewardship and sustainability, the discourse of the “Solar Grand Plan” to develop renewable energy in Southwestern deserts parallels high-modernist narratives of the past century. Using discourse-analysis, three different conceptions of space and place that shape the debate are identified. The Grand Solar Plan champions solar development as clean energy. This has generated a conservationist narrative that seeks to minimize habitat and landscape destruction but has yet to have a substantial impact on policy. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.1254]
62.456 IP, Eric C.; LAW, Michael K. H. —
This article examines the evolution of the rules that govern central-local government relations in the Chinese political economy. Although the federalism that accompanied China's market reforms has substantially facilitated economic growth, it has also created powerful incentives for local authorities to abuse their powers, significantly increasing the agency costs to the central government of maintaining political stability and creating a national market. This article analyzes the institutional design of the nascent [2008] Anti-Monopoly Law (AML), known to officials and academics as China's new “Economic Constitution”. It demonstrates that the major purpose of the AML is to break up the so-called “administrative monopolies”, or bureaucratic fiefdoms over local economies. [R, abr.]
62.457 JACOBSOHN, Gary Jeffrey —
Much of contemporary constitutional theory underestimates the disharmonies within and disharmonies of constitutional orders. This article examines the dissonance characterizing constitutional identity that is present either in the disjunction between a constitution and the social order within which it functions, or between commitments internal to the document itself. From very early on, American framing of rights has revealed a tension between individual and collective meanings, between rights of persons and rights of the people. This article explores the manifestation of this tension in the evolution of the vexing concept of unenumerated rights. While expressive of the particularities of the American constitutional experience, the story illustrates a broader developmental process that is endemic to the constitutional condition. [R]
62.458 JALALZAI, Farida —
Applying a typology of political systems and executive power, this article focuses on German Chancellor A. Merkel's powers and autonomy in relation to other female executives worldwide. Like most women leaders, Merkel operates within a dual executive system and is subject to a vote of no confidence. Powers are exercised within a cabinet, suggesting collaborative governance. Coalition politics requires Merkel's cooperation with other actors. State powers also compete with the Federal government. In these ways, Merkel supports the prevailing model of the more constrained female executive. However, German presidential powers are generally symbolic, positioning Merkel as the dominant executive. She also enjoys greater insularity from dismissal than most prime ministers. As the only female head of state in a G-8 country, Merkel plays a visible and central role in global politics. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.65]
62.459 JAMES, Toby S. —
What role does executive partisan interest play in the reform of election administration? The forces for reform and continuity in the US, the UK and Ireland from 1980 to 2007 are compared. Partisan involvement is found to be present in the US and the UK but less so in Ireland. This is explained by conceiving partisan interest as a context-specific causal mechanism which varies according to three factors: (1) an issue trigger may be required to bring election administration on to executive policy agenda; five such triggers are identified in the cases. (2) The systemic institutional features of political systems shape and refract the (non-)politics of election administration by altering the incentives, opportunities for and constraints upon elite action. (3) Executive strategy on election administration is influenced by the reform process of other electoral institutions. [R, abr.]
62.460 JESSOULA, Matteo —
Pensions policy has presented diverse traits in two different phases. Until the early-1990s, policies were mostly expansionary and distributive; after 1992, retrenchment interventions aimed at prompting a transition to a multipillar system. These changes affected the very nature of pension policy-making, which actually split in two different arenas, regarding the general pension pillar and the supplementary funded schemes. While in the former area traditional actors — government, parties and social partners — remained central, the latter was characterized by the emergence of a “new politics” of pensions. Institutional transformations and the prominence of regulatory issues have thus radically modified the constellation of actors involved, by opening pension policy-making primarily to groups representative of financial institutions. [R] [See Abstr. 62.754]
62.461 JOHN, Peter; BEVAN, Shaun; JENNINGS, Will —
Institutions can affect the degree to which public opinion influences policy by determining the clarity of responsibility in decision-making. The sharing of power between national and devolved levels of government makes it difficult for the public to attribute responsibility for decisions. In the UK, this generates the prediction that the devolution of power to territorial units weakens the effect of public opinion on policy both for the UK and Scottish governments. To test this expectation, this paper analyzes responsiveness of the legislative outputs of the UK and Scottish parliaments to the issue priorities of the public. It finds the policy-opinion link in the UK appears to be weaker since devolution to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 compared with the period between 1977 and 1998. [R, abr.]
62.462 JOHNSTON, Ron; PATTIE, Charles —
The House of Lords has acted as if it has greater legitimacy since the reforms of 1999 that removed most of the hereditary peers. Until 2010, the governing party — Labour — had only a minority in the House, but since the formation of the coalition after that year's general election, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats combined have had a majority among those peers who take a party whip. Whether they can get their legislation through the House, therefore, depends on whether large numbers of crossbench peers vote against the government. In general, their turnout is low. It increased during the latter stages of debates on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, 2010, but crossbenchers rarely voted in sufficient numbers with Labour to defeat the government. [R, abr.]
62.463 JUNGHERR, Andreas; JÜRGENS, Pascal —
Since the introduction of the Bundestag's e-petition platform, e-petitions repeatedly have attracted high supporter counts and thus attracted the interest of media and the German public. Using the machine-readable data structure of the e-petition platform, it is possible to identify usage patterns of the platform and analyze them quantitatively. Generally, it can be asserted that, although public attention focuses on e-petitions with high supporter counts, the overwhelming majority of all e-petitions attract only few supporters. According to the data, four user-types are identified: (1) new lobbyists, (2) hit-and-run activists, (3) activism consumers, and (4) stakeholders. In addition, it is clear that e-petitions with high supporter counts are successful. In this respect, we call the phenomenon co-signature-overspill. [R]
62.464 KALAYCIOĞLU, Ersin —
Turkish-EU relations have occupied the Turkish political agenda since 1959. However, it was only after the Cold War that relations gained momentum and began to have a deep running impact on Turkish sociopolitical developments. One such area of impact has been the political regime of Turkey. In an effort to accommodate the standards of Turkish democracy with the Copenhagen Criteria, Turkish governments have initiated several constitutional amendments. This paper analyzes the context and the nature of constitutional amendments made in the last three decades, and examines the role that EU-Turkish relations played in the modification of the Turkish political regime. [R] [See Abstr. 62.390]
62.465 KALEV, Leif; RUUTSOO, Rein —
We examine the positions of the decision-makers of Estonia on multiple and European citizenship. The Estonian case offers good opportunities to discuss the structuring of the field of citizenship in the context of a country that is building up a European-style nation-state but that has simultaneously to adjust to the changes in statehood usually characterized as globalization and Europeanization. The article is based on a survey conducted in 2003–2004 in eight countries: Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Portugal and the UK. We first briefly characterize the socio-historical context of Estonian citizenship policies, then discuss the results of the empirical research, and relate these to wider trends and draw some conclusions. [R]
62.466 KASSOW, Benjamin J.; FINOCCHIARO, Charles J. —
This article examines the link between elections and the representational behavior of senators by considering whether ideological congruence with state preferences impacts vote shares on Election Day. We advance the literature on electoral accountability by proposing a more refined theoretical and empirical assessment of congruence with constituent preferences. Additionally, our analysis focuses on the effect of divergence in the Senate, which has been subject to significantly less attention than the House, and examines all elections to the upper chamber involving incumbents from 1960–2004. We find that measures of ideological divergence that are conditioned on the underlying ideological preferences of state constituencies significantly improve on existing measures, and that senators who are out of step with their state do in fact suffer at the polls. [R]
62.467 KENNEDER, Martin —
As an allegedly occupational chamber, the Irish Senate (Seanad Éireann) seems at first glance anachronistic. In the somewhat imperfect Irish bicameral parliament, the Senate has a strongly bounded role in fulfilling general parliamentary functions. It is however, at the same time, not a fully ideal type of second chamber, not fulfilling the accepted specific functions of second chambers (different basis of representation than that of the first chamber, reviewing bills, controlling the first chamber, specialized interest articulation and jurisdictional functions). While the Senate's electoral regulations limit true occupational representation, the Senate's capacity to take on burdens from the first chamber and the government is the primary reason for its resistance to reforms and abolition. [R, abr.]
62.468 KENNEDY, Ellen —
The author situates Schmitt's analysis of Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution within its historical and legal context, demonstrating Schmitt's involvement in contentious debates over legal interpretation and theory, specifically concerning the constitutionally granted power of the executive. She argues that while Schmitt acknowledges the Reich constitution as positive law, and thus contains practical limitations to constituted powers, Schmitt's presidentialism allows him to import metaphysical elements into his legal analysis that justify the use of executive authority to supersede the formal, constituted legal processes, demonstrating the liberal constitution's susceptibility to government by decree. [R] [First of a series of articles on “Carl Schmitt's constitutional theory”, edited by Andreas KALYVAS. See also Abstr. 62.11, 329, 336, 361, 413]
62.469 KING, Desmond; LIEBERMAN, Robert C. —
The aim is to bring to light characteristics of the American state, a state classically thought of as weak by authors comparing it to the model of centralized European states. Taking into account comparative studies allows for putting forward several hypotheses on the occasionally paradoxical sequences of state origins and state development. In those studies the state is conceived of not as counterweight or competitor with regard to certain social relations or typically “non-state” political organizations but rather as closely linked to those organizations due to the conditions governing competition among political parties or arrangements negotiated between the central apparatus and powerful infranational units. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.156]
62.470 KING, Desmond; STEARS, Marc —
Many existing accounts of the American state search for identifiable features of stateness recognizable from the comparative politics of state theory. These are less present in the US because of a distinct history, institutional separation of powers, and an ideological populism based in opposition to public sector expansion. Despite these constraints the American state is a powerful actor in US politics and has been since the 19th c. engaged in familiar revenue raising, regulatory, public order, coercive, military, and distributive functions. To understand these we propose a framework based on how the endogenous drive to standardize shapes these functions and gives a distinct character to the American state. We identify impulses to standardization, and enduring obstacles to this agenda. [R]
62.471 KINTZ, Melanie —
This article examines how particular personal characteristics — sex, age, and Eastern German origin — influenced the careers of A. Merkel and other members of the Bundestag (MdB) in the 13th–16th electoral periods. It explains what kind of MdB [members] are most likely to rise to parliamentary leadership functions. I argue that while Merkel's career is, in the German context, atypical, this fact makes Merkel typical of female chief executives in other countries, who have often come to power [in] exceptional circumstances. [R] [See Abstr. 62.65]
62.472 KNUTELSKÁ, Viera —
This paper analyzes the systems of parliamentary scrutiny of EU matters applied in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. The analysis is based on formal rules laid down in legal norms, and working and other documents and interviews with civil servants from both legislative and executive bodies. The paper demonstrates how the actual working of these systems may differ from formal procedures. The most important factors influencing it are not the legal rules but other aspects such as the day-to-day working routine used by executive and parliamentary officials charged with European matters. The paper confirms the original hypothesis that the differences in the actual influence of the parliaments may be attributed mostly to the changes in parliamentary activity in the early period of the scrutiny systems and at later stages. [R]
62.473 KOROSTELEVA, Julia —
In resolutely pursuing their own rigid economic policies, rather than engaging with international financial agencies and mechanisms and adopting market economic measures in common with their neighbors, the Belarusian authorities seem reluctant to part with the use of administrative measures to govern the economy and have become hostage to this dogma. At the same time, in the global crisis, the general worldwide tendency to increase the role of the state in the economy, including tightening of financial regulation and resorting to trade protectionist measures, provides some justification for the Belarusian authorities' actions in delaying policy reforms. However, in the light of the worsening economic situation in the first half of 2011, privatization of some strategic assets seems to be inevitable in the near future to address severe liquidity gaps. [R] [See Abstr. 62.398]
62.474 KOROSTIKOV, Mikhail —
The anti-recessionary policies and popular reactions to them that were followed in Russia and China between 2008 and 2010 differed significantly, even though the responses to the crisis followed a similar pattern in the two. The authorities in China, free of a need to take public opinion into account, responded more swiftly than those in Russia, but the packages of policies differed. As China's export markets dwindled, factories closed and millions of workers lost their jobs, the government attempted to stimulate domestic demand and invest in infrastructure. In Russia, major investment in the financial sector dominated the response, and the government faced severe social responses, including strikes and demonstrations across the country. The results were comparable, but the crisis revealed different approaches of the two regimes in markedly different socio-economic circumstances. [R] [See Abstr. 62.398]
62.475 KOVAČ, Polona —
In Slovenia, public administration reform has been seen mainly as a systematic set of approaches applied since the country's independence in 1991, and in particular since 1996, when the aim was the country's full EU membership. The reforms were designed predominantly under the influence of the New Public Management, aiming mainly at the rationalization of structures and resources, user-orientation, development of e-government, and quality management. However, they were carried out rather legalistically although formally run under several overall reform strategies from 1997 to 2010, stimulated by inner forces and EU or OECD incentives. The goals and activities have been partly complementary and partly contradictory due to lack of evaluation and consensus in terms of implementation, but subject to continuous modernization and Europeanization. [R, abr.]
62.476 KOVÁCS, Kriszta; TÓTH, Gábor Attila —
The Basic Law [2011] changes the characteristics of the Hungarian constitutionalism abandoning the idea of a secular state, by rewriting the category of “We the People” and by reducing the constitutional checks. The future of the Hungarian constitutionalism, however, depends not only on the original text of the Basic Law but also on the actions of the Hungarian people and the commitment of European societies. [R]
62.477 KRANENPOHL, Uwe —
The German Constitutional Court's decision-making process obeys to contradictory principles. On one hand, judgments are prepared based on a division of labor: each rapporteur is master of his dossier and may choose his emphasis based on his own criteria. On the other each decision is the result of a common work processin which each rapporteur contributes to the coordination. [R, transl.] [See Abstr. 62.69]
62.478 KRYSHTANOVSKAYA, Ol'ga —
Unlike his predecessor V. Putin, D. Medvedev had relatively little success in promoting his own supporters to leading positions. His meetings with defense and security officials took place less frequently, and were more highly formalized; he met key economic ministers less often than his predecessor, and continued to meet them irregularly even during the worst of the international economic crisis. Responses to the crisis, in practice, were devolved to government commissions, which met daily. Putin's political weight was meanwhile enhanced by his appointments to leading companies and by the substantial majority in the Duma that had been secured by United Russia, of which he was the leader. The “tandem” was an unstable construction that depended entirely on the relationship between the two leaders, but it survived the economic crisis. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.398]
62.479 KUBALA, Marek —
Previous studies examining the relationship between the media and the UK Parliament have emphasized a decline in the quantity and quality of media coverage of the House of Commons from the late 1980s onwards. However, such studies have focused primarily on the reporting of parliamentary debates in the Commons Chamber. Comparatively little attention has been paid to media coverage of select committees since the modern system was established in 1979. By using an extensive content-analysis of 1,217 newspaper articles published between 1987 and 2007, and holding interviews with people closely associated with committees, this research sheds light on quantitative trends in select committee coverage over two decades and provides further knowledge about the types of committees that receive coverage and why. [R]
62.480 LEIBRECHT, Markus; KLIEN, Michael; ONARAN, Oezlem
This paper analyzes the effects of globalization on social protection expenditures in European countries. The particular focus is on (1) the Eastern European countries and (2) on differences in globalization effects between welfare regimes. We find evidence in favor of the compensation hypothesis in Western Europe which is driven by the conservative welfare regime, outweighing the efficiency effect of globalization in the social-democratic welfare regime. In Eastern European countries the efficiency effect is predominant. No globalization effect is found for the liberal and the southern welfare regimes. [R]
62.481 LEVEN, Bozena —
This paper examines the major reasons for limited crisis contagion to Poland in the period 2007–2009. At this time, Poland was the only EU member that grew in the midst of the Great Recession and financial crisis. The analysis focuses on the domestic policies and the economic structure which made this growth possible. Poland's modest levels of private and public debt, low share of mortgages in bank assets, limited decline in real estate prices, and pro-active policies by domestic and foreign banks substantially buffered Poland's financial sector. At the same time, the real economy was aided by a high share of domestic consumption as opposed to exports, a favorable labor market structure, and timely financial assistance from the EU; all that shielded it from major crisis contagion. [R]
62.482 LI Junpeng —
This article examines the rise and consequences of the Computer Take-Back Campaign in the US, and argues that the campaign's achievements can be attributed to its active engagement with the economic, political, and discursive opportunity structures. First, the campaign changed the political opportunity structure and built political legitimacy for itself. Second, the campaign took advantage of the economic opportunity structure, created the leader/laggard frame, embarrassed its target, and utilized forces of market competition to push the Dell Corporation to change its policy. Third, the campaign created a favorable discursive opportunity structure by mobilizing college students and framing the e-waste crisis as a moral issue. This case study shows that a modified understanding of opportunities can enhance the explanatory power of the traditional approach. [R, abr.]
62.483 LIBMAN, Alexander —
The article compares the development of two institutional systems organizing intergovernmental relations in the former Soviet Union: Russian federalism and post-Soviet regional integration. Despite the common origins of these two sets of institutions, and the common developmental trends they experienced over the first decade of their existence, the two systems diverged significantly in the 2000s. The article discusses the driving forces behind these differences. It also addresses various forms of direct links between centralization in Russia and regional integration in the post-Soviet space; these include cross-border cooperation, policy spillovers and perceptions of decentralization by national elites. [R]
62.484 LOWNDES, Vivien; THORP, Leila —
Often portrayed as a struggle between “multiculturalism” and “assimilation”, the community cohesion agenda actually connects with broader currents in the [UK] New Labour policy program. Three contrasting, yet overlapping, “modes” of community cohesion are identified: communitarian, republican and neoliberal. These prioritize, respectively, moral, political and economic “means” of achieving greater cohesion. Different “mixes” are found in practice, varying in relation to policy goals, and over time and across localities. Despite the change of government in 2010, the three modes continue to structure the range of policy options on offer, and continuing practice on the ground. An understanding of the ideational underpinnings of community cohesion allows for a more nuanced analysis of policy design and implementation, and provides a heuristic for future comparative and longitudinal research. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.21]
62.485 LUDWIGS, Markus —
Does EU law require the development of the German Federal Network Agency (FNA) towards an independent (regulatory) agency based on the American model? Such a “metamorphosis” is supported by the fact that EU law guarantees regulatory freedom from political influence in the energy and telecom sectors. On the other hand, in its Arcor decision (2008) the European Court of Justice rightly emphasizes that in the field of telecommunications, Member States should determine, among other matters, the detailed rules of judicial review. EU law points in the direction of reinforced independence and competence of the national regulators. But it does not stipulate the objective of an independent agency. In essence, this still falls within the competence of the Member States in accordance with their respective constitutions. [R, abr.]
62.486 MAASSEN, Peter; MOEN, Eli; STENSAKER, Bjørn —
In the literature on system-level governance of higher education, deregulation and the stepping back of government are regarded as effective measures for strengthening institutional autonomy. Based on an analysis of reforms in higher education in the Netherlands and Norway from the mid-1980s onwards, this article discusses how institutional autonomy is conditioned by reform implementation and the regulatory frameworks intended to enhance autonomy. It is argued that institutional autonomy is conditioned by the existence of systematic dialogue between the government and higher education institutions combined with regulations restricting the scope of strategic action by the institutions. [R]
62.487 MANWELLER, Mathew —
In 2008, following a series of legal battles, Washington State adopted an open nonpartisan “Top-Two” primary system in which only the top two vote-earners, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the general election — the same system California adopted via a 2010 ballot measure. The new primary system is described as a nonpartisan primary but allows candidates to describe their “political party preference”. After the Top-Two primary was struck down on its face by the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the US Supreme Court, in Grange v. Republican Party (2008), reversed the decision arguing that the new system may be unconstitutional as applied but only if the parties could demonstrate the new primary caused “voter confusion”. This article measures the extent of voter confusion caused by the Top-Two primary system. [R, abr.]
62.488 MARTÍN Y PÉREZ DE NANCLARES, José —
The expulsion of Roma [Gypsies] from France in the summer of 2010 has unleashed an interesting political and academic debate regarding the extent to which the essential norms of EU law are observed, especially in relation to the interior market and the protection of fundamental rights. This paper analyzes essentially the incompatibility of the expulsion of nationals of EU member countries, as took place in France, with EU laws that guarantee the right to freedom of circulation and residence, as well as the provisions of the Charter of Fundamental Rights that strictly forbid group expulsions. It also addresses the risks that these kinds of actions can have in the future concerning the role of the [EU] Commission as the institution charged with safeguarding the observance of EU law. [R]
62.489 MARTINSEN, Dorte Sindbjerg —
Judicial policy-making is having an increasing impact on political domains traditionally guarded by national sovereignty. This paper examines how the European judiciary has expanded Community competences into the policy domains of welfare and immigration, followed by subsequent Europeanization, against the preferences of the member governments. It finds that the principle of proportionality constitutes a most powerful means for the European Court [of Justice] to strike the balance between supranational principles and national policy conditions and administrative discretion. While the Court has previously been cautious to apply the principle beyond economic law, it no longer treads as reluctantly, instead generally limiting the inner core of national policy control, i.e., the capacity of the national executive to detail, condition and administer national policies in almost all domains. [R]
62.490 MATARAZZO, Raffaello; LEONE, Jacopo —
More direct involvement in the EU decision-making process has traditionally been an ambition of the Italian parliament. The implementation of the Lisbon Treaty has prompted parliament to maintain tighter scrutiny of the EU legislative process, not only through the use of the new subsidiarity control mechanism, but in particular by exerting a stronger influence on the government on EU affairs. The latter will be the key challenge in the post-Lisbon era. It is too early to say, however, whether this will have a positive or negative impact on the EU's democratic legitimacy. [R]
62.491 McANULLA, Stuart —
Important aspects of T. Blair's leadership style were shaped by the perceived need to appease economic elites and to avoid public perceptions of disunity within the Labour Party. Yet Blair's approach produced some “toxic” outcomes, notably contributing to: the economic crisis of 2008; increased public disaffection from formal politics; and the Iraq controversy. Blair's success owed much to his “post-ideological” postures, and highly personalized style, yet at times these tools were used to mislead his supporters in damaging ways. [R] [See Abstr. 62.124]
62.492 McKAY, Joanna —
This article focuses on the additional challenges faced by women who combine a political career with motherhood. [It addresses] whether or not it is easier for women to break through the political “glass ceiling” and compete with men so long as they can act like men, for example staying late, and working weekends. The article examines the experiences of women MPs in two countries — the UK and Germany — looking at both the national and sub-national levels. It draws on information collected from female MPs via face-to-face interviews and written questionnaires. The evidence suggests that it is easier for women to break through the political “glass ceiling” if they can fit into the existing male-dominated parliamentary culture. [R, abr.]
62.493 MENZ, Georg —
European employers are rediscovering liberalized labor migration and are attempting to lobby governments to modify previously restrictive regulatory approaches. This article analyzes these newly embraced interest positions, drawing on empirical evidence from the UK and Germany. Employers do not simply desire more migrants or are indifferent to their skills profile, but rather seek newcomers who can be easily accommodated and complement existing corporate strategies and skills requirements. However, they may also seek to “import” missing skills that domestic educational facilities do not generate. The profile of “desirable” economic migrants varies and is conditioned by production strategies and education and training schemes associated with different varieties of capitalism. This article proposes bridging the gap between comparative political economy and migration studies. [R]
62.494 MICKELSSON, Rauli; OKSANEN, Markku —
This paper [examines] the nature of morality and moral-based or ethics-driven politics in a democratic society. It combines empirical and theoretical research. It identifies the differences between political and moral deliberation and how the differences appear in case-studies. In countries with coalition governments, politics is often about compromising. However, there are limits to compromises and negotiations. These limits are often conceived in terms of morality. A key feature of ethical deliberation is that ethical convictions are ultimate and non-negotiable. This is in stark contrast to most political issues, that are negotiable. The empirical part focuses on the “cases of conscience” in Finnish parliamentary politics. Our empirical material consists of the transcripts of parliamentary debates and records of voting behavior. [R, abr.]
62.495 MICKLER, Tim —
The extension of the competences of EU challenges the national parliaments to maintain an effective control function over their governments. The parliaments have reacted with adaptive processes in order to secure their influence on EU matters. The Danish parliament and its European Affairs Committee, able to mandate the negotiation position of its government, is often seen as having the strongest system. An examination of the [number] of accepted negotiation mandates between 2006 and end 2009 reveals however that the government, despite not having a parliamentary majority, gets its position approved in almost every case. The article examines whether and when the parties in the Committee exert effective influence on proposed positions. [R, abr.]
62.496 MONTPETIT, Éric —
The article shows that civil servants who believe that the long-term interest of society is best served by their detached policy advice to policy-makers also hold on to their opinion more than any other actor involved in policy development. However, more civil servants currently emphasize responsiveness, at the expense of detached analysis, owing to increased exposure to international consultancy and forums. As a consequence, the attitude of civil servants in developing public policy is more likely to be indistinguishable from that of actors who have political functions, without significant variation from country to country. Evidence supporting this argument is provided by an analysis of the results of a survey [of] civil servants, interest group representatives and nongovernmental experts who contribute to biotechnology policy development in the US, Canada, the UK, France and the EU. [R, abr.]
62.497 MOORE, Martin —
In July 2011, following the revelations about phone hacking, all three political party leaders called for radical reform of the current system of press self-regulation. Those within the press itself, including the Daily Mail, also conceded that serious changes were necessary. At the same time both politicians and press stressed the importance of protecting the freedom of the press and preventing undue government interference. Starting with both these pre-requisites in mind — the creation of a new independent system and the protection of press freedom — this essay suggests four possible models of reform. For each model, the essay sketches the basic parameters of reform and then suggests three problems associated with each. It argues against those who claim that anything more than small changes to the status quo would be too costly, would threaten press freedom, or would be technologically impractical. [R]
62.498 MORRISON, Bruce —
The long-standing understanding of the British 1832 Reform Act as an elite response to a revolutionary threat has been given renewed prominence in recent work on the political economy of democratization. But earlier episodes of popular revolt in Britain led to elite unity rather than elite concessions. This article argues that the absence of effective elite closure against parliamentary reform in the early 1830s was the result of an extended process of state reform that had the effect of gradually reducing the capacity of the monarchy. This deprived the Crown of patronage required for the construction of an anti-reform coalition, while also mollifying the reformers' fears that mass mobilization would invite repression and with it the recalibration of the constitution in favor of the monarchy. [R, abr.]
62.499 MORRISON, Kevin —
A principal approach to theorizing about economic reform in developing countries has been to assume that market-oriented policies have the properties of public goods, in that their benefits are widespread and their costs concentrated. This article reviews several books, one of them from the World Bank, that suggest that skepticism about these policies has entered the mainstream, calling into question this benchmark approach to reform. In the context of ongoing debate over which policies are best for developing countries, the review offers a framework for future study of reform, arguing that while past work has yielded important insights on how societal divisions and institutional characteristics affect reform, these insights now need to be combined with scholarship on how governments learn and form preferences about policies. [R]
62.500 MUSHABEN, Joyce Marie —
Mindful of Germany's looming demographic deficit and its likely consequences for the national economy, Chancellor A. Merkel has embraced the fact that Germany is a land of immigration, in stark contrast to other CDU/CSU stalwarts. Assuming power shortly after the enactment of a new Citizenship Law (2000) and the passage of the country's first real immigration-cum-integration law (2004), Merkel introduced a pro-active strategy for integrating minorities of migrant descent with the National Integration Plan of 2007; she utilized recent EU developments to commit Germany to a socially inclusive approach as a “national” priority. Her holistic strategy owes much to the complex interaction of various socialization factors: while “the Easterner” and/or “the Protestant” takes the lead in matters of policy substance, “the physicist” seems to prevail with regard to program design and evaluation. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.65]
62.501 NYHAN, Brendan —
The procedure of witness testimony and cross-examination under oath, which is institutionalized in the [US] court system and in Congress, may increase the credibility of political messages by strengthening perceived incentives for truth-telling. I test the hypothesis that testimony can increase the persuasiveness of empirical claims in realistic political settings. However, results from a large number of experiments, including numerous national survey experiments, indicate that describing statements as being made in congressional or court testimony rarely generates significant change in respondents' beliefs or attitudes — a result that is robust to numerous experimental design variations. [R]
62.502 O'LEARY, Eimear —
For the past 20 years, academics referring to the constituency caseload of Teachta Dálas (TDs) have been forced to use data collected and analyzed during a period which is now of limited comparability. This paper analyzes 21st c. TDs and their caseload. I analyze how technological advancements and societal changes have altered their caseload: some had argued that the modernization of society would decrease their level of constituency work. A profile of the constituents who contact TDs and the nature of their cases is presented as well as how they divide their time. Furthermore, this paper assesses how TDs view their role as a broker and how influential their intervention can actually be in representations made on behalf of their constituents. [R, abr.]
62.503 OLSEN, Jonathan —
A comparison between the K.-G. Kiesinger Grand Coalition government of 1966–1969 with the A. Merkel Grand Coalition government of 2005–2009 provides an interesting laboratory for hypotheses on executive leadership. Although there are some strong similarities between the two Chancellors' leadership style and executive effectiveness, there are also some small, not insignificant differences. Since the constraints of a Grand Coalition per se cannot account for such differences, what can? Using an intersectional approach, the article explores the impact of Merkel's and Kiesinger's biographies, including gender, on their leadership styles as well as on their relative successes and failures as Chancellors of Grand Coalitions. Gender in particular seems to have played some role in the expectations observers had about how dominant a leader Merkel should be. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.65]
62.504 PAJALA, Antti —
In a parliamentary system, government parties vote almost always in a unitary manner in plenary votes. In a multiparty system, it is, however, hard to predict how the opposition groups vote. This study analyzes government-opposition relations in plenary votes in the Finnish parliament, 1991–2006. The results show that before the 1990s, the government-opposition division in plenary votes appeared rather clear while the political party groups' positions followed the traditional left-right dimension. Since the 1990s, the government-opposition division has become stricter. The government party groups now appear extremely close to each other while the opposition groups are far from the government in a more or less random order. Consequently, the previous left-right dimensions is not visible any more. [R, abr.]
62.505 PAPKOVA, Irina —
The literature on church-state relations in post-Soviet Russia has been slowly but steadily expanding over the past two decades. The period since 2008, however, remains underdeveloped, as existing analysis has focused on specific issues rather than attempting an overview of the larger trends since the above-mentioned changes in the leadership of both institutions. Seeking to address this gap, this article explores the implications of the nearly coincidental changeovers in leadership in the Moscow Patriarchate and the secular state for church-state relations in Russia, both near and long-term. [R, abr.]
62.506 POLAT, Necati —
This piece is on a number of critical rulings issued recently by high courts in Turkey in brazen disregard of the discourse of human rights, to which a growing commitment appears paradoxically to be the case in democratic politics. The bureaucratic authority that characterizes the dissipating old regime in the country is often associated with the military. Yet the civilian bureaucracy, in particular the high judiciary, with justices long handpicked from among the legal elite with a disdain of democratic politics, has been just as crucial in sustaining the old order molded by anachronisms of the 1930s, when the regime that defines this order, Kemalism, emerged in concerted thinking with authoritarianisms prevalent in Europe at the time. [R, abr.]
62.507 PYAKUREL, Uddhab —
Social inequality remains an important feature of Nepali society with denial of equal access to education, jobs and legislatures for marginalized communities being an endemic problem. Some positive measures have been taken in recent times to address these issues through the policy of affirmative action. The need for affirmative action and its impact on Nepali society is examined in this article considering the theoretical debates on the subject in the international context. [R]
62.508 RAKAR, Iztok —
The rule-making function of the executive branch of government is a fact of life in modern democratic states. In terms of development, the importance of secondary legislation is growing in both the quantitative and qualitative sense. Because it represents a deviation from the principle of the separation of powers, secondary legislation receives a great deal of attention in both theory and case law. From a comparative standpoint, one can note a wide range of approaches to this question. It could be said that the American approach is pragmatic and flexible, while the Slovenian approach is dogmatic and rigid. [R, abr.]
62.509 RASCH, Bjørn Erik —
Questioning is an important activity in the Norwegian Storting. This research suggests that, in explaining and drawing inferences from patterns of questioning, attention must be given to the rules of the game. Specifically, distinguishing between open access or restricted access to questioning is crucial. In the Norwegian Storting, access to written questions is relatively open. Parties exert no (or only mild) control; formulation of questions is left to individual discretion. The same can be said about ordinary (oral) questions in Question Time. Question Hour, on the other hand, is limited to exactly one hour, and access is constrained. Restricted access leads to centralization of agenda power to the party leadership. The consequences of access rules are shown by comparing behavioral patterns in Question Time (relatively open access) and Question Hour (restricted access). [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.193]
62.510 RHODES, Jesse Hessler —
I examine the rise of standards, testing, accountability, and limited school-choice policies in federal education policy-making, which are widely viewed as embodying the same conservative interests and ideologies that have shaped policy-making in other areas. Contrary to this conventional wisdom, I show that certain civil rights organizations, not conservative forces, provided much of the impetus for federal standards, testing, and accountability reforms, which they viewed as measures for raising the achievement of disadvantaged students. Tracing the origins and consequences of these policies, my research reveals that entrepreneurial progressives can achieve significant legislative successes that they believe will accomplish progressive objectives. However, these policy victories have yielded mixed substantive results, and they have also unleashed complex and unanticipated consequences. [R, abr.]
62.511 RIEGNER, Michael —
The newly established, internationalized Constitutional Court of Kosovo plays an important role in the stabilization of the independent state and in the underlying nation-building processes. Constitution-making was determined in Kosovo by the post-conflict context and the internationalization of the pouvoir constituant. The resulting constitutional order displays special features pertaining to the multi-ethnic nature of the polity. Its implementation depends in large part on the internationalized Constitutional Court, whose genesis, basis and practice are discussed in more detail. Notably in the high-profile Prizren-emblem case the Court fleshed out for the first time its approach to the constitutional principle of “multi-ethnicity”. The performance and legitimacy of internationalized constitutional justice in Kosovo depends on its constructive interplay with other branches of government. [A] [See Abstr. 62.86]
62.512 RINCKER, Meg; BATTLE, Martin —
This article uses public opinion, interview, and elite-survey data to examine the critical case of Poland's 1999 health decentralization, answering two questions about public opinion on decentralization. (1) Why were Polish citizens displeased with decentralization? (2) What factors make or break public evaluations of decentralization? The article demonstrates that Poles were more dissatisfied with their health care during health decentralization (1999–2001) than when it was centralized (1994–1998, and 2002–2007). Aggregate public opinion data suggests support for decentralization dwindles when it becomes synonymous with offloading state responsibilities to private citizens. However, surveys of health care consumers, providers, and administrators in four Polish provinces show the important role political parties play in managing expectations and support for decentralization. [R]
62.513 ROCA FERNÁNDEZ, María José — ¿
Enforcing the sharia is western states is not possible because of the lack of autonomy of Islamic religion and law in Islam vis-à-vis the state. But the fundamental right of religious freedom permits the free exercise of religion. Its legal effectiveness is however limited, and does not let believers in any religion change Spanish law, even if it infringes the sharia rules. The western concept of religious freedom includes the autonomy of secular matters with regard to religion. [R, abr.]
62.514 RODRÍGUEZ GUSTÁ, Ana Laura; CAMINOTTI, Mariana —
In the field of gender equality policies, the cases of Argentina and Chile exemplify the adoption of distinct albeit fragmentary strategies. Argentina has pioneered the implementation of electoral quotas that have favored the access of women to Congress, whereas Chile has created gender mainstreaming mechanisms highly innovative by regional and international standards. The women's presence in the legislature has been scarce in Chile, which lacks gender quotas, while Argentina lacks effective gender mainstreaming state mechanisms at the national level. [R, abr.]
62.515 ROSE, Richard —
To what extent has the macro-economic crisis of national governments and financial institutions affected ordinary Europeans at the micro-economic level? Eurobarometer surveys from all 27 EU member states show that most individuals are coping with the crisis much better than their governments. Individual characteristics that caused people to have financial difficulties when the macro-economy was booming continue to be important, while groups such as pensioners are better able to cope than persons of working age. When Russians are compared with people from Central and Eastern Europe, similar influences hold and the political effects are marginal. In sum, the instability experienced in public and private sector financial institutions has had limited spillover effects on ordinary people. [R] [See Abstr. 62.398]
62.516 ROZENBERG, Olivier, et al. —
Oral questions are usually seen as a procedure designed for political conflict. Yet question time may serve other purposes depending on the institutional setting, the political context and the policy field. By comparing the use of oral questions on the defense issue in the national parliaments of four Western democracies, the paper identifies a specific characteristic of questioning in each lower house: political conflict in Germany, internal dissent in the UK, reward of policy expertise in Spain and local issues in France. Such diverse uses of questioning procedures impact differently on the quality of the accountability process. [R] [See Abstr. 62.193]
62.517 RUIZ RUIZ, Juan José —
The issue of the [Islamic] headscarf is causing that religious freedom to lose the character of a pacified fundamental right and becoming contentious, especially in Europe. Against the multicultural approach that seeks to preserve [Muslim] women from disavantage when compared to those who belong to the majority culture, [the author] proposes a different interpretation of equality and non discrimination against women as a limit imposed on the exercise of religious freedom which deserves state protection. [She] provides a discussion of the doctrine of various European jurisdictions concerning the Islamic headscarf in public schools and considers whether a ban can have a place in [Spanish] constitutional system, in the light of the principles of equality and gender discrimination. [R, abr.]
62.518 RUSSELL, Meg —
In 2010, an important package of reforms was agreed to by the British Parliament, following a report by a new Select Committee on Reform of the House of Commons, chaired by Labour MP T. Wright. The reforms changed the way in which select committee members and chairs are chosen, removing patronage powers from party whips and instead moving to a system of election. They also created a new category of “backbench business”, for approximately one day per sitting week, to be scheduled by a new Backbench Business Committee, thus significantly reducing the government's hold over the Commons agenda. This article explores the background to these reforms, their likely effects, and crucially how they came to be agreed by the famously executive-dominated House of Commons. [R]
62.519 RUSSO, Federico —
An analysis of parliamentary questions offers a precious opportunity to look at the role of individual MPs even where political parties enforce strict discipline in roll-call voting. This paper analyzes the constituency focus of Italian deputies elected to the 15th legislature, through the analysis of their parliamentary questions. According to the mainstream literature, the closed-list proportional system adopted in Italy since 2005 should provide little incentive to cultivate a personal vote. However, observing the territorial focus of many parliamentary questions, we learn that some parliamentarians do play the role of “constituency servant” even in a context which is not expected to reward this choice. Why does this happen? To answer this, hypotheses related to the career profile of Italian MPs are developed and tested empirically against alternative explanations. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.193]
62.520 SAALFELD, Thomas —
Does the growing descriptive representation of minority-ethnic legislators in the British House of Commons have any implications for the substantive representation of minority-related issues in the UK Parliament? This study is based on a data-set of over 16,000 parliamentary questions tabled by 50 British backbench MPs in the 2005–10 Parliament, including the 16 immigrant-origin MPs with a “visible-minority” background. Based on a series of multivariate models, it is found that all British MPs sampled for this study — irrespective of their ethnic status — respond to electoral incentives arising from the socio-demographic composition of their constituencies: minority and non-minority MPs alike ask more questions relating to minority concerns, if they represent constituencies with a high share of non-White residents. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.193]
62.521 SÁNCHEZ DE DIOS, Manuel; WIBERG, Matti —
This research provides an overview of forms of parliamentary questions (PQs) in European parliaments, covering variation in the main institutional features, the processing of questions and the impact of political parties on questioning. Cross-national and temporal variation in the behavioral trends in questioning is identified using more in-depth analysis of patterns of questioning in the national parliaments of the UK, France and Spain. The accountability game is found to have a general structure based on the principal-agent relationship and the fact that government must answer questions posed by MPs. PQs are conceived as formal mechanisms to combat information asymmetries and moral hazard, especially when there is hidden information, and by means of them MPs can give orientation or indirizzo (direction) to the executive. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.193]
62.522 SANDBROOK, Richard —
Although K. Polanyi studied a different epoch and focused on Europe, his ideas have inspired an outpouring of studies on contemporary problems and prospects in the neoliberal era. The bulk of these studies pertain to industrial countries or global economic issues. However, the human, environmental and financial impact of market deregulation is arguably more devastating in the “developing” countries than in the core. Do Polanyi's reflections on progressive alternatives to liberalism clarify contemporary debates on development alternatives in the Global South? I contend that democratic socialism — Polanyi's preferred remedy to the “demolition” of society and nature occasioned by market civilization — is problematical in light of what we have learned from the 20th c., but his framework for evaluating alternatives — featuring the re-embedding of economy in society — remains as powerful as ever. [R, abr.]
62.523 SARKER, Abu Elias —
Bangladesh has been facing serious challenges in establishing an accountable administration. While most mechanisms of public accountability are in place, their enforcement raises serious concerns. Public accountability remains an illusion in Bangladesh. This paper analyzes the dynamics of public accountability in Bangladesh. It explicates the significance of public accountability, spells out the mechanisms of public accountability in Bangladesh, and analyzes the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of the mechanisms of public accountability with special reference to the overall governance situation in Bangladesh. The paper argues that the ineffectiveness of the mechanisms of accountability is rooted in the crisis in the overall governance situation in Bangladesh. In order to improve the state of public accountability in Bangladesh, there must be susceptible improvements of the overall governance situation. [R, abr.]
62.524 SAYARI, Sabri; BILGIN, Hasret Dikici —
This article examines the trends in the political and social pathways to the cabinet in the modern Turkish Republic. It examines the cabinets and the changes and/or continuities in their composition from 1923 until 2009, a period which has not been covered in its entirety by previous research. Second, it provides data and analysis on the social background and recruitment patterns of prime ministers and cabinet members in the governments. Third, it focuses on the impact of regime-changes and democratic transitions on the continuities and changes in the composition of the ministerial elites. Fourth, it locates the Turkish case within the wider comparative framework of studies on ministerial elites, particularly the findings of research on Southern Europe. [R, abr.]
62.525 SCHAAL, Gary S. —
The decisions of the German Constitutional Court may be considered an example of the process of social integration. It is for the citizens to decide whether they conceive this as a confirmation of fundamental values, or as the integration of a constitutional norm. The forced pluralism and fragmentation of society are not conducive to societal consensus favoring the Court's authoritative decisions. [R, transl.] [See Abstr. 62.69]
62.526 SEO Jungkun —
Even when the stakes of party-building are high, political parties often find their members divided over a key policy position. In post-Reconstruction America, the hot-button issue of excluding Chinese immigrant workers strengthened Democratic cohesion while splitting the “party of Lincoln”. Previous research has not completely investigated the role of party competition and cohesiveness in paving the way for passage of the Chinese exclusion laws. In this investigation of the legislative politics of banning the Chinese from 1879 to 1882, it is found that cross-pressured members sometimes facilitate party transformation. The evidence demonstrates that partisan responses to potential wedge issues are a previously unnoticed source of explanation of eventual party position changes. [R]
62.527 SHAPIRO, Matthew A.; GOTTSCHALL, Keenan —
This article presents a comprehensive, unprecedented analysis of environmental NGO (ENGO)-related impacts in Japan, [South] Korea, Taiwan, and China. We analyze the effects of ENGOs on four types of environmental policies, using data from government agencies, environmental organization networks, and public policies/legislation. The results from this quantitative approach show that for Korea and China only, policies are strongly predicted by ENGO creation. Further, ENGOs can undermine their own agenda if they do not sufficiently balance the interests of the public and the government. [R]
62.528 SHAW, Aaron —
Under the administration of President L. Lula da Silva, the Brazilian state has advocated the use of Free/Livre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) throughout the public sector. How did FLOSS adoption gain traction as a developmental strategy across a large federal bureaucracy that had embraced information technology policies supporting export-oriented growth and market liberalization during the 1990s? In a historical case study, I argue that the FLOSS agenda emerged as a result of the actions of a network of insurgent experts working within elite political, technical, and educational institutions. I trace the history of this mobilization and show how a dedicated network of experts brought about conditions for institutional transformation that contradicted prevailing neoliberal policy proscriptions. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.812]
62.529 SHUKAN, Ioulia —
This article analyzes the various displays of violence that regularly troubled the Ukrainian parliament, which were accompanied by visual and auditory disturbances and sometimes ended in scenes of physical violence. It shows that this violence was used in an instrumental fashion by the Parliamentary actors and offered them a possible means of political competition. By generating disorder, the violence reveals the difficulty of bringing the Ukrainian Parliament “to order”. Paradoxically, here as elsewhere, it also helped to institutionalize parliamentary order “in the making”. [R]
62.530 SHWOM, Rachael L. —
Treadmill-of-production (TOP) theory and ecological modernization theory (EMT) are adapted to a middle-range theorization of energy politics, specifying the conditions that each theory would best apply to struggles over the energy system. It is hypothesized that EMT will prevail when there are high levels of public awareness of an issue, a record of past regulation, a threat of future regulation, and disunity of the business class; and that TOP power relations are more likely to prevail are low public consciousness, absence of past regulation, low threat of future regulation, and high levels of business unity. The usefulness of this contextualized approach is explored using a historical qualitative case-study of the struggle in the US to implement national mandatory and voluntary definitions of energy efficiency for home appliances. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.1254]
62.531 SMITH, Rogers M. —
Controversies over Mexican immigrants and undocumented aliens in Arizona and elsewhere show the need for fresh approaches to immigration. The US has coercively constituted the identities of many persons of Mexican descent, inside and outside its boundaries, in ways that have fostered aspirations for dual economic, cultural, and political “citizenships”. It has also shaped the identities, values, and interests of many whites in immigrant-receiving states in ways that make Mexican immigrants seem threatening, even as it has made those states pay most of the costs of absorbing immigrants. In consequences, the US should adopt policies that give priority to Mexicans in immigration and that facilitate dual citizenships, while providing more aid to immigrant-receiving states. [R, abr.] [See also the responses of E. Barvosa, R. Alarcón and L. DeSipio [Abstr. 62.381, 396, 418], and the author's reply, pp. 571–574]
62.532 SOLLI, Audun; LEYSENS, Anthony —
We use the Angolan state as a “sounding board” for a mainstream neo-Weberian perspective and an oppositional historicist approach. We argue that the neo-Weberians inadequately explain the genealogy of state power and the historicists fail to provide a functionalist account of the state's relation to society. Neo-Weberians capture some of the basic facts related to a “successful failed Angolan state” and historicists focus on governance legitimation strategies. We propose an eclectic theoretical alternative which draws on the work of M. Mamdani and R.W. Cox. Their approaches provide us with the outlines of an explanation of statesociety relations in Africa which is contextualized in both space and time. This explanation focuses on and encourages us to identify an African ideal-type of the state, which is different from the Eurocentric neo-Weberian ideal-type. [R, abr.]
62.533 SUÁREZ PERTIERRA, Gustavo —
The Spanish constitutional model for dealing with religion is a complex system based on the two classic elements of secularism: separation of Church and State and public administration neutrality towards ideological and religious beliefs. Cooperation with churches and religions, enshrined in the Constitution, is considered in the Spanish system to be at the core of secularism: it is based on secularism, and secularism itself sets the forms and limits of cooperation. Constitutional cooperation is open to all types of procedure not only to agreements, so that agreement between the state and the various churches and religions face a change in nature in accordance with the essential principles of constitutional secularism. [R]
62.534 SULLIVAN, Helen —
This article explores the relationships of policy-makers and academic evaluators with each other and with evaluation over the life of the UK's New Labour. Drawing on experience of central government-funded evaluations and employing insights from governance and governmentality theories, it illustrates how the idea of evaluation as a source of “truth” was valorized by policy-makers as a means of dealing with emergent doubt, delineates the competing manifestations of “truth” that were negotiated in the context of “new governance”, and reviews the contribution of new evaluation approaches to uncovering evidence of “the truth”. Despite considerable investment in UK policy evaluation, a disconnection between “evidence” and “argument” has limited the role of academic evaluators in the policy process. [R] [See Abstr. 62.21]
62.535 SWENSON-WRIGHT, John —
In the wake of one of the deadliest natural disasters to strike Japan since the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the government of Prime Minister Naoto Kan has suddenly been required to demonstrate its ability to lead, reassure and inspire confidence amongst a population reeling from the after-effects of an unprecedentedly powerful earthquake and tsunami, and the potentially deadly leak of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear reactor. [R]
62.536 TAYLOR, George —
This article examines Ireland's financial crisis. Thus far explanation has focused on individual or collective administrative failure. While I would agree that the (mis)management of risk was important to how the crisis unfolded, I argue that an explanation of why the crisis emerged demands an altogether different focus. After financial regulatory reform, a reconfiguration of risk in politics took place as the locus of decision-making about financial risk shifted from the realm of the political/legal to the economic/legal. It was a critical development: assessments about risk undertaken by the banks demanded that intervention could be justified only on an ascertainable risk, not a theoretical uncertainty (or spurious fear). The evidentiary bar for intervention was therefore raised, removing the precautionary instinct implicit in the prudential governance of central banks. [R, abr.]
62.537 TOOTS, Anu; BACHMANN, Janika —
This article revises the conventional approach to welfare state development in the post-communist world, according to which the main challenge for the Eastern European states is to catch up with Western European welfare regimes. The article argues that adjustment to the new social risks and volatile markets is more important today than the catching-up scenario. Based on social and labor market statistics for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the article analyzes how the Baltic States are coping with this adjustment challenge. Adaptation to the post-modern conditions can be regarded as successful if the stability of welfare spending is accompanied by the expanding and flexible employment and by the stable or decreasing level of poverty. [R, abr.]
62.538 VANDER WIELEN, Ryan J.; SMITH, Steven S. —
This article examines the representativeness of conference committees in the US Congress by measuring the difference in observed policy preferences between the conference delegations and the parent bodies. We predict and find significant differences between the House and Senate in terms of the partisan bias of conference delegations. House conference delegations are systematically biased in favor of the majority party and away from the chamber median. We take the additional step of exploring the source of this bias. In particular, we examine whether majority party bias in conference is a function of partisan processes at work directly in the selection of conferees. We find evidence that the conditions of majority party influence in the House are consistent with some existing theoretical models of party influence in legislating. [R, abr.]
62.539 VANDERBECK, Robert M.; JOHNSON, Paul —
This article considers contemporary Parliamentary approaches to law-making in respect of homosexuality and religious belief through an analysis of debates regarding the creation of the offence of incitement to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation (the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008). By far the most contentious issue in debates about the legislation concerned the types of speech that would be captured by the offence, with skeptics and opponents arguing that the legislation risked criminalizing religious believers who voiced objections to homosexuality. The analysis specifically examines how legislators shaped the construction of the law by drawing on representations of “traditional” Christians and other religious believers as a minority group needing protection from unwarranted complaints and investigations. [R, abr.]
62.540 VASQUEZ, Joseph Paul, III —
At first glance, Britain's 1957 decision to end conscription appears to be explain able solely by external factors, since that change coincided with the decision of H. Macmillan's government to bolster its nuclear capability following the embarrassing Suez Crisis. Furthermore, the decision was framed as a cost-cutting move amid budgetary challenges. However, that decision was substantially influenced by the fact that deployment of conscripts was heavily constrained by British domestic politics. Similarly, the merits of conscription for generating a large pool of reservists had limited utility given the political sensitivity of mobilizing reservists. The nature of the domestic constraints — both political and social —on conscription are also evident in the fact that London opted to forego selective service and scrap mandatory military service altogether. [R, abr.]
62.541 VESELIČ, Maja —
Focusing on the example of Islam, this article examines the legal development and practical implementation of religious policy in China (PRC) since 1978, with emphasis on the lest decade. The author first identifies the main principles guiding contemporary PRC management of religion and scrutinizes some of the key legal concepts, e.g. “normal religious activities”. She then critically assesses the 2005 Regulations on Religious Affairs, before highlighting how the loose legal formulations allow identical or similar religious beliefs and activities to be treated differently in practice. This is achieved by comparing state attitudes to issues of training religious professionals, religious participation of minors, religious expression of state employers and students, and freedom of religious press in the cases of the Hui and Uyghur ethnic minorities. [R, abr.]
62.542 VORLÄNDER, Hans —
The German Constitutional Court is a power player in the country's political system. The strength of the Karlsruhe Court is founded on its power to interpret, based on the people's confidence in the Court. This is consistent with the logic of constitutional democracy where the Constitution sets limits to majority rule. Without it, the German Federal Republic would have been very different. [R, transl.] [See Abstr. 62.69]
62.543 WAHL, Angelika von —
Internationally, the number of female leaders has increased in recent years. While the rise of women to political prominence has been explored over the last two decades, we know much less about their actual decision-making. The article investigates what role A. Merkel's gender has played for governance during her first term in office. Has female leadership made a difference for the substantive representation of women's interests and, if so, how? This article compares and contrasts two explicitly gender-related policy areas, reconciliation and antidiscrimination policy, in a most-similar-case design. While major reforms were passed in the realm of family policy, anti-discrimination policy was considered a marginal political concern. To explain the different outcomes this analysis focuses on the identities and interests of relevant political players in their institutional context. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.65]
62.544 WESEL, Uwe —
The formal and material understanding of the rule of law evolves over time. The German Constitutional Court was established in 1951, and its decisions have made significant contributions to the development of the rule of law and ensured that the laws of the Federal Republic become more just. [R, abr., transl.] [See Abstr. 62.69]
62.545 WEST, Jonathan P.; CONDREY, Stephen E. —
Fiscal stress has spurred city governments to search for ways to reduce costs. Human resource professionals and municipal budget officers have been searching for ways to reduce personnel-related costs because this is where the greatest savings can be realized. This paper identifies and examines different personnel cost-containment strategies pursued by a national sample of 90 large US cities. It focuses on hiring, wages and hours, employee benefits and other HR-related actions. Results indicate that jurisdictions whose municipal fiscal conditions are perceived to be fair or poor are more likely than cities whose fiscal conditions are perceived to be good to excellent to use many of the cost-reduction strategies. [R, abr.]
62.546 WESTEN, Drew —
The author analyzes the leadership style of President B. Obama. He argues that the President's aversion to conflict and his failure to understand “bully” dynamics led him to miss a historic opportunity to change the dynamics of a political and economic system dominated by corruption and inequality not seen since the eve of the Great Depression. [R, abr.]
62.547 WHEELER, Nicholas C. —
Analysis of the state-building process in modern Europe rests upon the traditional assumption that monarchs were the central driving force behind the consolidation of power in the form of a centralized state. However, an alternative state-society account challenges the supposition that monarchs were always the centralizing group in early modern society. The formation of the modern European state was ultimately shaped by the state-building strategies adopted by societal elites who possessed certain forms of social power. This alternative understanding of the state-building process helps explain the puzzling developments surrounding the successful rise of Brandenburg-Prussia and the collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the early modern period. [R]
62.548 WILIARTY, Sarah Elise —
Previous research has argued that female and male policy-makers do not differ except on gendered policy issues, but little empirical research has actually examined the influence of a leader's gender in non-gendered policy areas. This article examines policy-making under Chancellor A. Merkel in energy policy (not gendered), and compares it to policy making in reconciliation policy (a gendered issue). Significant changes in reconciliation policy were carried out under the leadership of Merkel's Minister for Family Affairs. On energy policy, in contrast, Merkel herself took a leadership role. For both policy areas, Merkel moved away from the traditional Christian Democratic standpoint. The article concludes that female leaders (perhaps particularly those on the right) may be more willing to take on a leadership role for non-gendered policy areas than on highly gendered ones. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.65]
62.549 WILKINSON, Katy —
The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has been heavily criticized for its handling of disease outbreaks in recent years by analysts who compare the conduct of officials with the model of evidence-based policy-making, finding fault in their use of advisers or decision-making processes. I take an alternative approach to policy-analysis, based on ethnographic research in the department. I explore the day-to-day interactions between scientific experts and policy-makers in Defra to understand why policy-making takes the form it does and how scientists negotiate their position within this process. I argue that policy-making in Defra is organized by socially constructed narratives that help officials and advisers to make sense of their roles in the policy-making process. [R, abr.]
62.550 WILL, Rosemarie —
The German Constitutional Court decides when and if human dignity is violated (Art. 1 of the Basic Law). But how may the legal dilemma which has emerged through blurred normative interpretations of human dignity be resolved? Only the Court itself can correct that, by avoiding an inflationary use of the concept and by resisting the temptation to include particular social circumstances in human dignity. [R, transl.] [See Abstr. 62.69]
62.551 WILSON, Margaret —
Proposals by the UK Coalition government, which came into power in May 2010, to alter the electoral system for the Westminster Parliament have generated much debate and some controversy. The central plank of the campaigners for reform, viz., the introduction of a form of proportional representation, has been tried in New Zealand for some years now in the form of a mixed member proportional system. This article explains how that system came into being and how it has fared in the nearly two decades for which it has been in existence. [R]
62.552 WOLFFE, Richard —
What kind of safety net is the US prepared to pay for? What kind of government intervention in the private sector is appropriate after the biggest recession since the Great Depression? What kind of tax burden should be shared, especially by the wealthiest Americans? Those questions lie at the heart of each of the painful clashes over the budget and deficit between Republicans and Democrats this year. [R]
62.553
Articles by Markus KAIM, “Internationale Sicherheitspolitik nach dem 11. September (International security policy after 11 September [2001])”, pp. 3–9; Marwan ABOU-TAAM, “Folgen für die deutschen Sicherheitsgesetze (Consequences [of 11 September 2001] for German security laws)”, pp. 9–14; Martin KAHL, Johann SCHMID and Patricia SCHNEIDER, “Zur Bekämpfung von Terrorakteuren und Aufständischen (Fighting terrorists and rebels)”, pp. 14–24; Jana PUGLIERIN and Christoph SCHWARZ, “Ende der amerikanischen Supermacht? (End of the US as superpower?)”, pp. 25–31; Marcel HARTWIG, “Der 11. September im nationalen Bewusstsein der USA (11 September [2001] in the US national consciousness)”, pp. 31–37; Doris K. GAMINO, “Indonesien nach dem 11. September (Indonesia after 11 September [2001])”, pp. 37–40; Manuel de los Reyes GARCÍA MÁRKINA, “Lateinamerika: im Schatten des ‘ersten’ 11. September (Latin America in the shadow of the ‘first’ 11 September [2001])”, pp. 40–43; Aktham SULIMAN, “Nachbeben des ‘arabischen’ 11. September (Tremors of the ‘Arab’ 11 September [2001])”, pp. 43–46; Gemma PÖRZGEN, “Präsident Putin überrascht mit tatkräftiger Unterstützung (President Putin [of Russia]'s surprisingly energetic reaction)”, pp. 46–49; Geert J. SOMSEN, “Der arabische Frühling und das Ende der ‘Antithese des 11. September’ (The Arab Spring [of 2010–2011] and the end of the ‘antithesis to 11 September [2001]’)”, pp. 49–54.
62.554
Articles by Olivier FOUQUET; Emmanuel de CROUY-CHANEL; Pierre COLLIN; Daniel GUTMANN; Michel BOUVIER; Stéphane AUSTRY.
62.555
Articles by Adil NAJAM and Henrik SELIN, “Institutions for a green economy”, pp. 451–457; Tom BIGG, “Development governance and the green economy: a matter of life and death?”, pp. 459–465; Elizabeth R. DeSOMBRE, “Global environmental governance for a new green economy”, pp. 467–472; Mark HALLE, “Accountability in the green economy”, pp. 473–477; Ricardo MELÉNDEZ-ORTIZ, “Governance of international trade for the green economy”, pp. 479–486; David L. LEVY, “Private sector governance for a sustainable economy: a strategic approach”, pp. 487–493; Saleemul HUQ, “Climate and energy”, pp. 495–500; Hans HOOGEVEEN and Patrick VERKOOIJEN, “Transforming global forest governance”, pp. 501–508; Bernice LEE, “Managing the interlocking resources challenges in a globalized world”, pp. 509–515; Stacy D. VanDEVEER, “Consuming environments: options and choices for 21st century citizens”, pp. 517–524; Paul WAPNER, “Civil society and the emergent green economy”, pp. 525–530.
62.556
Articles by Prashant BHUSHAN, “Dealing with mega corruption”, pp. 14–16; Aruna ROY, “Manifestos and manifestations”, pp. 17–20; Venkatesh NAYAK, “The legalese of anti-corruption”, pp. 21–25; Sowmya KIDAMBI, “Termites, earthworms, and other organic gardeners”, pp. 26–30; G. Mohan GOPAL, “Corruption and the judicial system”, pp. 31–35; Anand TELTUMBE, “Corruption and injustice”, pp. 43–46; Kavita SRIVASTAVA, “Human rights and civil liberties”, pp. 47–50; Tripurari SHARMA, “A culture of corruption”, pp. 51–54; Saikat DATTA, “Hobbled investigation”, pp. 55–58; Sukumar MURALIDHARAN, “Unravelling the media gaze”, pp. 59–62; Shiv VISVANATHAN, “The necessity of corruption”, pp. 63–69; C. Raj KUMAR, “Promoting transparency and good governance”, pp. 70–73. Comments by Kuldeep KUMAR and Shiv VISVANATHAN, pp. 74–81.
(b) State, regional and local institutions/Institutions locales et régionales
62.557 ALM, James; BUSCHMAN, Robert D.; SJOQUIST, David L.
Many previous studies have examined the level of [US] state grants to local K-12 school districts. However, these studies have not considered the role of citizen “trust” in state versus local governments as a factor. We hypothesize that the role of the state in funding education reflects citizen “trust” in the relative capabilities of governments. We measure “trust” directly via public opinion polls that capture citizen attitudes about the appropriate responsibilities of state versus local governments; we also measure “trust” indirectly, by the role of state government as revealed by its relative importance in overall service provision (net of K-12 spending). We find that the state share of K-12 education spending tends to be higher when there is greater citizen trust in state versus local governments. [R] [See Abstr. 62.562]
62.558 BECKER, Elke —
One of the central concerns of integrated urban development is the integration of actors and the promotion of self-responsibility and active participation. This interdisciplinary approach has become accepted in practical planning and an important aspect of the training of urban and regional developers. Using the example of the [German] “Social City” program, the author demonstrates how this affects the self-concept, role and tasks of planners. She however casts a skeptical note on preconditions which often create a sense of being at loss. She argues for a clear distinction between the tasks of state/administration and those of civil society. She looks critically at cuts in the “Social City” program and states that protest against them has caused an unprecedented mobilization of civil society actors. [R] [See Abstr. 62.202]
62.559 BÉNIT-GBAFFOU, Claire —
The paper revisits participation and decentralization in relation to local clientelism, arguing that they share the personalization of links between residents and the state and the local possibility to adapt state policies. The line between decentralization-participation on the one hand, and clientelism on the other, is therefore easily blurred. The paper then argues that clientelism is not per se anti-democratic: some forms allow for local and immediate accountability of politicians. However, in most cases, it contributes to fragment or sedate local organizations or social movements and it prevents contestation of existing policies and dominant power structures. The paper thus challenges the idea that the promotion of decentralization and participatory institutions intrinsically leads to more democratic forms of government. [R] [Part of a thematic issue on “Accessing the state”, edited by the author and Sophie OLDFIELD. See also Abstr. 62.564]
62.560 BERKMAN, Michael B.; PLUTZER, Eric —
Do state curricular standards and examinations constrain the behavior of public school teachers? More specifically, do they interfere with teachers' responsiveness to local district preferences? We explore these questions in the highly contested arena of instruction in evolutionary biology. Drawing upon an original national survey of high school biology teachers, we find that their classroom practices conform to community preferences. This responsiveness occurs largely through a process of assortative employment. However, we show that teachers are less responsive to public opinion when state curricular standards are supported by high-stakes testing. We therefore offer a general model of how policy implementation can be influenced by local community sentiment and, more generally, how the architecture of public policy can attenuate responsiveness to local public opinion. [R] [See Abstr. 62.562]
62.561 BERNICK, Ethan M. —
Research on US state policy-making finds contradictory results that indicate that the diversity of a state will lead to policies that are either liberal or conservative. I hypothesize that in many instances states with greater diversity will in fact be more willing to adopt and implement programs that are less polarizing. To test this assumption this research examines the decisions that policy-makers have made when developing and implementing state-level Medicaid managed-care programs. The results suggest that states with greater socio-economic and cultural diversity do not experience greater program diversity, while states with greater party competition and moderate ideology do implement managed-care programs with greater diversity. [R]
62.562 BOWMAN, Ann O'M.; KEARNEY, Richard C. —
We explore changes in state-local relations. Our interest is the degree to which [US] states have devolved power and authority to their localities … or not. From our empirical tests, we conclude that although centralization was the dominant trend from the mid-1950s until the mid-1980s, the pattern since then has been somewhat uneven and variable across states. A survey of city managers supports a finding of a loss of local power at the hands of the states, but a survey of legislators offers an alternative perspective. We conclude with a discussion of the meaning and implications of state centralization and suggestions about how the concept could be captured more comprehensively. [R] [First article of a thematic issue on “The state as facilitators or obstructionists of local government”, edited by James ALM. See also Abstr. 62.557, 560, 569, 586, 590, 601]
62.563 BRIDGES, Amy; KOUSSER, Thad —
What led elites in some US states to surrender policy-making power to voters between 1898 and 1918, while leaders elsewhere retained only representative democracy? The authors argue that Progressives behaved as strategic politicians by supporting direct democracy when they were stymied at achieving their goals in the legislature and were confident that the voters who would be empowered by initiatives that agreed with progressive policies. They made their delegation of power conditional on who would receive it. The presence of these underlying conditions made adoption of the citizen initiative likely, while the timing of reforms came when insurgent reformers had a strong presence in state government, when the results of a galvanizing election sent a clear signal, or when the adoption of the initiative in one state diffused to its neighbors. [R, abr.]
62.564 BUIRE, Chloé —
This article considers the ways in which sub-councils “bring government closer to the people” by creating an intermediary level between local wards and the metropolitan council in Cape Town [South Africa]. Daily encounters between administrative staff, elected representatives and local communities within an impoverished formerly “black” area demonstrate the intricacy of interactions and relationships between governing strategies from above and the tactics of the governed from below. Beyond conflicting objectives and rationalities, I argue that citizenship may be defined as a constant negotiation of legitimacy between stakeholders, never definitely trapped “below” or “above” the actual challenges of the city. [R] [See Abstr. 62.559]
62.565 CAMPBELL, Michael C. —
This article examines the rise of “law and order” politics in Texas, providing an in-depth archival case study of changes in prison policy in a Southern state during the pivotal period when many US states turned to mass incarceration. It brings attention to the important role an insurgent Republican governor and law-enforcement officials played in shaping crime policy. Law-enforcement's role is considered within a broader examination of political strategy during a period of intense socioeconomic volatility. The findings suggest that within particular political contexts, especially those with low levels of political participation, law-enforcement agents might play a key role in shaping punishment. [R]
62.566 CAMPBELL, Noel D.; MITCHELL, David T. —
Does increasing a political party's power lead to Leviathan state governments? The evidence is mixed. We use the Economic Freedom of North America (EFNA) Index to measure governmental activity to study the impact of political parties on government outcomes. We employ instrumental-variable, panel data methods to regress states' EFNA scores on median voter and differentiated-party variables. Party effects are negligible, but a simple median voter explanation emerges. [R, abr.]
62.567 CANN, Damon; WILHELM, Teena —
In the US states, policy development can occur in multiple venues. In fact, the likelihood of policy success may be directly related to the policy arena chosen by advocates. We examine those conditions under which policy reform results in success within education finance reform. We model the likelihood that successful reform may take place via courts, legislatures, or referenda, and whether it occurs over multiple policy events. We simultaneously estimate the relative probability of the occurrence of different possible policy events (judicial action, legislative action, and referendum) in a given state and year. Our data comprise an exhaustive analysis of all litigation and policy events in education finance over time (1971–2005), for all states. [R, abr.]
62.568 CARLIER, Louise —
This article proposes to consider the city as a space in which cosmopolitanism, as urban experience, can be understood and theorized by urban civil society, and become part of its inherent normative political perspective. Based on an ethnography of citizens' action in Brussels, an empirical analysis of this movement is undertaken, in which actors publicly question, debate, and reflect on the cosmopolitan nature of the city and make new political demands from an urban standpoint. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.127]
62.569 CARR, Jered B.; FARMER, Jayce —
This research examines the joint effects of the tax and expenditure limits states impose on municipal and county governments on the structure of local government in 500 randomly selected US counties. Understanding the contingent effects of these limitations is critical to assessing the consequences of TELs on the structure of local government in communities and the “circumvention” arguments common in this literature. We find evidence of a circumvention effect for restrictive limits on county governments, but not for the limits states place on municipal governments. Also, our findings indicate that the effect of increasing the limits on either government is to mitigate any circumvention effects created by limitations on the other. Our findings indicate that the circumvention question is more complex than previous works suggest. [R] [See Abstr. 62.562]
62.570 COLEMAN BATTISTA, James —
While there is a growing literature on the factors linked to the power held by leaders in state legislatures, the complexity of leadership power as a concept makes assessing it difficult. The author demonstrates that measures of formal leadership power derived from the written rules are uncorrelated with survey measures capturing legislators' own assessments of their leader's strength. These differences have practical importance, with each type of measure yielding different substantive findings in models predicting leadership power. [R]
62.571 COPUS, Colin —
The introduction of directly elected mayors into English local government was intended to bring about a new form of local political leadership, revitalize local politics and re-engage citizens with local democracy. Yet, English elected mayors were not given any new powers to distinguish them, or their councils, from the rest of local government or powers that would enable them to change the dynamic of local politics. The paper reports the findings of research which explored how elected mayors are developing their leadership role and asked if they are able to provide the sort of leadership envisaged for the new office. [R]
62.572 DE PAOLA, Maria; SCOPPA, Vincenzo —
We use data from Italian local level governments for the years 1985–2008 to investigate whether political competition affects the quality of politicians, as measured by some ex ante characteristics such as educational level and type of job held. We handle endogeneity problems through an instrumental variable approach using as an instrument for political competition a variable taking into account whether the previous municipal council survived until the end of its legislative term. Two-stage least-square estimates support the view that political competition positively affects politician quality. Results are robust to different measures of political competition and to different estimation strategies. [R]
62.573 DONAGHY, Maureen M. —
Scholars often recommend the implementation of participatory governance institutions to promote pro-poor policy outcomes. Incorporating civil society organizations into decision making should lead to increasing government responsiveness and accountability in addressing key social problems. Few scholars, however, have systematically tested this proposition across contexts. An assessment of the impact of municipal housing councils on the adoption of social housing programs in Brazil indicates that housing councils are associated with an increase in social housing program adoption across municipalities, regardless of whether a strong civil society is in place. This suggests that the act of incorporation into decision-making is more important than the strength of civil society for producing pro-poor policy outcomes. [R]
62.574 DUROSE, Catherine —
This article revisits M. Lipsky's seminal analysis to explore whether contemporary front-line work in local governance presents a challenge to the “street-level bureaucrat” characterization. Since Lipsky's analysis, local government has been the subject of extensive reforms which have eroded traditional structures. In order to make local governance work, front-line workers need to be entrepreneurial to innovate and work the emergent spaces of local governance. This research uses an interpretive analysis to explore how front-line workers understand and relate their everyday work through storytelling. Front-line workers articulate a series of strategies which they employ to enable them to build relationships with the community. The emergent spaces at the periphery of local governance require front-line work that is less like “street-level bureaucracy” and more like “civic entrepreneurship”. [R, abr.]
62.575 ERLINGSSON, Gissur Ó.; ÖHRVALL, Richard —
In Sweden, one out of six councilors leave council before their term ends, which is often claimed to signal a crisis for democracy. We critically scrutinize this by surveying the motives behind dropping out. The claim may be right if political motives dominate, but if private motives dominate, dropouts do not signal a crisis for democracy. Questionnaires were sent to all premature dropouts from 2002–2006 and 2006–2009 in 13 municipalities. We find that private reasons dominate, and a majority of the respondents report that they enjoyed their time in council. Therefore premature dropouts cannot be claimed to signal a crisis for local democracy. [R]
62.576 FLICK, Martina —
It is common knowledge that constitutional courts contribute strongly to the development of fundamental rights. What about their impact on parliamentary law? Is the extension of parliamentary minority rights, observed during the last two decades in almost all German Länder, partly due to their constitutional courts? This question is examined with the respect to the decisions of the constitutional courts of the German Länder. They decide on the rights and duties of higher Land institutions, which gives them the opportunity to influence parliamentary law. The analysis shows, however, that the impact of the constitutional courts on the expansion of parliamentary minority rights has been low, despite the substantial extent of their case law. [R]
62.577 GARON, Richard —
Canada's intervention in Afghanistan since 2001 has been described as a war, a peace operation and even a counter-insurgency campaign. In our opinion, these actions fall rather into a gray area. Indeed, this intervention seems to go beyond the limits of the founding principles of peace operations, but appears to preserve some characteristics of these. This article analyzes the features of these activities by using a theoretical model in order to determine which type of military operations the Afghan mission does belong to. The aim is therefore to clarify this gray area by seeking to identify the ontological position most appropriate to differentiate between these types of activities. [R] [See Abstr. 62.199]
62.578 GOEL, Rajeev K.; NELSON, Michael A. —
This research examines the influence of government decentralization on corruption in the US. Previous research has focused primarily on fiscal decentralization. We address whether the structure of local governments — measured in terms of the scope of services offered and the population served — has a bearing on corruption. Results show that government decentralization does not necessarily reduce corruption-the type of decentralization matters. Specifically, more general-purpose governments contribute to corruption. In contrast, the effect of special-purpose governments is mixed. The findings uniquely reveal the tension between fiscal decentralization and fragmented local governments in terms of impacts on corruption. [R]
62.579 GRASSE, Nathan; HEIDBREDER, Brianne —
This study assesses the degree of influence interest groups can exert on the state policy process, specifically via their lobbying activities. The analysis uses data from the 2005–06 Wisconsin Legislative Session to assess the association between lobbying activity and legislative outcomes in one state legislature. The study finds a direct association between lobbying activities and bill outcomes, while also exploring the potential influences of both key political actors and public attention. Public attention is found to reduce the effects of lobbying efforts, suggesting that lobbying is most effective when focused on less salient issues. [R]
62.580 GUILLAMÓN, Maria-Dolores; BASTIDA, Francisco; BENITO, Bernardino —
This paper analyzes the impact of political and socio-economic factors on municipal financial transparency. Our sample covers the 100 largest Spanish municipalities in 2008. Compulsory publicity and transparency are key to public management (rule-of-law theory). Our data show that Spanish municipalities are providing financial information beyond the legal requirements, thus exceeding the compulsory disclosures required by the rule-of-law theory. The more taxes and more transfers per capita, the more financial information is disclosed and, accordingly, the higher the transparency is. Therefore the municipalities are not taking advantage of fiscal illusion or principal-agent effects, since they are not concealing higher levels of taxes and transfers from citizens. Furthermore, left-wing parties are more transparent than right-wing ones. Finally, the population also has a positive effect on the achievement of financial transparency. [R]
62.581 HAMM, Keith E.; HEDLUND, Ronald D.; POST, Stephanie Shirley —
We use an informational-theoretical perspective to examine the appointment of legislative committees, using new measures of knowledge and expertise as well as a unique database. While competing theories (distributive and partisan) do not deny that legislative committees are a source of vital knowledge and expertise necessary for legislative policy-making, information theory places the wisdom and expertise needs of collective decision making — that is, specialization — on very complex topics by legislative generalists as the raison d'ětre for a committee system. Thus, we investigate one of the fundamental arguments of information theory: that committees are formed to meet the basic knowledge and expertise needs of a legislative body. [R, abr.]
62.582 HARTNEY, Michael; FLAVIN, Patrick —
Elementary and secondary education policy-making in the US states is heavily influenced by the political bargaining of various actors, with teacher unions one of the most important actors. Yet previous studies that assess the impact of teacher unions on education reform use problematic measures of their direct political influence, instead opting for broader measures of membership or collective bargaining power. By contrast, we measure teacher union political activity by calculating the percentage of campaign contributions to candidates for state office that come from teacher unions. Using this measure, we find that increased teacher union political activity greatly reduces the chances that states enact reform-oriented education policies such as school choice and performance pay for teachers, while previous measures of teacher union strength bear little relationship to a state's adoption of these reform policies. [R, abr.]
62.583 HLEPAS, Nikolaos Komninos; GETIMIS, Panos —
Successive waves of local government reforms (territorial and functional) in Greece have depended on factors highlighted in this paper, which focuses on “institutional evaluation” and the achievement or failure of institutional change. Furthermore, “performance evaluation” of institutional change is also attempted, based on dimensions/indicators concerning output legitimacy, coordination/steering and input legitimacy. The paper's first part deals with decentralization reform during the period 1981–1995, when the need to transfer competence to local government and broaden the latter's legitimacy predominated. The second part concerns the evaluation of territorial reform orientation and its shift towards efficiency priorities within the framework of Europeanization (1996–2000). The third part considers the strategic priorities of the current third wave of reform. Finally, a comparative evaluation and conclusions are formulated. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.164]
62.584 HOLMEN, Ann Karin Tennaas —
Public policy-making through networks raises democratic accountability concerns: control, transparency and predictability. This article extends democratic accountability to include democratic dialogue and the wider accountability environment. Through three case studies, the article argues that governance networks involved in public policy processes have to take their role as democratically accountable actors seriously. In order to inspire confidence between governance networks and the regional society (political, administrative, private sector and civil society), inclusion of elected representatives (meta-governance) at different stages of the process is not alone a sufficient solution. Transparency through process openness, predictability and clarity in who is to be held responsible for their actions, in addition to control through open arenas and responsiveness, is essential for a governance network to be perceived as democratically accountable. [R, abr.]
62.585 HORRIGMO, Aase Marther J.; KILAND, Charlotte —
This article uses three theoretical perspectives — regime theory, J.W. Kingdon's modified garbage-can model and a leadership perspective —to explain policy-change in a local context. In the early 1990s, Kristian-sand municipality began selling its shares in the regional energy company and investing the revenue in two foundations, used as instruments in achieving local and regional development. These strategies represented typical development features in Norwegian politics at the time, with a focus on urban and cultural planning and governance. In economic terms, the size of the investment was unique and heralded a shift for the conservatively led municipality away from their traditional focus on school and health policies. How can the outcome of these decision-making processes be explained? [R, abr.]
62.586 KRUEGER, Skip; WALKER, Robert W.; BERNICK, Ethan —
Research suggests that outsourcing is one way that [US] local governments have to meet rising expectations and unwillingness to pay when resources are constrained. The degree to which resources are constrained is a function not only of local economic and political conditions, but of state rules as well. We build on previous models of local government outsourcing by studying the interaction between state rules and local fiscal, economic, and political conditions. We find that cities in states that place limits on the resources available to local governments choose differently from among the constellation of service-provision options than cities in states without such limits. [R] [See Abstr. 62.562]
62.587 LEWIS, Huw —
The article focuses on one controversial aspect of language policy in Wales: the steps taken to set Welsh language requirements for some jobs in the public sector. This is a practice that has generated substantial debate, with opponents claiming that it undermines equality of opportunity in the field of employment and, in particular, transgresses the principle of appointing on the basis of merit. Such objections do not stand up to scrutiny. Efforts to promote a language's position in the field of employment do not undermine the principle of merit, but merely expand slightly on its meaning. Therefore, liberals should, in principle, be willing to endorse policies similar to those adopted in Wales in recent years. [R, abr.]
62.588 LINNAS, Raivo —
This article considers the issue of the audit, control and supervision of local government units in a new paradigm. The treatment of audit, control and supervision activities in the present paradigm, in which they are treated separately from each other, or only as a “control or audit pyramid”, has so many imperfections that it no longer represents a reliable means of modern good governance. I present some ideas for the operation of an integrated system of audit, control and supervision for the local government sector, focusing particularly on small, local government units. Although my research is based on the case of Estonia, a small, liberal constitutional democracy with an open economy, the ideas are also applicable to other democratic societies. [R]
62.589 LIPPI, Andrea —
In Italy, [in] the 1990s, government enacted a long-term “quasi federalist” program of decentralization, pursuing three goals: increasing performance, promoting effectiveness and improving democratic accountability. Since its introduction, the program has induced a radical change in multilevel governance and vertical subsidiarity through a wide range of laws. This article evaluates the effects of this “quasi federalist” setting in Italy, assuming a “side-effect” approach to depict the wide range of observed outcomes. The evaluation strategy collects evidence through a secondary analysis using different sources. The ex-post evaluation looks over a well articulated range of indicators concerning many kinds of expected changes: legal aspects, financial performance, institutional arrangements, organizational innovation, etc. Two different main effects are examined: institutional effects and performance effects. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.164]
62.590 MARSCHALL, Melissa J.; RIGBY, Elizabeth; JENKINS, Jasmine —
This study examines how instrumental and symbolic messages embedded in [US] state law shape the practices of “street-level” bureaucrats. Specifically, we investigate whether passage of state-level English Only laws influences the way English language learners are instructed in local public schools. Using data on state English-Only laws from 1987 to 2004 and school-level data from the National Center for Educational Statistics, we find that instrumental aspects of English-Only laws serve to constrain, but not eliminate, schools' use of bilingual instruction, while those sending only symbolic messages are less constraining. Further, when state laws are vague in scope, adherence to the English-Only law is dependent on the preferences of local actors, in this case Latino “cultural brokers” working in the public school system. [R] [See Abstr. 62.562]
62.591 MATHESON, Kate; MANNING, Rachel; WILLIAMS, Sara —
Over the last ten years, local government modernization and the growth of community safety agendas have called for change in the public sector at a local level. This has been typified by partnership work, improvement and inspection and community governance. The fire and rescue services, despite some initial cultural difficulties, have worked hard to adapt themselves to modern local government, for example, through community fire safety work, which is presented as a case study. However, the culmination of the modernization project, Comprehensive Area Assessment, does not favor the fire and rescue service, and to an extent excludes them from its formula. In this light, it seems that there is little incentive for the Fire Service to continue its modernizing trajectory. [R]
62.592 MEDOFF, Marshall H.; DENNIS, Christopher; STEPHENS, Kerri —
We examine the impact of political party control of government on the restrictiveness of a US state's abortion policy, measured by the enactment of a parental involvement law. The empirical results show that (1) institutional control of a state's legislative and executive branches of government by the Republican Party increases the likelihood a state will enact a parental involvement law, while Democratic Party control decreases this likelihood; (2) the more conservative state public opinion is on abortion rights, the more likely a state is to enact a parental involvement law; (3) public anti-abortion attitudes do not act as a moderating force on the link between political party control and the enactment of a parental involvement law; and (4) the impact of political party control on the enactment of a parental involvement law has grown larger over time. [R]
62.593 MILLER, Michael G. —
In June of 2010, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that evaluates the effects of full public funding in Arizona and Maine. The report evaluates the policy effects of public funding in the states with regard to several stated goals of its supporters, including slower campaign spending growth, diminished interest group influence, enhanced political participation, and heightened electoral competitiveness. The GAO's paper is timely, considering that full-funding programs are becoming both more common and more visible to the public at large. [R] [See also William O. JENKINS, Jeff TESSIN and Anna Maria ORTIZ's response, pp. 291–296]
62.594 NELSON, Kimberly L.; WOOD, Curtis H.; GABRIS, Gerald T. —
The authors surveyed city administrators in the six-county Chicago [US] region to test an innovation-management capacity process model. Innovation-management capacity is conceptualized as the function of council-staff functionality, managerial leadership capacity, and staff-team management. The empirical results from 220 city administrators in 53 cities support the hypothesis that the number of municipal innovations is positively correlated with innovation-management capacity, controlling for structural, socio-economic, and demographic variables. However, this study does not find a statistical relationship between innovation effectiveness and innovation-management capacity. The authors posit two possible explanations for these results and propose an alternative innovation-management capacity process model for testing in future research. [R]
62.595 NEW, Michael J. —
Much of the academic literature that analyzes US state-level restrictions on abortion focuses on parental involvement laws and the extent to which abortion is publicly funded through Medicaid. However, one shortcoming common to all of these studies is that they fail to analyze informed consent laws and other types of anti-abortion legislation that received constitutional protection through the US Supreme Court's decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992). In this study, a series of regressions on a comprehensive time-series cross-sectional data-set provides evidence that several types of state-level anti-abortion legislation result in statistically significant declines in both the abortion rate and the abortion ratio. [R, abr.]
62.596 PALOMARES AMAT, Miquel —
The first part reviews the legal basis, internal procedural aspects and procedures used by Parliament in this field: network monitoring of the principle of subsidiarity in the [EU] Committee of the Regions, pilot testing of the COSAC on the control of subsidiarity and the early warning procedure. It exposes the practices carried out and identifies some of the limits that have prevented a more effective parliamentary involvement. The second part seeks how to improve the effectiveness of parliamentary participation in the implementation and monitoring of the principle of subsidiarity. [R, abr.]
62.597 PEUTER, Bart de; PATTYN, Valérie; WAYENBERG, Ellen
This article analyzes three cases of territorial reform affecting the local tier of government in Belgium from an evaluation perspective. The debate and discourse preceding the centrally introduced reforms were screened in order to identify which types of evaluative criteria and governmental motives underpinned the reforms. The authors looked at evaluations of these reforms, in order to sketch out the evaluation criteria and perspectives. Criteria in the preceding debate and in the ex-post evaluations are compared within each case, as well as between cases. They link evaluation practice to theory. The three case studies are: the country-wide amalgamation operation of 1976; the introduction of a new and more differentiated framework for inter-municipal cooperation; and the formulation of intra-municipal decentralization. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.164]
62.598 PILCHER, Robyn —
As Australia and New Zealand are leading the world by being the first to introduce International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) into local government financial reporting, this study determines the impact of compliance on local government. With the New Public Management (NPM) introduced in the late 1970s, accrual accounting and the desire to enhance transparency became embedded in financial reporting across the world. The paper adds to the literature on institutional theory with results of the study suggesting that a form of coercive isomorphism is present in regards to local government compliance with IFRS. It also suggests that the philosophy behind NPM — specially that espousing the benefits of public sector reporting in a private sector vein — may not be as relevant to Australian local government as the policy-makers would have us believe. [R, abr.]
62.599 PROVOST, Colin —
Over the past 30 years, the US states have increased their participation as amici curiae significantly, in addition to winning more of their cases as direct parties. However, little attention has been paid to the factors that cause amici participation rates to vary among the states. The author examines the decision of state attorneys general (AGs) to initiate or join amicus curiae briefs in all 253 US Supreme Court criminal procedure cases from 1990 through 2001. He hypothesizes that AGs are motivated largely by their own policy preferences and by their motivation to get re-elected. Because amicus briefs are not particularly high-profile policy tools, re-election motivations ought to be demonstrated through responsiveness to elites in state government. [R, abr.]
62.600 REŠETAR, Vojko —
[The article] claims that the autonomous and self-managing character of micro-local structures of citizens' organization has been altered by national executive, which has shaped sub-municipal self-government in Croatia as a powerless and representative institution. Political parties with their intermediary position hinder more direct, self-managing relation patterns. [R]
62.601 RICHARDSON, Jesse J., Jr. —
“Dillon's Rule” and “home rule” are terms often used to denote limited and expansive local government autonomy, respectively. In particular, much literature attributes Dillon's Rule with enormous influence over many and varied local government functions. This article explores the questions surrounding the true nature of Dillon's Rule and its influence, or lack thereof, on [US] local government autonomy. The author explains that Dillon's Rule is a rule of statutory construction, while home rule lacks easy or uniform explanation. The article finds that home rule and Dillon's Rule are neither inapposite nor exclusive. The terms denote different concepts, each of which relates to local government autonomy, but in more subtle ways than often thought. Dillon's Rule exerts limited influence on local government autonomy. [R] [See Abstr. 62.562]
62.602 RICHARDSON, Liz —
Government has long had an interest in altering how its citizens behave. However, local governance attempts to navigate this new field of understanding using an “evidence base” have led to inconclusive results because this fails to recognize the values and assumptions underlying “neutral” facts. This article uses empirical material from the UK local government to look at how governance and governmentality perspectives were cross-fertilized to inform policy using research. It illustrates a reframing of the relationship between social science and policy-making from a simplistic linear model to an iterative and reflexive process. [R] [See Abstr. 62.21]
62.603 SELJAN, Ellen C.; WELLER, Nicholas —
Many theories of policy-diffusion contend that the flow of information is the driving force in the diffusion process. Prior scholarship has identified at least two types of information: information about policy and information about political viability. Few empirical approaches have been able to distinguish between these separate mechanisms. We argue that an analysis of policy proposals can untangle political information from policy-based information. We employ their strategy with data on the proposal of tax and expenditure limits (TELs) in the US states since 1970 through direct democracy. [R, abr.]
62.604 STECKER, Christian —
Using 2184 roll call votes (RCV) from 42 electoral terms this paper tests the influence of various factors on party unity in the German Land diets. It finds evidence that the strategic calculus behind RCV-requests is a crucial predictor of unity scores. The requesting parliamentary party is on average significantly more united than its competitors. It also shows that government status, small governmental majorities and growing ideological distance between government and opposition favor unity. Electoral incentives do not seem to influence behavior in the German Länder. [R]
62.605 STRUM, Roland —
The “Federalism reform II” (2009) introduced into the Basic Law a balanced budget requirement for the federal and Land budgets. The Land diets have had to accept federal restrictions for their core competence, control over their budgets. Some Länder have belatedly started to revise their constitutions, or at least their budget laws, and now have constitutional deficit limits at the Land level. Balanced budget requirements at the Land level raise questions not only regarding their legitimacy; they also raise doubts about their efficacy. The major arguments here are that there are no independent controls on those who decide on the acceptable size of annual deficits, and that the deficit control instruments rely to a remarkable degree of obsolete Keynesianism. [R]
62.606 TAN Qingshan —
Many rising issues, such as urbanization, migration, social equality, housing, provision of public goods and services, are presenting the greatest challenge to county governments. This paper evaluates the effects of decentralization of the central policy regarding urbanization and governance at the county level, and addresses the issue of how empowering county government could improve local governance in rapidly urbanizing China. [R, abr.]
62.607 WILLIAMS, Glyn, Dr, et al. —
This article examines the operation of Kudumbashree, the Poverty Eradication Mission for the Indian State of Kerala. Kudumbashree operates through female-only Neighborhood Groups, which aim to contribute to their participants' economic uplift, and to integrate them with the activities and institutions of local governance. As such, Kudumbashree echoes poverty alleviation programs elsewhere in the Global South designed to link poverty alleviation to “active citizenship”. This article evaluates the program, looking in turn at its impacts on women's participation in public space, its attempts to engineer participatory citizenship through engagement with the local state, and the wider consequences of its particular linking of participation and poverty-alleviation for processes of exclusion within Kerala. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 62.271]
62.608 WOLLMANN, Hellmut —
Territorial reorganization of local governments can rely on voluntary or imposed mergers of general-purpose local units or on creating functionally oriented intermunicipal bodies. Detailed institutional analysis of the German and the French local self-governments is presented; other European comparative examples are also analyzed. The Nordic model of consolidation by mergers has been practiced, in different stages of their institutional development, in the UK, Sweden, Poland, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Denmark, and more recently in Greece. Fragmentation, small units and intermunicipal cooperation are characteristics of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. Special attention is given to Turkish case, which has been developing in line with North European model based on merging small municipalities. [R, abr.]