Abstract
(a) Central institutions/Institutions centrales
63.3026 ABDELAAL, Mohamed —
Egypt is in the early phases of democratization. At the heart of the battle to build a new Egypt is the choice of whether to make Egypt a religious country or a secular one. Article 2 of the Constitution of 2012, which lists the principles of Islamic Shari'a as the main source of legislation, plays a key role in this battle. The author traces the historical roots of Article 2 and provides a critical analysis of its significance for Egyptian society. [R]
63.3027a ALBOUY, David —
In a two-party legislature, districts represented by the majority may receive greater funds if majority-party legislators have greater proposal power or disproportionately form coalitions with each other. Funding types received by districts may depend on their legislators’ party identity when party preferences differ. Estimates from the US, using fixed-effect and regression-discontinuity designs, indicate that states represented by members of Congress in the majority receive greater federal grants, especially in transportation, and defense spending. States represented by Republicans receive more for defense and transportation than those represented by Democrats; the latter receive more spending for education and urban development. [R]
63.3027b ALLANI, Alaya —
The Arab Spring turned out to be better for Islamists than Democrats. Ennahda Movement won the Constituent Assembly elections in October 2011, with 41% of the seats and formed a government, referred as the “Troika”, with two secular political parties. Islamists hold all key positions in this government, which aroused some tension within the Troika because of unfair prerogatives of power between the president and prime minister. Opponents of al-Nahda in the Assembly criticized the performance of Islamists, as they were especially dissatisfied economically and socially. I question whether the new constitution will effectively guarantee freedom and realize the independence of the three executive, legislative and judicial powers. [R]
63.3028 ANSARI, Ali M. —
In August 2009, in the aftermath of the popular protests that followed the highly controversial elections, the Iranian authorities arrested hundreds of intellectuals/activists and charged them with sedition against the state. What was more peculiar was the decision to accuse in absentia a number of western intellectuals for their role in fomenting the crisis, not least the long deceased German sociologist Max Weber. Weber was publicly denounced for his analyses of patrimonialism and sultanism, and their capacity for change. In sum, Weber was being accused of providing the ideological blueprint for “regime change”. This article [how] the concept of “regime change” has been increasingly used as a political tool to suppress dissent within Iran and argues that Weber's ideas remain more relevant today in Iran than they ever were. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 63.3907]
63.3029 APPEL, Hilary; ORENSTEIN, Mitchell A. —
This article examines the rapid spread of pension privatization and the flat tax in former communist countries to understand why new policy ideas take hold and to elucidate the role played by material resources in the diffusion of new policy ideas. Unlike previous liberalizing reforms, these second-generation reforms spread without direct or indirect EU pressure. Rather, policy-entrepreneurs in both instances succeeded in arguing that these reforms would serve to make former communist economies more competitive in a highly integrated global economy. Yet the policy network advocating pension privatization, centered around the World Bank, commanded far greater resources than the network of right-wing think tanks supporting the flat tax. To what extent did these superior resources matter? [R, abr.]
63.3030 ARANGO GARCÍA, Felipe —
Even though the conflict is ongoing and despite the very limited success of its military offensive against the guerillas and its efforts to demobilize illegal armed groups, the Columbian government has since 2005 implemented measures of transitional justice. In this respect, the Columbian case runs counter to the idea according to which such measures can only take place in the context of the transition from war to peace or authoritarianism to democracy. The government sees this form of justice as a way of advancing towards peace, victim compensation and the reconciliation of Columbian society while simultaneously maintaining pressure on the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia), the ELN (National Liberation Army) and the new criminal groups that have emerged from old paramilitary structures. The application of the transitional justice process, which is based on two landmark laws (Law 975 of 2005, known as the “Justice and Peace” law, and Law 1448 of 2011, known as the “Law on Victims and the Return of Land”), nevertheless runs up against two major handicaps: the country's democratic immaturity and the persistence of criminality. [R]
63.3031 BALLA, Steven J.; DEERING, Christopher J. —
Over the past several decades, the police patrol/fire alarm dichotomy, and corresponding logic that legislators generally prefer fire alarms to police patrols, has been widely circulated and debated. Despite this attention, researchers have devoted relatively little attention to (1) distinguishing these forms of oversight empirically and (2) verifying that legislators utilize fire alarms more regularly than police patrols. We take up these challenges by establishing a set of decision rules for coding hearings as either event-driven or routine, ongoing legislative activities. We then employ this empirical distinction as a means of appraising the relative prevalence of police patrols and fire alarms in the US Congress, both as a general matter as well as across chambers, committees, political parties, and election cycles. We find that hearing activity is predominantly police-patrol in orientation. [R, abr.]
63.3032 BASSOK, Or; DOTAN, Yoav —
For many years, scholars have attempted to justify the US Supreme Court's countermajoritarian judicial review authority. In recent years, several scholars have claimed, based on empirical evidence, that the Supreme Court's decisions are usually in sync with public opinion. We adopt a third and novel path in tackling this normative difficulty. We acknowledge that the Court, at times, acts in a countermajoritarian fashion. However, based on empirical evidence that demonstrates the enduring public support for the Court and the wide acceptance of its judicial review authority by all relevant players, we argue that the countermajoritarian difficulty is partly solved. Our solution is based on an ongoing acceptance of, and support for, judicial review as a mechanism to constrain the public's immediate preferences. [R, abr.]
63.3033 BATTINI, Stefano —
[In] the Italian model of administrative justice, judicial review of administrative actions is carried out by the regular civil courts. That a conception has shaped the Italian dualist system, driving its progressive improvement: at first, the prospect of judicial review carried out by ordinary courts stimulated the creation of an administrative court [with] power to review administrative action; in recent times, it encouraged making such a court even more independent, as well as increasingly able to offer judicial remedies to citizens. The final outcomes of such a path could be the emergence of a system of ordinary courts specialized in judicial review of administrative action: that is, a system courts as independent as the ordinary courts, but as “interfering” as a special administrative court can be. [R, abr.]
63.3034 BAYIR, Derya —
Although the tensions around Kurdish ethnic identity throughout the history of the Turkish Republic and the extent of human rights violations against Kurds are well documented, little research exists about the role played by the Turkish judiciary in relation to the legal position, demands, and identity of the Kurds. An analysis of the role of the judiciary is demanded, especially given its position as one of the guardians of the foundational values of the Turkish state. This article analyzes how Turkey's judiciary has navigated the demands of Kurdish people, how it has represented Kurds, and to what extent it has accommodated their alterity in its jurisprudence. [R]
63.3035 BEESON, Mark; PHAM Hung Hung —
We place the Vietnamese experience in comparative historical and conceptual perspective. It is suggested that the structure of the Vietnamese state itself and the distinctive nature of the policies it has undertaken are reflections of the country's traumatic recent history and the fact that its leadership is notionally “communist.” [Then,] we detail some of the more important aspects of this process. We provide two case studies which focus on the role of state-owned enterprises and decentralization initiatives which demonstrate that, despite the frequently ad hoc and contingent nature of the developmental project and an absence of the sort of state capacity that distinguished the likes of Japan in its heyday, the Vietnamese government is overseeing economic development in creative and surprisingly effective ways. [R, abr.]
63.3036 BENCHEMSI, Ahmed —
If one is to believe the international media, apparently impressed by the subtle way in which the Moroccan monarchy has played its cards in the context of the Arab Spring, Mohammed VI is an enlightened young king open to democracy. A closer look, however, reveals that the Moroccan king keeps at his disposal the entire panoply of the oriental despot: absolute powers legitimized by divine law, unlimited personal wealth, and an outrageous cult of personality … nothing is missing. Except, perhaps, the autocratic personality such a role requires. [R] [See Abstr. 63.3136]
63.3037 BIELING, Hans-Jürgen —
With reference to the market liberal constitutionalism of the past ten years, recent European constitutional policies can be broadly described as “crisis constitutionalism”. Its central elements are partially ambivalent: on the one hand, the structural and crisis-induced functional problems of the EMU are now recognized and addressed as part of policy-makers’ efforts to gain time for salvaging the Euro. But on the other hand, justified doubts persist whether the time gained can be used constructively in terms of political strategies and content. Finally, crisis constitutionalism exacerbates crisis policies in multiple ways, including economic, finance, social and democracy policy. However, these developments also lead to a politicization of the EU and a potential return or ascent of the masses into (European) politics. [R] [See Abstr. 63.2978]
63.3038 BLAIN, Neil —
Much skepticism exists about the transformative effects of the internet, frequently seen to replicate existing patterns of finance an control, including of the media. Yet there is evidence of awareness of the potential for divergence or dissent from ideologies reproduced by older media. Using chiefly the instance of the representation of the Royal Jubilee of 2012 in the UK as its central example but also mediation of the gay marriage debate in the same period, this article explores the question of ideological production in the context of change in delivery platforms. It asks (1) whether, alongside the leakage of revenue as media organizations move activities online, there also occurs ideological leakage; (2) to what extent the ideological world is significantly augmented by online news and current affairs-related production and comment. [R, abr.]
63.3039 BLAKELEY, Georgina —
The December 2007 Reparation Law is the latest link in a chain of reparatory measures from the earliest days of Spain's transition to democracy to deal with the legacy of the Civil War and the Francoist dictatorship. Numerous articles have analyzed the historical memory movement and the reasons behind the timing and scope of Spain's reckoning with the past. This literature presents the case of Spain as a counterpoint to the received wisdom of the transitional justice literature that successful democratization requires reconciliation. This article contributes to the specific literature on Spain, and the wider transitional justice literature, by focusing on an area not yet analyzed: the “co-construction” and content of the Law. Through a comparison of the draft bill and the final Law, this article fills this gap. [R]
63.3040 BODEA, Cristina —
This article analyzes the effect of central bank independence on fiscal deficits. Previous literature finds a negative relationship between bank independence and deficits in OECD countries. No such relationship is found for developing countries. We argue that independent and conservative central bankers prefer budget discipline due to the long-run connection between deficits and inflation and can enforce their preference through interest rate hikes and refusal to lend to the government. The claim, however, is that the legislated independent status of the central bank is cheap talk in the absence of democratic institutions. We test empirically the conditional effect of central bank independence on a sample of 23 democratic and undemocratic post-communist countries from 1990 to 2002. [R, abr.]
63.3041 BÖRSCH-SUPAN, Axel H. —
It is no coincidence that those countries which spend the highest share of GDP on pension entitlements are also the countries currently under the most pressure to offer very high yields to sell their government bonds. Through this mechanism, high pension costs imply high costs of debt-service, thereby worsening the fiscal balance and crowding out other spending. This paper links the causes of current problems to the cures required to make typical pay-as-you-go financed pension programs in continental Europe sustainable beyond the present financial crisis. [R]
63.3042 BOZONNET, Jean-Paul; HALPERN, Charlotte —
Why do people declare themselves to be highly concerned by ecology in the long run but vary over time in their commitment to the environmental cause? This article revisits the environmental policy hypothesis. It argues that such an assumption has not been demonstrated empirically partly because of data unavailability and the choice of indicators. It contributes to the wider debate on the disconnect between environmental concern and behavior between 1971 and 2008 by using the choice and combination of policy instruments as an indicator of evolving relationship between the governing and the governed. This exploratory approach suggests that environmental behavior may be increasingly channeled by environmental policies and less so by other forms of (individual or collective) mobilization. [R]
63.3043 CAMERON, Charles M.; KASTELLEC, Jonathan P.; PARK Jee-Kwang —
The contentiousness of [US] Senate voting on Supreme Court nominations increased dramatically from 1937 to 2010. We identify four potential sources of the increase: (1) changes in the Senate; (2) changes in the nominees; (3) changes in the political environment; and, (4) changes in senators’ evaluative criteria. Using new data and improved statistical techniques, we estimate a well-performing model of senators’ individual voting choices on Supreme Court nominees. Simulations allow an evaluation of the contribution of the four classes of factors to increased contentiousness. The principal source of increased contentiousness was the combination of increasingly extreme nominees and an increasingly polarized Senate. Also significant was the increased mobilization of interest groups. In sum, increased contentiousness seems largely to reflect the ideological polarization of American political elites. [R]
63.3044 CAMMAERTS, Bart —
On 9 December 2011, a new Belgian government was sworn in after a record-breaking 541 days of negotiations between all democratic political forces with the aim to alter the constitution and provide more autonomy to the different regions that make up Belgium. This article analyzes the frequent use of political metaphors by North-Belgian politicians and journalists through a critical metaphor analysis (CMA) that approaches the different metaphors at a descriptive, an interpretative and a motivational level. The strategic use of metaphors, some of which resonated throughout the long period of analysis, not only served to represent complex political issues in an easily digestible language, but also shaped and influenced the negotiations through their various mediations and the ideological intentions embedded within the metaphor. [R, abr.]
63.3045 CHAI Hongxia; SONG Xiongwei —
In 2012, Premier Wen Jiabao re-emphasized the urgency of political reform to ensure the legitimacy of the party and to provide a strong institutional underpinning to the construction of a harmonious society based on balanced social and economic development. However, no consensus has emerged either in Sino studies or in political journalism as to the trajectory of these reforms. Nor do senior civil servants have a clear understanding of the logic behind China's new wave of political reforms. Most Sino scholars have focused on the question of whether these reforms represent a move towards democratization or are just another incremental step in the transition process. This investigation mirrors the core differentiation between China's Constitution and Party (CCP) ideology and Western's democratic values. It provides an understanding or “Road Map” of China's political reforms. [R, abr.]
63.3046 CHARNYSH, Volha —
In August [2012], a new language law in Ukraine allowed cities and regions to elevate the status of any minority language spoken by at least 10% of their population to “official” alongside Ukrainian. The law fails to protect genuine linguistic minorities and is likely to further undermine linguistic diversity in certain Ukrainian regions. More important, the law prolongs the vicious circle between Ukraine's lack of democracy and its politicians’ reliance on identity cleavages to gather votes. The continuing exploitation of identity divides is increasing the popularity of extreme right parties and widening the gap in policy preferences between Ukrainian and Russian speakers. However, the current ethno-regional cleavages do not stand for irreconcilable identity attachments and their impact can be mitigated. [R, abr.]
63.3047 CIVELEKOGLU, Ilke —
This article examines the underpinnings of Central Bank (CB) reform in Turkey, with a focus on the role of external anchors, namely the EU and the IMF. It argues that although international actors played a substantial role in triggering CB reform in 2001, they failed to determine its parameters. The high costs of CB reform in the calculations of the ruling politicians allowed the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey to gain partial operational autonomy, which fell short of fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria for accession to the EU. This article argues that due to the duration of high costs, the Bank continues to hold partial autonomy today. [R]
63.3048 CIVELEKOĜLU, Ilke —
This article addresses how the Hungarian Central bank gained autonomy in its operations from ruling politicians. While stressing the substantial influence of external actors in exercise of this reform, the article also demonstrates the limits of external influence by shedding light on the domestic political costs of this reform. The high costs of central bank reform in the calculations of the ruling politicians allowed the Central bank of Hungary to gain partial operational autonomy in 1991, which fell short of fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria for EU accession. The article discusses how partial reform furthered in Hungarian context by unpacking the interplay between domestic and external actors. [R]
63.3049 CLARK, William Roberts; AREL-BUNDOCK, Vincent —
Independent central banks are thought to be effective inflation hawks because they are run by technocrats with conservative monetary policy preferences. However, central bankers can protect their independence only by compromising with the elected officials who grant them their independence. Policy, therefore, is likely to be a weighted average of the preferences of the central bank and the government. Consequently, central bankers may be eager to help right-wing governments stay in power and oppose the election of left-wing governments. We show evidence from the US that interest rates (1) decline as elections approach when Republicans control the White House, but rise when Democrats do; and (2) are sensitive to the inflation rate (output gap) when Democrats (Republicans) are in the White House. Thus, the Federal Reserve is a conditional inflation hawk. [R, abr.]
63.3050 COLE, Alistair; HARGUINDÉGUY, Jean-Baptiste Paul —
It is commonly assumed that the process of political centralization in France profoundly shaped the language preferences of citizens. Nevertheless, sociological surveys reveal a tension between the Jacobin Republican drive for uniformity and a more fine-grained empirical reality in the field of the governance of regional languages. Through the comparison of three case studies (Corsica, Brittany and Picardy), this paper reveals that the defense of lesser-used languages and regional dialects has produced an asymmetrical form of ethnolinguistic mobilization by social movements and political parties, which has been more or less credible depending on processes of institutionalization, actor-accommodation and the official recognition of the lesser-used language in question. The article examines not only the recent transformations of the French language policy model, but also reconsiders the nature of the contemporary French state. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 63.3245]
63.3051 COLLINS, Craig; FRAENKEL, Jon —
Fiji experienced three armed coups in less than twenty years — 1987, 2000, and again in 2006 — symptoms of inter-communal tensions in the country and a political, economic and social system unable to manage them. The Commonwealth, through the good offices of its Secretary-General, was the lead international actor in responding to the crisis that followed the 2000 coup. The study provides an overview of the Commonwealth as an institution, with a focus on its conflict prevention capacity, through the lens of its actions in Fiji at the time. It identifies the nature and impact of Commonwealth engagement, highlighting potentially useful lessons regarding the institution, the individuals who acted on its behalf, and the efficacy of their actions. [R]
63.3052 CONLEY, Richard S. —
This article represents an important step in understanding early, modern presidents’ strategic use of signing statements by taking a sharp focus on the presidency of D. Eisenhower. In contrast to recent [US] presidents who have used the instrument increasingly to challenge legislative provisions, Eisenhower's use of signing statements was rather complex — from political credit-claiming, explaining the provisions of bills to the American public, and reinforcing his views on the federal-state balance of power — to maintaining bipartisan relations on foreign policy, shaping implementation of congressional bills, and selectively criticizing Congress for overspending. The theoretical framework devotes particular attention to the interplay of contexts — electoral, institutional, and economic — on Eisenhower's use of signing statements by policy area across his two terms. [R]
63.3053 COX, Noel —
This article addresses the question of possible constitutional reform, specifically in the New Zealand context, but also more generally. In any [such] process, an understanding of how the existing system works and how it came into being is important, [as us] asking what is meant by national identity, and how far this can be reflected in the existing system of government. This should be addressed before any detailed consideration of parts of the governmental structure, and then be permitted to inform the discourse and influence the development of proposals for change. Public opinion is of paramount importance, and indeed it may be questioned whether significant constitutional reform proposed by politicians rather than resulting from popular demand has legitimacy; but public opinion and direct or representative democracy alone is not necessarily sufficient. [R]
63.3054 CRAGEA, Suzanna M., et al. —
Over the past fifteen years, concerns related to immigration and the integration of immigrants have risen to the forefront of European politics. As anti-immigrant nationalist parties have gained ground, European governments have closed borders and even deported immigrants en masse. At the same time, countries throughout the EU have increasingly stressed the importance of the social, economic, and cultural integration of immigrants. As immigration has become increasingly politicized across Europe, many governments have restructured themselves. Some countries have created new cabinet ministries designed to focus on immigration and immigrant integration. Other countries have assigned new immigration-related tasks to existing political bodies. In the face of new or radically transformed governance structures, one important question emerges: to what extent do women serve in immigration ministry leadership? [R, abr.]
63.3055 DAHL, Erik J. —
Even though it is generally agreed that intelligence is of little use unless it is received and understood by policy-makers, we actually know little about why some leaders are receptive toward intelligence, while others are not. This article argues that the willingness of decision-makers to listen to intelligence depends primarily on two factors: their belief in the seriousness of the issue or threat involved, and their trust in the utility of intelligence. It examines contrasting receptivity toward intelligence in the cases of Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway, and suggests that our current models of intelligence-policy relations need to be revised. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 63.3096]
63.3056 DALGAARD-NIELSEN, Anja —
A number of Western countries are currently adding exit programs targeting militant Islamists to their counterterrorism efforts. Drawing on research into voluntary exit from violent extremism, this article identifies themes and issues that seem to cause doubt, leading to exit. It then provides a perspective on how these natural sources of doubt might best be brought to bear in connection with an exit program by drawing on social psychology and research into persuasion and attitude change. It is argued that an external intervention should stay close to the potential exiter's own doubt, make the influence attempt as subtle as possible, use narratives and self-affirmatory strategies to reduce resistance to persuasion, and consider the possibility to promote attitudinal change via behavioral change as an alternative to seek to influence beliefs directly. [R]
63.3057 DARVICHE, Mohammad-Saïd, et al. —
This article focuses on “long-timers” in health and national defense policy: political appointees and congressional staffers who occupy senior positions for an extended period of time in Congress and in the executive branch. We document career and professional trajectories marked by a strong commitment to a given policy area, often predating entry into the public sector, and centered on key power positions in Washington. Circulation is frequent between these public sector positions. While these findings do not in and of themselves allow us to fully assess the influence wielded by these actors, this study identifies the social and political resources and forms of specialization which predispose them to play important role in shaping public policy. [R, abr.]
63.3058 DAVIDSON, Paul —
This paper addresses the pivotal role played by the selective deployment of key metaphors in the construction of political positions within the arena of British social policy-making. Drawing on a corpus-based analysis of speeches and reports covering a 10-year period of the New Labour government, evidence is presented to show how metaphors are used to create an ideologically vested narrative of societal ills and policy solutions that stretches across different genres and over time. In seeking to foreground the workings of ideology in discourse, the paper also highlights the profoundly important role of key metaphors in facilitating the Labour Party's ideological transformation and therefore argues for the importance of attention to language cognition in critical forms of political discourse-analysis. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 63.2751]
63.3059 DAVIS, Laura —
The Global Accord (2002) ended the Congo War, contributed to the creation of the Third Republic and influenced subsequent peace agreements. This article analyzes how justice for human rights violations was included in the Global Accord and later peace deals. It assesses how the power-sharing aspects of these agreements affected the pursuit of accountability, and finds they undermined transitional justice efforts and contributed to continued abuse. It concludes that free-wheeling power-sharing within the security institutions is the biggest challenge to both accountability and peace: post-conflict security arrangements are therefore the crucial nexus between peace-building and accountability for human rights violations. [R] [See Abstr. 63.3588]
63.3060a DELLEPIANE-AVELLANEDA, Sebastian —
This article combines theory and narrative to shed new light on the politics surrounding the making of central bank independence in contemporary Britain. Its central argument is that G. Brown's rewriting of the British monetary constitution in May 1997 constituted political manipulation in a Rikerian sense. The government removed a contentious issue from party politics in order to signal competence and enforce internal discipline. Building on Elster's constraint theory, the paper argues that Brown adopted a pre-commitment strategy aimed at binding others. The heresthetic move had dual consequences, both constraining and enabling. The institutionalization of discipline enabled New Labour to achieve economic and political goals. By revisiting the political rationality of precommitment, this article questions the dominant credibility story underlying the choice of economic institutions. [R]
63.3060b Di LELLIO, Anna; McCURN, Caitlin —
The initiative to establish a truth commission in the successor states of the former Yugoslavia (RECOM) presents a rich case-study of the performance of the “toolkit” that transitional justice professionals propose on a global scale: an inclusive package that offers truth, justice, reconciliation and stability. Whether these goals could be achieved is the subject of a critical debate that questions overly ambitious projects of truth commissions, especially their sensitivity to local understandings and practices of transitional justice. We examine the reception of RECOM in Kosovo, where most local actors remain either noncommittal or outright opposed to RECOM. These actors share the conviction that their own narratives be taken seriously, even when this means refusing the suppression of “truths” that can be divisive. [R, abr.]
63.3061 DI MASCIO, Fabrizio; NATALINI, Alessandro; STOLFI, Francesco —
Using a process sequencing approach, this article shows how Italy's response to an earlier fiscal crisis has shaped the response to the current one in two public sector areas that are especially susceptible to fiscal constraints: the budget process and personnel policies. Substantively, it shows the extent to which Italian policy-makers have used the repertoire of solutions of the past and the pressures of the current crisis to freeze the expenditure of the public sector. Previous New Public Management-inspired reforms have been sidelined but not completely extinguished. [R] [See Abstr. 63.2877]
63.3062 DICKSON, Vaughan; FARNWORTH, Mike; ZHANG Jue —
We investigate election timing by Canadian provincial and federal governments from 1976 to 2008. Using monthly data, our provincial regressions indicate that lower unemployment and the prospect of increasing unemployment spur election calls. Our federal regressions also suggest that lower unemployment triggers elections and the effect is stronger at the federal level than at the provincial level. We present evidence that US monthly unemployment rates are lower before Canadian variable-date federal elections but are not lower before US fixed-date elections. This finding further indicates that Canadian politicians have used our variable-date election system to exploit favorable conditions. [R]
63.3063 DIMA, Bogdan; DIMA, Stefana Maria; LOBONT, Oana-Ramona —
This paper uses data for the 27 Member States of the EU from 2000 to 2010 to support the thesis that a positive and significant correlation exists between a nation's quality of governance and its economic output. To achieve this goal, the elements of governance reported by the Worldwide Governance Indicators project are considered. Four individual indicators for the quality of policies and institutions and a global indicator of governance quality are constructed. We estimate that, for our database, a standard deviation shock in these indicators causes changes between 0.03-fold and 0.05-fold in income per capita. [R]
63.3064 DIMITROVA, Antoaneta; STEUNENBERG, Bernard —
This article proposes an analytical model of implementation to examine the implementation of the EU's cultural heritage policy in Bulgaria. It outlines a rational choice framework conceptualizing implementation as a three-stage game with key roles for an enforcer, domestic policy-makers and implementing actors. This model is then applied to the case of transposition and implementation of the EU rules regarding cultural heritage in Bulgaria. Different implementation outcomes stemming from one and the same formal policy are found. To explain the variation of implementation outcomes, the theorized model is applied and it is found that, given the high levels of polarization between political decision-makers, the implementing actors have broad discretion to apply different informal policies. [R, abr.]
63.3065 DIRLIK, Arif; PRAZNIAK, Roxann —
China's regime's repression of political dissent is the subject of daily reports in the media and ongoing discussion in academic research. Yet these reports and discussions are largely silent on the global context for the policies they criticize. The discussion calls for closer attention to this global context of dissent and repression, and argues that while this complicity does not believe PR Chinese leadership of its responsibilities, it needs to be integral to any serious and thoroughgoing criticism of the regime. [R, abr.] [Part of a thematic issue on “State, governance and civil societal response in contemporary China”, edited and introduced by Emile Kok-Kheng TEOH. See also Abstr. 63.3414, 3438]
63.3066 DOYLE, Martin W., et al. —
In studying rivers, physical and social science researchers tend to analyze water-resource regulation at a national scale, treating “the state” as a monolithic entity mechanistically executing its regulatory code. Yet variation abounds in the interpretation and application of any national environmental policy. This study examines the complex geography of a small but crucial component of the US Clean Water Act — compensatory stream mitigation — and how particular states and federal agency districts, and the individuals occupying key roles in those units of government, have interpreted the same national law in quite different social and environmental settings. The appearance of monotonic regulatory outcomes at a relatively coarse scale obscures a high degree of fine-scale heterogeneity. [R]
63.3067 DREVET, Jean-François —
For some 30 years now, the question of according voting rights in local elections to non-EU aliens has regularly figured on the French agenda. Though it was one of President F. Hollande's 60 election pledges, the measure has actually been put on hold, since Hollande did not have a sufficient majority to pass the constitutional amendment involved and did not wish, for the moment, to opt for a referendum on the issue. In this European column, the author examines what would be involved in granting the vote to non-EU aliens, drawing, in particular, on neighboring countries such as Belgium, and analyzing the moves that have already been made in France in the last ten years or so to grant voting rights to foreign EU nationals. he goes on to suggest a third way that might, in the end, ease the path to French acceptance of voting rights for non-EU aliens. [R]
63.3068 DUTOYA, Virginie —
In India and Pakistan, the political representation of women is today presented as a democratic imperative. In 2002, Pakistan (re)established quotas for women in Parliament. In India, quotas only exist at the local level, though there is a project to extend them to the parliamentary level. This development has led to a change of parliamentary lineup and has encouraged the spread of a model according to which representation should “mirror” the population. Omnipresent discussions of the place of women in politics and sexist views of the division of political labor have led politicians to strongly promote the “representation of women”. yet it is only in Pakistan, where quota mechanisms exist, that women have taken on new parliamentary roles. Confronted by the “threat” of feminization and an erosion of “masculinism” in politics, men in both countries have recognized the legitimacy of women's representation even as they reaffirm traditional models of representation and seek to indirectly discredit female representatives. [R]
63.3069 EATON, Sarah —
This article traces the circuitous route of China's airlines industry into the ranks of China's strategic sectors. Although the airlines industry now belongs to a small group of industries characterized by oligopoly among state-owned enterprises, its initial reform pathway in the post-Mao era hinted at a different future. In the early years, a decentralist approach to developing the industry laid the groundwork for an open market structure with a comparatively low degree of state intervention. Why was this trajectory of gradual state retreat abruptly reversed in 1997? In that year, regulators began a bold retrenchment leading finally to an administrative restructuring of the industry around the “Big Three” state-owned carriers. This article argues that this policy reversal was shaped by the state's increasing emphasis on developing a team of state-controlled national champions. [R]
63.3070 EGGERS, Andrew C.; HAINMUELLER, Jens —
Senate show uncanny timing in trading stocks, fueling the public perception that corrupt “insider trading” is widespread in Congress. We call this consensus into question. First, we reinterpret existing studies of congressional stock trading between 1985 and 2001 and conduct our own analysis of trades in the 2004–2008 period, concluding that in neither period do members of Congress trade with an information advantage. Second, we conduct the first analysis of members’ portfolio holdings, showing that between 2004 and 2008 the average member of Congress would have earned higher returns in a passive index fund. Our research suggests that, if there is unethical investing behavior in Congress, it is far more limited than previous research implies. [R, abr.]
63.3071 EIKENBERRY, Karl W. —
This article explores the US military's role in the making of American foreign policy by examining the degree of influence, identifying reasons why policy formulation may be imbalanced, and speculating on possible long-term consequences of excessive reliance on military power. Central to the arguments presented is the erosion of appropriate levels of executive, congressional, and media oversight of the American armed forces. [R, abr.]
63.3072 EL MESBAHI, Kamal —
The article assesses the current situation of corruption in Morocco. It illustrates the paradoxical situation of widespread corruption — confirmed by all the indicators —, [despite] a rather well-developed normative framework further strengthened by the new constitutional provisions since June 2011, and a political discourse that expresses a strong determination to fight it. [R] [See Abstr. 63.3136]
63.3073 ELY, Todd L.; JACOB, Benoy —
This article explores public sector responsiveness to voter-led initiatives, specifically, the degree to which public managers attempt to lock in resources before they are constrained by a particular initiative. The authors posit that such behavior, which they term “beating the clock”, is a function of the potential impact of the proposed initiative, the degree to which managers can react to the initiative's central issues, and the perceived likelihood of passage. Although scholars have explored different responses to voter-led initiatives, this particular form of strategic behavior has yet to be studied. Using longitudinal data on public debt issuance, hypotheses are tested in the context of a reform proposed through the initiative process in Colorado [US] in 2010. [R, abr.]
63.3074 ENGELI, Isabelle; ALLISON, Christine Rothmayr —
An interest-driven account of embryonic stem-cell research would, given the considerable financial and scientific concerns, likely predict regulations to converge towards permissive policies. However, across Western Europe, national regulations of embryonic stem cell research vary considerably, from general bans to permissive policies. There is a lack of systematic accounting for the non-convergence, and the sparse attempts at explanation are contradictory. Drawing on qualitative comparative analysis and configurational causality, we assess the interaction of a number of explanatory factors. Our empirical analysis reveals the importance of one factor in particular, path-dependence, insofar as prior policies on assisted reproduction exert a strong and systematic effect on the subsequent regulation of embryonic stem-cell research. [R] [See Abstr. 63.2845]
63.3075 ESHBAUGH-SOHA, Matthew —
What explains the [US] president's tendency to deliver press conferences? The press conference presents a unique venue that allows presidents to grapple with their policy and political decisions in a highly public and interactive format with journalists. This should influence how the political environment affects not only the number of press conferences presidents deliver in a month but also the time between press conferences. Indeed, lower approval ratings and unified government lead to more solo press conferences and less time between them. Whereas re-election years and political scandal decrease the number of solo press conferences, only re-election years increase the time between them. This article also reminds us of the relevance of individual presidents to explaining press conference activity and has implications for a broader understanding of the president's public appeals. [R]
63.3076 EUCHNER, Eva-Maria, et al. —
Drug consumption and gambling are regarded as morality policies, especially in the American literature. Both are perceived as sinful and treated accordingly. This highly generalized assessment is rarely analyzed systematically in a non-American context. Therefore, we investigate whether these policies are indeed framed morally and if this framing is stable over time in two European countries. Next, we analyze whether shifts in morality-framing have consequences for regulation. In this way, we contribute to the literature on morality policies, particularly the ways in which these policies are defined and empirically identified. We identify morality policies based on how actors frame issues rather than by policies’ substantive content. We show that the morality framing has lost its importance over time, and we find a close connection between frame shifts and policy output. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 63.2845]
63.3077 FAIRBAIRN, Madeleine —
Rather than treating the global land-grab as a top-down phenomenon driven by global markets or foreign states, this article instead highlights the crucial mediating role played by the host state and domestic elites through a case study of Mozambique. I first introduce the domestic institutional framework, particularly the national Land Law and the institutions that determine the economic value of land. I then argue for an analysis of large-scale land acquisitions that brings into focus the effects of domestic power imbalances on determining the outcomes of foreign demand for land. I examine the ways in which domestic inequality may shape foreign land acquisitions through a typology of the sources of power that give domestic elites a privileged role in relation to foreign investors. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 63.2771]
63.3078 FARRELL, David M.; O'MALLEY, Eoin; SUITER, Jane —
The research reported here sets out in some detail an experiment in deliberative democracy that took place in Ireland in 2011. The We-the-Citizens initiative featured a nationwide pilot citizens’ assembly, the first of its kind in Ireland. It recruited a random selection of Irish residents to deliberate on specific issues relating to the economy and also reform in Irish politics. The paper explains the background to this, setting out how it was done and presenting some headline results. The results also tell us something about contemporary Irish attitudes to the political system. [R]
63.3079 FEDERBUSH, Marjorie S.; MUYS, Jerome C., Jr. —
Having developed the systems, strategies, and technologies to successfully address its own water shortages, Israel now has moved aggressively to engage with other countries as they struggle with their own water deficits. Not only are developing economies seeking access to Israel's technological know-how in water technology and management, but policy-makers and the business community in developed countries have also taken note. Israel has become a model of economic growth [in] adverse circumstances [and] is increasingly welcomed as a member of the community of nations because of its efforts to promote technology-transfer and offer humanitarian assistance to countries facing similar problems. By reaching out to the international community on water-related issues, Israel is creating mechanisms for both global economic growth and diplomatic gains. [R, abr.]
63.3080 FERNANDEZ, Sergio; MALATESTA, Deanna; SMITH, Craig R. —
The US Congress created the Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) and Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) programs to promote fairness in government contracting. We examine whether increases in racial and gender representation in federal agencies correlate with the proportion of contract dollars awarded to women- and minority-owned firms. Using the theory of representative bureaucracy as a starting point, we find evidence that increases in passive minority representation result in a larger proportion of contract dollars awarded to minority-owned firms, which comports with previous empirical research. There is no evidence, however, that female representation leads directly or indirectly to substantive benefits for women-owned small businesses. [R, abr.]
63.3081 FREIRE, André; BELCHIOR, Ana —
In the literature, elite-mass congruence is usually measured in terms of either issue preferences or left-right self-placement. The two forms of congruence are only occasionally used together and are seldom used with the purpose of seeing if levels of congruence were similar. With this intention, Portugal is used as an extreme case (due to its low level of clarity regarding party policy alternatives, and its relatively low levels of education, media exposure and political interest). It was found that in many situations the results for MPs-mass congruence were different depending on the use of left-right self-placement or substantive issue preferences. [R]
63.3082 FUCHS, Gesine —
Using the case of Poland as an example, this article asks why references to the law are so attractive in post-socialist contexts and what can be gained by this with respect to actual rights, justice and social change. It focuses thereby on strategic litigation as the most sophisticated strategy that results from other sustained movement activities connected with the law. [R, abr.]
63.3083 GHERGHINA, Sergiu; CHIRU, Mihail —
This article illustrates how the growing complexity of regulations regarding party funding in post-communist Romania is paralleled by practices employed by political parties in their attempt to gain increased access to state resources. Our document-analysis indicates that political parties managed to exploit the weaknesses of the increasingly complex legislative framework. A cyclical process takes places: parties use the existing flaws in the legislation on party funding to indirectly obtain and exploit state resources for their (electoral) purposes, an improved law tackling those shortcomings is passed, but political parties are able to identify other flaws and use them to gain financial benefits. To make the case, we assess comparatively the evolution of legislative provisions and practices employed by political parties over two decades. [R]
63.3084 GOCHENOUR, Zachary; HENDERSON, David R. —
Historians have given their highest ratings to the US presidents who have involved the nation in the wars that have claimed the most American lives. Their standards of presidential greatness have encouraged presidents to fight unnecessary wars, even though the vast majority of Americans would be better off if peace were maintained. [R]
63.3085 GRYGIEL, Jakub —
National security is not simply a matter of technical skills and university degrees. To maintain power, engineering skills and knowledge of math are undoubtedly indispensable, but so is a solid understanding of, and appreciation for, the state's civilizational underpinnings — the religious beliefs, political ideals, and moral virtues. An education for national security must start from the desire to learn and understand one's own national culture and tradition to be able to identify what one is supposed to defend. And herein lies our biggest challenge: we are becoming increasingly more skilled at how to defend ourselves, but we are losing the tools to understand what we are expected to protect. We can do a lot but we are uncertain why we should. [R]
63.3086 GUITTON, Clement —
What has happened meanwhile in Europe? First, cyber threats were raised to the national threat level in Germany (2006), France (2008) and the UK (2008), but the justifications put forward for such an upgrade did not hold, as well as invested resources at that point in time. Second, cyber-security strategy followed up this upgrade and designed a framework to tackle the threat that was found coherent with the assessment of the respective national security strategies. Third, cyber-insecurity stemmed from criminals operating in cyberspace. Therefore, deterring criminals should have been at the core of tackling cyber-insecurity but the defense strategies of France, Germany and the UK were instead focused on mitigating the effects of cyber attacks. [R]
63.3087 GULDVIK, Ingrid; ASKHEIM, Ole Petter; JOHANSEN, Vegard —
The theme of this article is political citizenship among people with disabilities. Political citizenship on the basis of gender and ethnicity has received attention internationally. However, there has been little attention on political citizenship of persons with disabilities. The article sheds light on political representation at the local level in Norway. The data used are from a survey sent to 767 political representatives in local politics and 50 administrative representatives. Our study shows that disabled people are under-represented in local political assemblies, and thus, their political citizenship is not fully acknowledged. [R, abr.]
63.3088 GUO Hai (David) —
Citizen participation in public budgeting processes has been widely advocated by both theorists and practitioners of public administration. Yet there is less agreement on when the public should be brought into the process and how the timing of citizen inclusion affects the outcomes of public agencies. Using survey data about citizen involvement practices utilized by the state departments of transportation (DOTs) across the [US], the authors construct citizen input indices for different stages of the budget process and examine the impact of participation on the overall organizational effectiveness. The study results show that citizen participation in the budget process has greatest positive effect on organizational performance at both the early and ending stages of the budget process, namely, the stages of information-sharing and program assessment. [R]
63.3089 HAINMUELLER, Jens; HANGARTNER, Dominik —
We study discrimination against immigrants using microlevel data from Switzerland, where, until recently, some municipalities used referendums to decide on the citizenship applications of foreign residents. We show that naturalization decisions vary dramatically with immigrants’ attributes, which we collect from official applicant descriptions that voters received before each referendum. Country of origin determines naturalization success more than any other applicant characteristic, including language skills, integration status, and economic credentials. Statistical and taste-based discrimination contribute to varying naturalization success; the rewards for economic credentials are higher for applicants from disadvantaged origins, and origin-based discrimination is much stronger in more xenophobic municipalities. Moreover, discrimination against specific immigrant groups responds dynamically to changes in the groups’ relative size. [R, abr.]
63.3090 HALL, Ian — “
From 1997 onwards, the FCO was reshaped by New Labour. The removal of responsibility for overseas aid to a new Department of International Development (DFID) was perhaps the most dramatic change. Successive cuts to the FCO budget and the progressive centralization of foreign-policy decision-making in Number 10 also had their effects, as did a series of government-directed reforms to recruitment practices. In an effort to make it more accountable to the public, the FCO was also bound by Public Service Agreements specifying targets for service-delivery, publish Strategy Reports and mission statements, and Annual Departmental Reports setting benchmarks for performance. Together these reforms were designed to transform the FCO's culture, replacing inherited traditions of thought and practice with new ones believed better suited to contemporary world politics. This paper examines these traditions. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 63.3715]
63.3091 HAN, Enze —
This paper utilizes the China Language Usage Survey to examine the political and social economic conditions under which language maintenance and shift occur. The empirical analysis of 54 ethnic minority groups in China shows that forces of modernization such as urbanization are positively correlated with the level of linguistic assimilation. Institutional support for ethnic minority language education is also a significant indicator for minority language retention. External forces are, however, even more significant in explaining linguistic assimilation and ethnic language retention. Minority groups that have relationships with external kin in neighboring countries should find it much easier to resist assimilative pressures from the domestic majority and the state than would other groups that do not possess such relationships with external kin groups. [R]
63.3092 HANSEN, Thomas Obel —
The power-sharing arrangement that ended Kenya's 2007–2008 crisis seemingly offered a window of opportunity for dealing with past abuses. However, the very nature of this power-sharing deal has proven to be among the greatest obstacles for giving effect to the promises of transitional justice. By facilitating a power-sharing deal between political elites struggling for power and wealth, and allowing these political elites to control the justice tools, the power-sharing deal has enabled a continuation, perhaps even a consolidation, of this political culture, which this article argues poses a serious obstacle to achieving a much needed transition. [R] [See Abstr. 63.3588]
63.3093 HARIG, Christoph —
Military rule in Argentina and Brazil ended under very different circumstances. Taking into account the respective first transition outcomes, this article aims to examine whether and to what extent the civilian authorities managed to build a hierarchical relationship with a subordinated military, thus meeting the usual demands of civil-military relations in democratic states. On the basis of several aspects of civilian control, it is shown that major initiatives in the presidential systems of both countries usually were taken by the executive branch while the legislative branch merely played a secondary role. [R] [See Abstr. 63.3161]
63.3094 HARRIS, Kevan —
Since 2009, analyses of Iran have stressed the centralizing takeover of the country's economy by a single state institution, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. At the same time, however, Iran's factionalized political elite uniformly advocate rapid privatization of state-owned enterprises. Underneath this puzzling contradiction is a complex shift of economic ownership away from the state toward a variety of parastatal organizations including banks, cooperatives, pension funds, foundations, and military-linked contractors. The result is not a praetorian monolith but a subcontractor state. This article draws on interviews conducted in Iran during 2009 and 2010, primary data from parliamentary and governmental reports, and secondary sources to show how intra-elite conflict and non-elite claims have structured the process of privatization. [R, abr.]
63.3095 HASLEHURST WILLIAMS, Colin —
Minority language transmission is no longer based solely on family, associated networks and statutory education but is increasingly influenced by the so-called “legislative turn”. This paper focuses on some of the side-effects of this latter trend as they appear in two of the most advanced cases in that field (the Basque Country and Ireland). It identifies the reach and significance of the appeal to law and anticipates some of the more challenging aspects for official language policy in terms of professionalization, juridical relationship between the minority and the majority and between the individual citizen, the language community and the state. [R] [See Abstr. 63.3245]
63.3096 HASTEDT, Glenn —
The relationship between intelligence analysis and policy decisions is a contentious one with both policy-makers and intelligence analysts frequently expressing frustration over its underlying dynamics and with each faulting the behavior of the other. This article examines one aspect of this relationship, the manner in which intelligence analysis can become politicized. Rather than view politicization as an aberration, it is treated here as a normal feature of intelligence analysis. A typology of politicization organized around the concepts of hard and soft politicization is presented and illustrated with historical examples from the American experience with intelligence analysis. [R] [First article of a thematic issue on “Revisiting intelligence and policy: problems with politicization and receptivity”, edited and introduced by Stephen MARRIN. See also Abstr. 63.2871, 2944, 2984, 3055]
63.3097 HEGELE, Yvonne; BEHNKE, Nathalie —
The Conferences of the Ministers of the German Länder (LMKen) are classified as horizontal coordination bodies in cooperative federalism, although the federal level is known to be involved in their negotiations. Our paper investigates conditions and extent of federal involvement in order to come to a more precise understanding of the conferences’ role in German federalism. An analysis of resolutions of the LMK proceedings shows that federal involvement is far higher than theoretically expected. The LMKen serve not primarily as a shield against federal interference, but rather to coordinate and influence federal decision-making. The combination of obligatory negotiations (Politikverflechtung) and voluntary coordination (cooperative federalism) promotes flexible yet committing decisions thus avoiding decision deadlocks. [R]
63.3098 HIDLE, Knut; NORMANN, Roger Henning —
What social and structural mechanisms determine where hands-on leadership of city-region governance networks is anchored? We discuss the origin of city-region governance leadership in two Norwegian city regions. Based on empirical analysis, we argue that variations in terms of leadership practices cannot be fully explained in terms of levels of trust, social capital and institutional set-up. Issues related to how power is institutionalized needs to be explored and explained in order to improve our understanding of processes associated with the construction of leadership of governance networks. [R, abr.]
63.3099 HJELMAR, Ulf; PETERSEN, Ole Helby; VRANGBAEK, Karsten —
The article discusses the documented effects of contracting out in Denmark based on a systematic review of publications in the field from 2000–2011. It is shown that the economic effects of contracting out are 5–15 percent in the technical areas, while there is generally no evidence of economic benefits in social service areas. The studies generally contain insufficient documentation on whether savings have been achieved at the expense of service quality. They do not adequately take into account administrative and transaction costs, and consequences for employees affected by contracting out are only sporadically included. We conclude that there is a need for broader and more systematic studies in the area since decisions an contracting out currently rest on a very limited foundation. [R]
63.3100 HODGSON, Godfrey —
The US presidential election is an occasion not only to choose state office-holders, but also an opportunity for the US nation to perform introspection. In terms of filling the White House, the 2012 election was a disappointment. Yet, it also allowed for an insight into the US political regime and its development that is far from uninteresting. It marks the turning point inthe Americans’ disillusionment with what is now mostly perceived as a disturbing, even dysfunctional system. The country is divided not geographically, but ideologically and politically with parties that define themselves on the basis of class. In order to understand the difference between Democrats and Republicans, one has to go back to the 1860s and the 1960s. [First of a series of articles on “The USA: after the [2012] presidential election”. See also Abstr. 63.3436, 3468, 3490]
63.3101 HOLZHACKER, Ronald —
State-sponsored homophobia emerged in certain Central and Eastern European states in the past decade, with the denial of the right of assembly for gay pride marches. However, more recently there has been progress in the recognition of the fundamental democratic right of assembly. What accounts for this progress in fulfilling commitments enshrined in the European human rights treaties? This article proposes that the response of European organizations, in particular the Council of Europe and the EU, as well as human rights nongovernmental organizations working in collaboration with local civil society organizations, have been critical to this progress. [R, abr.]
63.3102 HOOD, Christopher; DIXON, Ruth —
New Public Management (NPM) is often said to have concentrated on cost-cutting and efficiency, but few studies have examined how far NPM succeeded in cutting costs. Focusing on UK central government, a leading case of NPM, and analyzing three sets of data (for running costs, tax collection costs, and paybill), this study finds little evidence of real running cost-reductions in the early NPM era. Contrary to stereotype, 1980s NPM in UK central government does not offer a model for the scale of administrative cost-cutting currently planned, and even the cutbacks of the 1990s fell far short of those current plans. Something more than a minor revision of the received view of NPM as a cost-cutting movement is needed to explain these observations. [R, abr.]
63.3103 IHL, Olivier —
This paper deals with a specific type of policy transfer: economic policy as formulated by the “Chicago Boys” and adopted by the Pinochet administration. The dictatorship relied on military force as well as economic power. “Academic elites” trained at the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman built a legitimacy foundation for the Pinochet regime. How was this knowledge converted into principles of government? How did this “economic science” became part of the authoritarian platform? The author answers the questions by shedding light on the circulation, certification and coalitions around and against these ideas. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 63.2765]
63.3104 INKSTER, Nigel —
Foreign intelligence collection was not a major feature of China's intelligence culture until fairly recently. Now cyber-espionage has led to a step-change in capabilities. [R]
63.3105 JOHNSEN, Ingvild —
Theories of the sovereign state pretend that extraterritorial practices are not widespread because that would seemingly undermine the state, while in many respects they are what makes “sovereignty” possible. This article reviews extraterritorial practices historically, focusing on one contemporary case: the 2009 the Norwegian ban on the purchase of sexual services. This law [is] a wider claim for justice in the face of global crime. It could easily be argued that the law itself is an expression of moralism rather than an effective legal tool. The issues addressed are thus several: what is the relationship between sovereignty/order and extraterritoriality? Is the development which the Norwegian law exemplifies a return to a medieval organization of authority where religious or moral claims are dominant? Or how should such a law in fact be explained? [R, abr.]
63.3106 JOHNSON, Tyler; O'GRADY, Caitlin —
Previous scholarship has described how members of [the US] Congress struggle to attract media attention. The Speaker of the House, however, is uniquely positioned to drive media agendas. That position may be conditioned though by the framework in which the Speaker operates, shocks to the system of leadership in the House, and the process of legislating. We inquire into the conditions under which the Speaker of the House receives increased or decreased attention from newspapers, network newscasts, and cable newscasts. We also examine the contraction and expansion of the gap between levels of presidential and Speaker coverage. We find that Speaker coverage is often shaped by increases in House polarization, changes in which party holds the position, Speaker scandal, and turning bills into laws. [R]
63.3107 JOIGNANT, Alfredo —
Using 18 national reports evaluating the state of the relation between money and politics, this study shows how the regulatory capacity of Latin American states has evolved. He proposes a classification of Latin American regulatory systems based on five “models” that differ functionally in the relative weight of their public and private components. In the light of some US and German studies, he concludes with a warning about the possible perverse effects of some types of regulation. [R]
63.3108 JOPPKE, Christian —
Discussing new or recently reformed citizenship tests, this article asks whether they amount to a restrictive turn of new world citizenship, similar to recent developments in Europe. I argue that elements of a restrictive turn are noticeable in Australia and Canada, but only at the level of political rhetoric, not of law and policy, which remain liberal and inclusive. Much like in Europe, the restrictive turn is tantamount to Muslims and Islam moving to the center of the integration debate. [R]
63.3109 KACHUYEVSKI, Angela —
This article examines the efforts of the High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) of the OSCE to manage tensions in Ukraine between the substantial Russian minority and the Ukrainian government, and to prevent potentially violent conflict in Crimea from 1994 to 2001, as well as the subsequent efforts to promote peace and stability. It questions why the HCNM was remarkably successful in crisis-management from 1994 to 2001, especially in averting secessionism in Crimea, but was hampered in his efforts to achieve a solid foundation for durable peace through the creation of a robust system of minority rights protection. The central argument is that regional politics often preclude the construction of a minority rights regime that could otherwise provide the foundation for durable peace. [R]
63.3110 KAMINSKA, Monika Ewa —
Post-1989 healthcare in Central and Eastern Europe countries (CEEC) is often classified as Bismarckian, following the adoption of social health insurance (SHI). The article provides evidence that in CEEC healthcare regulation is state-dominated, with a weak role of corporate partners, which differs from Western European SHI countries where corporatist arrangements underlie healthcare regulation. The weakness of corporatist arrangements in CEEC is explained by communist legacies and ideas prevailing in the post-communist transition. Moreover, despite commonalities, CEEC display heterogeneity in the modes of healthcare regulation. The article contributes to the comparative literature on healthcare regulation and CEEC healthcare, and illuminates the impact of regulation on healthcare provision and policy-making. [R]
63.3111 KARLHOFER, Ferdinand; PALLAVER, Günther —
Due to the absence of a strong constitutional veto-player, comparative research classifies Austria as country with weak federal structures, a “federation without federalism”. From an institutional perspective, the assessment is definitely correct, in particular with regard to the nearly insignificant status of the Bundesrat. Apart from constitutional provisions, however, there are informal forces at work in decision-making processes. Any approach ignoring that the nominal constitution is paralleled by a real one falls short. We focus on the Conference of State Governors which, though not established by law, is a strong player in Austria's multi-layered system, qualifying the picture of “weak” federalism. We review the origin and function of the conference and its ambivalent role in making up for the shortcomings of the federal structures. [R, abr.]
63.3112 KARRÉ, Philip Marcel; VAN DER STEEN, Martijn; VAN TWIST, Mark —
Over the last 15 years there have been many experiments with joined-up government practices, aimed at horizontal coordination to overcome the fragmentation of vertical governmental structures due to departmentalism and New Public Management. These practices were initiated to address wicked problems and to better interact with society at large. Now that there are signs that the rhetoric of joined-up government is winding down and many joined-up government developments are being dismantled, it is time to evaluate this approach. This is especially appropriate as some suggest that the overall impact of these developments may be relatively small, despite (overly) optimistic claims made in the past. We take experiences with joined-up government in the Netherlands as the departing point for a critical discussion of this approach. [R, abr.]
63.3113 KASHIWAZAKI, Chikako —
With the growth of immigrant population over the past couple of decades, a “multicultural” discourse has emerged in Japan. A notable point is that immigrants are expected to be incorporated into the host society primarily as foreigners rather than as Japanese nationals with full citizenship rights. This article [examines] this prevailing mode of immigrant incorporation and to consider the comparative implications. By examining the discursive aspects of claims-making on behalf of both old-timer and newcomer immigrants, I argue that the underlying opportunity structures have been reproduced in each phase of immigration-related development in Japan, facilitating the use of the “foreigner” category in advocacy efforts. [R, abr.]
63.3114 KAYA, Sümbül —
The patriotic socialization of conscripts within the army takes two overlapping forms: theoretical and practical. “Training in love for one's country” takes place smoothly through the repetition of patriotic norms. It defines from above the contours of a collective identity, whether patriotic, national or state. This identity is in keeping with the nationalism of Ataturk and contains a law and order component that is organized around the paradigm of dangers and threats. Yet, while this theoretical training in love for one's country seeks to federate the population, practical training by way of internal war shatters this consensus by creating group solidarities that divide the population. In Turkey, learning patriotism thus consists of two aspects which, while mutually reinforcing one another, have contradictory effects. [R] [See Abstr. 63.3497]
63.3115 KHALIL, Asem —
This article focuses on the Palestinian political system, its current crisis, its roots, and its future. The current crisis's historical roots are inherently connected to the legacy passed on to the Palestinian Authority. While the key role of the Basic Law remains indisputable, this written, constitutionlike text seems to be a part of the problem, rather than of the solution. I adopt a positivist approach to constitutions only to suggest its deficiency whenever it leads to formalism in interpreting written constitutions. Instead, I suggest using different paradigms that contribute to a better understanding of the role of written constitutions whenever conflicts between political actors are threatening the same political structure that made it possible for a political system to exist in the first place. [R, abr.]
63.3116 KIM Jungbu —
Faced with ever increasing pressures for better performance and financial bottom line, governments around the world are devolving more responsibilities to subnational governments. Especially in developing countries, this trend has coupled with increased demands for greater democracy and disaffection with the services provided by the central government. This article examines what has happened in South Korea since its devolution reform in 1995. Specifically, it examines political capital factors in determining the amount of intergovernmental transfers to the regional governments. The analysis shows that political decentralization has resulted in financial weakening of the subnational governments of general purposes and that although the incidence of intergovernmental transfer is affected by the political considerations, Korea has substantially improved horizontal fiscal imbalance. [R]
63.3117 KISCHEL, Uwe —
The German Constitutional Court's case law on freedom of opinion has been thoroughly restructured by its November 2009 decision on the admissibility of neo-Nazi demonstrations, although the results in the concrete case seem not to have changed. This seeming contradiction between — sometimes questionable and even dangerous — dogmatic change and practical result can, however, be resolved by a closer look at the details. The court has enlarged the protection of freedom of opinion in general, countered by a limited restriction that covers only opinions on the Third Reich as a historical fact, and that even allows a restrictive interpretation of limiting statutes. The decision thus marks the beginning of a new intellectual attitude towards freedom of opinion in Germany. [A]
63.3118 KNEIP, Sascha —
In terms of its formal and de facto powers, its institutional independence, and its effective intervention activities, the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) is still quite outstanding by international standards. At least formally, other constitutional courts of the world have caught up to the FCC. But the FCC is still exceptional because of two aspects: its extremely high empirical legitimacy and its self-perception regarding its role in German politics. While the high empirical legitimacy of the court transforms formal into real power, the self description as a “guardian of the democratic constitution” leads to an exceptional ability to deal with conflicts with the political branches and to deliver a democracy-friendly jurisdiction. The FCC remains an outstanding example of a court that is highly functional to democratic governance. [R]
63.3119 KOCH, Natalie —
Through the example of sport in Kazakhstan, and specifically the Astana Professional Cycling Team, I argue that nation-building through state promotion of sport illustrates the ways that soft authoritarian regimes such as that of N. Nazarbayev perpetuate their rule. Adding nation-building as the sixth tool in E. Schatz's [“The soft authoritarian tool kit: agenda-setting power in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan”, Comparative Politics 41(2), Jan. 2009: 203–222; Abstr. 59.8487] “soft authoritarian toolkit”, I demonstrate through discourse-analysis and focus-group research, how the nationalist performances surrounding elite sport are fundamental to allowing ordinary people to see their everyday practices and support for the “nation” as something “objective”, rather than intimately tied to the system of unequal power relations perpetuated by the ruling regime. [R, abr.]
63.3120 KONISKY, David M.; REENOCK, Christopher —
Scholarship on race- and class-based disparities in regulatory outcomes has failed to provide a theoretically grounded account of this bias's origin. We provide a microlevel explanation of how demographics influence compliance bias or the failure to detect noncompliant firms. We argue that regulatory compliance is best understood as a dual-agent — firm and regulatory officer — production function, and that community mobilization and agency decision-making authority shape bureaucrats’ incentives to report noncompliance. We test our argument with an original dataset on community mobilization and agency structure that delineates the political costs and benefits of state regulatory officers implementing the US Clean Air Act. While certain communities are vulnerable to compliance bias, such bias is mitigated in the presence of either politically mobilized communities or decentralized enforcement authority within the implementing agency. [R]
63.3121 KRANENPOHL, Uwe —
Increasingly, the ECJ in Luxembourg and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg are gaining importance for the German legal system. This is not only a threat for the executive and the parliament but also for the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) and its authority of constitutional review. As far as the EU is concerned, the FCC follows a two-tied strategy: on the one hand, it insists on the primacy of national sovereignty (and also of its own competence of judicial review also in the topic of European integration); on the other hand it asserts the rights of the parliament in European affairs that are assured by the Basic Law. Overall, the relationship between the FCC and the ECJ is significantly competitive. [R, abr.]
63.3122 KUMARASINGHAM, Harshan; POWER, John —
This article considers the ways in which the original Ackerman framework may be used in the assessment of checks and balances in New Zealand. Does New Zealand conform to the ideals of constrained parliamentarism? In order to tackle this question, the eight institutional specifics of governance identified by Ackerman are looked into. The eight institutional specifics are (1) Parliamentary democracy, (2) Federal structure, (3) Strong upper house, (4) Professional public service, (5) Independent judiciary, (6) Human rights, (7) Integrity of major institutions and (8) Referenda. This framework facilitates a better understanding of governance in New Zealand. [R]
63.3123 KYPRIOTIS, Chris —
Scholars of American legislative politics have settled into debating the merits and faults of majoritarian and party theories to explain legislative actions, brushing aside theories that see committees as autonomous. However, all three types of theories have rarely been tested together. This study builds upon an existing game-theoretic model of the legislative process in the US House of Representatives to compare all three simultaneously. Competing hypotheses are generated and tested using observable actions by legislative committees. Support is found for both committee and party theories, conditional on the congressional era and the relative preferences of key institutional actors. [R]
63.3124 LAFFIN, Martin —
This article questions the orthodoxy that government has been eclipsed by governance and uses the reform of English social housing tenancies as a critical test of governance theory. The preconditions for governance exist in social housing as its delivery has been largely removed from local authorities and disaggregated into a multiplicity of non-profit housing associations. Yet, contrary to the implications of governance theory, central policy-makers have maintained their ascendancy over central-local relations in the service delivery chain. Moreover, the political party, rather than any policy network, was the key source of policy change and its role is crucial in understanding how why and how the service delivery chain was reformed and the implications for social housing tenants as a dependent social group. [R]
63.3125 LARSEN-PRICE, Heather A.; RUTLEDGE, Paul —
We reinvigorate the search for agenda leaders and followers in the American political system. We focus on representation by including the public's policy agenda in our investigation of the interactions of the presidential and congressional agendas. Examining the issue areas of macroeconomics, law and crime, defense, and government operations, we find that Congress and the president are responsive to public concerns. However, representation at the agenda stage of the policy process is limited and issue dependent. We find that the president's agenda is more likely to influence public priorities than to reflect them. Lastly, we find that the president also exerts strong leadership over the congressional agenda. If there is a clear leader in the agenda stage of the policy process, it is the president. [R]
63.3127 LIM Yon Soo; PARK Han Woo —
This study examines whether the network characteristics represented on the internet drive or reflect other events and occurrences in the offline environment. It investigates the relationship between the web visibility network of Korea's National Assembly members and the amount of financial donations they receive from the public. The results of the linear correlation analysis indicate a positive direction, suggesting that politicians who occupy a central position in the web visibility network are more likely to receive financial donations than those occupying a peripheral position. The quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) correlation results revealed a significant correlation between politicians’ web visibility network and their political finance network. This study identifies the structural relationship between Korean politicians’ online and offline networks. [R] [See Abstr. 63.2973]
63.3128 LYBERAKI, Antigone; TINIOS, Platon —
This paper examines the antecedents and dynamics of the Greek crisis, caused by fundamental features of Greece's political economy, present before accession to the Economic and Monetary Union. The fact that reform did not take place until after the bailout may be seen as a governance shortcoming, linked to the way major policy choices are handled in Greece. Since the early 1990s, discussion of pensions and labor flexibility had been avoided, quantification shunned and data withheld, in such a way that issues were tampered with to fit what was thought politically feasible. Thus, in those two areas, a disjunction was created between appearance and reality, as well as a difference in perception between domestic and external commentators. When pension and employment protection reform finally came in 2010, it was seemingly imposed from outside. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 63.3272]
63.3129 MacDONALD, Adam P. —
In 2011, after more than 20 years of direct rule, the Tatmadaw transferred formal authority to a nominally civilian government following Myanmar's first multi-party election since 1990 as part of a transformation of the political system to a presidential republic. Within this new arena, though, electoral manipulations and constitutional stipulations have brought to power a government consisting mostly of former military officers who are closely aligned to the Tatmadaw. These reforms, therefore, have changed the nature and organization of the ruling regime from that of a military one to an Electoral Authoritarian form. Elections now have become the main conduit to accessing power. Despite the maintenance of authoritarian rule the opening of the political realm and civil society creates avenues for new actors, identities, interests, and relationships to be constructed. [R, abr.]
63.3130 MAGGETTI, Martino; INGOLD, Karin; VARONE, Frédéric —
Independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) were created in various sectors and on different governmental levels to implement liberalization policies. This paper investigates the link between IRAs’ independence, which is said to promote regulatory credibility and the use of technical expertise, and their accountability, which is related to the need for controlling and legitimizing independent regulators. The literature on the regulatory state anticipates a positive relation between the independence and accountability of IRAs, but systematic empirical evidence is still lacking. This paper measures and compares the independence and the accountability of IRAs in three differentially liberalized sectors in Switzerland (telecommunications, electricity and railways). With the application of Social Network Analysis, this piece of research shows that IRAs can be de facto independent and accountable at the same time. [R, abr.]
63.3131 MARRIN, Stephen —
Many people point to high-profile failures like 9/11 [2001] and Iraq as indicators that CIA's analytic performance is inadequate or flawed: flawed by design, a legacy of ashes, a culture of failure. Or so goes the conventional wisdom. Fortunately this conventional wisdom is wrong. These so-called failures more accurately represent the perennial dilemmas and tradeoffs associated with the analytic function and, most importantly, the inappropriate expectation that these observers hold of CIA's ability to prevent surprises. As a matter of fact, there is much that people do not fully understand about the CIA. [R]
63.3132 MARTIN, Shane —
Whereas numerous recent studies have explored the structural and procedural ability of national parliaments to provide oversight of transnational issues such as European integration, the nature of individual parliamentarians’ interest in foreign policy is a subject that has received little attention. The general assumption is that electoral incentives and informational deficiencies dissuade parliamentarians from actively engaging politics beyond the domestic realm. This paper suggests an analysis of parliamentary questions as a method for measuring individual parliamentarians’ interests in foreign policy. Applying this technique to the Dáil [Parliament] uncovers evidence that, contrary to theory-derived conventional expectations, some parliamentarians do seek to monitor the government's foreign policy agenda. [R, abr.]
63.3133 MARTÍNEZ PENICHE, Iñigo G. —
The fight against climate change has become an important factor that must be included in the analysis, planning, and formulation of national energy policy because the exploitation of fossil fuels is directly linked to rising greenhouse gas emissions and temperatures around the globe. This article maintains that the structure of property of energy resources in Canada and Mexico conditions the scope and effectiveness of their climate strategies. I use multi-level governance approaches to situate the discussion on the growing participation of non-state actors in configuring and implementing regional and global energy and climate policy. [R] [Part of a thematic issue on “Climate change in North America”, edited and introduced, pp. 5–33, by Edit ANTAL]
63.3134 MATHIEU, Bertrand —
The new Moroccan Constitution acknowledges the existence of a real judicial power and establishes a new body to guarantee its independence, the Superior Council of the Judiciary, vested with wide powers regarding the monitoring of magistrates and judiciary policy. This reform, together with a transformation of the framework of constitutional litigation, provides Morocco with an innovative and effective constitutional instrument. However, this reform is dependent on the organic laws required for its implementation. [R] [See Abstr. 63.3136]
63.3135 MAZZANTINI, Babriele; BERTOLI, Paola —
Commitment decisions were introduced in Italy [in] 2006. They were considered an instrument through which it would have been possible to simplify antitrust procedures and address the distortions of competition identified by the Antitrust Authority more swiftly. Six years [later], the paper verifies whether this instrument actually brings the advantages expected and analyzes its impact on the activity of the Competition Authority in terms of, for instance, the length of proceedings; the penalties imposed; and the disputes raised by the parties. In addition, the paper critically compares the Italian experience with EU practice and reasons on the possibility that by using commitments decisions and exploiting their flexibility and the fact that they can be agreed by the parties involved, the Antitrust authority may act as a market regulator. [R, abr.]
63.3136 MELLONI, David —
Morocco's new Constitution announces a dual transformation of the Moroccan political and legal order. It provides a far-reaching rebalancing of powers, establishing the foundations of a system centered on the prime minister and a majoritarian democracy. The monarch maintains an undeniable supremacy through a reinvented dualist parliamentary regime. The second mutation reinforces the place of law in the normative framework and presents the Constitution as the guarantor of rights and liberties. These will be respected at two levels — subject, however, to the predominance accorded to Islam — through the introduction of an exception of unconstitutionality on the one hand, superiority of international norms over national legislation. In so doing, Morocco is edifying a singular legal system and establishing an original political system, decisively veering towards the democratic ideal. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on “Morocco”. See also Abstr. 63.3036, 3072, 3134, 3280, 3282, 3312, 3874, 3885, 3958]
63.3137 MENDOZA, Oscar; SÁNCHEZ, Rodrigo; TOLEDO, Alberto —
A detailed explanation of the Mexican electoral system is made using the data from the 2012 federal election. We also explain the alliances that will develop between the parliamentary groups, the role that the quorum will play on the voting of issues in Congress, the results of the strategic use of nominations to ensure the election of party leaders and whips, and the effect of the electoral system on legislative experience and party discipline. [R]
63.3138 MIKLIN, Eric —
This article takes up recent arguments to strengthen national parliamentary powers in EU decision-making through inter-parliamentary cooperation. By widening the analytical focus from parliaments to the cooperation amongst the parties within parliaments, it provides a more accurate picture about the cooperation going on today. Second, it discusses why the amount of, and the benefits gained from inter-parliamentary cooperation may vary between parties, and therefore cooperation may not only affect the power relations between national parliaments and non-parliamentarian actors, but also those within parliaments. A study of the Austrian parliament [shows] that inter-parliamentary cooperation (1) is more important for opposition parties than for governing parties but that (2) parties can make use of its full potential only when their ideology allows them to integrate into a European party network. [R, abr.]
63.3139 MILLER, Susan M.; SQUIRE, Peverill —
One of the most important events in US congressional history is the 1910 revolt against Speaker J. Cannon. The rebellion had myriad ramifications for the inner workings of the House of Representatives and dramatically altered the chamber's power structure. Despite its significance, we do not have a clear understanding of the character of the revolt and why the 42 Republican insurgents revoked their allegiance to Cannon and their party. Did the insurgents rebel because of their strong progressive ideals or for more pragmatic reasons, such as political survival or retribution? Using data gathered from Cannon's personal papers and other sources, we systematically explore disparate explanations credited for the revolt. For the progressive core of the insurgency, our analysis indicates that policy differences drove their behavior. [R, abr.]
63.3140 MILOVICH, Lea; OSSEWAARDE, Marinus —
As the post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina has turned its interest towards a EU membership, it has entered an accession process requiring it, among other things, to reform its public administration system. The EU's involvement within the reform has been placed under critique, as it has been claimed to have placed Bosnia and Herzegovina's sovereignty at risk by presenting contradicting behaviors leading to a sovereignty paradox. By examining the EU's role in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and its possible relations to a sovereignty paradox in the process, the article finds sovereignty paradox indicators to exist along its processes. [R]
63.3141 MINTROM, Michael —
Policy entrepreneurs are political actors who seek policy changes that shift the status quo in given areas of public policy. This contribution examines the actions of policy entrepreneurs who have sought government funding and favorable regulation to advance human embryonic stem-cell research. Those policy entrepreneurs have faced significant opposition owing to the morality issues at stake. Placing the actions of those policy entrepreneurs in a broader context makes two contributions. (1) It explores how policy entrepreneurs pursue their goals in the face of intense morality politics. (2) It illustrates how the work of policy entrepreneurs can be both supported and inhibited by ideas, institutions and interest-group politics. [R] [See Abstr. 63.2845]
63.3142 MONTALIVET, Pierre de —
The Constitution, originally a symbolic text of political impact, has become progressively a set of legal norms. Since 1992, nineteen new additions have been adopted. The 50-year old Constitution thus displays an unprecedented lack of continuity. The Constitution has also lost much of its very quality.
63.3143 MOREAU, Odile —
A comparative regional approach from Ottomanism to the formation of the modern nation states in the Arab world while analyzing continuities and discontinuities, with special attention given to the Tunisian and Ottoman constitutional experiments. The impact of the early 20th c. revolutions and the post-independence period can contextualize the historical roots of the “Arab Spring” and of the constitutional changes in the Arab World in 2011. [R]
63.3144 MOULY, Cécile —
This article offers a first-hand account of a grassroots peace initiative that appeared in war-affected areas of Nicaragua in the 1980s and still exists to date. While bottom-up initiatives usually hardly scale up, the Nicaraguan peace commissions managed to convert into a broad peace infrastructure, weaving horizontal and vertical relationships with a variety of actors with the assistance of external organizations. They adapted their work to the evolving socio-political context, beginning with immediate concerns during the armed conflict, such as mediating between warring parties to protect civilians, and progressively addressing a broader range of conflicts. While this adaptive capacity could explain their endurance, the sustainability of their peace-building endeavors matters most. [R, abr.]
63.3145 MOYER, Laura —
This article draws from critical mass studies of gender in other political institutions to inform an application to the US Courts of Appeals. The results demonstrate the utility of considering court-level aspects of diversity. As mixed-sex panels become more common within a circuit, both male and female judges increasingly support plaintiffs in civil rights claims, though the magnitude of the effect is larger for women. The presence of a female chief judge is also positively associated with pro-plaintiff decisions by men and women in sex discrimination cases. [R]
63.3146 MUGELLI, Caterina —
As a general assumption, the presence of an independent, honest and competent judiciary in the so-called rule-of-law countries benefits both the protection of citizens’ rights and economic growth. This defines the judicial independence principle in China. I describe the general understanding of the principle within the Western legal tradition, stressing the importance of different guarantees embraced within given societies. Due consideration is given to judicial tenure and the appointment and salaries of judges. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 63.2836]
63.3147 NADIĆ, Darko —
This article analyzes the environmental policy of Serbia within the context of accession conditions to the EU. The main challenges of integrating the environmental policies of Serbia are: economic challenges, the sustainable development challenge, administrative challenges, democratic-deficiency challenges, and political challenges. These challenges, while flaws of the environmental policy in Serbia, are no different [from] the challenges faced by other Central Eastern European countries during the accession process. However, the influence of the global economic crisis, the constant political crisis and unclear definition of the political scene in Serbia, an incomplete vision of environmental education, as well as too much “green” marketing activities and a lack of true law implementation, are additional factors that make the process of environmental accession of Serbia to the EU even more difficult. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 63.3252]
63.3148 NEMOTO, Kuniaki; SHUGART, Matthew S. —
Democratic representation involves tradeoffs between collective actors — political parties seeking to maximize seats — and individual actors — candidates seeking to use their personal vote-earning attributes (PVEAs) to maximize their own chance of election and reelection. We analyze these tradeoffs across three different electoral systems used at different times for the large-magnitude nationwide tier of Japan's House of Councilors. These electoral systems — closed and open-list proportional systems and the single non-transferable vote — differ in the extent to which they entail candidates seeking individual preference votes and in whether collective vote shares affect overall party performance. We use local resources as a proxy for PVEA and seek to determine the extent to which parties nominate “locals” and how much the presence of such locals affects party performance at the level of Japan's prefectures. [R]
63.3149 NENOVSKY, Nikolay; TOCHKOV, Kiril; TURCU, Camelia —
This paper traces the origins of the different monetary regimes adopted in Bulgaria and Romania in 1996–1997 and examines their performance during the EU accession. The findings indicate that the constraints of the currency board in Bulgaria shifted economic activity towards the private sector, while the discretionary policies in Romania turned public finances into both a contributor and a response mechanism to economic imbalances. While the prospects of EU accession initially enhanced the performance of the monetary anchors, the implicit insurance of EU membership increased moral hazard and led to a rapid rise in private and public debt. The paper also explores the historical parallels between the monetary regimes of Bulgaria and Romania in 1996–1997 and 1925–1940. [R]
63.3150 NEWMANN, William W. —
In the study of the American presidency, traditionally, decisions were seen as the result of persuasion-bargaining. President-centered factors, preferences, and the relationships between his senior advisors, determined presidential decisions. Recently, the field has made a transition to institution-based models, in which each president and his advisers are rational actors responding to the political and legal forces that frame the office. This essay suggests a research agenda that incorporates both approaches. The Garbage Can model of decision is used to illustrate how the foreign policy process is an organized anarchy; decision-making is the intersection of four streams: choice opportunities, problems, solutions, and participants. The model helps identify both institutional and persuasion-bargaining variables and highlights their interactions as streams are connected to produce policy. Clinton administration decisions on trade with China in 1993–1994 are the focus. [R, abr.]
63.3151 ONG, Lynette H. —
China, the world's largest energy consumer and greenhouse gas emitter, appears to have contradictory climate policies. While aggressively pursuing a renewable energy policy, Beijing is weak on a commitment to emissions reduction. The “paradox” can be reconciled on the basis of China's priority for growth, which is critical in ensuring the Communist Party's grip on power. [R]
63.3152 OSTERLOH, Steffen; HEINEMANN, Friedrich —
Setting minimum tax rates is a well discussed way of mitigating pressure from tax competition. This paper investigates which motives shape the support for a minimum corporate tax among politicians. We make use of a unique data-base: a survey among members of the EP. Our results confirm that the politicians’ ideology as well as individual characteristics such as educational background exert a major influence. Moreover, several predictions regarding national interests are derived from various standard tax competition models. These hypotheses are partly supported by the data; in particular, different national preferences towards social equality shape the support. A comparison with survey results from the German Bundestag reveals that German politicians on the national level do not show different attitudes towards tax rate harmonization. [R]
63.3153 OXENSTIERNA, Susanne; WESTERLUND, Fredrik —
The Russian government has launched a new state armament program for the period 2011–2020 in a decisive effort to bring the Russian Armed Forces into the 21st c. This article investigates the prerequisites for the successful fulfillment of this program and assesses the industry's ability to meet the program's demands. It finds that the costs of the program are unrealistically high and that deficiencies in the procurement system and in the technologies and performance of the industry present serious challenges and obstacles that will hinder the fulfillment of the program. [R]
63.3154 PANKEVIĆ, Natal'ja V. —
The world city localization within the national borders is seen as one of inevitable conditions for Russia to participate effectively in global scale processes. Political favoritism of national governments towards particular urban centers is obvious in a number of countries including Russia. The article then analyzes political risks associated with the neoliberal model of urban network construction and the emergence of favored world cities in national spaces. The result of this policy tends to be opposite to its goals and leads to the decline of the territories where the world city is located. The EU experience offers an alternative political agenda of urban network development, based upon the principles of territorial and social cohesion. [R] [See Abstr. 63.3159]
63.3155 PARK Hun Myoung; PERRY, James L. —
The latter 20th and beginning of the 21st c. have ushered in new forms of governance, opening the gates to what has been variously described as a “new public service”, a “multisectored public service”, and a “state of agents”. As government authority is dispersed, we increasingly rely on these new public servants for service delivery and policy implementation. But who are now the agents of the state? How might the changed makeup of a new public service alter our expectations about democratic governance? Now that the public sector has been transformed, what are the characteristics of the agents of the new governance? And are they “ordinary people“? We use the General Social Survey to shed light on our focal question. [R, abr.]
63.3156 PARK Sanghee —
This article investigates gender representation in the public bureaucracy in the context of South Korea and its substantial effects on governmental performance. This study identifies three missing links in the theory of the representative bureaucracy. I investigate whether the presence of women in the bureaucracy affects on the consequences of governmental activities. Using an unbalanced time-series data-set for 25 years with gaps including 1978, 1983, 1986 to 2008, the investigation is conducted in terms of the media attention on women's issues, social welfare budget, and the legislative success of the executive branch measured by the number of passed bills submitted to the National Assembly. [R, abr.]
63.3157 PARSNEAU, Kevin —
[US] Presidents have the power to nominate the top ranks of the executive branch and they use it toward their own goals. Presidents need a mixture of experienced and loyal officers to promote bureaucratic competence and responsiveness, and advance their policies within the executive branch, but scholars’ focus has often been senatorial obstructionism rather than when presidents prefer loyal nominees and experienced nominees. This study uses a sample of 573 subcabinet nominations between 1961 and 2006, and relates presidents’ nominee choices to their policy priorities and departmental jurisdictions. It finds that presidents nominate significantly more loyalists and fewer experienced officers to higher priority departments, indicating the importance of responsiveness, as well as their suspicion of experienced officers. [R, abr.]
63.3158 PASSOS MARTINS, Thomas —
Since the adoption of the Brazilian 1998 Constitution, the role of the Supreme Court in Brazil's political system has gradually grown stronger. Its essential function being to review the conformity of the acts issued by the government to the constitutional text, the Court is invested with an actual veto power (and sometimes even the power to impose amendments) over the legislation adopted by elective bodies. The Court is thus a central political actor in the enforcement of public policies. However, the rise to power of this jurisdiction has become evident only after the changeover in political leadership in 2002. Its political role has expanded considerably, leading social actors, in their quest to influence public policy, to appeal increasingly to the Supreme Court to the detriment of elective political bodies. [R, abr.]
63.3159 PASTUHOV, Vladimir B. —
The author analyzes the constitutional process in Russia and its prospects. Constitutionally, in his opinion, Russia now stands at a critical turning point, from which it cannot move, but either forward, or backwards. No other alternative: either to go from just invariably declaring the constitutional principles actually implementing them, or willy-nilly overtly renouncing these principles. [R] [First article of a thematic issue on “Russia at the point of crossroads”. See also Abstr. 63.3154, 3162, 3959]
63.3160 PATHAK, Pathik —
This article examines the shift in discourses of citizenship from Britain from notions of entitlement and obligation to those of self-government, and the reciprocity between the responsibilization of individual and collective citizen-subjectivities. Against the backdrop of debates about society as the telos of government, this article will interrogate the claim that New Conservatism's “Big Society” represents a unique rationality of government and an alternative formula of advanced liberal rule. The article extends our understanding of “post-welfare regimes of the social” and illustrates precisely how they operate in contemporary Britain. [R]
63.3161 PAULUS, Andreas L.; JACOBS, Henrik —
In its seminal Somalia/AWACS judgment, the German Federal Constitutional Court gave the Bundestag a right to participate in the deployment of Germany's armed forces abroad because it qualified the Federal Armed Forces as a “Parliament's Army” (Parlamentsheer). This decision marked a pivotal turn towards a democratization or parliamentarization of military authority, which meanwhile has been extended also to European law. It thus entrenched at least parts of the foreign powers more firmly in the legislative bodies. Recent decisions not only further substantiated the necessity and the limits of parliamentary consent, but also based the consent of the Bundestag in the democratic principle of the Basic Law. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on “Parliamentary control of military and security policy”. See also Abstr. 63.2922, 3093]
63.3162 PAVLJUTENKOVA, Marianna Yu. —
The author analyzes the complex environment in which the shaping of electronic government takes place in Russia. Special attention is paid to the different obstacles, such as corruption, resistance to reforms from red tape officials, lack of financial support. The author focuses also upon changes in the official programs of electronic government. Parallels with South Korea, Singapore, and Kazakhstan show that Russia has fallen behind. [R] [See Abstr. 63.3159]
63.3163 PEDERSEN, Morten B. —
For two decades, Myanmar sat at the top of the international human rights agenda. With recent political changes, this may now be a thing of the past, but the bad old days hold important lessons that should not be forgotten. This article draws on interviews conducted mainly inside Myanmar over a period of 15 years to evaluate, contrast and compare the impact of different international human rights policies on the ground. It is argued that while the effects of both Western ostracism and regional business as usual have been largely counterproductive and often harmful to the Myanmar people, principled engagement by the UN and other international organizations has shown significant potential to help promote human rights. This is a lesson which may be worth heeding in other repressive states. [R]
63.3164 PERINI, Mario —
The paper [examines] the existence of a major crisis in Italy, and the exercise of a strong role by the President of the Italian Republic. It argues that there is a link between the two phenomena and that in the Italian republican parliamentary system, in times of crisis, the President can exercise all the powers that the Constitution confers him. In fact, the crisis weakens the factors that normally limit the role and powers of the President, who appears to acquire an autonomous legitimization. The crisis causes a bicephalous executive to emerge. It appears that this two-headed expression of the executive during a time of crisis is not an exception, but rather the physiological expression of a parliamentary form of government in a republican system in times of crisis. [R, abr.]
63.3165 PETERSEN, Karen L.; TJALVE, Vibeke S. —
Written from a vantage point between Security Studies, Political Theory, and Governance Studies, this article theorizes the current mobilization of civil society for the purposes of “national security”, “risk precaution”, or “homeland resilience” as the emergence of a neo-republican form of security governance — a mode of governance more reliant on organicist means of social construction than on economic or individualist instruments of social control. We argue that if the discipline of IR wishes to understand the nature of this emerging security order, it needs to assume a more cross-disciplinary approach and to develop a much richer idea of republicanism as not only a political philosophy but also a practice of governance. [R]
63.3166 PHILLIPS, Andrew —
This paper analyzes the current and prospective implications of Asia's energy consumption revolution for regional stability. Adopting a comparative and historical approach, I argue that Japanese energy security anxieties worked to reinforce regional alignment patterns in East Asia for nearly two decades following the Shanghai communiqué, thereby strengthening regional stability. Conversely, the post-Cold War period has seen in China and India's rise the emergence of Asian energy super-consumers that are not formally aligned with the US, but that are increasingly dependent on imported energy supplies to fuel their industrialization. This newfound dependence on energy imports has seen both countries follow Japan's longstanding example in securitizing energy as a policy issue. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 63.3834]
63.3167 PLUMB, Alison —
The note examines levels of intra-party cohesion during free voting on abortion, euthanasia and same-sex civil partnerships and marriage in the lower houses of four Westminster-style parliaments: Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand. In free vote circumstances, to what extent do political parties in these “most similar” parliaments remain cohesive? Do political parties with similar ideological commitments exhibit similar levels of cohesiveness across the parliaments? Although the level of cohesion within political parties varies depending upon the issue being considered, across the four parliaments, political parties with similar ideological commitments display broadly similar patterns of intra-party cohesion during free vote circumstances. While “center-left” parties were the most cohesive on abortion and civil unions, but divided on euthanasia, “center-right” parties were consistently split on all three issues. [R]
63.3168 RAUDLA, Ringa —
Unlike most other countries in Europe, the government of Estonia adopted several austerity packages, combining expenditure cuts and tax increases. This paper explores whether (and to what extent) the theoretical propositions from the literature on political economy of fiscal adjustment that focus on institutional factors are able to explain how it was possible to undertake such extensive fiscal adjustment in Estonia. The case study shows (1) that a coalition government and a minority government are able to achieve fiscal adjustments, especially if there is political commitment to lower the deficit. (2) An externally imposed fiscal rule can act as a major focal point in guiding deficit-reduction efforts. (3) The Estonian case demonstrates that centralized budgetary institutions are conducive to fiscal adjustment and mitigate the problems arising from size fragmentation. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 63.2877]
63.3169 RAZOUX, Pierre —
The Israeli army is preparing for various operations, some at the gates of the country, and some thousands of miles away. Israeli technological superiority, however, does not guarantee invulnerability. The IDF [Israeli Defense Force] faces sociological changes that could weaken it, potentially unreliable antimissile devices, the emergence of new — particularly cyber — threats, and more strained relations with the US, its main arms-supplier. [R] [See Abstr. 63.3771]
63.3170 RISTESKA, Marija —
Since the close of the ethnic conflict in 2001 with the Ohrid Framework Agreement, Macedonia has adjusted its structure of government and modes of governance in order to allow for participation of minority groups in policy-making, but also to strengthen their representation in politics and public administration. This article evaluates the application of the principle of just and equitable representation of minority groups in the Macedonian civil service. It argues that the OFA provides for representation of ethnic Albanians in public administration, but fails to achieve the same with other minority groups. [R]
63.3171 ROCKEFELLER, Marilyn Moss; JOHNSON-FREESE, Joan —
There are 54 countries on the African continent, but only one has managed to elect a woman, E. Johnson Sirleaf in Liberia, as chief executive. While African countries face unique issues, there is a common thread in the struggles of female politicians in male-dominated, traditional societies. The case of J. Banda, the President of Malawi, is illustrative. [R]
63.3172 RODMAN, Kenneth A. —
The Special Court for Sierra Leone's conviction of former Liberian President Ch. Taylor and its prosecution of perpetrators regardless of their political alignment have been hailed as milestones in the diffusion of international criminal justice norms. Yet what made these achievements possible were interventionist strategies by western governments and international and regional institutions to defeat the rebellion in Sierra Leone and bring about regime change in Liberia. The broader lesson that should be drawn from this is that the prospects for prosecution in the aftermath of armed conflict are likely to be determined by the political strategies adopted by the international community to end the violence and that international criminal justice presumes an interventionist form of politics. [R] [Part of a thematic issue on “The reality of restorative international criminal justice”, edited and introduced by Dawn L. ROTHE. See also Abstr. 63.3587, 3662, 3686, 3687]
63.3173 RØISLIEN, Hanne Eggen —
Rooted in the discipline of religion, the following article explores how religion feeds into the selective conscription practices of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Combining legal documents with data [from] interviews with thirty-four soldiers in a combat battalion, I argue that the IDF's conscription practices are sensitive to the contents of religion. The IDF applies a multifarious concept of religion with significant impact on the IDF's ability to foster a sense of “us.” The IDF recruits draftees on the basis of a twofold definition of Judaism, either as an ethnic group or as a theological concept. Both definitions help determine whether one is drafted. Interviews with soldiers expand on this definition, drawing attention to the integrative as well as disintegrative consequences of this notion of religion within the IDF. [R, abr.]
63.3174 ROSS, Fiona —
This article explores the impact of political identity, a concept that is intimately linked with the core epistemology of the constructivist research agenda, through the lens of welfare reform in two cases where the strength of identity politics differs, Britain and the US. The concept of identity relates to who is constructing ideas and discourse and it invites ideational and discursive analyses to take actors seriously, beyond their generic role as thinkers and speakers. Among voters, the capacity to construct an imperative for reform is not shared equally between actors. Actors who are identified with the extant path are more able to construct the imperative for departing from that path. Among elites at the institutional level, identity politics are tribal and legislators have clear incentives to lower resistance to their own chieftains. [R, abr.]
63.3175 ROXAS, Banjo; CHADEE, Doren; PACOY, Emilia —
The resilience of Asian firms in the face of the current economic downturn in North America and Western Europe is attracting renewed attention to the role of government in sustaining firm competitiveness. The paper draws from institutional theory to assess the impacts of selected formal government institutions on business performance in the Philippines. Based on a large-scale survey (n = 658) of business owners in the Philippines undertaken by the World Bank, the study finds that access to finance, the rule of law and regulatory quality contribute significantly to business performance. The policy implications of the findings are fully discussed. [R]
63.3176 SANGARASIVAM, Yamuna —
Following the release of thousands of diplomatic cables which revealed the human rights abuses and networks of corruption that sustain the US-sponsored global war on the terror, the US Justice Department has invoked the 1917 Espionage Act to indict both Bradley Manning, the US soldier who released the classified documents to WikiLeaks, and Julian Assange, the editor and publisher of WikiLeaks. While censorship serves as an economic signal, as Assange asserts, how does the torture and prosecution of Pvt. Bradley Manning serve as a cultural signal which reveals the lessons of a patriotism that promotes a dystopic democracy? This article examines the spatio-temporal predicament of secrecy, surveillance, and censorship in the face of cyber-rebellion. [R] [See Abstr. 63.2963]
63.3177 SCHMITT, Sophie; EUCHNER, Eva-Maria; PREIDEL, Caroline —
This contribution addresses the conditions of morality policy change by comparing the decision-making dynamics in the regulation of prostitution and same-sex partnerships in Italy and Spain over two decades. We explain why and [in] what circumstances some political actors are successful in reforming morality policies. We develop a four-fold typology of morality policy change. Our findings highlight that the different regulatory dynamics in both Catholic nation-states depend on the balance of power among the change and blocking coalitions and their degree of congruence. We show that governments succeed in realizing their morality policy goals only if they are able to form a coalition with the relevant political and societal actors. Furthermore, the Catholic Church plays a particular but context-specific role. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 63.2845]
63.3178 SHARAFUTDINOVA, Gulnaz —
Why did Russian governors unexpectedly acquiesce to centralizing reforms undertaken by V. Putin? Interviews with regional and central politicians and an analysis of speeches during 1990–2009 reveal that interests alone cannot account for the presence or absence of governors’ political action. Understanding governors’ (in)action requires uncovering the grounds for its justification and legitimation. The enabling role of the discourse, fusing the ideas of democracy and federalism, propelled autonomous behavior on the part of regional elites. The shift in the dominant discursive frame that occurred in Russia under the leadership of Putin brought to prominence the idea of strengthening state power, thus making defiant and autonomy-seeking behavior by regional elites untenable. [R]
63.3179 SMITH, Amy E.; MONGHAN, Karen R. —
In recent decades, representative bureaucracy has been a core area of interest, both in theory and in practice, in public administration. The focus on representative bureaucracy is important because the characteristics of bureaucrats influence the nature, scope, and implementation of public policies. Integrating management literature on men and women in leadership with existing work on representative bureaucracy, this study constructed a new data-set examining the distribution of women in leadership in 118 US federal regulatory organizations. We find that women remain underrepresented in federal regulatory agency leadership but not in the same magnitude as in political representation and private organization leadership. Specifically, women are expected to get into leadership positions in organizations working in “feminine” policy areas and where a woman holds the top level of leadership. [R, abr.]
63.3180 SOLVAK, Mihkel —
Private members’ bills (PMBs) have mostly been studied from a government-opposition perspective as a tool in the hands of minor opposition parties. Using data on PMBs from two legislative periods of the Estonian parliament (1999–2007) and descriptive discriminant analysis (DDA), this article investigates if the personal vote notion explains why some MPs engage in sponsorship of PMBs more often than others in a fixed institutional setting with three different mandate types. In addition, the “pseudolegislative” nature of PMBs is studied by comparing the technical sophistication of the bills and legislative process in parliament between different mandate types. The results support the personal vote concept, but not the label of pseudo-legislation. [R]
63.3181 SPAHN, Paul Bernd —
In Germany, as in most federal states, the two levels of the state (federal and Länder) retain their financial and fiscal sovereignty. The question therefore arises of distributing public resources between these two levels, to which must be added the local level, which is autonomous under the supervision of each Land. Redistribution is not only vertical but also horizontal, with equalization mechanisms aimed at ensuring a certain level of solidarity among the various parts of the federal territory. The article examines the solutions adopted in Germany regarding both types of distribution. [R]
63.3182 SPRUNGK, Carina —
This article explores the role of national parliaments in the implementation of EU policies. It analyzes the effect of parliamentary involvement ex post on the timely transposition of EU directives by combining quantitative analyses of all Council directives adopted between 1999 and 2003 in the EU-15 member states, with qualitative case studies of parliamentary transposition in Germany and France. The findings show that contrary to conventional assumptions, their involvement is not necessarily a source of delayed transposition. Problems of delay might, however, arise in bicameral systems or if the government is for political reasons reluctant to submit a transposition proposal to parliament. [R]
63.3183 STAN, Lavinia —
During the first two decades following the collapse of the communist regime, Romania has reckoned with the human rights infringements perpetrated from 1945 to 1989 with the help of a range of official and unofficial, judiciary and non-judiciary, backward- and forward-looking methods pursued by a variety of state and non-state actors. This article summarizes the progress registered to date in court trials, lustration, access to secret files, property restitution, the truth commission, rehabilitation of former political prisoners, compensation to victims and their descendants, the opinion tribunal, forensic investigations, rewriting history books, unofficial truth projects and memorialization. [R]
63.3184 STRAUS, Jacob R. —
“Dear colleague” letters — formal, written, member-to-member correspondence — provide a unique window into internal communications in the US House of Representatives. In general, studies of congressional political communications tend to focus on external messaging by members (candidates) to their constituents (voters) through a focus on electoral or constituent communication. Yet these studies may or may not tell us why members choose to engage in internal communication. This paper presents new hypotheses about factors that increase a member's likelihood of using “dear colleague” letters. Using House “dear colleague” letter data from the first session of the 111th Congress (2009), a negative binomial regression tests the importance of seniority, electoral vulnerability, leadership status, and majority party status for dear colleague letter senders. [R, abr.]
63.3185 STRAUSS, Claudia —
This article asks how language constructions are constitutive of policy, using the example of US immigration policies. First, the claims of some metaphor analysts are scrutinized. Then a different approach is proposed, one that focuses on formulaic, oft-repeated schemas, or conventional discourses, [which] serve as mental shortcuts and political identity signals. Political speeches are constructed from multiple conventional discourses; 18 conventional discourses about immigration were drawn upon in just one Congressional debate. Their variety and numbers indicate the possibilities for differing policy emphases. These points are illustrated with the example of US Congressional debate about HR 4437, the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 63.2751]
63.3186 STUDLAR, Donley T.; CAGOSSI, Alessandro; DUVAL, Robert D. —
Although there has been increasing recognition that morality policy in Western democracies is a distinctive field of study, many analyses are relatively narrow in issues and jurisdictions. This contribution examines broad empirical patterns for five morality policy issues across 18 West European democracies since World War II. The issues analyzed are abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, assisted reproductive technology (ART, including stem-cell research) and same-sex marriage. Which of two prominent institutional theories of morality policy, policy type and two worlds, help explain morality policy processes? The results indicate that morality policy processes do differ from the usual ones of parliamentary government, and that important differences are captured by the religious/secular division of party systems, depending on which countries are considered for each category. [R] [See Abstr. 63.2845]
63.3187 SWERS, Michele L.; KIM, Christine C. —
The politics of [US] Supreme Court nominations presents a case in which gender issues are highly salient on the bench. However, confirmation politics is also tightly constrained by institutional pressure for party loyalty. In the battle to replace O'Connor, we find that gender had a limited impact on senators’ votes on the J. Roberts and S. Alito nominations. Republicans uniformly supported the president's nominees and the most liberal Democrats opposed them. However, gender did impact the votes of more moderate and conservative Democrats. Analysis of the explanations senators offer to justify their votes and build trust with constituents demonstrates that women — particularly Democratic women — place greater emphasis on women's rights in their floor statements, supporting the contention that female senators prioritize women as a constituency and bring a different perspective to policy deliberations. [R]
63.3188 SZMER, John, et al. —
Despite a growing recognition of the influence of gender in the policy-making arena, few scholars have studied the relationship between lawyer gender and decision-making on appellate courts. This article examines this relationship in the context of the US Courts of Appeals, where there have been a greater number of female judges for a longer period of time. The results suggest that, in the average Courts of Appeals case, judges are generally more likely to side with female attorneys, even in the absence of a “women's issue”. [R, abr.]
63.3189 TAUSANOVITCH, Chris; WARSHAW, Christopher —
Little is known about the American public's policy preferences at the level of congressional districts, state legislative districts, and local municipalities. We overcome the limited sample sizes that have hindered previous research by jointly scaling the policy preferences of 275,000 Americans based on their responses to policy questions. We combine this large dataset of Americans’ policy preferences with recent advances in opinion estimation to estimate the preferences of every state, congressional district, state legislative district, and large city. We show that our estimates outperform previous measures of citizens’ policy preferences. These new estimates enable scholars to examine representation at a variety of geographic levels. We demonstrate the utility of these estimates through applications of our measures to examine representation in state legislatures and city governments. [R]
63.3190 TOTH, Federico —
This article discusses the main hypotheses generated within research that focuses on health politics. These hypotheses are subjected to a brief empirical test, presenting data from fifteen OECD countries. There seems to be a correspondence between the healthcare models adopted in different national contexts and the ideological orientation of the governments that have instituted them. Most laws instituting a system of social health insurance have been advanced by conservative governments, while those instituting a national health service have been passed [mainly] by social-democratic governments. The resulting clashes between governments and competing interest groups are largely attributable to the institutional setting. Thus, from 1945 to 2000, where political power was more concentrated, a national health service was implemented; where political power was more dispersed, a system of voluntary or social health insurance was implemented. [R, abr.]
63.3191 TOZZO, Brandon —
Given the severity of the 2008 financial crisis and the American Government's unprecedented intervention in the economy, the financial crisis presents an ideal case for a critical reassessment of major theories of empire. There are three prominent, yet distinct, views of empire examined in this article. The first is the Empire offered by M. Hardt and A. Negri. The second is that of L. Panitch and S. Gindin. Finally, there is D. Harvey's “new imperialism”. This article challenges several limitations in each theory of empire, and to conclude that Harvey's “new imperialism” provides the greatest insight into the US's immediate responses to the economic crisis. [R, abr.]
63.3192 TRABER, Denise —
This article investigates the benefit of participation in policy-making. Based on data from interviews with various interest groups, private organizations, and representatives of regions that had been involved in recent policymaking processes in Switzerland, this study analyzes the relationship between participation and satisfaction with the policy outcome. It looks at two different aspects of outcome satisfaction: perceived consensus of a decision and preference attainment. The results show that the level of participation is related to both aspects of outcome satisfaction but that the strength of association is dependent on the type of interest group and the level of conflict among the groups participating in the decision-making process. [R]
63.3193 TROUPEL, Aurélia —
Since June 2000, there have been several modifications to the French “parity law”. In ten years, five laws were adopted, thus altering its scope and methods of application. While some of these electoral reforms aimed to strengthen gender equality, other reforms have weakened the law. This article reviews these changes by focusing more specifically on two types of laws: that of January 31, 2007, supposed to strengthen gender equality; that of 10 December 2010 marks an unprecedented decline. [R]
63.3194 VAN DER VEEN, Robert Jan; VAN DER BRUG, Wouter —
G. Esping-Andersen developed a typology of welfare regimes: conservative, liberal and social democratic, measured on the basis of seven indicators. We re-examine his data to show that the seven indicators do not form valid measures of these welfare regimes. A measurement model based on the five institutional characteristics of welfare regimes that pertain to social insurance, however, does fit both the original and replication data. We therefore proposes a three-dimensional model of conservative and liberal social insurance, which treats universal insurance coverage as the third dimension, instead of Esping-Andersen's “socialist” regime. This has implications for previous studies that employ country scores based on Esping-Andersen's method as independent variables in causal models. We re-examine a study by A. Noël and J.-Ph. Thérien [“From domestic to international justice: the welfare state and foreign aid”, International Organization, 49(3), June 1995: 523–553] and question their conclusions on the causal connections between the social democratic welfare state and levels of foreign aid. [R, abr.]
63.3195 VANLANGENAKKERA, Ine; WAUTERSA, Bram; MADDENS, Bart —
Worldwide, politicians devote increasing attention to the sociode-mographic representativeness of political institutions. The underrepresentation of specific groups (and of women in particular) in political institutions is a democratic problem [A. Phillips, The Politics of Presence, 1995]. To counter the lack of representativeness of political institutions, measures have been adopted to increase the influx of female politicians in parliaments and governments. Among others, quota regulations have been implemented in several countries in recent years [D. Dahlerup, “Electoral gender quotas, between equality of opportunity and equality of result”, Representation 43(2), July 2007: 73–92, Abstr. 58.83; M.L. Krook, “Candidate gender quotas, a framework for analysis”, European Journal of Political research 46(3), May 2007: 367–394; Abstr. 57.5744]. [R]
63.3196 VANNUCI, Alberto —
The widespread diffusion of corruption became in the 1990s and still is a major issue in the Italian political system. The failure of the Italian anticorruption policies reflects an endogenous weakness of such concentrated costs/diffused benefits measures, but it also depends on the difficulty to implement top-down policies based on laws, judicial repression, special anticorruption authorities, strong political commitment of the elite to fight bribery. None of the conditions that could have pushed the Italian political class to adopt effective anticorruption policies, in fact, was present in the last two decades. A new paradigm of anticorruption can nevertheless be devised in a still limited but increasing set of local initiatives and policy tools, reflecting a new “bottom-up approach”, fostered mainly by a network of grassroots movements and local administrators. [A, abr.]
63.3197 VASHDI, Dana R.; VIGODA-GADOT, Eran; SHLOMI, Dvir —
This study examines multiple organizational climates and their relationship with politics and performance in public organizations. We argue that four types of climates (participative, innovative, leadership and service) impact employees’ performance and public service outcomes, and that perceptions of organizational politics mediate these relationships. A theoretical model is suggested and examined empirically in a field study of 2102 teachers from 108 public schools and three major districts in Israel. Standard regressions and hierarchical linear model statistics are used to examine several hypotheses about the relationship between climate, micro-level performance and macro-level performance. The findings, both micro- and macro-level based, indicate that multiple climates in the school environment are positively related to teachers’ satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior. [R, abr.]
63.3198 VLIEGENTHART, Rens; WALGRAVE, Stefaan; ZICHA, Brandon —
This article proposes an integrated framework of agenda-setting that incorporates the two main accounts of agenda-setting: the information-processing approach by Comparative Agenda Project scholars and the preference-centered account advanced by Comparative Manifestoes Project scholars. It claims that attention allocation is determined at the same time by preferences, information and institutions, and that attention allocation is affected by the interactions between these three factors. An empirical test is conducted that draws upon a dataset of parliamentary questions/interpellations in Belgium in the period 1993–2000. It is found that attention in parliament is indeed driven by preceding party manifestos (preferences), by available information (media coverage) and by institutional position (government or opposition party). [R]
63.3199 VOIA, Marcel-Cristian; FERRIS, J. Stephen —
This paper examines the empirical regularity that in Canada business cycle peaks and federal elections have tended to arise together over the long post-Confederation time period following 1867. We argue that rather than being simultaneous, the two events are related sequentially and that causality can be identified properly if the selection issue associated with observed events is addressed carefully. Our results suggest that business cycle peaks lead federal elections rather than the other way around. Such a finding reinforces the hypothesis of strategic election timing for such countries and is insightful in helping to explain why the presence of a political business cycle is harder to establish for parliamentary governments than in democratic systems where governing durations and election dates are fixed. [R, abr.]
63.3200 VOLDEN, Craig; WISEMAN, Alan E.; WITTMER, Dana E. —
Previous scholarship has demonstrated that female lawmakers differ from their male counterparts by engaging more fully in consensus-building activities. We argue that this behavioral difference does not serve women equally well in all institutional settings. Contentious and partisan activities of male lawmakers may help them outperform women when in a polarized majority party. However, in the minority party, while men may choose to obstruct and delay, women continue to strive to build coalitions and bring about new policies. We find strong evidence that minority party women in the US House of Representatives are better able to keep their sponsored bills alive through later stages of the legislative process than are minority party men, across the 93rd–110th Congresses (1973–2008). The opposite is true for majority party women, however. [R, abr.]
63.3201 WANG, Blake C. Y. —
Environmental Refugees constitute a unique phenomenon in the modern international community. These environmentally-displaced persons are affected by climate change or other environmental factors, such as drought, soil salinization, desertification, deforestation, which result in environmental degradation that make their homelands unsafe to inhabit. These people have no alternative but to leave home in search of more secure environments in which to live. Some environmental refugees migrate across borders, while others are internally displaced. The status and definition of environmental refugees are still controversial under international legal regimes. States and international organizations (especially the UNHCR) need to cooperate closely to build the legal foundations of a global governance regime to deal with environmental refugees. [R] [See Abstr. 63.3707]
63.3202 WEBB, Jim —
Since World War II, and particularly since the 9/11 [2001] terrorist attacks, Congress has been losing its historic role in the articulation and functioning of national security policy. This former senator decries the flow of power on such crucial matters to the executive branch, at the expense of both the prerogative and responsibility of Congress. [R]
63.3203 WILLIAMS, Brad —
I examine a relatively underexplored aspect of Japan's early postwar history and explain why attempts to establish a Japanese-style central intelligence agency (JCIA) in the 1950s were unsuccessful. I evaluate three competing explanations drawn from the level of international politics, focusing on US power resources and influence as well as liberal and constructivist styles of analysis — alliance politics, sectionalism, and the norm of antimilitarism — in order to shed light on the historical origins of Japan's intelligence apparatus, which is relatively underdeveloped and underfunded compared to other middle powers. It highlights the primacy of domestic factors over structural causes in explaining the decision not to establish a JCIA. [R, abr.]
63.3204 WILLIAMS, George; BURTON, Lisa —
Australia has adopted a novel approach to human rights protection. Rather than developing a court-focused model, it has built upon laws in the UK and elsewhere to emphasize the role of Parliament. However, the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011 (Cth) takes this a major step further in providing the Australian parliament with the exclusive role of ensuring human rights protection. This offers a unique opportunity to assess the capacity of Parliament to protect human rights without court involvement. This article examines the role of the Australian Parliament in protecting human rights generally, before assessing Australia's new exclusive parliamentary model of rights protection. [R]
63.3205 YANOW, Dvora; VAN DER HAAR, Marleen —
The Netherlands, through its public policy and administrative practices, categorizes its population along “ethnic” lines, using birthplace as the surrogate determining factor. The contemporary operative taxonomy has until recently been binary: autochtoon (of Dutch heritage) and allochtoon (of foreign birth). The taxonomy was expanded in 1999 to demarcate between “Western” allochtoon and “non-Western” allochtoon, with the latter being further subdivided into first and second generation. Informed by a “generative metaphor” approach that links cognition to action, this article subjects the allochtoon/autochtoon binary to metaphor-analysis and the Western/non-Western taxonomy to category-analysis. Their meaning in contemporary policy discourse derives from the interaction of metaphoric and category structures, with implications for policy implementation. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 63.2751]
63.3206 YU, P. H. —
China's new leader, Xi Jinping, has an excellent opportunity to set China on its new path with consequences of historical proportions. Xi now has sufficient power and the latitude to set right the missteps made by his predecessors, address the calls for political reform, and continue on the road to socialism. If Xi Jinping does not take an unambiguous stand against dictatorship, advance the rule of law, and install a system of meritocracy with intra-party democracy, then political instability may intensify and affect the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) rule. The author presents ten challenges for Xi: e.g., to encourage a pluralistic society; put in place economic structural reform, freedom of speech, and fair distribution of wealth; establish a new global outlook; re-examine Marxism; reposition the CPC. [R, abr.]
63.3207 YU, P. H. —
China will announce Xi Jinping as the new leader of the nation and a new seven-member Politburo in the fall of 2012. Under this new “collective leadership”, China may become the wealthiest nation on Earth and achieve global political influence comparable to that of the US. I address the underlying question in the debate about China's future direction: what kind of leader will Xi Jinping be? Through an analysis of Xi's political position, which has been shaped by his family heritage, ideological and revolutionary characteristics, career experience, and the political dynamics that will confront him, the author discerns resemblances to Deng Xiaoping and envisions a strong leader stepping forward to direct China's move toward a new stage and to lead the Chinese Communist Party in its search for a new direction. [R, abr.]
63.3208
A roundtable introduced by Travis TANNER. Contributions by Yoichiro SATO, “Leadership changes and Japan in 2012–13”, pp. 49–55; REN Xiao, “China's leadership change and its implications for foreign relations”, pp. 56–61; LEE Sung-Yoon, “North Korean exceptionalism and South Korean conventionalism: prospects for a reverse formulation?”, pp. 62–68.
(b) State, regional and local institutions/Institutions locales et régionales
63.3209 ALBALATE DEL SOL, Daniel —
Interest in transparency is increasing worldwide. Literature on their determinants is evolving but is still in early stages. So far, it has typically focused on national governments while neglecting local governments. This paper examines the economic, social, and institutional determinants of local government transparency in Spain. We broaden the traditional fiscal focus by including corporate, social, contracting, and planning transparency indexes. Our results indicate that large municipalities and left-wing mayors report better transparency indexes, while the worst results are presented by provincial capitals, touristic cities and mayors with absolute majority. The analysis of specific transparency categories generally shows the consistent impact of these determinants. [R]
63.3210 ANDERSON, Jill —
When we understand our histories and identities in terms of the transnational forces that shaped nationalist frameworks, we discover substantial precedents for North American identities and cultural spaces. During and immediately after the War of 1848, US and Mexican liberal nationalists unsuccessfully crafted transnational identities in essays and editorials. The historical overlap of Mexican and US American New World liberalism, defined by awkward and uneven parallelisms, modifies common assumptions about histories of liberal nationalism and national identity formation. North American identities have arisen in strategic contexts defined by experiences of double-(un)consciousness, disjunction, fracture, and paradox. [R]
63.3211 ANDREWS, Rhys, et al. —
This study explores how English local governments managed high levels of worker migration from Eastern Europe in the wake of the enlargement of the EU in 2004. Theories of local government capacity suggest that strong central administration and vibrant community organizational life can increase the likelihood that public service performance will be maintained despite sudden shifts in the external environment. We explore the interactive effects of immigration and administrative and community capacity on English local government performance, using multivariate statistical techniques. The results suggest that local government capacity moderated the negative impact on performance of migration from Eastern Europe. [R]
63.3212 BASTIDA, Francisco; BEYAERT, Arielle; BENITO, Bernardino —
The literature provides both theories and empirical assessments that link national electoral cycles and opportunistic incumbents’ behavior. However, at the subnational level the literature is scarce. Using a panel of 238 Spanish municipalities over the period 1992–2005, this paper investigates whether electoral events contribute to shape municipal debt policies. We show that the electoral cycle influences the municipal debt per capita. Furthermore, both weak (no-majority) and wealthier municipal governments have higher levels of debt per capita. Finally, our data show that the 2001 Spanish Budgetary Stability Law (stemming from the European Stability and Growth Pact) appears to have reduced the electoral effect on municipal debt per capita. [R]
63.3213 BATTISTA, James C. —
I examine how the prevalence of US state legislators economically connected to an industry, and the diversity of economic connections in a legislature, vary in response to the employment share of that industry in the state, the partisan split of the legislature, and professionalization (or its components). I use conflict-of-interest filings for 1999–2000, 2000 Census employment data, and related data to examine the prevalence of connections to several sectors using seemingly unrelated regression. [R, abr.]
63.3214 BIANCHINI, Laura; REVELLI, Federico —
Ascertaining whether local election results are driven by incumbents’ performance while in office or mechanically reflect constituencies’ ideological affiliation and macroeconomic conditions is crucial for evaluating the alleged accountability-enhancing property of decentralization. On the basis of a unique score of urban environmental performance and the results of all elections held in the major Italian cities over a decade, we investigate the role of local (fiscal and environmental) vs. national issues in municipal elections. Although the empirical evidence points to a strong ideological attachment and a somewhat weaker “fiscal conservatism”, it reveals that media reported environmental rankings have an impact on the popularity of city governments. [R]
63.3215 BOYER, Mark A. —
Climate change is the signature global issue of our time, because of the host of socio-economic and physical impacts that will result from rising temperatures globally. But fundamentally for IR scholars, climate change confronts the policy limitations of sovereignty and its implications for global action directly. Because of the lack of effective global and even national climate-change policy action, policy initiatives to confront climate change must focus on levels below the global, even though economic models suggest that global policy provision might be the most efficient way to target the implications of climate change. Thus, this study centers on the complexity of climate change policymaking by focusing attention on the evolution of climate-change policy action in the New England [US] State of Connecticut, and its municipalities. [R, abr.]
63.3216 BUSER, Michael —
This paper engages with recent policy changes in the UK surrounding the government's Big Society and localism agenda. Examining the framework and condition through which these programs are developing in England, the article traces the conceptual democratic narrative and considers the implications and challenges for local government, the third sector and planning. Following this review, the author links emerging critiques and suggests a broad research agenda through which to reflect on changes in democratic policy and the shifting relationships between the state and civil society. [R]
63.3217 CARLIN, Patrick —
This article analyzes efforts by sub-regional government to plan for and implement language policy (LP). Data from six sub-regional authorities in the Basque Country, Catalonia and Wales are employed. Additionally, these data are applied to analyze party political support for LP activity as well as LP interaction across governance tiers. This paper discusses the extent to which regional governments’ legislative and fiscal support for overall LP objectives influences, restricts or otherwise engages subregional government LP activity. It begins to unravel the role that non-statewide nationalist and regional branches of statewide political parties play as LP facilitators at both sub-regional and regional level. Party activity in LP is subsequently interpreted as a measure through which to emphasize the values of (often overlapping) identity and solidarity patterns. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 63.3245]
63.3218 CLARKE, Michael —
Recent commentary on China's approach to Afghanistan has argued that it is either driven by opportunistic “free-riding” on US-NATO efforts or a fundamental caution determined by security concerns in its restive province of Xinjiang. In contrast, this paper argues that China has three primary goals with respect to Afghanistan that mirror those toward the other states in “Greater Central Asia”: (1) to ensure the security of Xinjiang; (2) to secure the development of greater economic links, including investment in natural resources; and (3) to combat the influence of the US and India. [R]
63.3219 COLEMAN BATTISTA, James; PERESS, Michael; RICHMAN, Jesse —
We present a new unified dataset of common-space ideal points, committee assignments, and financial interests for all [US] state legislators in 1999. We describe the compilation of the dataset and offer a few possible applications. [R]
63.3220 COLL-PLANAS, Gerard; CRUELLS, Marta —
In the framework of academic discussion, the necessity appears to deal with the interaction between different inequalities in public policy design and implementation, the intersectional being very interesting. More empiric analysis is needed in order to highlight the obstacles and advances in public policies. We analyze recent LGBT equality policies, and study the Catalan case, to see how they conceive the relationship between inequalities, and to detect the main factors that interfere with the implementation of an intersectional model. [R]
63.3221 CONLEY, Richard S. —
Little is known about comparative innovations in question-time procedure in Northern Ireland. This research provides an exploratory analysis of 1,999 oral questions to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, and 31,664 questions posed to other ministers in the four legislative sessions from 2007 to 2011. The theoretical framework focuses on how the practice of parliamentary questions reflects the consociational model of governance taking shape in the Stormont Assembly. The study accentuates a decline in the number of questions posed to the dual executive and other ministers over time — a dynamic that represents a purposeful effort on the part of the Assembly to decrease the number of questions through procedural reform, with the objective of obtaining more substantive answers. [R, abr.]
63.3222 CREGÅRD, Anna; SOLLI, Rolf; ZAPATA, Patrik —
This article examines the relationship between radical change in an institutional context and organizational innovation. It is based on an exploratory case study of three Icelandic local governments conducted in Autumn 2010 and Summer 2011. While many crises, when scrutinized closely, appear to be more like threats of crisis, Iceland's economic crisis is a genuine crisis with real and immediate effects. The three local governments studies responded to the crisis with actions that promote cooperation, reorganization, acquiescence and involvement. The study demonstrates that most of these actions were reactive and somewhat non-innovative, though some were innovative — at least in this particular context. [R]
63.3223 CUMMINS, Jeff —
Advocates of term-limits argued that term-limits would help reduce out-of-control government spending by removing veteran legislators who became acclimated to the pro-spending environment in our nation's capitals. However, previous research shows that term-limits may increase spending, which could jeopardize state fiscal health. This article examines whether states with term-limits encounter more fiscal problems than non-term-limited states. I suggest that the short-term fiscal outlooks and loss of experienced legislators produced by term-limit turnover lead to poor fiscal conditions. Myopic legislators may avoid tough fiscal decisions, while inexperienced legislators may be ill-equipped to develop sound fiscal policy. Analysis of budget data on US states from 1983 to 2008 reveals that legislative turnover decreases budget balances. [R, abr.]
63.3224 DÍEZ, Jordi —
[Although] several Latin American jurisdictions have extended rights to sexual minorities, political science attention to this development has been scant, and scholars know little about the factors that have led to these unprecedented policy changes. This article explains policy outcomes in a notoriously understudied policy area by comparing the two jurisdictions in Latin America that were the first to adopt same-sex unions: Buenos Aires and Mexico City. It first argues for the usefulness of engaging theoretical approaches to the study of social mobilization in policy analyses. Based on extensive field research, it subsequently advances the argument that the passage of these pieces of legislation in both cities is largely the result of the ability of very-well-organized activists to present an effectively framed policy within rare and favorable political conditions. [R]
63.3225 DUNNING, Thad; NILEKANI, Janhavi —
Ethnic quotas are often expected to induce distribution of material benefits to members of disadvantaged groups. [However,] cross-cutting affiliations within multi-ethnic party organizations may lessen the tendency of politicians to target benefits to particular ethnic groups. We evaluate the impact of quotas for the presidencies of village councils in India, a subject of considerable recent research. Drawing on fine-grained information from surveys of voters, council members, presidents, and bureaucrats and using a natural experiment to isolate the effects of quotas in the states of Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Bihar, we find weak distributive effects of quotas for marginalized castes and tribes, but suggestive evidence of the importance of partisanship. We then use survey experiments to compare the influence of party and caste on voting preferences and expectations of benefit receipt. [R, abr.]
63.3226 ERLINGSSON, Gissur Ó.; ÖDALEN, Jörgen —
When alternatives for the future design of local government are debated, a government needs to address two basic issues simultaneously: (1) “how big (and hence how many) municipalities ought the political system have?”, and (2) “how strong ought the principle of local self-government be in the constitution?” We argue that there are instrumental as well as substantial reasons to guarantee a strong local self-government in the constitution. However, such a reform needs to be complemented by a politically neutral body of regulations that, under given conditions, secures geographically concentrated minorities a right to secede. Although we use the Swedish case as the empirical base for the discussion, our analysis [is relevant to] the other Nordic countries and England. [R, abr.]
63.3227 FILINDRA, Alexandra —
This article examines differences in the drivers of state Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Medicaid immigrant eligibility policies, determined in the wake of the 1996 Welfare Reform. The findings show that differences in the incentive structures of the two programs may affect the way race politics influence each. Specifically, race is a strong negative correlate for TANF inclusion of immigrants as states with large African American populations were more likely to exclude legal permanent residents from the program. In the case of Medicaid, the size of the immigrant population is a strong positive correlate for inclusion. The effect of the size of the black population, although negative, is small and not significant. [R, abr.]
63.3228 HALABI, Sam Foster —
Against a backdrop of state constitutional and legislative initiatives aimed at limiting judicial use of international law, this article argues that [US] state judges have, by and large, interpreted treaties and customary international law so as to narrow their effect on state law-making prerogatives. Where they have used international law more liberally, they have done so to give effect to state executive and legislative objectives. This thesis suggests that the trend among state legislatures to limit state judges’ use of international law is self-defeating; it also gives substance to a relatively unexplored structural safeguard of federalism: state judges’ authority under the Supremacy Clause to harmonize treaties and customary international law with state constitutional, legislative, and common law, and to influence federal jurisprudence on the scope and effect of binding international law. [R, abr.]
63.3229 HAMBLETON, Robin; HOWARD, Joanna —
This article discusses place-based leadership and public service innovation. The troubling international economic outlook means that many local authorities are focusing on “efficiency savings” and the prevailing mantra in public policy circles is “do more with less”. This article contributes to “more with more” thinking. This approach strives to release the community and business energies of a locality. A conceptual framework for studying place-based leadership is presented. This distinguishes three, overlapping realms of leadership in any given locality: political leadership, managerial/professional leadership, and community and business leadership. Drawing on a study of the current Digital+Green initiative in Bristol, UK, the article suggests that an imaginative approach to place-based leadership — one that accepts intelligent risk-taking — offers potential for improving the local quality of life as well as strengthening local democracy. [R, abr.]
63.3230 HAYES, Bernadette C.; McALLISTER, Ian —
Designing political arrangements is the most viable approach to resolving inter-communal divisions in post-conflict societies. Yet women are frequently ill-served by such peace settlement, since gender equality is often sacrificed in an effort to resolve conflicts over national identity. Although the 1998 Northern Ireland Agreement made specific provision for gender equality, it was primarily framed in terms of national identity. This article examines to what extent this focus on inter-communal ethnic division undermined support for the Agreement among women. Using data from the 2010 Northern Ireland Election Survey, we examine gender differences in attitudes towards the consociational institutions of government. The results show a significant gender gap in support for the institutional arrangements that were established by the Agreement. We propose and test three explanations to account for this gender gap. [R]
63.3231 HE Xin —
Drawing on data from a mid-sized city in eastern China, this article examines interactions among the courts, the Party and other administrative agencies. It finds that, caught between unruly administrative agencies and legal rhetoric, the courts seek support from the Party to enhance their authority. They then devise tactics such as putting agencies’ chief officials on the stand, issuing judicial suggestions and applying the laws in innovative ways. These are often effective, because agencies adjust their behaviors accordingly. Contrary to conventional wisdom that the courts are only a passive actor in local politics, their role in translating national laws into local practice is by no means negligible. [R, abr.]
63.3232 HEIDBREDER, Brianne; SCHEURER, Katherine Felix —
Although the number of female [US] governors has more than doubled over the past thirty years, few studies examine whether gender influences the policy interests of governors. To address this gap in the literature, we analyze whether gender affects the policy agendas of governors. Conducting a content analysis of state of the state speeches between 2006 and 2008, we examine whether gender influences the presence of social welfare policies on the policy agendas of governors. Even after controlling for political and situational factors, our results suggest that female governors devote more agenda attention to social welfare policy than their male colleagues. [R]
63.3233 HERRICK, Rebekah —
Policy representation requires legislators to advance the interests of their constituents. As a consequence, much research on representation examines the congruence between constituents’ preferences and legislators’ behaviors. This article argues it is more realistic to think of policy representation as listening — a process — than congruence — an outcome. Listening involves legislators monitoring constituent interests and using that information in making decisions. Using data from a survey of state legislators in 26 states, this research finds that monitoring contributes to using constituent information and offers a measure of listening based on these two behaviors. [R, abr.]
63.3234 HOLMAN, Nancy; RYDIN, Yvonne —
Local government and the planning system in England are set to be significantly overhauled with the passage of the Localism Act, which received Royal Assent on 15th November 2011. The localism agenda sees a new enhanced role for community participation but this raises a number of key questions: Who will get involved? Will the Act foster NIMBYism? How far can the localism agenda engender action toward implementation? Using the concept of social capital we examine these questions and outline what the key dilemmas may be for localist planning, in the process assessing the value of the social capital concept for such an analysis. [R]
63.3235 JACKSON, Jeremy —
This paper provides a theory of earmarking based on the relative power of a legislature and executive. The politically powerful use earmarking as a means of resolving uncertainty and insulating preferred policy from the reach of future government. Tax revenue will be earmarked more often when political power is unified under one party or when a party has the legislative majority needed to overturn a gubernatorial veto. An empirical test of the theoretical predictions are conducted using a panel of data for US states. A state with a legislature controlled by a single party with a large enough majority to overturn a gubernatorial veto will earmark 5% more of its tax revenue than other states and a state with a unified government will earmark 6.5% more. [R, abr.]
63.3236 KALLIO, Tomi J.; KUOPPAKANGAS, Päivikki —
During the last decade, the number of municipal enterprises in Finland has almost tripled. This paper [examines] the phenomenon related to the recent mushrooming of municipal enterprises. This is done by three empirical case-analyses of university hospital laboratories. In two of the three case organizations, there is very little indication that any strategy or other rational reasoning would explain the adoption of municipal enterprise form, and the analysis suggests that institutional isomorphism plays an essential role in the adoption of the municipal enterprise form. Moreover, there are signs that the search for the “Third Way” of some local politicians, especially in the case of some early mover organizations, like the third case organization of this study, might have triggered the development which has led to the bandwagon effect. [R, abr.]
63.3237 KIRKLAND, Justin H. —
This article examines the role of wealth in the redistricting process in [US] state legislative contests. I argue that the decision by state redistricting mapmakers to pursue a “seat-swing” or “protection” strategy involves more than just a choice between where to move partisan voters. Redistricting may also allow parties to consider wealth as an additional resource to be concentrated or dispersed across legislative districts. To test this wealth-based hypothesis, I examine state redistricting plans in California and North Carolina. Logistic regression analyses of census-block group exchanges between state legislative districts reveal that income plays a significant role in redistricting decisions. [R]
63.3238 KOCH, Philippe —
Urban politics in the early 21st c. is structured by conflicts over social cohesion and economic competitiveness. Education policy takes center stage in this struggle as schools are institutions of both social and economic reproduction. I draw on arguments of urban regime and policy-frame analysis to examine the politics of urban school reform in two Swiss cities. Empirically, I analyze neighborhood-embedded bottom-up school reforms committed to social cohesion. The paths these reforms eventually take were shaped by different coalitions geared around specific school policy-frames. Frames indeed play a crucial role in building a coalition toward progressive school reforms. In addition, their sustainability in a political environment, increasingly shifting toward development policies, hinges on the dominant frame underlying the reforms as well as the properties of the network advancing them. [R]
63.3239 KORT, Michiel; KLIJN, Erik-Hans —
Public-private entities set up to manage and implement urban regeneration projects have been observed across several nations. One of the core ideas driving the establishment of these partnerships is that these organizations should function at arm's length from the political institutions that oversee them. A specific question [raised] is how representative mechanisms work and how the partnership process is connected to principles of democratic legitimacy. This paper explores the democratic legitimacy of urban regeneration companies, as a form of public-private partnership. It distinguishes between three types of democratic legitimacy: accountability, voice, and due deliberation. Using material from a survey among managers of urban regeneration companies (URCs) in The Netherlands, this paper examines the impact of these three forms of democratic legitimacy on outcomes and trust of these URCs. [R, abr.]
63.3240 KUKOVIĆ, Simona; PREBILIĆ, Vladimir —
The paper analyzes the question of relations between the mayor and deputy-mayor, particularly in terms of division of competences. It also deals with the standpoints of mayors and deputy-mayors regarding the institution of deputy-mayor. Furthermore, it verifies the assumption that the current regulatory framework regarding the appointment (and determination of competences) of the deputy-mayor is not entirely appropriate. Based on the analysis of objective data and research surveys among mayors and deputy-mayors of Slovenian municipalities, we analyze the problems of the functioning of those players. We learn that the current Slovenian legislation is favorable to consolidating the position and power of the mayor, because he/she can freely appoint and determine competences of the deputy-mayor(s). [R]
63.3241 LEVINE, Jeremy R.; WILSON, William Julius —
Cash-strapped municipalities throughout the US are increasingly proposing innovative education policies linking school-based reforms with neighborhood-level interventions. Boston is one such city. We describe, analyze, and critique the City of Boston's “Circle of Promise” initiative, a holistic education policy designed to coordinate school reforms with local community-based organizational resources. We link our discussion of challenges and critiques with the term “institutional entrenchment”, referring to institutional barriers to successful urban policies and the defense of the status quo. We conclude with suggestions for future policy to overcome the impediments of institutional entrenchment, and by extension, improve educational opportunities for students in underperforming urban schools. [R]
63.3242 LOWRY, Robert C. —
Social services in the US are supplied by both the public and private sectors. Previous political science research has focused on public transfers or Medicaid; I study “Other Public Welfare” programs that include contracts and grants to private social services providers, focusing on the relationship between the two sectors. My results imply that an increase in either Other Public Welfare spending or private individual and family services employees leads to an increase in the other sector. I find weaker evidence of similar relationships involving private residential care or day care services, and private social services employment is generally independent of public spending on transfers and Medicaid. [R, abr.]
63.3243 MAZAHERI, Nimah, et al. —
This study examines the role of leadership in the development of transportation infrastructure, specifically bridges, in the Indian state of Bihar during the 2000s. Drawing from interviews and quantitative data, we show that leadership was a critical factor in fostering institutional change in the state government's bridge organization. Three leaders worked as a coalition to mobilize resources, enforce new rules of the game, and motivate staff; thereby transforming the organization from a chronic under-provider of bridges to a more effective provider. Our study contributes to the emerging research about how the role of leadership shapes development outcomes in low-income countries. [R] [First article of a thematic issue on “State, society and governance”. See also Abstr. 63.2799, 2949, 3356, 3392]
63.3244 MENAHEM, Gila; STEIN, Rona —
This paper argues that to enhance the theoretical value of the concept of governance, one must focus on how governance networks operate and with what outcomes. It offers a typology of governance-network capacity (GNC). Network capacity is assessed on a continuum from low to high, on the basis of four abilities of public actors: to select non-public collaborators, determine the goals of the network, exercise professional discretion, and recruit new resources. Differences in GNC are discussed in terms of their implications for equality and the degree to which new forms of governing networks create bases for retaining or increasing the inequality between municipalities. The paper presents findings from a study of collaborations between public and non-public actors in 78 governance networks that provide welfare services, operating in six municipalities in Israel. [R]
63.3245 MILEY, Thomas Jeffrey —
This article focuses on the representation of preferences with regards to language policy in Catalonia. Social surveys produced by a variety of organizations demonstrate that there is a substantial gap between the political preferences of significant segments of the general population of Catalonia and the political preferences of their representatives at the Parliament of Catalonia. In particular, the language policy implemented by the Catalan elites is not consistent with the preferences of Castilian-speaking working-class citizens. The article identifies two mechanisms of “blocked articulation” which impede the representation of the preferences of these voters in the region's representative institutions: (1) the under-representation of Castilian-speakers in the region's representative institutions; and (2) the partial assimilation of elected Castilian-speakers into the attitudes and preferences of the Catalan-speaking, hegemonic fraction of the political establishment. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on “Ethnolinguistic mobilizations in Europe”, edited and introduced, pp. 1–6, by Jean-Baptiste Paul HARGUINDÉGUY and Alistair COLE. [First article of a thematic issue on “Ethnolinguistic mobilizations in Europe”, edited and introduced, pp. 1–6, by Jean-Baptiste Paul HARGUINDÉGUY and Alistair COLE. See also Abstr. 63.2858, 3050, 3095, 3217, 3901]
63.3246 MINKOFF, Scott L. —
This paper explores the conditions under which local governments are likely to engage in formalized intergovernmental developmental cooperation. The author theorizes that policy competition, informational and divisional transaction costs, and resources condition the likelihood of institutional collective action. Data from a variety of sources — including a unique author-conducted survey of local officials in Colorado [US] — are used to test hypotheses in a dyadic model of local cooperation. Results indicate that agreements are more likely in competitive policy-making environments and when jurisdictions have more informational resources. [R]
63.3247 MONOGAN, James E., III —
This article asks what shaped immigrant policy in the 50 states between 2005 and 2011. Theoretically, politicians are influenced by electoral considerations as they craft laws. Law-makers consider both current public opinion and how the electorate is likely to change, at least in the near future. Empirically, the article analyzes an original dataset on immigrant-related laws enacted by the states with a Bayesian spatial conditionally autoregressive model. The analysis shows that state immigrant policy is affected primarily by legislative professionalism, electoral ideology, state wealth and change in the foreign-born population. [R]
63.3248 NORRIS, Donald F.; REDDICK, Christopher G. —
The authors address the recent trajectory of local e-government in the US and compare it with the predictions of early e-government writings, using empirical data from two nationwide surveys of e-government among American local governments. The authors find that local e-government has not produced the results that those writings predicted. Instead, its development has largely been incremental, and local e-government is mainly about delivering information and services online, followed by a few transactions and limited interactivity. Local e-government is also mainly one way, from government to citizens, and there is little or no evidence that it is transformative in any way. [R, abr.] [Followed by Elliot SCHLANGER's commentary, “E-gov: will the real ‘cyber-optimists’ please stand up?”, pp. 176–177]
63.3249 OBIYO, Robert —
This paper examines legislative oversight of the Executive in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa, since the divisions within the ANC in the run-up to the party's 2007 Polokwane conference. It explores the dynamics of oversight and experiences of MPLs of the governing and opposition parties and of legislators and senior officials of government. Importantly, it assesses the perception and confidence of citizens in rural communities in the oversight process of the Legislature. The paper argues that the factions within the ruling party have had remarkable impact on the oversight of the Executive. While a vital element of the legislative process in the Eastern Cape, oversight is weak and ineffective: ineffectual oversight intersects with citizen apathy in legislative and oversight processes in the province. [R]
63.3250 RAMESH, M. —
The government of Hong Kong has been trying to reform the territory's health-care financing system since the early 1990s and is finally on the verge of succeeding. This paper assesses the reform efforts and explain the causes of repeated failures and eventual success. It argues that the government's fortunes changed only after it abandoned the core reform goal and decided to pursue peripheral objectives. It explains the abandonment with reference to the peculiar political system in Hong Kong that makes it difficult for the government to adopt substantial policy reforms in the face of even moderate opposition. The reason for the government's policy incapacity is the existence of liberalism in a non-democratic setting, which allows the government to neither suppress opposition nor mobilize popular support. [R, abr.]
63.3251 RIVERSTONE-NEWELL, Lori —
Local officials engage in activism by passing laws in defiance of state and/or federal authority. Their intent is to stimulate policy change or, at least, to force a higher government response. What effect, if any, do their actions have? This study employs event-history analysis, seeking to determine whether there is a relationship between local activism and state response as it pertains to the local Bill of Rights movement. In this movement, some localities and states passed resolutions or ordinances in opposition to the USA PATRIOT Act. While legislative professionalism is related to state resolution activity, the stronger predictor is the breadth of diffusion among localities. [R]
63.3252 SANDERSON, Ian —
Recent work on the attributes of “good government” has emphasized the importance of a capacity for learning. In a conception of “intelligent government” based on Deweyan pragmatism, the capacities of experimentation, learning and inclusive, deliberative policy-making are central. The relevance of Deweyan pragmatism to contemporary thinking about reform and improvement of policy making can be seen in C.F. Sabel's conception of “democratic experimentalism” [Beyond Principal-Agent Governance: Experimentalist Organizations, Learning and Accountability, New York, 2004]. This article discusses recent developments in government and policy-making in Scotland, especially under the SNP administration, to assess the extent to which there are moves towards this pragmatic model, with a focus on recent changes in the relationship with local government and on modes of performance management, scrutiny and “regulation”. [R] [Part of a series of articles on “Developing policy in different cultural contexts: learning from study, learning from experience”. See also Abstr. 63.3147, 3689]
63.3253 STAFFORD, Ian; AYRES, Sarah —
The coalition government has set out plans to dismantle the regional tier and return powers to localities and Whitehall departments. These changes will have significant implications for transport policy in England. When in power, New Labour introduced a range of measures to strengthen governance arrangements for promoting a more joined-up and decentralized approach to transport policy, including Regional Funding Allocations (RFAs). This paper examines the opportunities and limitations of the RFA process and considers the consequences of removing these regional structures for transport policy in England. We conclude that important progress made in recent years to develop effective arrangements for identifying transport priorities at the sub-national tier could be derailed by the Coalition's intention to remove regional governance structures in their entirety. [R]
63.3254 TAHARA, Fumiki —
What does “local self-governance” mean in post-communist Russia and China? The article focuses on village-level governance in both countries by employing a four-fold typology of village leadership in public affairs. In both countries, the withdrawal of state power from local communities and the introduction of legislative “self-government” has not brought autonomy to the local and community levels. The findings here suggest that the single “state agent” category of village leadership that emerged under the communist regime is shifting to become one of the remaining three types, “principal”, “local agent” and “bystander”. [R, abr.]
63.3255 TAPLIN, Ross; RUSMIN, Rusmin; BROWN, Alistair —
Through different forms of decentralization variables, this study investigates Indonesian local government authorities’ 2006 financial accountability reports in terms of local government authorities’ contributing funds to political parties. Audit results by the Supreme Audit Body reveal that many articles were violated by these authorities in regard to the distributing, administrating, and reporting of assistance funds from them to political parties. Each rupiah committed by the 221 local government authorities involved in this study violated, on average, 1.8 articles, indicating a low level of compliance. Critically, the study finds that administrative, fiscal, and political decentralization decreases discrepancies. [R, abr.]
63.3256 TERIZAKIS, Georgios —
Urban development in Greece has led to urban sprawl and sometimes to aesthetically questionable urban forms. This article argues that a deeper understanding of urban development in Greece may be gained by reconsidering and interpreting a large body of literature, taken from various academic disciplines, in the light of political science, whereby a special focus is made on the relation of urban development to the development of the state. Urban development is discussed along the thematic lines of its genesis and within its political context, and with particular reference to the local level and the particularities of Greek cities. To this end, special attention is devoted to Athens, the city examined in greatest detail and in most case studies. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 63.3272]
63.3257 THIREAU, Isabelle, ed. —
English version: see Abstr. 63.3258.
63.3258 THIREAU, Isabelle, ed. —
Editor's introduction, pp. 2–6. Articles by DI Wang, “Operating norms and practices of residents’ committees: the consequences and limits of management by numbers”, pp. 7–16; Emmanuel CARON, “Interactions between Chengguan and street vendors in Beijing: how the unpopularity of an administration affects relations with the public”, pp. 17–28; KAI Zhang, “Who is relocating whom in the renovation of Shanghai's old city?”, pp. 29–40; Boris SVARTZMAN, “The leap to the city: resistance and transition in a Chinese village facing urbanization”, pp. 41–52; Karine-Hinano GUÉRIN, “Recognising adoption: family relationships tested by birth control”, pp. 53–60; Xénia DE HEERING, “Providing access to water. The pump, the spring, and the klu. Brokerage and loval development on the Tibetan Plateau”, pp. 61–72.
63.3259 WENZELBURGER, Georg —
The German Länder have very limited power over taxation [and] are largely dependent on national legislation. In order to bypass this restraint, the German Länder sell assets and privatize state-owned enterprises and thus increase their revenue. However, the extent of the proceeds has varied considerably over time and among Länder. This article examines the state-wise variation of asset-sales variation quantitatively. According to the results of the analysis, three main variables influence the size of these one-time revenues: the initial level of assets in a given Land, the economic situation and — somewhat less important — the ideological position of the government and the budgetary process. [R]
63.3260 ZEEDANA, Rami —
This article discusses the 2003 plan to combine local authorities in Israel and its implementation. In the framework of this plan, 28 local authorities were unified into 12 authorities, including some in the non-Jewish sector, so as to reduce government expenditure and to enable the local authorities to function more efficiently. This article shows that while unification did not always achieve its goals, in nearly all the unified Jewish municipalities that did succeed success was outstanding; by contrast, all unifications in the non-Jewish sector failed. [R] [See Abstr. 63.3937]