Abstract
(a) Central institutions/Institutions centrales
65.5217 ABREU NUNES, Filipe —
What is the position of the Portuguese administrative elites in the confrontation between professional autonomy and their politicization? In Portugal a pattern of professional autonomy within central government prevails. While keeping certain clientelistic traits at the local level, the Portuguese case reveals a new kind of politicization in public administration — in line with what is happening in other Western democracies. In sum, Portugal has an hybrid administrative elite recruitment pattern, containing predominant elements of professional autonomy within the central government, combined with elements of political control at agencies' level, and even clientelistic elements in the state's local branches. [R]
65.5218 ADLER, Jonathan H.; CANNON, Michael F. —
Does the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 authorize tax credits within the thirty-six [US] states that failed to establish health insurance exchanges? That is the question presented in Pruitt v. Burwell, Halbig v. Burwell, King v. Burwell, and Indiana v. IRS. The plaintiffs argue that the statute is clear and forecloses any possibility of tax credits in federal exchanges. The government argues that the statute plainly authorizes tax credits in federal exchanges, or is at least ambiguous on the question. Mere disagreement is not evidence of ambiguity. Reaching the truth requires wading deep into each side's arguments. Whether the relevant text is viewed in isolation or in its full statutory context, the ACA authorizes tax credits only in exchanges established by the states. [R] [See also Abstr. 65.5228]
65.5219 ALBRECHT, Holger —
The popular mass uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) call into question the assumption, widespread prior to the “Arab Spring”, that militaries in these countries were subservient to civilianized and consolidated authoritarian regime incumbents. In most countries militaries have stepped in to suppress uprisings, replace incumbents, or cause civil wars. The analysis of political-military relations explains the immediate outcome of popular mass mobilization in the MENA region and helps re-conceptualize coup-proofing as an important authoritarian survival strategy. Accounting for variation in the degree of officers' loyalty toward incumbents provides an opportunity to test the efficacy of coup-proofing. The article accounts for questions largely ignored in the theoretical literature: which coup-proofing mechanisms work best, and [in] which circumstances? [R, abr.]
65.5220 ALIYEV, Huseyn —
This study examines the role of informal networks in providing “freedoms from want” and “freedoms from fear” to the population. With the primary focus on post-communist South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia), it conducts a rigorous examination of informal networks' critical function as sources of human (in)security since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Based on a combination of open-ended elite (expert) interviews, field observation and closed-ended survey data, it demonstrates that apart from the informal networks' crucial role in generating social capital and functioning as indispensable social safety nets, they also exacerbate human insecurity by cementing the traditions of clientelism and corruption that are deeply entrenched in the region. [R]
65.5221 ANDERSEN, Lars Erslev —
There have only been two terrorist attacks in Denmark over the last thirty years: in 1985 and 2015. Other attacks have been prevented, notably those planned against the illustrators whose drawings of the prophet Mohammed were published in Jyllands-Posten. In dealing with terrorism, Denmark has been at the forefront of developing counter-radicalization programs. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether these programs are actually useful. It may even be that they are counter-productive. [R]
65.5222 ART, David —
Do extreme-right parties in contemporary Europe shape policy in meaningful ways? J. Carvalho's [Impact of Extreme Right Parties on Immigration Policy: Comparing Britain, France and Italy, New York, 2013] charts complicated intellectual terrain, and the author demonstrates that while radical-right parties have made a modest political impact in some states, they have achieved much less than one might have expected in their central policy area (immigration). After reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of Carvalho's analysis, I suggest that his findings are consistent with the general “containment” (as opposed to “contagion”) of the radical right in (Western) Europe. The notion that the populist right has been “contained” in Europe may seem odd at first blush, but a comparison with the US suggests that it may be a fruitful theoretical starting point. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5443]
65.5223 ASATRYAN, Zareh; FELD, Lars P.; GEYS, Benny —
Recent theoretical research suggests that financing sub-national governments' expenditure out of own revenue sources is linked to more responsible budgeting, because the financial implications of spending decisions then are internalized within a jurisdiction. We test this proposition empirically on a sample of 23 OECD countries over the 1975–2000 period, and find evidence in line with the hypothesis that greater revenue decentralization (measured as sub-national governments' share of own-source tax revenues in general government tax revenue) is associated with improved sub-national government budget deficits/surpluses. This finding is cross-validated with a novel, independent dataset consisting of all 34 OECD member states from 2002 to 2008. [R]
65.5224 AVDEEV, Dmitrij A. —
[Established] in the Constitution of the Russian Federation the republican form of government became a theme of scientific discussions about what type of republic is a modern domestic form of government. The author outlines some characteristics of the republican form of government and shows especially the domestic form of government. The author speaks about definite dependence of form of the government from feeling for law and order. The unique feeling for law and order and mentality of the Russian nation influences greatly the form of the government of the domestic state. The legal culture of modern Russian society is qualitative index of political, social and economical transformations occurring in the Russian Federation. [R, abr.]
65.5225 AVSAR, Rojhat B. —
The [US] Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires individuals to get coverage or pay a fine (or “shared responsibility payment”) starting in 2014. This mandate had been at the center of a contentious political and legal debate. Although the Mandate is key to ending discriminations based on pre-existing conditions in the individual insurance market, its constitutionality had been challenged. We argue that the B. Obama administration's legal argument for the constitutionality of the Mandate by invoking conventional economic categories such as “negative externalities” is inadequate in addressing the economic and moral significance of the Mandate. As an alternative, we suggest a Rawlsian approach. Specifically, we will borrow the Rawlsian notion of “collective asset” to articulate the moral appeal of the Mandate and its social insurance logic. [R]
65.5226 AXT, Heinz-Jürgen —
Greece's new government, elected in January 2015, promised to offer the Greeks, hit by the financial crisis so bitterly, a better future and to enforce a debt-relief, so that “the dictatorship” of the lenders' Troika — experts from the IMF, the ECB and the European Commission — would end. But the new government had to ask the creditors for an extension of the current bailout. Much time was lost, as no compromise between Greek authorities and the lenders could be found. The government showed no willingness to continue with fiscal consolidation and structural reforms to strengthen Greece's international competitiveness. [Lacking] ties to the political establishment in Greece, it should have the chance to combat corruption, clientelism and tax-evasion. There has been no sign that the government enforces this reform potential. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5332]
65.5227 BACH, Tobias; RUFFING, Eva; YESILKAGIT, Kutsal —
This article examines the influence of Europeanization on the relationship between ministries and agencies at the national level. The core argument is that the differentiated nature of the international environment (with policy development often transferred to the international level and policy implementation left at the national level) transforms national agencies into policy-developing actors that shape policies without being directly influenced by their national political principals. The increasingly common involvement of national agencies in European policy-making processes thereby increases these agencies' policy-development autonomy but does not change their role in policy implementation. We examine this argument by testing an innovative hypothesis — the differentiation hypothesis — on a combined data-set of German and Dutch national agencies. [R, abr.]
65.5228 BAGLEY, Nicholas —
As an essential part of its effort to achieve near universal coverage, the [US] Affordable Care Act (ACA) extends sizable tax credits to most people who buy insurance on the newly established health care exchanges. Yet several lawsuits have been filed challenging the availability of those tax credits in the thirty-four states that refused to set up their own exchanges. The lawsuits are premised on a strained interpretation of the ACA that, if accepted, would make a hash of other provisions of the statute and undermine its effort to extend coverage to the uninsured. The courts should reject this latest effort to dismantle a critical feature of the ACA. [R] [See also Abstr. 65.5218]
65.5229 BAKER, Keith; STOKER, Gerry —
The British, American, French and Finnish governments are seeking to promote investment in a new generation of nuclear power plants. Nuclear power programs are delivered through networks of international companies through which government must manage. This is consistent with the concept of governance. Governments can advance their policy goals by using a variety of policy instruments to shape and organize governance networks. This is known as metagovernance. The paper considers the extent to which the selection and deployment of the policy instruments used to metagovern is informed by the prevailing tradition of government. The paper examines how the British, American, French and Finnish governments have tried to metagovern. [R, abr.]
65.5230 BALLA, Steven J. —
This article investigates the accessibility and transparency of a particularly important administrative procedure, the notice and comment process [in the USA]. The article presents a theoretical account of the operation of political control and bureaucratic discretion in two aspects of the notice and comment process — the duration of comment periods and timeliness of the circulation of comments. The results of the analysis of original data demonstrate that both external constraints and agency need for policy information affect the duration of comment periods and circulation of comments. These results, which are unexpected from the perspective that the notice and comment process is procedurally neutral, imply that normative values such as accessibility and transparency cannot be meaningfully separated from the politics of political control and bureaucratic discretion. [R, abr.]
65.5231 BASTIAN, Jens —
Four months after the change of government in Greece, the fiscal and economic situation of the country continues to deteriorate. The new left-right coalition government of Prime Minister A. Tsipras is engaged in complex and controversial negotiations with its European partners and international creditors. The longer a compromise appears out of reach, the more the sword of Damocles looms large as regards a possible sovereign debt default. The contribution addresses the context in which the new government in Athens operates its limited options for compromise and the increasing skepticism articulated by its European partners. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5332]
65.5232 BAUMANN, Markus; DEBUS, Marc; MÜLLER, Jochen —
While party unity in legislative voting is generally high in parliamentary democracies, debates provide MPs with the opportunity to express political views even if they deviate from the party line. Using the extensive parliamentary debates on the reform of the Irish abortion legislation in 2001 and 2013, we assess whether Teachtaí Dála (TD) send signals to their constituents. In doing so, we take into account literature on the individual preference formation of political actors as well as institutional accounts that stress vote-seeking resulting from the electoral system. We also argue that personal characteristics like gender and family status should affect the positions of TDs on the abortion issue. [R, abr.]
65.5233 BEEVERS, Michael D. —
Natural resources are central to peace-building. International actors authorize UN sanctions to disrupt the trade in resources that fuel conflict. In the aftermath of conflict, international actors intervene to influence how natural resources are governed to ensure that resources contribute to post-conflict recovery. This article examines international efforts to govern forests in Liberia and diamonds and minerals in Sierra Leone to better understand the extent to which natural resources have helped establish the underlying conditions for peace. It suggests that, despite reducing the likelihood that resource revenues will fuel conflict, a decade of natural-resource governance has made peace-building more challenging. Rather than foster cooperation and trust, governance interventions leave unaddressed historical sources of tension and create new sources of instability. [R]
65.5234 BEKKEVOLD, Jo Inge; STENSLIE, Stig —
It might be expected that Xi Jinping, at the top of a one-party state, has the power and ability to reform China. This article analyzes how structural constraints limit Xi Jinping's power and freedom of action using his ability to implement a new course for the country's economic policy as case. To avoid being caught in the middle-income trap, China must adjust its investment and export-driven model to a more innovation, consumer and welfare-based development model. We use the school of historical institutionalism as framework, and examine how (1) path dependency, (2) informal structures, norms and values, (3) institutional autonomy, and (4) institutional capacity in different ways limit and constrain the power and ability of Xi Jinping to implement a successful restructuring of the country's economic model. [R, abr.]
65.5235 BÉLAND, Daniel; WADDAN, Alex —
We suggest that, to improve our understanding of how ideas and institutions interact to produce change, it is important to break down these two overly broad concepts: students of public policy should itemize “ideas” and “institutions” into more focused, and empirically traceable, subcategories while recognizing the changing and contingent nature of their interaction, over time. To illustrate this, we turn to the politics of tax policy in the US and the UK, tracking developments from the rise of the New Right and an aggressive income tax cutting agenda, personified by President R. Reagan and Prime Minister M. Thatcher, through to the revived debate about the legitimacy of increasing taxes on those earning the highest incomes that emerged in the era of austerity that followed the Great Recession of 2008. [R, abr.]
65.5236 BERINSKY, Adam J.; CHATFIELD, Sara —
Over the past several years, there has been growing use of the draft lottery instrument to study political attitudes and behaviors. Draft lotteries, held in the US from 1969 to 1972, should provide true randomization for the “treatment” of military service or behavioral reactions to the threat of such service. However, the first draft lottery conducted in 1969 was not conducted in a random manner, giving those citizens born in the fourth quarter of the year disproportionately higher chances of being drafted. We describe the randomization failure and discuss how this failure could in theory compromise the use of draft lottery numbers as an instrumental variable. [R, abr.]
65.5237 BEUMAN, Lydia M. —
One of the most well-known and longstanding arguments against semi-presidential systems is the problem of cohabitation: where the president and the prime minister are from opposing political groups and where the president's party is not represented in the cabinet. People believe that cohabitation exaggerates tension between the president and the prime minister, leading to conflict and democratic instability. However, recent work questions the relation between cohabitation and democratic instability. These contradictory findings call for a more nuanced approach to the analysis of cohabitation on the consolidation of young democracies. This article tests the effect of cohabitation on the performance of Timor-Leste's nascent democracy. It finds institutional conflict during cohabitation. The Timor-Leste case suggests that not all conflicts will cause political instability but rather a certain type of institutional conflict. [R, abr.]
65.5238 BIHONEGN, Tesfa —
Ethiopia's federal design has a number of anomalies interesting for comparative federalism. The explicit right to secede provided to member states has become, however, real political dynamite in the country. This article deals with this right, its constitutionalization, its constitutional and ideological underpinnings, and its practical impacts on federal construction for the last two decades. It challenges the political expediency views on its constitutionalization and argues that the inclusion of the right in the federal constitution is motivated by ideological reasons. [Examining] the powers member states are provided by this “generous” constitution, it reveals its staggering paradoxes. As far as the practical impacts of the right are concerned, the hefty controversy the constitutionalization of the right has continued creating in the country is a significant federal nuisance. [R]
65.5239 BINDER, Sarah —
Is the US Congress dysfunctional? The American public thinks so: In the summer of 2014, just 7% approved strongly of Congress. Still, legislative scholars disagree about the severity of Congress's legislative challenges. Is legislative deadlock a sign that Congress can no longer identify and resolve major public problems? Or are Congress's difficulties temporary and correctable? I review theoretical and empirical literatures on the dynamics of lawmaking and evaluate alternative methods for testing lawmaking theories. Finally, I draw on recent research to put contemporary stalemate into historical perspective. I argue that even when Congress and the president have reached agreement on the big issues of the day, Congress's problem-solving capacity appears to have fallen to new lows in recent years. [R, abr.]
65.5240 BOSWELL, Christina —
Performance targets tend to be depicted as management tools, designed to improve public policy outcomes. Yet targets also have a symbolic function, signaling commitment to and underscoring achievement of political goals. This article explores the tension between these “disciplining” and “signaling” functions, looking at UK targets on asylum, 2000–2010. Attempts to combine the two functions led to three types of problem: (1) technical targets designed to steer organizational performance lacked political resonance, prompting politicians to resort to top-down, political targets; (2) the imposition of unfeasible political targets created distortions in the organization, encouraging forms of gaming; and (3) the political risks of adopting stretch targets were not offset by the dividends of positive attention when targets were met: the government was unable to establish targets as the predominant mode of assessing its performance. [R, abr.]
65.5241 BRETT, Daniel —
Drawing on the work of M. Duverger, this paper explores the dynamics of dual systems in the post-communist world by focusing on Romania. Unlike in states such as Poland and Russia, where conflicts between the president and the parliament were resolved relatively early in the transition period, conflict appears to have only recently emerged in Romania. This paper argues that the capacity for such conflict has existed since 1989 due to the nature of Romania's exit from communism and its subsequent transition, which shaped and institutionalized Romanian political culture and its party system. However, actual conflict has emerged only because of recent, externally generated changes in the party system, and the relative decline in the electoral power of the Social Democratic Party. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5715]
65. 5242a BURKE, Sharon; SCHNEIDER, Emily —
Infrastructure has always been a target in a time of war, both to erode military capabilities and to bring political pressure to bear. Recent attacks on the electric grid in the US and around the world have underscored that critical infrastructure is still very much a target today. Indeed, senior Obama administration officials have expressed concerns about the rising vulnerability of the American electric grid to cyber-attacks, even as the administration has invested billions in “smart grid” technologies that have the potential to increase the vulnerability of US energy infrastructure. This article examines the risks, vulnerabilities, and threats facing the US electric grid, concluding that building resiliency to everyday threats and hazards, such as climate change and “insider” threats, will go a long way towards preventing cyber and other deliberate attacks. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4861]
65.5242b CAIRNEY, Paul; WIDFELDT, Anders —
The idea of “new politics” in Scotland, in the 1990s, was based on a rejection of the “majoritarian” politics of “old Westminster” in favor of a “consensus democracy” associated with Scandinavian countries. Yet, the nascent literature suggests that Scottish and UK policy-making practices are similar. UK policy-making does not live up to its majoritarian reputation and Scotland was designed with key “old Westminster” features. We extend the comparison to Sweden, as one of several, distinctive, Nordic reference points in Scotland. We examine critically its consensual image and identify the ways in which Scotland has similar features. The study helps clarify the practical meaning of majoritarian and consensus and encourages scholars to focus on actual behavior rather than policymaking reputations. [R, abr.]
65.5243a CALISE, Mauro —
M. Renzi has turned Italy into a “leader democracy”, which has a direct impact in many aspects of the country's public life. In particular, there are three main fields in which unmistakable signs of the personalization of the regime have appeared, although very different from those of S. Berlusconi's government. The first pillar of the new order is represented by the personalization of the political party; the second, by the primacy of the executive and the third, the decline of the party system. It is important to safeguard the parties' systemic function and to limit the Prime Minister's powers with a view to preserving democracy in Italy.
65. 5243b CAMERLO, Marcelo; PÉREZ-LIÑÁN, Aníbal —
Under what conditions should presidents reshuffle the cabinet in response to critical events? We propose a model that underscores the interplay of political shocks, the electoral calendar, and constitutional term limits to explain cabinet turnover in presidential regimes. Our theory indicates that mass protests and media scandals represent critical events with different political dynamics. While presidents seeking reelection may choose to protect activist ministers in order to deliver successful policy outcomes, there is little to be gained in the long run from recurrent scandals. However, presidents discount long-term goals when elections are close and when they initiate a lame-duck period. We test those predictions using survival analysis with an original data-set for 12 Latin American democracies between 1978 and 2007. [R]
65.5244 CARMEN PARDO, Maria del —
This paper examines the process of administrative modernization of the government of Felipe Calderón in the light of its political context and seeks to compare it with the actions undertaken during the government of Vicente Fox. It further analyzes the strategies implemented and the results obtained. The underlying premise is that the contextual political and economic factors relating to when the government enters office and prevailing during the administration conditioned the scope of the administrative modernization and placed limits on its utility. Although isolated changes were achieved, a comprehensive process of reform was not established in order to strengthen the government, at least at the federal level. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5358]
65.5245 CAROLIN, Christopher —
China has been a coastal fishing nation known for targeting “trash fish”, which are smaller, less valuable coastal and bottom-dwelling species. Over the last thirty years, the country's fishing activities have evolved considerably as China has grown increasingly reliant on a growing Distant Water Fishing (DWF) fleet to provide for the steadily rising domestic demand for wild-caught fish. This study explores the possible environmental security implications of China's large and growing DWF fleet. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4861]
65.5246 CERULLI IRELLI, Vincenzo —
The constitutional reform in Italy focuses on the possible revision of Parliament and of the territorial governments. So, they are considered the possibility to transform the Senate into a representative Chamber of the regional and local authorities, differentiating structures and functions of the two Houses. While on the second side appears of particular relevance the suppression of provinces. [R]
65.5247 CETIN, Elif —
Immigration has become a highly salient international issue over the last two decades with increased socio-economic and political significance. This led to the development of a wide range of policy measures aimed at either halting migrants from reaching Europe or deterring them from settling in their preferred countries of destination. Such externalization of border controls have profound effects on relations between countries. Drawing on qualitative data, the paper investigates how and with what effects the foreign policy of immigration controls have been developing in Italy, one of the frontline immigration countries of the EU which has been increasingly engaging with practices of “de-territorial cooperation on migration”. It examines the imprint of left-wing parties on Italy's immigration policy developments in order to gauge left-wing coalitions' influence on the overall direction of [such] policies. [R]
65.5248 CHALMERS, Adam William —
This article assesses when and why financial industry actors mobilize in order to influence securities markets regulations. Do these mobilization patterns suggest undue influence by a small set of powerful industry actors, or do they reflect the engagement of a more diverse set of actors representing broader public interests? It is argued that variation in mobilization patterns is a function of: (1) institutional opportunity (the openness and accessibility of regulatory politics); and (2) demonstration effects (how crises increase the salience of regulatory issues). Empirical analyses suggest that the financial crisis diminished the diversity of mobilizing actors. This trend, however, is reversed when the news media disseminate information about the costs of weak financial regulation and thereby increase the salience of regulatory issues. [R, abr.]
65.5249 CHATZOPOULOU, Sevasti —
This article joins the Europeanization studies and examines the administrative adaptation to Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), a highly institutionalized and regulated policy, in two small older member states, Denmark and Greece. The findings demonstrate variation in administrative adaptation. In Denmark, both formal and informal administrative structures adapt to CAP, while in Greece administrative adaptation is limited to formal structures. This variation is attributed to two dimensions of the domestic institutional and organizational settings, namely “centralization” and “professionalism”. The comparative analysis provides an in-depth understanding of the administrative differences between North and South — a cleavage that became prominent during the Eurozone crisis. [R]
65.5250 CHEIBUB, José Antonio; MARTIN, Shane; RASCH, Bjørn Erik —
Provisions for a parliamentary investiture vote have become increasingly common in parliamentary democracies. This article shows that investiture provisions were largely introduced when new constitutions were written or old ones fundamentally redesigned. It also shows that the constitutions that endowed executives with strong legislative agenda powers also endowed parliaments with strong mechanisms to select the executive. It is argued that constitution-makers' decisions can be seen in principal-agent terms: strong investiture rules constitute an ex ante mechanism of parliamentary control — that is, a mechanism to minimize adverse selection and reduce the risk of agency loss by parliament. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5450]
65.5251 CHOI Youngmi —
Scholarly studies of US legislators' voting behavior have concluded that constituent interests exercise only limited influence, but these conclusions may result from inadequate measurement. I develop new measures of economic interests that emphasize import/export (sectoral) cleavages in addition to business/labor (factoral) cleavages and, in the process, transcend geographic boundaries. Results of logistic regression analysis suggest that the interests of economic and nongeographic constituencies, as reflected in campaign contributions, were highly significant predictors of voting in the US Congress on the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement and that the import/export cleavage was more salient than the business/labor cleavage. In addition, legislators' ideological positions with respect to national security were more significant than their partisan affiliations and more significant than their positions on other dimensions of ideology. [R]
65.5252 CHRISTENSEN, Henrik Serup —
Institutional engineering offers a solution to the increasing political dissatisfaction in several representative democracies, since studies suggest that introducing elements of institutional power-sharing may decrease negative attitudes. However, it may be important to distinguish different mixes of political attitudes since these can have different implications for the functioning of democracy. This article therefore examines the link between horizontal and vertical institutional power-sharing and four citizen profiles differing on the extent of political support and subjective political empowerment. The results suggest that horizontal power-sharing is connected to a higher extent of satisfied citizens, but also certain kinds of dissatisfaction. Furthermore, vertical power-sharing is connected to a lower probability of satisfied citizens. [R, abr.]
65.5253 CIANETTI, Licia —
Since the early 2000s, Estonia and Latvia have adopted Integration Programs aimed at dealing with issues concerning their large Russianspeaking minorities. In both cases, the meaning of “integration” — originally meant to primarily indicate the Russian speakers' route to becoming part of the Estonian and Latvian societies — was redefined to include a socio-economic dimension. This article explores the intersection between the socio-economic and ethnic dimensions of integration policies through the analysis of the Integration Programs and related documents and process tracing of the decision making behind them. Intertwined issues of maldistribution and misrecognition are analyzed through the two competing hypotheses of response and displacement. The analysis shows the central role of mechanisms of displacement in furthering the states' (and majority elites') ethnocentric and neoliberal agendas. [R]
65.5254 COMAN, Emanuel Emil —
This study looks at electoral reforms in Romania since the end of the communist period. It identifies two broad periods of reform corresponding to two different types of pressures on the policy-makers. (1) In the 1990s, the need for party system consolidation led to the adoption of a highly inclusive first electoral law, followed up by two increases in the electoral threshold. (2) In the 2000s, a vociferous movement demanded more individual responsibility from parliamentary representatives. This led to the electoral reform of 2008, [creating] single-member districts. The two different pressures indicate a healthy evolution from the proto-democratic order of the 1990s, concerned with party system consolidation, to the more developed democratic order of the 2000s, when the public was concerned with the quality of representation and the power to unseat unresponsive MPs. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5715]
65.5255 COOLSAET, Brendan; PITSEYS, John —
The notion of fair and equitable sharing raises two well-documented issues. First, theories of distributive justice are ill suited to the study of the underlying conditions that shape decisions leading to the distribution of benefits and burdens. Second, fair agreement conditions tend to be better approached by defining the conditions of a fair decision-making process. Fairness and equity of a benefit-sharing agreement thus depend on a decision-making procedure governed by the principles of procedural justice. The complexity and interdependence of an ever-growing number of multilateral environmental agreements and the unequal distribution of resources and power among states generates unequal participation opportunities. The supposedly disadvantaged participants, however, manage to influence the decision-making process and the outcome document, thereby tending toward procedural justice.
65.5256 COPELAND, Paul —
This article analyzes democracy, legitimacy and interest representation within the EU. Taking the recent rise of populist parties within the European Parliament and declining levels of public support for the EU as a starting point, it probes the relationship between levels of support for the EU and the interests the European integration process represents. It applies a political sociology approach to the EU's governance matrix to two periods: the revival of European integration from the mid-1980s up until the outbreak of the Eurozone crisis, and from 2008 onwards. It argues that the EU has constitutionalized a system of economic governance that prioritizes the objectives of liberalization and deregulation and their actors. As a result, European citizens do not believe that the EU best serves their interests. [R, abr.]
65.5257 CRÖSSMANN, Katharina; MAUSE, Karsten —
Using official subsidy data for a sample of 25 EU countries over the period 1998–2008, this article poses the classic do-parties-matter question in comparative political economy to examine whether the political allocation of railway subsidies is completely determined by sector-specific conditions or whether it leaves room for governments' partisan preferences. Controlling for other potential politico-economic determinants (sector size, public/private ownership, intermodal competition and so on), a multiple regression analysis indicates that government ideology in fact helps explain the considerable differences between countries with respect to rail subsidization. Contrary to the expectations of traditional partisan theory, countries governed by left-wing (bourgeois) parties showed significantly lower (higher) subsidy levels. The article [explores] this regression result and discusses a number of explanations as to how this unexpected empirical finding can be explained. [R, abr.]
65.5258 CRUZ, José Miguel —
What is the political impact of police corruption and abuse? From the literature, we know that police misconduct destroys people's confidence in police forces and hampers public collaboration with the criminal-justice system; but, what about the political regime, especially in countries striving for democratic governance? Does police wrongdoing affect the legitimacy of the overall regime? Focusing on Central America, this article provides empirical evidence showing that corruption and abuse perpetrated by police officers erode public support for the political order. Results indicate that, [in] some circumstances, police transgressions can have a greater impact on the legitimacy of the political system than crime or insecurity. They also show that police misconduct not only affects democratizing regimes, such as El Salvador and Guatemala, but also consolidated democracies, such as Costa Rica. [R]
65.5259 CURINI, Luigi; ZUCCHINI, Francesco —
Most research on committees in multiparty legislatures in parliamentary democracies focuses on their role in solving intra-cabinet delegation problems. Using a straightforward spatial model, this article discusses how committees can also solve uncertainty problems that arise in settings characterized by unstable coalitions, weak governmental agenda control and a lack of government change. In order to explore empirically how committees solve these problems, the article focuses on the success (and later decline) over the last 30 years of the sede legislativa, a law-making procedure that formalizes “universalism” in Italian legislative committees. The statistical results largely confirm the theoretical expectations. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5450]
65.5260 CUSUMANO, Eugenio —
Although the privatization of military support is increasingly widespread, advanced military organizations have not relied on Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) to the same degree. The existing scholarship on PMSCs cannot explain why countries sharing similar material incentives and similar market and political ideologies like the US and the UK have not outsourced the same operational tasks. This article contends that introducing military role-conceptions as a factor enabling or inhibiting the outsourcing of certain functions provides important insights into the scope of military privatization, explaining why the US military has systematically privatized armed security and foreign military training, while the UK military has not. [R]
65.5261 DABROS, Matthew S. —
Recent scholarship demonstrates US legislators acquire human capital (contacts, knowledge, and skills) in Congress that maximizes postelective earnings because they anticipate re-entering the labor market after leaving office. This literature has not, however, addressed how legislators' expectations of entering specific professions affect their inoffice activities. This article examines this question within the context of final term, employment-particular changes in House members' foreign travel. Representatives entering the private sector are predicted to travel more in the last period to augment their human capital in foreign affairs and signal their expertise to prospective employers, while retiring legislators are expected to travel less because they lack incentives to maintain productivity levels. Analysis supports the former but not the latter prediction. [R]
65.5262 DABROWSKA, Ewa; ZWEYNERT, Joachim —
The paper addresses these two shortcomings by analyzing the case of the Russian Stabilization Fund (SF). This case is an example both of the impact of global ideas on a non-Western emerging country and of a “near miss” in the sense that imported neoliberal ideas failed to assert themselves enduringly. Paradoxically, it can be shown how the neoliberally based idea of the SF even contributed to the return to Soviet patterns of industrial policy. The main reason for this is that the Fund's implementation was not preceded by economic and political debates. Accordingly, the imported institution of the SF had to be filled with ideational content after its implementation. [R, abr.]
65.5263 DALY, Eoin —
The “full veil” was widely described as transgressing republican standards of civility. Yet counterintuitively, republican civility was understood as requiring discretion, modesty and self-restraint. Therefore, the “full veil” was not portrayed as an austere interpretation of religious modesty, but as precisely the opposite — as an “ostentatious” defiance of republican civility. It was deemed anti-republican not because it was too modest — but rather because it was too flamboyant. I argue that the law should be understood neither as a coherent republican response to problems of domination in religious life nor as an expression of ethno-nationalist defensiveness. Rather, it can be understood as an attempt to legislate a republican habitus — a set of social mores deemed appropriate in republican society. [R, abr.]
65.5264 DÁVID-BARRETT, Elizabeth —
Codes of conduct are used widely in both public administration and industry by organizations seeking to regulate the behavior of their members and promote adherence to a set of standards. In legislatures, the introduction of codes has gathered pace in recent years, driven either by a perceived need to respond to a corruption scandal or, especially in Eastern Europe, by international efforts to promote democracy and reduce corruption. This article sets out a theoretical case for the conditions in which codes are likely to be effective instruments of regulation. It suggests that a supportive culture of informal institutions is critical but unlikely to prevail in most democratizing societies. However, the process of introducing codes may help to create the appropriate conditions. [R]
65.5265 DEETS, Stephen —
Building on ideas of networked governance and non-territorial autonomy, this article uses aspects of Lebanese public policy to show that significant functional communal autonomy can be achieved in the absence of coherent institutions designed to support it. It argues that norms, notions of legitimacy, and behavioral practices are as important as institutional design in understanding communal autonomy. An overview of the Lebanese education, health, and welfare systems provides an understanding of how communal governance operates and interacts with the state across several policy areas. These policy areas are also used to explore issues of individual autonomy and state strength. [R]
65.5266 DELLA CANANEA, Giacinto —
The paper analyzes patterns of organization buoyancy of representative institutions. From the British experience to the French, by the bicameral system of the US to the variants introduced in many parts of Latin America. After an analysis of comparative law this investigation reconstructs the evolution of the Italian system until the current events regarding the Senate reform. [R] [First article of a thematic issue on “Institutional changes in the European context”. See also Abstr. 65.5277, 5291, 5293, 5396, 5403, 5497, 5506]
65.5267 DETTREY, Bryan J.; PALMER, Harvey D. —
This article examines the differences in the distributional effects of economic growth. While all incumbents are incentivized to create economic growth in order to win re-election, they use a diverse variety of policies to achieve this growth. These policy choices are often congruent with the demands of the parties' core constituent groups. This suggests that economic growth is not equally shared by all, but that some groups benefit more or less from the sets of policies chosen by the incumbent parties to stimulate growth. We test this proposition by investigating the effects of economic growth on stock market performance and unemployment. Our results show that economic growth under Republican [US] presidents has a stronger effect on stimulating stock market performance, while economic growth under Democratic presidents has a stronger effect on reducing unemployment. [R, abr.]
65.5268 DEVORE, Marc R. —
The Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) approach argues that national institutions shape both how states develop adjustment strategies and their firms' comparative advantages. This article examines two small states — Israel and Sweden — to ascertain whether defense-industrial transformation drives them to converge upon common laissez-faire policies or, contrarily, whether distinct VoC shaped their adaptation strategies along different lines. To preview the conclusions, institutions impel states to respond to defense-industrial transformation in divergent ways. Liberal market states, such as Israel, respond by introducing greater competition for contracts and liberalizing their import/export policies. In coordinated market states, such as Sweden, government cooperates with business groups to selectively open industries to foreign capital and position them to compete globally. [R, abr.]
65.5269 DINNEN, Sinclair; PEAKE, Gordon —
We present three case studies of policing innovation and experimentation from Timor-Leste, Solomon Islands and Bougainville, respectively, set in the context of the recent and very different post-conflict interventions in each place. While not wishing to overstate the impact of these modest programs, we highlight their potential contribution to fostering productive relations across the multiple social orders and sources of authority found in many post-colonial, post-conflict and otherwise fragile contexts. We tentatively conclude that the most significant contribution of these kinds of initiative is likely to lie beyond the realm of institutionalized policing and, specifically, in relation to larger processes of social and political change, including state-formation, under way in these places. [R, abr.]
65.5270 DOBBINS, Michael; BUSEMEYER, Marius R. —
Although Sweden and Denmark are regarded as typical social democratic welfare states, there are significant differences in the institutional set-up of their skill-formation systems. In Sweden, vocational education is fully integrated into secondary education, while Denmark is characterized by strong involvement of employers via workplace-based apprenticeships. This article explains these different paths of development and their political sustainability, while providing general insights on the dynamics of institutional change in advanced political economies. We demonstrate how firm size had crucial implications for skill-formation policies during the phase of industrialization, while the partisan balance of power became highly influential in the post-war decades. [R, abr.]
65.5271 DOHERTY, David —
I report findings from survey experiments that improve our understanding of how [Americans] want individual Senators to approach their role as representatives. The findings show that people are committed to the idea that Senators should prioritize their states' preferences over those of the national public. This preference persists in situations where a Senator's advocacy for her state plays a key role in defeating nationally supported legislation. This finding contradicts popular claims that voters are hungry for Senators who prioritize national preferences over those of their constituents. I also find that people who support a piece of legislation — but not those who oppose it — evaluate a Senator who helps to defeat the legislation by filibustering substantially less favorably than one who accomplishes the same ends through majoritarian means. [R, abr.]
65.5272 DONÀ, Alessia —
During 2013, Italy adopted new legislative measures aimed to combat violence against women (Law 119/13). By conducting a process-tracing analysis, based on official documentation, media coverage and civil society material, the article reconstructs the legislative process from the governmental bill to the parliamentary final text. It argues that the dominant policy discourse centered on “women as person to be protected” was in line with the conservative policy legacy that proved to be resistant against any attempt of reforming on women's rights issues, despite the international pressures for change. [R]
65.5273 DURMAN, Petra —
The article gives an overview of functional and structural features of the political system and public administration in the UK, analyzing the interference of traditional, persisting characteristics with contemporary reform measures. Some of the examined issues include distinctive constitutional model, neutral and professional state administration, the problem of departmentalism, devolution processes, and strengthening the position of local government. The author first gives an overview of the British public administration development, indicating the relevance of historical particularities as determinants of modern administrative attributes and developmental patterns, after which political and constitutional features are considered. An analysis of territorial organization, state administration, civil service, and public services completes the review of the British public administration system. [R, abr.]
65.5274 DŽINIĆ, Jasmina —
The organization and functioning of public administration in Estonia are analyzed. After a short overview of the historical development of the state and administration characterized by the constant fight for independence, the author deals with the current public administration system and administrative reforms implemented since 1991. The paper analyzes legal regulation of the relationship between political bodies and public administration as well as the center of government characterized by certain specificities of generally traditional parliamentary government system. Within the chapter on political, administrative, and fiscal decentralization, the author has described the complex territorial organization, the bodies of local units, the scope of their activities, and fiscal decentralization guaranteed by law, but weakly implemented in practice. [R, abr.]
65.5275 EBOHON, Sylvanus I. —
This paper [considers] the link between reform and development of the Nigerian banking sector. As a single-resource economy, Nigeria's development is embedded in a dependence framework in which commission forms the basis of primitive accumulation. The analysis, based on empirical evidence from primary and secondary sources, shows capital flight, toxic assets, abnormal profitability and margin banking in the Nigerian reform. It argues that within the framework of dependence reformism tied to metropolitan technology, reforms cannot produce mega banks. Backward integration offers Nigeria the hope for transiting from economically underdeveloped south to economically developed north. [R]
65.5276 EDWARDS, Margaret E. —
This article examines the issue of presidential failure in South America by evaluating the multiple factors that create risk of resignation, removal, or impeachment of presidents. The study draws on various economic variables that have not been thoroughly investigated in the past and uses survival analysis to identify what factors are influential. In performing this testing, the importance of variables such as civil protest, executive wrongdoing, and specific measures of economic hardship — inflation and prolonged recession — becomes clear. Majority legislative support also remains significant, supporting early arguments about the influence of presidential institutions. This investigation provides a unique perspective on presidential survival while evaluating the importance of previously excluded variables in a comprehensive manner. [R]
65.5277 ELIANTONIO, Mariolina —
The reform of the Italian constitution which is currently under examination before the Parliament aims at introducing significant reforms in the Italian bicameral system, by changing the role, the membership and the functions of the Senate. This reform has been portrayed by the current government as a way to align the Italian constitutional system to the European standards. In order to assess whether the constitutional reform is actually proposing a model along the lines of other European legal systems, the elements of the reform have been analyzed and a comparison has been carried with the French, German and Dutch legal systems. The analysis carried out has shown that, despite the peculiarities shown vis-à-vis other legal systems, the Senate proposed by the reform will align the Italian model to the general European standards. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5266]
65.5278 ENGEL, Kirsten H. —
The B. Obama Administration attracted significant attention in June 2014 when it proposed widely varying greenhouse gas emission-reduction targets for each state's electricity sector. This article examines the bases for these varying targets, concluding that they may present a new model of cooperative federalism, in two senses. Under cooperative federalism's traditional structure, the federal government is the standard-setting body and states are the implementers of those standards. Under the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Clean Power Plan, however, the federal government uses state policies to provide the content for the federal standards, essentially “federalizing” state environmental policies. The Plan also pegs state emissions targets to a state's capacity to reduce emissions, as opposed to a state's contribution to greenhouse gas concentrations. EPA's approach unquestionably enhances states as laboratories of democracy and addresses collective active problems. [R, abr.]
65.5279 EVERS, Hans-Dieter; GERKE, Solvay —
Regional science policy aims to create productive knowledge clusters, which are central places within an epistemic landscape of knowledge-production and dissemination. This paper looks at Malaysia's path towards a knowledge-based economy and offers some evidence on the current state of knowledge-cluster formation in that country. If the formation of a knowledge cluster has been the government policy, what has been the result? Is there an epistemic landscape of knowledge clusters? Has the main knowledge cluster really materialized? Data collected from websites, directories, government publications and expert interviews have enabled us to construct the epistemic landscape of Peninsular Malaysia, and Penang in particular. We identify and describe several knowledge clusters with a high density of knowledge producing institutions and their knowledge workers. [R, abr.]
65.5280 FARRINGTON, Conor —
The failure of the Coalition government's attempt to reform the House of Lords has by no means taken further reform off the political agenda. The commitment to installing an elected upper chamber is still widely shared across the political spectrum, on the basis of perceptions that the House of Lords lacks democratic legitimacy. Against this view, this article considers recent literature upon non-electoral representation, deliberative democracy and bicameralism, which together highlight the possibility of an unelected second chamber playing a legitimate role within a wider (democratic) system of government. It then considers the House of Lords from this perspective, reflecting on changes in the upper chamber since the 1999 reforms and evaluating its role within the wider political system. [R, abr.]
65.5281 FASONE, Cristina; LUPO, Nicola —
Scholars have not devoted enough attention to how parliamentary committees cope with the challenge of the “forced increased transparency” of their legislative activity, depending on the opportunity to use old and new media as channels of institutional communication with citizens. Increased transparency could be an added value of their work. [However], there is the risk that the wider disclosure of legislative committees' activity could undermine their ability to act as “consensus-building” arenas, and thus affect their legislative capacity. The article argues that increasing levels of transparency can impair committees' lawmaking performance, undermining the lawmaking ability of their legislatures. In three very different legislatures, both in institutional architecture and committees' legislative powers, the growing transparency of their legislative activity has caused a shifting of the legislative decision-making away from committees or, even, outside the legislature. [R, abr.]
65.5282 FEINBERG, Myriam —
This article uses the 2008 Kadi case of the European Court of Justice as a framework to provide a contextual analysis of the term “conflict” and provide criticism for the use of the conflict label to describe the relationship between national security policies and human rights, when norms of security and human rights should all form the benchmark of counterterrorism. It examines the legal issues created by the Kadi case and suggests that, despite the legal and normative uncertainties it raised, in practice, the case is an example of institutional conflict, or checks and balances that, in effect, actually enhances the fairness of sanctions regimes. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on “National security and public health: human rights in conflict”, edited and introduced by the author, Laura NIADA-AVSHALOM and Brigit TOEBES. See also Abstr. 65.5311, 5412, 5883]
65.5283 FINKE, Daniel; DANNWOLF, Tanja —
Recently, it has been argued that the scrutiny of European law proposal by national parliaments contributes to speeding up the implementation of EU law. To test this argument, we study the effect of parliamentary scrutiny on Germany's compliance with all directives adopted between 1999 and 2012. The results are mixed: on the one hand, parliamentary scrutiny successfully transfers necessary deliberations from the implementation stage to the policy-making stage. As a consequence, we observe faster implementation of complex and controversial policies. On the other hand, parliamentary scrutiny carries the risk of triggering conflict and of forcing early commitments by actors who might otherwise have remained passive observers. As a consequence, parliamentary scrutiny may even delay implementation of EU law by waking the proverbial “sleeping dogs”. [R]
65.5284 FINKEL, Evgeny; GEHLBACH, Scott; OLSEN, Tricia D. —
Contemporary models of political economy suggest that reforms intended to reduce grievances should curtail unrest, a perspective at odds with many traditional accounts of reform and rebellion. We explore the impact of reform on rebellion with a new data-set on peasant disturbances in 19th c. Russia. Using a difference-in-differences design that exploits the timing of various peasant reforms, we document a large increase in disturbances among former serfs following the Emancipation Reform of 1861, a development counter to reformers' intent. Our analysis suggests that this outcome was driven by peasants' disappointment with the reform's design and implementation — the consequence of elite capture in the context of a generally weak state — and heightened expectations of what could be achieved through coordinated action. [R, abr.]
65.5285 FISCHER, Manuel —
Actors with joint beliefs in a decision-making process form coalitions in order to translate their goals into policy. Yet, coalitions are not formed in an institutional void, but rather institutions confer opportunities and constraints to actors. This paper studies the institutional conditions under which either coalition structures with a dominant coalition or with competing coalitions emerge. It takes into account three conditions: i.e., the degree of federalism of a project, its degree of Europeanization and the openness of the pre-parliamentary phase of the decision-making process. The cross-sectoral comparison includes the 11 most important decision-making processes in Switzerland between 2001 and 2006 with a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. [R, abr.]
65.5286 FLAMAND, Laura; MORENO-JAIMES, Carlos —
This paper examines the performance of the Popular Health Insurance program (Seguro Popular), focusing on the transformations and results achieved during the Calderón administration. Its most significant achievements include the level of coverage, with approximately 44 million people, and the fact that financial allocations to state governments no depend on the number of subscribers. This policy still faces complex challenges in order to provide effective health services of standardized quality in the 32 states of Mexico. Meanwhile, financial protection in health has not been achieved, since personal expenditure in Mexico remains high (44% of total health expenditure). We conclude with specific recommendations for strengthening government health services in the context of the potential universalization of the public health system. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5358]
65.5287 FLINT, Asrian; BEWITT, Vernon —
Much of the early discourse on HIV/AIDS in Africa helped to cement a longstanding outsider idea of Africa as a place where health and general well-being are determined by culturally (and to a degree racially) dictated modes of sexual behavior that fall well outside of the “ordinary”. Early HIV/AIDS discourse have much in common with colonial-era narratives on African “venereal disease” pandemics like syphilis in the late 19th/early 20th c. — noteworthy, in both instances, was the view that African people needed saving from themselves. By analyzing historical responses to these two pandemics, we demonstrate an arguably unbroken outsider perception of African sexuality, based largely on colonial-era tropes, that portrays African people as over-sexed, uncontrolled in their appetites, promiscuous, impervious to risk and thus agents of their own misfortune. [R, abr.]
65.5288 FOLKE, Olle; FREIDENVALL, Lenita; RICKNE, Johanna —
We study the ways in which affirmative action for one political minority — gender quotas — impact on intersectional representation. In a quantitative analysis of detailed panel data from 285 Swedish municipal assemblies, the numerical impact of a zipper placement mandate in Sweden's largest political party, the Social Democratic Party, is analyzed. No evidence that this quota helped, or hindered, the intersectional representation of men or women is found in the short run, but it is found that a weak numerical impact may exist in the long run. A qualitative analysis of party records and interviews with key actors sheds further light on these results. Differences in the norms of representation for women and polyethnic minorities, coupled with weak organizational and practical constraints for formulating policies for the latter, appear to be likely explanations. [R]
65.5289 FOUIRNAIES, Alexander; MUTLU-EREN, Hande —
The literature on distributive politics suggests that politicians have incentives to engage in targeted spending especially in decentralized political systems with weak parties and candidate-centered elections. We argue that in centralized political systems with party-centered elections, parties use intergovernmental transfers to advance their electoral fortune via performance spillovers across different levels of government. On the basis of a new data-set on partisan composition of local councils in England and grants allocated by the central government during 1992–2012, and using a difference-in-difference approach, we provide evidence that governments allocate up to 17% more money to local councils controlled by their “own” party. Furthermore, we show that the effect is strongest closer to local election years, in local councils where institutions facilitate credit claiming, and in swing councils. [R]
65.5290 FOX, Cybelle —
Culling the Masses is a rich, methodologically ambitious book, which sheds much needed light on the factors that influence the adoption and repeal of racist immigration policies across the Americas. Contrary to previous accounts that suggest that the end of racial selection in immigration policy began as a domestic issue in the US and Australia and then spread elsewhere, FitzGerald and Cook-Martin “find that geopolitical factors were the main drivers of the demise of racial selection”. The sustained attention to the international forces that shape domestic immigration policy — and the means through which they do so — is an invaluable contribution. Culling the Masses also demonstrates that democracy and racist immigration laws not only co-existed comfortably with each other, they have also been causally connected. [R, abr.] [First article of a symposium on “David Fitzgerald's and David Cook-Martín's Culling the Masses: the Democratic Origins of Racist Immigration Policy in the Americas [Cambridge, 2014]”. See also Abstr. 65.5323, 5328, 5361, 5437, and David COOK-MARTIN and David FITZGERALD, “Culling the masses: a rejoinder”, pp. 1319–132]
65.5291 FRACCHIA, Fabrizio —
After examining the notion of “reform”, and comparing it with similar experiences, the paper considers in particular the influence of competition and spending review in the field of public contracts. The work then goes on to examine Luhmann's idea of reform and the theme of administration as an obstacle, considering the cases in which the obstacle is the context in which the public body operates and the problem of “slack” administration. Finally, there is an analysis of possible remedies, also with reference to constitutional principles. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5266]
65.5292 FRAUSSEN, Bert; BEYERS, Jan; DONAS, Tom —
The interaction between organized interests and policy-makers is an important ingredient of contemporary political systems. In earlier work, interest group scholars have distinguished groups that enjoy access to consultation arrangements from those that are bound to stand on the sideline. Frequently, these insiders are considered to be equally connected to public authorities. Yet their degree of “insiderness” differs significantly. By unpacking the set of organized interests that have gained access, this article distinguishes core insiders from groups that occupy a more peripheral position in an interest intermediation system. Empirically, we demonstrate and explain varying degrees of insiderness in the community of insider groups in Belgium, using the extensiveness of representation in advisory bodies as a proxy for access. [R, abr.]
65.5293 GAGLIOTI, Domenico —
In the administrative reform, the discipline of public management is an indicator that, regardless of the values affirmed, shows the actual values to which the legislator intended to inspire the relationship between politics, bureaucracy and society. In this context, certain provisions of the d. l. n. 90/2014, regarding external mandates and procedures for the grant of offices, provide an opportunity to reflect on the concrete system dysfunctions that, despite the “declarations of intent”, may not be adequately corrected in the reform discussed in Parliament, with the effect to realize an unbalanced relationship on the “political” side. In this regard, the “radical” reform in progress should be an opportunity to reflect on the way in which the policy maker intends to review the dynamics between bureaucratic and political bodies: of such clarity the citizen has today increasingly need. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5266]
65.5294 GAMBOA, Ricardo; MORALES, Mauricio —
In 1925, a new electoral system was introduced in Chile. This reform changed the electoral formula from a cumulative voting system to a proportional one (d'Hondt) and established new rules about district magnitude and form of voting. It has been argued that this reform was motivated by the emergence of new parties or the expansion of the electorate. This article offers an alternative explanation: in the case of Chile, the main reason for the electoral reform was the parties' need to solve problems of strategic coordination stemming from the characteristics of the Chilean cumulative voting system. In this context, the Chilean case shows that there are many routes to proportionality. [R]
65.5295 GAUJA, Anika —
Australia, like many other democracies, has not escaped the climate of disaffection and disillusionment with representative politics that has permeated academic and public discourse in recent years. This essay explores why this might be the case, by evaluating the current state of representative government and politics in Australia and by looking at four sets of “challenges” to the current system. Each of these areas has sparked salient debate in the last few years: challenges to voting and elections, the character of Australian parliamentary and political culture, the future of political parties in Australia, and the world of politics beyond parliament. Salient examples include guaranteeing effective electoral administration, regulating the role of “micro-parties” in elections, addressing the continuous underrepresentation of women and minorities in the parliament, [etc.]. [R, abr.]
65.5296 GAURI, Varun; STATON, Jeffrey K.; VARGAS CULLELL, Jorge —
In the summer of 2009, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Costa Rica began monitoring compliance with its direct orders in amparo and habeas corpus cases. The court announced early results from its analysis at a March 2010 press conference. The president of the court promised to continue monitoring and publicizing the results for the foreseeable future. We use a unique data-set on compliance derived from this monitoring system to evaluate theoretical claims about the relationship between the transparency of judicial orders and compliance. We observe that vague orders, and orders issued without definite timeframes for compliance, were associated with delayed implementation. We also find that orders issued after the press conference were implemented roughly two months earlier than orders issued just prior to the press conference. [R]
65.5297 GERRARD, Michael B. —
During the Cold War, the US detonated sixty-seven nuclear weapons over the atolls of Bikini and Enewetak in the Marshall Islands. In the late 1970s, the US abandoned Bikini as permanently uninhabitable and pushed much of the waste at Enewetak into the open lagoon. Much of the plutonium was dumped into the crater left by an atomic bomb explosion, and then covered with a thin shell of cement. The resultant “Runit dome” sits unmarked and unguarded in a small island and one day will be submerged by the rising waters of the Pacific Ocean. Radiation from the Marshall Islands has already been detected in the South China Sea. This article [examines] the environmental and security challenges of nuclear waste disposal in the Pacific and beyond. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4861]
65.5298 GEVA, Dorit —
How has male-only draft registration been ideologically justified in the US? I argue that feminist political-sociological scholarship on the centrality of the male breadwinner/female caregiver distinction to numerous federal programs sheds light on ideological justification for women's exclusion from draft registration. Much like other federal programs, concerns with women's dependency and men's economic independence shaped the Selective Service System in 1917. Fear of unraveling the family's sexual division of labor persisted when Congress renewed allmale draft registration in 1980, a position to which the Supreme Court deferred in 1981. I argue that the draft's problematic nature would endure if women were required to register with Selective Service and that the new arrangement would likely reproduce multiple inequalities. [R, abr.]
65.5299 GHECIU, Alexandra —
This paper contributes to an understanding of the processes of contestation and localization of norms in post-conflict societies via a Bourdieu-inspired analysis of the process of security privatization in two former Yugoslav countries: Bosnia and Serbia. By drawing on Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus, capital and strategies, this paper sheds light on the ways in which, in Bosnia as well as in Serbia, a particular habitus and forms of capital inherited from these polities' violent past have shaped the implementation of the liberal project of security privatization. The result has been a situation in which legislation and institutions aimed at promoting a liberal model of security provision co-exist with practices that are inconsistent with liberal-democratic principles of accountability and respect for human rights and the rule of law. [R] [See Abstr. 65.6247]
65.5300 GILLJAM, Mikael; KARLSSON, David —
This article [examines] how parliamentary position affects the attitudes of political representatives: Do attitudes towards democratic game rules and policy content differ between members of the ruling majority and the opposition? And if there is such an effect, what could be the possible causal mechanisms? The data derive from a unique survey of all 13,044 councilors in the 290 municipalities in Sweden. The results show that, within all political parties, opposition members are more positive towards participatory democracy, while majority members favor representative democracy. Furthermore, being in office de-radicalizes representatives on the left-right scale, while being out of office has a radicalizing effect. [R]
65.5301 GOFEN, Anat; NEEDHAM, Catherine —
Governmental reaction to citizens' noncompliance with policy is often portrayed as a retrospective enforcement effort, in which incentives and information serve as the main mechanisms to change citizens' noncompliant behavior. This study suggests that government may adapt existing policy arrangements to encourage compliance rather than enforce implementation. Such responses recognize that noncompliance is an ongoing decision-making process rather than a single event, with scope for government intervention at different points. Drawing on toddlers' nonvaccination in Israel as a test case, findings indicate that to minimize noncompliance and its public health implications, officials have responded by personalizing the standardized service. Personalization is a pragmatic response that recognizes that hesitant parents may be amenable to modified interventions as an alternative to complete exit. [R, abr.]
65.5302 GOLOSOV, Grigorii V. —
This article examines the effects exerted by different seat-allocation methods upon legislative fragmentation, conventionally operationalized as the effective number of parliamentary parties (ENPP), in proportional representation systems. A real-life data-set of 191 sub-national elections held in Russia in 2001–2013 is used to assess relatively restrictive methods, Imperiali and d'Hondt highest averages, against a more permissive method, Hare largest remainders. Statistical analysis demonstrates that if fragmentation in the electorate and the amount of wasted votes are properly controlled for, the effects of proportional seat-allocation rules can be assessed with a high degree of precision. [R, abr.]
65.5303 GÓMEZ, Eduardo J. —
The BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) have differed in their government response to health epidemics. Brazil eventually outpaced her emerging counterparts in response to AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) due to the presence of political institutional, civil societal, and foreign policy strategies that both sustained and encouraged the introduction of innovative policies. The concept of “historical policy backlash” is introduced in order to explain how the BRICs' differences in their historic roles as foreign aid donors in health shaped their incentive to either focus on domestic AIDS policy or foreign aid strategies at the expense of domestic policy. This article therefore combines comparative political-historical, social, and international processes to account for differences in the BRIC nations willingness and capacity to respond to AIDS. [R]
65.5304 GRIEVE, Victoria —
This article examines the use of the image of the “big stick” in the context of the New Deal. I argue that the conservative press in the 1930s used the image to mobilize historical memories of over-reaching executive power and a growing federal government under T. Roosevelt to “explain” F.D. Roosevelt in 1932. Further, the “big stick” was used to accuse FDR of a drive for dictatorial power during his attempt to reorganize the Supreme Court in 1937. The article argues that the visual image and symbol of the “big stick” shaped contemporary political debates and mobilized the public in the 1930s, and continues to shape American political discourse, as seen in the use of the symbol in the 2012 election. [R]
65.5305 GRIŠIN, Igor' V. —
In the Riksdag in early December, the government lost a vote on the budget, due to the Swedish Democrats voting in favor of the center-right opposition proposal. In return, the government announced snap elections for 22 March 2015. The most likely outcome of these elections would have been a recurrence of the main result of the September elections: the position of the Swedish Democrats as kingmaker. To avoid dependence on the Swedish Democrats, the government parties and the center-right opposition signed an agreement that made it possible for a minority government to get its own budget approved. Thus, the agreement brought the country out of parliamentary deadlock, but deprived the Swedish Democrats of the effectiveness of voting and ignored the will of their electorate. [R, abr.]
65.5306 GRIX, Jonathan; BRANNAGAN, Paul Michael; HOULIHAN, Barrie —
Central to this article is the use of sports mega-events as part of a state's “soft power” strategy. The article (1) critiques the “soft power” concept and a clearer understanding of what it refers to by drawing on the political use of sports mega-events by states; (2) [examines] how and why sports mega-events are attractive to states with different political systems and at different stages of economic development. A case study of an advanced capitalist state (London Olympics, 2012) and a so-called “emerging” state (FIFA World Cup, 2014; Rio Olympics, 2016) is undertaken in order to shed light on the role of sports events as part of soft power strategies across different categories of states. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5996]
65.5307 GROSE, Christian R.; MALHOTRA, Neil; VAN HOUWELING, Robert Parks —
Legislators claim that how they explain their votes matters as much as or more than the roll-calls themselves. However, few studies have systematically examined legislators' explanations and citizen attitudes in response to these explanations. We theorize that legislators strategically tailor explanations to constituents in order to compensate for policy choices that are incongruent with constituent preferences, and to reinforce policy choices that are congruent. We conduct a within-subjects field experiment using US senators as subjects to test this hypothesis. We then conduct a between-subjects survey experiment of ordinary people to see how they react to the explanatory strategies used by senators in the field experiment. [R, abr.]
65.5308 GROSS, Lisa —
This article deals with norm-diffusion in post-war Kosovo from the vantage point of the local, making localization strategies, contestation patterns and translation practices the subject of analysis. It shows that the “local meaning” of norms can be ambiguous, but nevertheless supportive of the liberal norms promoted by peace-building and that norm-diffusion is shaped by conditions that are specific to post-war societies. First, norm-contestation is influenced by wartime polarizations leading to segregated discursive arenas and by conflict goals that shape local interpretations of international norms. Through strategic emphasis and selection, local agents then aim to build congruence with the conflict goal. The rejection, localization or acceptance of international norms depends on whether the established local meaning allows congruence building with the conflict goal or not. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6247]
65.5309 GWIAZDA, Anna —
Representation is inherent to democracy and truly representative institutions are vital for a good quality democracy. However, the argument that parliaments are not sufficiently representative because of female underrepresentation is widespread. A number of countries around the world have introduced gender quotas in order to enhance the descriptive representation of women. This article analyzes women's representation and the adoption of gender quotas in Poland. After several unsuccessful attempts, the law was finally approved in 2011. Veto-players analysis is used to explain this policy change. [R]
65.5310 HAEDER, Simon F.; WEIMER, David L. —
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) changes fundamentally the US health care system. The responses of states have been diverse and changing. What explains these diverse and dynamic responses? We examine the decision-making of states concerning the creation of Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan programs and insurance marketplaces and the expansion of Medicaid in historical context. This frames our analysis and its implications for future health reform in broader perspective by identifying a number of characteristics of state-federal grants programs. Assessing the implementation of the three main components of the ACA, we find that partisanship exerts significant influence, yet less so in the case of Medicaid expansion. [R, abr.]
65.5311 HAFETZ, Jonathan —
The field of transitional justice has traditionally focused on accountability for human rights violations amid regime change, often accompanied by democratization, rebuilding states and revitalizing national communities. But concepts drawn from transitional justice can also shed light on the dynamics of accountability within the ordinary course of political change in a stable and mature democracy. This article utilizes transitional justice as a heuristic to frame the post-9/11 [2001] US effort to confront torture and other grave human rights violations committed in the war on terrorism. The article concludes that not seeking accountability in the face of political opposition and resistance carries significant costs. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5282]
65.5312 HALL, Matthew E. K.; URA, Joseph Daniel —
For decades, constitutional theorists have confronted the normative problems associated with judicial review by an unelected judiciary; yet some political scientists contend that judicial review actually tends to promote majoritarian interests. We evaluate the majoritarian nature of judicial review and test the political foundations that shape this process. To do so, we construct a statute-centered data-set of every important [US] federal law enacted from 1949 through 2008 and estimate the probability of a law being challenged and subsequently invalidated by the Supreme Court. Our methodological approach overcomes problems of selection bias and facilitates a test of judicial majoritarianism and the mechanisms that drive that behavior. [R, abr.]
65.5313 HAMEIRI, Shahar; JONES, Lee —
Given the common association of non-traditional security (NTS) problems with globalization, surprisingly little attention has been paid to how the political economy context of given NTS issues shapes how they are securitized and managed in practice. We argue that security and its governance are always highly contested because different modes of security governance invariably privilege particular interests and normative agendas in state and society, which relate directly to the political economy. Drawing on critical political geography, we argue that, because NTS issues are perceived as at least potentially transnational, their securitization often involves strategic attempts by actors and coalitions to “rescale” their governance beyond the national political and institutional arenas, into new, expert-dominated modes of governance. Such efforts are often resisted by other coalitions, for which this rescaling is deleterious. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4912]
65.5314 HARBERS, Imke —
Even though the unequal reach of the state has become an important concern in the literature on developing democracies in Latin America, empirical measures of intra-country variation in state capacity are scarce. So far, attempts to develop valid measures of the reach of the state have often been hampered by inadequate data. Leveraging insights from national-level scholarship, this article proposes a tax-based measure to capture such intra-country variation. Drawing on a comprehensive dataset of municipal finance and estimates of economic activity derived from nighttime lights, it maps state capacity in Ecuador. It validates the measure on the basis of survey data collected by the Latin American Public Opinion Project. [R, abr.]
65.5315 HARNISCH, Sebastian; UTHER, Stephanie; BOETTCHER, Miranda —
Using new data from different discourse levels across countries, a generic understanding of the climate engineering debate may be developed and applied to different national and sub-national discourses. The legitimizing arguments for and against climate engineering in the US, the UK, and Germany may thus be explored across three discourse levels: science, the media, and politics. There is a substantial variance in national discourses on the conditions under which climate engineering research and deployment would be considered legitimate. Arguments vary over time and within different discursive spheres. Moreover, media discourse varies across countries and is not necessarily representative of either the scientific or political discourses. Focus group or media framing analyses are not sufficient to identify arguments legitimizing climate engineering used in political decision-making processes.
65.5316 HASSAN, Mai —
This article focuses on the elites working within the state agencies that execute presidential power, who benefit materially from their authority and have incentives to defy formal constraints placed on their own power. To evaluate this claim, I examine Kenya's 2010 constitution, which intended to reduce the power of Kenya's “imperial presidency” through formal constraints on the executive. As implementation has progressed, however, the executive bureaucracy — the Provincial Administration (PA) — has not changed in size, structure, or function, contrary to the explicit goals of the constitution's drafters. Using original interview and archival evidence, I find that the persistence of this agency — and by extension strong executive power — is due to PA administrators' attempts to protect their material interests. [R, abr.]
65.5317 HE Baogang —
Deliberative democratic theorists addressed the practical issue of combining representation and deliberation, leading to a number of institutional inventions and theoretical debates. J. Fishkin, for example, invented and advocated deliberative polling (DP) technique to reconcile deliberation and representation. A. Gundersen, J. Parkinson, and C. Lafont, however, have criticized DP in the light of the democratic ideas of representation and legitimacy. This paper examines how Chinese local practitioners have employed and modified DP techniques to address the practical questions on representation and deliberation in their decision-making process, and how they make contribution to the debates in the politics of public deliberation. China's local experiments reveal and confirm the law of political empowerment, that is, citizens are empowered to make their own decision on the condition that their deliberation must be based on elected representation. [R, abr.]
65.5318 HILLMAN, Arye L.; POTRAFKE, Niklas —
The Goldstone Report is unique among UN reports in having been eventually repudiated by its principal author. The Report criminalized self-defense against state-sponsored or state-perpetrated terror. We use voting on the two UN General Assembly resolutions relating to the Goldstone Report to study whether support for the Goldstone principle of criminalization of self-defense against terror was influenced by countries' political institutions. Our results, using different measures of political institutions, reveal systematic differences in voting by democracies and autocracies. [R, abr.]
65.5319 HINES, Mark C.; SWERS, Michele L. —
Recent scholarship on the [US] Senate indicates that partisanship and polarization have fundamentally changed the dynamics and the nature of policy-making in the institution. To understand how senators balance their roles as constituent servants and partisan warriors, we examine senators' participation in floor-amending on major health legislation over a 10-year period (2000–2010). Health care is central to the ideological divide over the nature of the welfare state and has a significant impact on constituents. Unlike previous studies, we develop a fuller picture of the factors that motivate senators to participate by analyzing both amendments filed to a bill and amendments considered on the floor. We find that minority party status and ideology, both the liberal-conservative dimension and ideological extremism, are important indicators of participation. [R, abr.]
65.5320 HINKLE, Rachael K. —
Existing evidence of law constraining judicial behavior is subject to serious endogeneity concerns. Federal circuit courts offer an opportunity to gain leverage on this problem. A precedent is legally binding within its own circuit but only persuasive in other circuits. Legal constraint exists to the extent that use of binding precedents is less influenced by ideology than use of persuasive precedents. Focusing on search-and-seizure cases, I construct a choice set of published circuit cases from 1953 to 2010 that cite the Fourth Amendment. I model the use of precedent in cases from 1990 to 2010, using matching to ensure that binding and persuasive precedents are otherwise comparable. There is consistent evidence that the more readily observable act of negatively treating a cited precedent is constrained by the legal doctrine of stare decisis. [R, abr.]
65.5321 HIRANO, Shigeo; TING, Michael M. —
How much can a constituency influence the power of its representative in the legislature? This article develops a theoretical model of the constituency basis of legislator influence. The key players in the model are interest groups that may receive targeted transfers from the legislature. The model predicts that the amount of transfers that such groups receive is increasing in their ability to help a party win a legislative seat in the next election. This claim is tested using the changes in Japanese central-to-municipality transfers after a representative passes away while in office. The study finds that electorally “strong” constituency groups do not lose transfers when they lose their representatives. However when “weak” constituency groups lose their representatives, the transfers decrease. [R]
65.5322 HODŽIĆ, Edin; MRAOVIĆ, Boriša —
Relying on a subjective and procedural understanding of substantive representation as communication, responsiveness, and accountability, this article examines the effects of reserved seats for minorities in local assemblies in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Through comparative qualitative case studies of eight municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the article sheds light on the effectiveness of various configurations of political representation of minorities in terms of the actual influence on decision-making on the one hand, and accountability of the minority representatives to their constituency on the other — in particular in relation to the political background and party affiliation of minority representatives. While procedural substantive representation of constituent peoples in minority situations benefits from an ethnic party framework, lack of party affiliation positively affects substantive representation of national minorities proper. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6241]
65.5323 HOLLIFIELD, James F. —
Culling the Masses: the Democratic Origins of Racist Immigration Policy in the Americas [Cambridge, 2014] by D.S. FitzGerald and D. Cook-Martín explains the shift in American immigration policy from one based on racial and ethnic selection to a more equitable and colorblind approach. The authors argue that international and foreign policy considerations led to a radical shift in policy after World War II. They succeed in debunking American exceptionalism, but I argue that more attention should be given to the interaction of international and domestic politics, using a “two-level game” framework. Moreover it is important to highlight the contradictions that are inherent in liberalism as a governing philosophy. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5290]
65.5324 HOWARD, Nicholas O.; ROBERTS, Jason M. —
A defining feature of the modern US Senate is obstruction. Almost all pieces of legislation considered in the Senate are affected either directly or indirectly by obstruction. Obstruction takes many forms in the modern Senate, but one of the most prevalent, yet least studied, is the hold. Using a newly created dataset on Republican Senate holds, we cast light on this important practice. Our results suggest that a variety of factors including timing, party status, and a senator's voting record are related to both the prevalence of holds and the success of legislation subject to holds in the Senate. [R]
65.5325 HUG, Simon; WEGMANN, Simone; WÜEST, Reto —
Increasingly, scholars of legislative politics propose comparative analyses of parliamentary voting behavior across different countries and parliaments. Yet parliamentary voting procedures differ dramatically across parliamentary chambers and ignoring these differences may, in the extreme, lead to meaningless comparisons. This paper presents a first glimpse at a comprehensive data-collection effort covering more than 250 parliamentary chambers in 176 countries. Focusing on European legislatures, it assesses what explains the differences in the rules among chambers. It is found that incentives linked to MPs' visibility contribute to explain the transparency of the adopted voting procedures. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5450]
65.5326 JING Yijia; CUI Yangyang; LI Danyao —
Performance measurement (PM) has been widely used in China's public sector to enhance performance and ensure accountability. [As] in other countries, PM in China is an arena of political management and manipulation by which political priorities are articulated and political loyalty and responsiveness are sought. This paper develops a regime-centered analytical framework to understand the political nature of China's PM. It identifies major political structures that influence the adoption and functioning of PM in China, including the unified political and administrative system, the Chinese developmental state and its performance legitimacy strategy, the unitary but decentralized intergovernmental systems, and the bureaucratic culture and informal rules. Despite their constraining effects, these structural attributes of the Chinese political system fundamentally account for the rise and popularity of PM in China. [R]
65.5327 JOLY, Jeroen; ZICHA, Brandon C.; DANDOY, Régis —
Government agreements (GAs) are key drivers of future policies in most countries with multi-party coalitions and also serve to limit policy initiatives not included in the GA. However, little is known about how this “grip” of GAs over policies changes over time. Throughout the legislative term, new policy issues arise and public demands change. If governments are responsive, they address these issues, leading to increasing divergence from the GA: policy drift. This study [examines] whether the changing social and politico-strategic environment leads to a fading grip of the GA on policy, causing policy drift vis-à-vis the initial policy program. Using an agenda-setting approach, we map the policy priorities of the GAs to two measures of policy priorities of Belgian governments from 1992 to 2006: ministerial council decisions and state of the union speeches. [R, abr.]
65.5328 JOPPKE, Christian —
This appraisal of D.S. FitzGerald and D. Cook-Martín's Culling the Masses: the Democratic Origins of Racist Immigration Policy in the Americas [Cambridge, 2014] argues that there is no “elective affinity” between liberalism and racism, which is the core argument of the book. The notion of “elective affinity”, which the authors borrow from Max Weber, requires a structural homology between the “electively” related elements that just does not exist in this case. The relationship between both is entirely contingent, “racism” being a doctrine of inter-group relations while “liberalism” is a doctrine of intra-group relations, with no consideration of how the boundaries of the group are constituted. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5290]
65.5329 JOSEPHSON, William —
This article shows that US Senate majority rule is states' constitutional right with which the Senate's cloture Rule XXII is inconsistent and to discuss how the states might vindicate that right. [R]
65.5330 KASHIN, Konstantin; KING, Gary; SONEJI, Samir —
The accuracy of US Social Security Administration (SSA) demographic and financial forecasts is crucial for the solvency of its Trust Funds, other government programs, industry decision-making, and the evidence base of many scholarly articles. Because SSA makes public insufficient replication information and uses antiquated statistical forecasting methods, no external group has ever been able to produce fully independent forecasts or evaluations of policy proposals to change the system. Yet, no systematic evaluation of SSA forecasts has ever been published by SSA or anyone else — until a companion paper to this one. We show that SSA's forecasting errors were approximately unbiased until about 2000, but then began to grow quickly, with increasingly overconfident uncertainty intervals. [R, abr.]
65.5331 KASTELLEC, Jonathan P., et al. —
We develop a method for estimating state-level public opinion broken down by partisanship so that scholars can distinguish between general and partisan responsiveness. We use this to study responsiveness in the context of [US] Senate confirmation votes on Supreme Court nominees. We find that senators weight their partisan base far more heavily when casting such roll call votes. Indeed, when their state median voter and party median voter disagree, senators strongly favor the latter. This has significant implications for the study of legislative responsiveness and the role of public opinion in shaping the members of the nation's highest court. The methodological approach we develop enables more nuanced analyses of public opinion and its effects, as well as more finely grained studies of legislative behavior and policy-making. [R, abr.]
65.5332 KEH, Julia Frederike —
Parliamentarians and their party groups can employ many different instruments to communicate policy statements to their electorate (debates in plenary, presentations of committee reports, oral questions, written questions, and interpellations). Therefore, the design of these instruments should be analyzed in one common framework. This paper provides a first step towards this goal by mapping and explaining the centralization of parliamentary policy statements in all western European countries with a parliamentary system. It is argued that, on a theoretical level, there are two different causes for a stronger or weaker centralization of the instruments of parliamentary policy statements: the electoral connection and efficiency. Empirically, it is shown that there are striking differences in centralization both within and between countries which are worth exploring further. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5450]
65.5333 KELLAM, Marisa —
I argue that political parties oriented towards particularistic goods affect coalition government in presidential systems. Particularistic parties hire out their support on some item(s) of the presidential agenda in exchange for locally targeted policies or resources under the control of presidents. They are relatively cheap coalition partners for presidents in policy terms and their representation in the legislature provides presidents with coalitional flexibility. My empirical analysis of cabinets in ten Latin American countries shows that when particularistic parties hold a larger share of the legislative seats minority presidents are less likely to form majority governments and more likely to change the party composition of their cabinets. [R]
65.5334 KNOBLOCH, Katherine R.; GASTIL, John —
This article examines the subjective experience of cognitive and behavioral change following public deliberation in two different nations. It examines short- and long-term survey data from two highly structured deliberative forums — the 2009 Australian Citizens' Parliament and the 2010 Oregon Citizens' Initiative Review. Results showed increases in reported deliberative and internal efficacy, some measures of external efficacy, and communicative and community-based engagement, though participants rarely reported increases in institutionalized political participation. Participants in an online process in Australia reported limited increases in their internal and external efficacy and communicative engagement. These findings suggest that well-structured deliberative governance can transform the meaning and practice of citizenship. [R]
65.5335 KOEHLER, Sebastian; KÖNIG, Thomas —
This article examines whether and how the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) influenced the development of government debt-making in the euro countries after the introduction of the common currency. While the SGP could not prevent euro countries from exceeding their deficits, this study's synthetic control analysis reveals that the mechanism has effectively reduced the overall government debt of euro countries since 1999. In particular, donor countries were able to control governmental spending, while many recipient countries — including Greece, Portugal and Italy — have increased government debt ever since, resulting in the European sovereign-debt crisis. This suggests that while the SGP effectively constrained overall government debt-making, a more sophisticated mechanism is required for safeguarding compliance in large recipient countries. [R, abr.]
65.5336 KÖLLING, Mario —
The negotiation of the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014–2020 has been an outstanding topic on the EU agenda during the past few years, on which subnational units also tried to have a say. We analyze the formal institutional framework available for the Spanish Autonomous Communities to participate in the negotiation of the Cohesion Policy 2014–2020 and the Common Agriculture Policy 2014–2020. By analyzing this participation, this text explores how this institutional framework has evolved during the past few years and how the Autonomous Communities could represent their interests at the domestic and supranational level within these crucial negotiations. [R]
65.5337 KOSS, Michael —
This paper explains the origins of the rules of parliamentary agenda control, the single most important institutional determinant of parliamentary power. Based on the premises of distributive bargaining, it develops a causal mechanism for the delegation of agenda control to the government majority. Given that only anti-system or anti-establishment parties strictly prefer to participate in plenary proceedings, these “anti”-parties potentially obstruct legislation. Such legislative obstruction by “anti”-parties causes establishment parties to commit themselves to procedural reform and thus triggers attempts to centralize agenda control. The delegation of parliamentary agenda powers is successful if opposition to procedural reform is confined to anti-system parties. The causal leverage of this mechanism is assessed in a process-tracing of the [eventually] successful introduction of a closure procedure in the UK and the failed attempt to facilitate the closure in Germany. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5450]
65.5338 KRAUSE, George A.; COOK, Ian Palmer —
This study advances a novel stochastic decomposition of executive budget proposals in order to analyze the extent to which presidents can shape the legislative funding of US federal agencies consistent with their own partisan policy priorities. Statistical evidence reveals that presidents exert partisan-based budgetary influence over appropriations that cannot be ascertained from previous empirical studies that rely on either the observed gap between presidential requests and congressional appropriations or standard instrumental variable estimation methods. The statistical evidence also indicates that presidents are marginally more effective at converting their partisan policy priorities into budgetary outcomes under divided party government. Contrary to theoretical predictions generated from bilateral veto-bargaining models, presidents are also shown to exert effective partisan budgetary influence even when their budget requests exceed congressional appropriations. [R, abr.]
65.5339 KRJAZKOV, Vladimir A. —
The article is devoted to the key innovations introduced in the Law on the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation in June 2014. It analyzes the provisions of the composition of the Constitutional Court and its filling with new judges, the deadline for the submission of constitutional complaints, the resolution of cases without a hearing and the role of the Constitutional Court in the process of execution of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. [R]
65.5340 KRÜGER, Rosaan —
This article considers the application of the doctrine of separation of powers by the South African judiciary in a series of judgments flowing from applications and appeals concerning the disbanding of a specialized crime-fighting unit, the Directorate of Special Operations and the establishment of another unit, the Directorate of Priority through legislative enactment. It traces the judiciary's stance on the separation of powers in the different stages of the litigation — before, during and after the conclusion of the legislative process. It does so against the background of South African precedent on the doctrine and in the light of a perceived power imbalance between the branches of government. Ultimately, it questions the appropriateness of the current understanding of the doctrine of separation of powers in the context of a dominant-party democracy. [R, abr.]
65.5341 KULESSA, Alexander von; WENZELBURGER, Georg —
Although many EU-countries have reduced corporate taxes in the recent years, there is still a substantial variance between the 12 oldest EU-member states. This contribution revisits this variation and analyzes the determinants of corporate tax reforms and their magnitude from a perspective which is new in two respects: (1) we combine logistic panel regression and fsQCA analysis allowing for an integration of qualitative assessments of tax reforms in the QCA analysis. This adds to the existing studies on tax reform which almost exclusively rely on regression techniques. (2) We focus on the time period 1998–2011 where we expect tax competition to be especially intense. The results of our analyses confirm the major impact of tax competition on national corporate tax policies. [R, abr.]
65. 5342a LAX, Jeffrey R.; RADER, Kelly —
How can we assess relative bargaining power within the [US] Supreme Court? Justices cast two votes in every case, one during the initial conference and one on the final merits of the case. Between these two votes, a justice is assigned to draft the majority opinion. We argue that vote-switching can be used to detect the power of opinion-authors over opinion-content. Bargaining models make different predictions for opinion content and therefore for when other justices in the initial majority should be more or less likely to defect from initial positions. We derive hypotheses for how opinion-authorship should affect vote-switching and find that authorship has striking effects on switching. Authors thus have disproportionate influence and by extension so do chief justices, who make most assignments. [R, abr.]
65.5342b LeMAY-BOUCHER, Philippe; ROMMERSKIRCHEN, Charlotte —
We investigate the Europeanization of fiscal policy in the Eurozone. So doing, we empirically test the impact of a series of pertinent variables on Eurozone member states' fiscal policies during the 1984–2006 period. In addition to a host of usual suspects, we introduce two new measurements to capture a country's Stability Culture — the effect of which has been not been addressed by previous empirical work. We find evidence that government debt is primarily driven by the state of the domestic economy. Virtually, no empirical support for the claim that institutional, political or ideational factors influence the variations in gross debt can be provided. Specifically, our results show that neither a population's inflation aversion nor policy-makers' pledge to “sound” public finances translate into lower deficits. [R]
65.5343 LINDSTROM, Nicole —
The paper considers the impact of the current economic crisis on post-socialist welfare capitalist states through an examination of two most different cases: neo-liberal Estonia and neo-corporatist Slovenia. The crisis prompted the most sustained political contestation with respect to each model in two decades. Considering national public sphere discussions within a broader European context, the paper shows how transnational advocates of austerity reinforced Estonia's neoliberal model but emboldened critics of the Slovenian model to roll back the state. While public sphere debates within small, peripheral states must be understood within transnational contexts, in both cases we can observe more continuity than change in the collective ideas underlying each model. [R]
65.5344 LIPPERT-RASMUSSEN, Kasper —
According to US law, insurance companies can lawfully differentiate individual health insurance premiums on the basis of non-genetic medical information, but not on the basis of genetic information. The article reviews the case for such genetic exceptionalism. First, I critically assess some standard justifications. Next, I scrutinize an argument appealing to the view that genetically based premium differentiation expresses that persons do not all merit equal concern and respect. In the final section, I argue that even if genetic exceptionalism is unjustified, there is a forceful luck egalitarian argument against basing premiums on genetic risks, to wit, that this tends to make some individuals worse off than others as a result of the bad brute luck involved in having a genetically determined, above-average risk of developing health problems. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4966]
65.5345 LOKRIFA, Abdeljalil; MOISSERON, Jean-Yves —
Morocco is embarked in a program of advanced regionalization. Historical feedbacks from such programs in other countries [such] as France but also in several developing countries point out the regionalization challenges. Regionalization is closely linked to globalization and address both political and economic issues. Regionalization endangers state and national unity. It may slow up the process in the Moroccan case. [R]
65.5346 LOPIŽIĆ, Iva —
The paper deals with the French political-administrative system, traditionally perceived to be resting on the central role of the state that relies on strong administrative system dominated by legal values. The main characteristics of the French political-administrative system derived from this conception are centralization, top-down approach, dense network of state functionaries and bodies throughout the territory, uniformity of administrative structures, high professionalism of public servants, strong social state, nationalization and dirigisme. The paper analyzes different aspects of the political-administrative system, describes state and local institutions, their functioning and new developmental trends. [It] suggests that, because of global trends and contemporary administrative doctrines, France is moving away from the traditional model of public government by strengthening local self-government and promoting economic values in public administration. [R, abr.]
65.5347 LUKIN, Annabelle —
Given the significance of annual budgetary decisions in both fiscal terms and policy reach, the annual federal budget speech has a distinctive place in Australia's parliamentary cycle. The speeches afford a government a significant opportunity to articulate its economic policy agenda and to contrast its agenda with that of its predecessors or the Opposition. This article reviews the budget speeches of two Treasurers, P. Costello (Liberal, 1996–2007) and W. Swan (Labor, 2008–2013), and compares them with respect to how they used the budget speech to position their parties and their governments. Costello's speeches are singular, consistent and highly partisan. Swan eschewed the ad hominem argument favored by Costello, but failed to project an alternative, consistent narrative of his government's agenda and achievements. [R]
65.5348 LYALL, Jason; SHIRAITO, Yuki; IMAI, Kosuke —
Information about insurgent groups is a central resource in civil wars: counterinsurgents seek it, insurgents safeguard it, and civilians often trade it. Yet despite its essential role in civil war dynamics, the act of informing is still poorly understood, due mostly to the classified nature of informant “tips”. As an alternative research strategy, we use an original 2,700 respondent survey experiment in 100 villages to examine attitudes toward the Guardians of Peace program, a widespread campaign by the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan to recruit local informants. We find that co-ethnic bias — the systematic tendency to favor cooperation with co-ethnics — shapes attitudes about informing and beliefs about retaliation, especially among Tajik respondents. This bias persists even after adjusting for additional explanations and potential confounding variables. [R, abr.]
65.5349 MAIER-KNAPP, Naila —
Attempting to create greater understanding of the political dynamics that influence domestic disaster relief and management (DRM) in Thailand, this article takes a closer look at these dynamics by outlining the main actors involved in flood-related DRM. It acknowledges the importance of international and military actors but emphasizes the role of national and subnational authorities. It then identifies the central issues of DRM-governance as capacity and bureaucracy and discusses these through a chronological assessment of the flood crisis in Thailand in 2011, inter-weaving the colorful domestic politics with various political cleavages and dichotomies, and thereby distinguishing between three main dichotomies which it considers as the central drivers of the political dynamics and institutional development of DRM: old versus new institutions, technocracy versus bureaucracy and centralized versus decentralized bureaucracy. [R, abr.]
65.5350 MAIORANO, Diego —
In May 2014, N. Modi became India's Prime Minister in the wake of a historic electoral victory. He has generated two kinds of expectations: on the one hand, his voters expect him to create millions of new jobs for a fast-growing working-age population; on the other hand, Hindu extremists hope that he will pursue an aggressive policy aimed at “Hinduizing” India's society. The first months of his premiership show that Modi is acting in both spheres, while pursuing a radical centralization of power in his hands. [R]
65.5351 MANGOLD, Anna Katharina; WAHL, Rainer —
The doctrine of individual public rights, a cornerstone of German (Administrative) Law, is highly dependent on the two fundamental processes of change in German Public Law since 1949: constitutionalization and Europeanization. Since 1949, the doctrine of individual public rights has experienced challenges both from above (constitutional law) and from outside (EU law). Both constitutionalization and Europeanization required more than mere doctrinal adaption. More and more statutes favor individuals, thus leading to a quantitative increase of individual public rights. Also qualitatively new ideas proliferate in administrative law (such as fundamental rights and wide access to justice). It is no longer the autonomous logic of administrative law which is decisive for such new ideas; rather other layers of law determine the shape of individual public rights (constitutional law and EU law). [R]
65.5352 MANGSET, Marte —
Analyzing 81 British, French and Norwegian top bureaucrats' arguments for belonging to the elite or not, this paper unpacks the elite concept and explores its meaning along a range of dimensions (organizational, prestige, education, social status, power, wage). These dimensions can be analyzed as indicating either an elite status delimited to the profession or exceeding it, as a societal elite. Rather than what might be expected, a clear contrast between anti-elitist Norwegian and elitist British and French bureaucrats, the comparative analysis of the interviews shows a variation between two different understandings of the elite concept: Norwegians interpret their elite status as delimited to the profession, and British and French bureaucrats define themselves as societal elites. [R, abr.]
65.5353 MANOJLOVIĆ, Romea —
The paper explains the public administration and political system in Germany. It explains the present design of its administration and the reforms it has undergone. The historical development, starting from the 18th c. is explained, followed by the constitutional design of the country with the explanation of the role of the Bundestag, Bundesrat, the federal government, and federal president. In the context of political, administrative, and financial decentralization, the territorial division of the country is shown. The paper explains the path that Germany has undergone in the context of managerial reforms: from experimentation with privatization to re-municipalization. The federal organization is explained as well as the external and internal means of its control. The paper also deals with administrative coordination and the relationship between the state and citizens. [R, abr.]
65.5354 McCANN, Pamela J. Clouser —
This article incorporates states and legislators with state-based interests in a theory of intergovernmental delegation and argues that members of [the US] Congress consider their relationship with their state government vis-à-vis their connection with the national executive branch as they make intergovernmental delegation choices. This theory is tested against current explanations of decentralization: Republican devolution, average partisan congruence between Congress and the states, and policy type using a novel data-set spanning over 30 years, 30,000 provisions, and 197 significant laws. Not only is support for the theory of intergovernmental delegation found, but alternative explanations fail to explain the degree of responsibility delegated to the states in national law, demonstrating the importance of national and state political contexts on delegation. [R, abr.]
65.5355 McDONALD, Matt —
Prime Minister K. Rudd was deposed as leader of his party after walking away from proposed climate legislation. One important part of this puzzle concerns the nature of political debate in Australia about climate action, with this debate orienting around the economic costs of climate action. This can be read as a competition between discourses of security: one focused on securing Australia and vulnerable others from the long-term threat posed by climate change, the other on securing Australia and Australians from the short-term threat climate change action posed to continued economic growth. Over time, the latter came to dominate contestation over climate change. This article maps these competing discourses, reflecting on what this case tells us about the politics of climate change in Australia and beyond. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4912]
65.5356 MÉNDEZ, José Luis —
Presidents face the problem of exercising a leadership that is of an elusive nature, hard to comprehend and to grasp, and that involves both opportunities and risks. Political leaders may confront such questions more effectively — and academies and citizens alike may better evaluate them — if they understand leadership as “strategic action”. In support of this hypothesis, this paper sets out three elements: “relevant agenda”, “inclusive leveraging” and “balanced decision-making style”. On this basis an analysis is made of the government of Felipe Calderón, concluding that he failed to exercise political leadership. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5358]
65.5357 MESSINA, Anthony M. —
J. Carvalho's [Impact of Extreme Right Parties on Immigration Policy: Comparing Britain, France and Italy, New York, 2013] makes a welcome contribution to the growing scholarship that assesses the impacts of extreme-right parties (ERPs) on inter-party competition, public opinion and public policy. Although it commendably avoids the pitfall of overestimating the political significance of ERPs, several criticisms of the book nevertheless can be raised. First, it is disquieting that its analysis of the impacts of ERPs within its chosen three countries covers less than a decade. Second, the reader may come away questioning its ultimate contribution to our understanding of the staying power of ERPs. Third, it is reasonable to ask if in investigating the impacts of ERPs on inter-party competition and public opinion the book is simply accumulating evidence for the much more important question of their impact on public policy. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5443]
65.5358 MEYER, Lorenzo —
The Felipe Calderón government was defined by the form and content of the 2006 electoral campaign. It involved a ferocious confrontation between Left and Right, with a very narrow margin, and the refusal by the winner to allow a recount, and by the loser to accept the result. Calderón set about reaffirming his position by militarizing the fight against organized crime, but the lack of coordination, prevailing institutional weakness and a striking increase in violence caused the project to fail. Poor economic performance and its social effects contributed to the defeat of Calderón's party in the intermediate elections and in 2012. The term in government ended with the return to power of the PRI and with questions concerning the nature of the political regime. [R] [First article of a thematic issue on “Felipe Calderón's presidency [in Mexico]”, edited and introduced, pp. 5–15, by Reynaldo YUNUEN ORTEGA ORTIZ, Ma. Fernanda SOMUANO. See also Abstr. 65.5244, 5286, 5356, 5433, 5638]
65.5359 MOGALAKWE, Monageng —
The regularity of elections in Botswana has persuaded some observers to present Botswana as an exemplar of democracy and good governance in Africa. This perception is reinforced by the existence of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), whose mandate is to ensure that elections are conducted efficiently, properly, freely and fairly. [However], the IEC has neither the authority nor the power to level the electoral playing field, and ensure that elections are also fair, in addition to being conducted efficiently, properly and freely. This inability by Botswana's electoral management body to ensure that elections are conducted fairly emanates from the narrow legal and political framework within which the IEC operates, and exposes the weaknesses of Botswana's much vaunted democracy. [R, abr.]
65.5360 MOORE, Colin D. —
The Veterans Health Administration (VA) is among the most unusual and misunderstood institutions in the American welfare state. Unlike most American social services, veterans' medical care continues to be administered directly by the state. Drawing on extensive archival research, I [examine] the vA's unique policy trajectory by exploring two puzzling episodes of institutional change in the delivery of veterans' health care, both instances occurring at the nadir of the vA's reputation as a competent, innovative, and politically-powerful agency. I investigate the role of bureaucrats in shaping the development of the American welfare state and develop the concept of collaborative state-building to demonstrate how public-private partnerships may contribute to the expansion of social welfare programs in liberal states. [R, abr.]
65.5361 MOTOMURA, Hiroshi —
Culling the Masses: the Democratic Origins of Racist Immigration Policy in the Americas [Cambridge, 2014] by D.S. FitzGerald and D. Cook-Martin analyzes the trend in the US, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina away from explicit racial discrimination in immigration laws. One layer of the book's argument examines how “vertical” (domestic) and “horizontal” (external) forces led these countries to abandon explicit racism. [It also] argues that this anti-racist turn was not a product of democracy. Instead, racist immigration laws were often the product of democratic influences and institutions. The [book's] nuanced examination of external influences on national immigration laws is invaluable. However, its inconsistent definition of “immigration law” across countries leaves incomplete both its assessment of racism in the present-day immigration laws, and in turn, its assessment of the relationship between democracy and racism. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5290]
65.5362 MUDGE, Stephanie L. —
The grip of austerity in European politics since 2008 presents a double puzzle: electorally weak center-left parties offering no definite alternative, and the surprisingly efficient pursuit of “fiscal consolidation”. This article investigates the institutional bases of alternative economic thinking during the 1930s versus the post-2008 crisis years. Noting the recent prominence of a new social type, the European economist-technocrat (EET), I highlight the historically specific order to which the EET is indigenous: rarefied, international professional circuits that tend to work over, not through, party politics. This contrasts sharply with the nationally-based, party-connected economists who developed new economic orthodoxies between the 1930s and 1960s, including Keynes himself. I argue that the linkages between European economics and financial technocracies help to explain Europe's double puzzle. [R, abr.]
65.5363 MUÑOZ MACHADO, Santiago —
The first part of this study focuses on the path to recognition of fundamental rights in the European legal system, the way in which they are guaranteed in the constitutions of the member states. It was originally a jurisprudential work, later on transformed into the explicit statement in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU and the draft accession to the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950. There are three levels of protection of fundamental rights established in the EU and the ECHR. This study clears the difficulties in the relationship between these three judicial orders, and, following their respective case law, brings up the rules that are needed to articulate the relationship between the three levels of protection so as to ensure equivalent guarantees. [R]
65.5364 NEKOLA, Martin; MORAVEK, Jan —
The criminal prohibition of psychoactive substances is challenged every day as new designer substances emerge on globalized markets in a regulatory void. In a case-study of a recent regulatory amendment in the Czech Republic, the article reconstructs the formulation of recommendations by an advisory committee working at the boundary between science and practical policy making. A uniform legal status was applied to both high-risk and low-risk substances. The article demonstrates how expert efforts to produce evidence-based policy advice were constrained by an externally induced sense of urgency, avoidance of controversy, internal disunity about drug policy orientation, limited evidence, and the institutional momentum of traditional drug control. The logic of evidence was relativized by the tactical preference for consensus. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4837]
65.5365 NELSON, Kjersten —
Scholars of gender and politics have long discussed the various manifestations of the “double-bind” for women who seek political leadership. Using a survey experiment with a nationally representative sample, this article examines whether this double-bind exists for female judges. It reveals that while gender stereotypes are not uniformly applied to female judges, women on the bench are assessed differently in terms of their empathy and knowledge under certain circumstances. The article then discusses the potential implications of these gendered assessments for perceptions of the court, its actions, and women who aspire to judicial roles. [R]
65.5366 NEWMANN, William W. —
Foreign policy decision-making during a US presidential administration's tenure in office is dynamic. The evolution model of decision-making suggests that Presidents will use three structures to make decisions: a formal interagency process, and informal process based in a small group of senior advisers, and a confidence-based process where the President seeks often-private advice from the advisers he trusts the most. This essay goes beyond the evolution model by focusing on how Presidents and their senior advisers continually re-evaluate decision-making, often concluding that the process needs major restructuring. Pressures to change are typically institutional; however, whether meaningful changes in the process are actually implemented depends on the President's idiosyncratic decision style. Case studies of Eisenhower and Kennedy illustrate how both men contemplated significant changes in their decision making process, but neither could ultimately implement them. [R, abr.]
65.5367 NIKOLENYI, Csaba; SHENHAV, Shaul R. —
This article provides a simple game-theoretic model to explain the passage of anti-defection measures in India, in 1985, and Israel, in 1991. These two democratic states were among the first to experiment with the constitutionalization of anti-defection measures. Moreover, their comparison is important because they were supported with a strong consensus by both the government party, or coalition, and the opposition. The reasons for the passage of the anti-defection laws in these two states were rooted in the strategic consequences of format changes in their party systems. The cases show, respectively, that a dominant party system (India) and a tightly balanced bipolar party system (Israel) provided equally compelling incentives for rampant party-switching between government and opposition, creating an incentive for both sides to adopt a strict measure to curb defections. [R, abr.]
65.5368 NOLAN, Melanie —
For most of the 20th c., New Zealanders could cross the Tasman Sea freely to live and work in Australia, with access to citizenship and social welfare benefits. From 2001, however, while Australians living in New Zealand could still gain access to citizenship with social welfare benefits, many New Zealanders moving to live in Australia have been unable to become citizens and, despite paying taxes, cannot receive some social welfare benefits or have rights to permanent residence. Effectively, they are in welfare limbo. Clearly, Australian political processes drove changes to welfare eligibility for New Zealanders living in Australia. This “limbo” raises the question, however, as to whether New Zealand governments could have done more to protect the rights of New Zealanders living in Australia. [R, abr.]
65.5369 NÚÑEZ MUÑOZ, Ingrid Karina; MATHEUS INCIARTE, María Milagros; MORALES VILLALOBOS, Edwiges —
The objective of this paper is primarily to analyze the relations between state and civil society based on the new meanings of citizen participation generated in Venezuela through the promulgation of the 1999 Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic, resulting in the approval of a series of mechanisms and administrative bodies that strive to promote participatory practices in public affairs with a view to finding solutions for collective problems. The methodology is qualitative, seen from the perspective of a hermeneutical approach, considering that this re-definition is a dialectical and inter-subjective construction of values, actions and rules in the political environment that tries to explain how participatory democracy is made viable in Venezuela, considering citizen participation as a key element to strengthen the democratic political system, mainly based on local government. [R, abr.]
65.5370 O'BRIEN, Erin —
Debates over the legitimacy and legality of prostitution have characterized human trafficking discourse for the last two decades. This article identifies the extent to which competing perspectives concerning the legitimacy of prostitution have influenced anti-trafficking policy in Australia and the US and argues that each nation-state's approach to domestic sex work has influenced trafficking legislation. The legal status of prostitution in each country and feminist influences on prostitution law reform have had a significant impact on the nature of the legislation adopted. [R]
65.5371 OELS, Angela; LUCKE, Franziskus von —
We show that there were many speech acts in the realm of international politics which problematized climate change as a security issue but that hardly anyone adopted extraordinary measures to address it. However, this failed securitization does not mean that climate security discourse did not have any policy implications. We use the case of climate change in order to illustrate some well-known weaknesses of the original Copenhagen School's theory of securitization and demonstrate the added value of theory extensions for our case. From an extended theoretical perspective, we show that climate security discourse presents dangerous levels of climate change as an unchangeable matter of fact. It thereby renders invisible the scope for fighting climate change. Instead, resilience to climate change impacts comes to the foreground. [R, abr.]
65.5372 OJIMA, Ricardo; DIAS DIÓGENES, Victor Hugo; LOPES DA SILVA, Bruno —
Brazil has recently gone through major transformations, including the demographic transition and the urban transition. Fertility rates and mortality rates went from high figures for a situation of low rates, now below population replacement levels. At the same time, Brazil's population left a rural condition and has become predominantly urban. Added to the most recent changes in social and political order, these demographic conditioned a particular moment in which the age structure of the population favors both economic production and consumption. The article examines how these processes overlap and, finally, how they constitute major opportunities, but also on future challenges for social policies. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5798]
65.5373 OLSEN, Johan P. —
Norway has been celebrating its 1814 Constitution, one of the oldest in the world. The official presentation shows high aspirations. The major theme is the importance and the challenges of democratic government. It invites public reflection and debate. The framing generates expectations about new ideas and actions regarding how Norway should be organized and governed politically. Such expectations are not met. The main pattern is a birthday party, some updating of existing arrangements and rhetoric linked to existing narratives and doctrines. The anniversary has not been used to discuss which political order is desirable and possible in an increasingly heterogeneous society with growing international dependencies. [R, abr.]
65.5374 ONUOHA, Browne —
This article argues that neither the amnesty granted the militants nor the election of Goodluck Jonathan as President of Nigeria will be sufficient to resolve the conflict in the Niger Delta, as the crisis is an offshoot of some of the contradictions in the Nigerian federal structure, particularly the regional and power imbalance in the Constitution of 1960. Therefore, no matter how conceived, the Niger Delta crisis remains more fundamentally constitutional and political than socio-economic or environmental. The paper addresses the deliberate attempt by the Nigerian state to diminish the constitutional and political aspects of the crisis, while it creates the impression that the root of the problem of the Niger Delta is neglect and inequitable distribution of national resources by the federal government. [R, abr.]
65.5375 ÖZBUDUN, Ergun —
Turkey has always been considered an “illiberal democracy”, or in Freedom House's terms, a “partly-free” country. In recent years, however, there has been a downward trend toward “competitive authoritarianism”. Such regimes are competitive in that opposition parties use democratic institutions to contest seriously for power, but they are not democratic because the playing field is heavily skewed in favor of incumbents. One of the methods employed by competitive authoritarian leaders is the use of informal mechanisms of repression. This, in turn, requires a dependent and cooperative judiciary. Thus, in Turkey the year 2014 can be described as a period when the governing AKP (Justice and Development Party) made a sustained and systematic effort to establish its control over the judiciary by means of a series of laws of dubious constitutionality. [R]
65.5376 PALLADINO, N. —
In Italy, presidentialization seems to have affected both the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic. But, while the former seems still to struggle with the vetoes of his majority, the latter has appeared capable of exerting considerable power of influence upon the other actors of the political system. I analyze these developments by examining the relationship between popular legitimacy and leadership in the context of “mediatized” democracy. Leaders enjoying the confidence of a majority of citizens can in fact control the dynamics of opinion to impose their political agendas and set the terms of public debate. Yet, their legitimacy has been increasingly fuelled by the media. I then argue that the popular legitimacy of either the Prime Minister or the President depends on how effectively they are able to play their roles. [R, abr.]
65.5377 PARAU, Cristina E. —
What made democratic politicians in Central and Eastern Europe exclude themselves from governance of the judiciary? Institutional change in the judiciary is investigated through a diachronic study of the Romanian judiciary which reveals a complex causal nexus. The classical model of the “external incentives” of EU accession, while explaining a general drive toward revision, played an otherwise marginal role. An institutional template prevailed, promoted by an elite transnational community of legal professionals whose entrepreneurs steering the revision of governance of the judiciary after 1989. The parliamentarians, disempowered by this revision, offered no resistance — a “veto-player dormancy” that stands revealed as pre-conditional to such transnational influences. [R]
65.5378 PARK, Ausra —
This article uses insights from leadership studies to assess how individual leaders have influenced Lithuania's presidential office and the country's foreign policy. The case study examines the historical context under which this formal institution was created and evaluates the four presidents in terms of their effectiveness and the impact they had. The article identifies two Lithuanian leaders as being effective and influential during their presidency, albeit having different impacts on the foreign policy of the country due to their personality traits and domestic as well as foreign contextual factors. [R]
65.5379 PEDERSEN, Helene Helboe; HALPIN, Darren; RASMUSSEN, —
This article focuses on the interaction between parliamentary committees and external actors. How is the interaction organized, and how does it influence which interests are voiced? The authors show that institutional variation in procedures for calling witnesses and variation in committee agendas influence both the composition of actors and the concentration of evidence. The study is based on a new data-set of all contacts between parliamentary committees and external actors in one year across three countries: the UK, Denmark and the Netherlands. Interestingly, the findings show that procedures of invitation rather than open calls increase the diversity of actor composition and decrease the concentration of actor evidence. This, however, comes at a cost, since the overall volume of contacts is reduced. [R, abr.]
65.5380 PERLMUTTER, Ted —
This article reflects on the relations between xenophobic parties and immigration policy in Italy. It argues that the salience of the Northern League (Lega Nord), the instability of the Italian party system and the recent transformation of Italy from an emigration country to an immigration country all contribute to Italy's difficulty in achieving a coherent immigration policy. Since the first comprehensive immigration policy emerged in 1998, there have been six changes of government, with frequent oscillation between center-right and center-left coalitions. It is still problematic to speak of an Italian model. Drawing on J. Carvalho's [Impact of Extreme Right Parties on Immigration Policy: Comparing Britain, France and Italy, New York, 2013], this article addresses the effects of the Lega on creating and maintaining this policy imbalance. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5443]
65.5381 PLUMB, Alison —
The UK and Australian literature on free-vote patterns highlights that, even [in] “unwhipped” free-vote circumstances, party membership remains the key predictor of MPs' voting patterns. However, analyses of free votes have focused on single parliaments and as such, it is not clear whether the insights of this literature can be generalized. This article analyzes MPs' voting behavior, during free-voting on landmark legislation, which sought to allow equal marriage rights to same-sex couples in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. It addresses the following questions: Which MPs supported proposals to legalize same-sex marriage? What were the main factors that predicted their voting? Why were the majority of MPs in the UK and New Zealand, but not Australia, willing to support law reform? [R, abr.]
65.5382 PROVOST, René —
From Pussy Riot to Michael Khodorkovsky, the solidity of the rule of law in Russia seems rather shaky. This has translated into a troubled relationship between Russia and the European Court of Human Rights since Russia's ratification of the European Convention in 1998. Various factors explain this tension, including the structure of the judiciary, the status of the European Convention in Russia law, public mistrust of the courts, and ongoing episodes of armed conflicts. This has posed enormous challenges to the European Court of Human Rights, and even the most recent attempts to improve it are unlikely to trigger better compliance in Russia. [R]
65.5383 PRYS, Miriam; WOJCZEWSKI, Thorsten —
Climate finance is defined as all financial transitions to cope with the mitigation and adaptation of climate change additional to official development aid. This is, arguably, at the core to breaking the deadlock in international climate change negotiations within the framework of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. This deadlock is characterized by multiple overlapping conflict lines, by increasingly diffuse actor groups and coalitions and the often stifling overarching ethical debate on climate justice and what is constructed as common but ‘differentiated responsibilities’. We look at climate finance as a site of power struggles and identify key actor groups and the types of conflicts that they engage in. [R, abr.]
65.5384 PUTANSU, Steven R. —
“Wicked” policy areas with cross-cutting responsibilities, uncertain solutions, and constantly evolving problems are strongly subject to the pathology of the rational-scientific approach. One effort the US government is making to mitigate these limitations is the designation of some of these areas as cross-agency priority goals. In theory, directed collaboration among the multiple agencies responsible will bring different perspectives, definitions, and potential solutions to the surface, and will allow for a critical and iterative approach toward measurement of performance toward the policy goal. However, history has shown that performance efforts have a tendency to return to the pathologies of the rational-scientific chain. This article examines three of these goals: climate change, cybersecurity, and Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education. [R, abr.]
65.5385 RANA, Renu —
This article examines the initiatives taken by the government of China towards ensuring government information transparency. The Open Government Information Regulations (OGI) which was adopted in 2007 is a landmark in the transparency reforms process in China. The analysis of this initiative and further reforms becomes vital as China has witnessed newly emerged emphasis on anti-corruption campaign and rule of law. Though these regulations were adopted in 2007 at national level, many reforms have been introduced in these regulations in terms of annual guidelines from time to time. This article analyses the origin and development of OGI; the scope of these regulations; the legal, political and structural problems obstructing the successful implementation of these regulations; and further reforms towards making China more open and transparent. [R, abr.]
65.5386 RECCHI, Ettore; GRIFONE BAGLIONI, Lorenzo —
Europe had been populated by countries' nationals for centuries before it became a much more heterogeneous continent. However, in most member states of the EU, immigrants are still far from “migration neutrality”, the minimum level of integration — that is, when national origins do not interfere in the probability of social success. Furthermore, immigrant citizens are more subject to social exclusion and the differences are even more accentuated in immigrants from outside the EU. Immigrant integration policies are leading to contradictory results, both at the level of social exclusion and migration neutrality. [See Abstr. 65.6233]
65.5387 REDMOND, Paul; REGAN, John —
The existence of a large incumbency advantage in the winner-takes-all plurality system of the US is well documented. It is unclear whether incumbents in proportional systems should enjoy such a large advantage. Multi-seat constituencies make it difficult for individual incumbents to claim credit for the provision of local public goods and services. Moreover, multiple incumbents may dilute media attention thereby limiting name recognition advantage. We use a regression discontinuity design to estimate the causal effect of incumbency using election data from Ireland's system of proportional representation with a single transferable vote (PR-STV). Incumbency causes an eighteen percentage point increase in the probability that a candidate in Ireland's lower house of parliament wins a seat in the next election. [R, abr.]
65.5388 REIDY, Theresa; SUITER, Jane —
Referendum campaign regulations have proven controversial in many countries with changes often emanating from court rulings. The development of theories about the origins and impact of campaign regulations (elections and referendums) has not kept pace with newly emerging practices. This is especially true in the area of referendum campaigns. As a result, there are opportunities for researchers to systematically examine referendums. The field offers increasing scope for researchers to make policy-relevant contributions but first, it is necessary to understand and systematize which campaign regulations are in place. This article proposes an index of campaign regulation and an initial empirical application which allows for systematic cross-national comparison of referendum campaign regulations. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4987]
65.5389 REINHARDT, Gina Yannitell —
After several disasters in the US, the return-migration rate of blacks to post-disaster areas has been lower than that of other races. Does this pattern have a political explanation? I investigate political trust as the causal mechanism through which race affects people's decisions of where to live after forced evacuation. After accounting for economic, demographic, and sociological influences on return migration, I use mediation analysis to find that political trust acts as a mediator between race and return migration. I am thus able to explain the salience of race to the return-migration decision: race does not have a direct effect on return migration but rather works through the causal mechanism of political trust to determine return-migration decisions. [R, abr.]
65.5390 RISLEY, Amy —
The US government has implemented an ambitious set of policies designed to combat human trafficking and sex trafficking in women and girls in particular. This article argues that anti-trafficking discourse and policy can be understood as a project to sustain and strengthen US power. This power has been wielded through the use of foreign aid, which influences the actions of both state and non-state actors overseas. Existing policies reinforce unilateralism and executive-branch dominance. Policy-makers have also used gender strategically to moralize their actions and assert global leadership on this issue. Gender is thus deployed to serve US interests. [R]
65.5391 ROBINSON, Gregory —
In legislative studies, a “roll rate” refers to the proportion of votes where a member or group of members is “rolled” — voting no on a measure that passes. Roll-rates analysis is a potentially useful tool for evaluating arguments that the majority party in the [US] House exercises influence by controlling what does and does not make it onto the agenda. Despite its promise, so far the use of roll rates to test these arguments has faced the problem of observational equivalence — that the predictions of partisan theories of agenda control are indistinguishable from those of arguments that have no place for parties. I address this problem by calculating party-less and partisan counterfactual roll rates data to pin down the predictions of these theories. [R, abr.]
65.5392 ROHT-ARRIAZA, Naomi —
Latin America, in the wake of massive and systematic violations of human rights, has made inroads into trying such crimes in national courts. After decades in which cases were dismissed on grounds of amnesty, statutes of limitations, or other impediments to trial, these barriers have fallen in a majority of countries. Cases involving international crimes in the courts of Latin American countries have experienced distinct phases. In the first phase, advocates confronted barriers to bringing the cases into court at all. In the second and current phase, courts are facing the challenges of organizing trials that involve hundreds of defendants and victims, or using the elements of crimes like genocide to show overall patterns of atrocity. A final, emerging phase shifts the focus from trial to punishment. [R, abr.]
65.5393 ROSE, Shanna; BOWLING, Cynthia J. —
The state of American federalism in 2014–2015 is characterized by inertia and centrifugal force. Party polarization and divided government exacerbate gridlock at the federal level as President B. Obama faces Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. Policy activity has shifted outward to state legislatures and citizens, the federal and state executive branches, and the court system, creating a diverse set of alternative institutional pathways and outcomes. Some policies, like Medicaid and K-12 education, are largely shaped by federal-state executive branch negotiations, leading to individualized state programs. Other policies — such as marijuana, gun, and immigration laws — are made by state legislatures or citizens acting through the initiative process. Meanwhile, a series of court decisions has doubled the number of states where same-sex marriage is legal. [R, abr.]
65.5394 ROSENBLATT, Fernando, et al. —
The potential democratizing effect of political decentralization reforms has been a matter of substantial theoretical and empirical debate. This article analyzes the effect of local democratic institution building on the political attitudes and behavior of citizens living in small towns in Uruguay. More specifically, using a natural experiment design, this research establishes the causal impact of recently established elections of local authorities on individuals' political engagement. It develops a comparative case-study analyzing the consequences of this institutional innovation in two towns. It shows that individuals from the town where citizens have the opportunity to elect their local authorities have more positive attitudes toward politics than those from the town without such elections. [R]
65.5395 ROSTA, Miklós —
The paper highlights the main characteristics of the recent Hungarian public administration reform, as well as reveals the inconsistent nature of some of its elements and describes the connected risks. Its starting point is the Magyary Zoltán public administration development program. The reform steps are compared to the ideal type NPM approach. The Hungarian public administration reform can be characterized by strong centralization and the revitalization of Hungarian anti-liberal traditions at macro level, and by the support of the enhancement of market rules and management at micro level. [R]
65.5396 SCANNELL, Yvonne —
The global banking crisis of 2008 had dire consequences for the relatively small but open Irish economy. Ireland was facing the twin problems of a sharp decline in construction-related taxes and enormous losses by the banks. So to fight against this situation Irish government agreed in 2010 a program with the EU Commission and the IMF, to stabilize the financial sector, restore sustainable public finances, get the economy back to growth and restore Ireland to financial market funding for 2010–2013. The reform measures in the Program fall under the following headings: Labor Market, Personal Debt, and Competition. However, it is remarkable that in a fiercely litigious country there were no constitutional challenges to the Austerity Program or Institutional reforms. The relative success of Austerity has led to a situation where the trade unions and representatives of vulnerable and marginalized groups are now suffering from “austerity fatigue” and demanding compensation for the painful cutbacks endured. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5266]
65.5397 SCIARINI, Pascal; LANZ, Simon; NAI, Alessandro —
As a result of the initiative against mass immigration (MEI), Switzerland faces a dilemma between control of immigration and the continuation of bilateral agreements. This contribution raises two questions: First, have Swiss citizens' perceptions regarding the incompatibility between immigration control and bilateral agreements evolved since the vote on the MEI in February 2014? Second, what would Swiss citizens decide if they had to choose between the implementation of the MEI and the continuation of the bilateral strategy? We ground our analysis on data from the VOX surveys regarding the MEI and the more recent vote of November 2014 (Ecopop initiative). While Swiss voters still seem to be uncertain about the issue of compatibility, they nevertheless show support for the continuation of the bilateral agreements. [R, abr.] [First of two articles on “Switzerland immigration challenge”. See also Abstr. 65.6168]
65.5398 SCOONES, Ian —
The reconfiguration of land and economic opportunity following Zimbabwe's land reform from 2000 has resulted in a new politics of the countryside. This emerges from the processes of accumulation and differentiation set in train by the land reform. Yet these politics are contested: between the interests of new “middle farmers” who are “accumulating from below” and politically connected elites and large-scale capital who see different opportunities for land-based accumulation. These dynamics are being played out in different ways in different parts of the country, depending on the agro-ecological potential of the area, the way the land reform unfolded and local political actors and processes. This paper examines two areas in Masvingo province and develops a contrasting analysis of emerging political dynamics. It discusses the implications for the longer-term politics of agrarian change in Zimbabwe. [R, abr.]
65.5399 SEBÖK, Miklos —
The paper presents the results of a study of policy instrument form choice in four Western European countries. Based on an analysis of major pieces of legislation during the period, it is argued that various forms of institutional change in the form of delegation were the policy of choice for decision-makers in mitigating the effects of the financial crisis. Newly created agencies and funds enjoyed a significant degree of bureaucratic autonomy. In a parallel process, a gradual transformation of extant financial regulation contributed to an upheaval in the ideational structure that underpinned these policy areas for almost three decades. In this, a shift from price and fiscal stability to financial stability signaled a new set of goals for decision-makers, and a realignment of policy instruments duly followed. [R, abr.]
65.5400 SEIKEL, Daniel —
In recent years, the ECJ has extended the scope of the four fundamental freedoms to politically and economically highly sensitive areas such as the right to strike and the regulation of working conditions of posted workers. This article analyzes the domestic impact of two of the most controversial judgments — Laval (C-341/05) and Rüffert (C-346/06) — in Denmark, Sweden and Germany. In order to explain the different outcomes of the national adaptation processes, the article connects the literature on judicial Europeanization with political economy perspectives on the role of employers in economic and social regulation. The findings show that the differences between the cases can be traced back to different preferences of employers towards wage competition. [R, abr.]
65.5401 SHARMA, Chanchal Kumar —
As the political and economic system of a nation changes over time, so do intergovernmental relations [IGR]. Since human interactions are at the core of IGR, certain institutional mechanisms are required to facilitate interactions among political incumbents. These are called “coordination mechanisms”. The aim of these mechanisms is to achieve “policy coordination” by facilitating interactions among the executives of the two orders of government. This paper reviews and critically analyzes intergovernmental coordination mechanisms in India. [R]
65.5402 SHIBAKOVSKI, Goran —
This paper determines the effects of professionalization of the Macedonian parliamentary elite in seven parliamentary terms from 1991 to 2011. The professionalization of parliamentary elite is defined as a process that means creating high standards for access to a parliamentary seat. Effects of professionalization are detected in the research of the parliamentary elites of the European countries. The effects of professionalization could be detected by using indicators that measure a few aspects of transformation of parliamentary elites as age structure, the level and type of education, professional occupation, political experience and the percent of re-elected MPs. The effects of professionalization detected show growth and decline of the trend of professionalization of the Macedonian parliamentary elite. [R]
65.5403 SICLARI, Domenico —
The author analyzes the historical models of assistance to the poor, focusing on the major institutional reforms. Starting from the Italian Unification it considers the main steps that led to the affirmation of the principle of proximity, under which the management of social services is awarded to municipalities. Taking into account the Constitution and the difficulty of the state to fully protect the right to assistance, the law 328/2000 and the Reform of Title V of the Constitution have ordered “horizontal” subsidiarity. This principle encourages private participation in the planning and management of welfare activities, allowing a full implementation of the most general instances of solidarity. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5266]
65.5404 SIEBERER, Ulrich; MÜLLER, Wolfgang C. —
How can we explain institutional reforms that redistribute institutional power between the parliamentary majority and minority? This paper proposes an informal theoretical model to explain such reforms in European parliaments based on congressional literature and inductive explanations from case studies. It argues that political parties as the relevant actors pursue institutional reforms based on their substantive goals, their current and expected future government status, transaction and audience costs of reforms, second-order institutions that regulate the relative influence of actors in changing parliamentary rules, and the institutional status quo. Hypotheses derived from this model are tested with a qualitative case study of all standing order reforms in the Austrian parliament from 1945 to 2014. The empirical analysis finds support for various hypotheses and their underlying causal mechanisms. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5450]
65.5405 SILVEIRA, Pedro —
This article analyzes the sociopolitical profile and the government career of the Junior Ministers with and without political experience. Contrary to what is indicated in the literature, our results show that most of them are politically inexperienced and have a short and occasional government career. However, important variances emerge when we take into consideration the political profile, what confirms the importance of the distinction between politicians and experts. [R]
65.5406 SIMON-KUMAR, Rachel —
Evidence shows that neoliberal policy profoundly influences, and is influenced by, racial politics. The paper examines the articulation of these two “frames” in the specific case of migration policies in New Zealand. Since the mid-1980s, immigration policy in New Zealand has clearly worked towards neoliberal goals of attracting skilled labor and boosting economic productivity. Equally, it has also mirrored race politics. Contrary to existing research that sees migration policy as a tool to “whiten the population”, this paper highlights a more complex inter-weaving between neoliberalism and race politics in New Zealand's migration policy. Focusing on the construction of the “desirable migrant”, the analysis shows that while desirability was marked by race throughout the mid-1990s, in the new century, the interplay between race and economics has become far more complicated. [R, abr.]
65.5407 SKALAMERA, Morena —
I examine the dynamics among ENI (the Italian energy national champion), the Italian government, and Russia, their external supplier, focusing on the Italian gas sector and its path to liberalization. I test whether there is positive causality between Italy's bumpy road to gas-market liberalization and the country's close energy partnership with Russia. I find that in Italy it is corporate actors, rather than a carefully managed government policy, that affect the level of symbiosis with Russia, and the degree to which energy governance is integrated with the rest of the EU. I test this hypothesis through my examination of the Italian government's energy policies over time, and through an analysis of the degree to which ENI's specific strategies have affected its positioning vis-à-vis Russia. [R, abr.]
65.5408 ŠKARICA, Mihovil —
The article analyzes the main features of Albanian public administration. All institutions are subjected to dynamic and contextual analysis: specific historical heritage and modern dynamics in the political system are the main factors that influence the outcomes of administrative reforms during transitional period. Their impact is evident through politicization of public administration, central organization of public institutions, weak position of local self-government, and hierarchic and statist understanding of the whole public sector. Comprehensive administrative reforms started parallel with the EU accession process. EU conditionality policy initiates and dictates most of the reform issues. [R, abr.]
65.5409 SNELLINGER, Amanda —
Nepal's 2008 Constituent Assembly (CA) dissolved in 2012 [because of] the top party leaders' refusal to call a vote over the federal structure after consensus on state restructuring failed. This left Nepal relying on the 2007 Interim Constitution and with no elected national or local government bodies. The question I take up is why a nationally elected government would forego electoral procedure in favor of consensus, ultimately ensuring its own demise. [R, abr.]
65.5410 SNOW, Dave —
This article develops the concept of jurisdictional framing: describing a policy field as properly belonging to one particular level of government. It applies this concept to explain how federalism frustrated Canadian attempts to create national assisted reproductive technology policy. Canada's failed policy can be traced to how the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies and the federal government failed to align their substantive framing strategies with the procedural requirements of the Canadian Constitution. Future policy studies should focus on the interaction between substantive and jurisdictional framing, as policy failure can stem from the language used to justify legislative authority in unforeseen ways. [R]
65.5411 SOARE, Sorina —
Considering that ambiguously written constitutional articles have regularly been seen in Romania as sources of major political crises and triggers for democratic collapse, this article explores the complexities of the position of the President in the Romanian political system. Drawing on insights from Romanian constitutional provisions for the balance of power among the main institutions, the article demonstrates that it is not semi-presidentialism per se that should be seen as problematic from the standpoint of the quality of Romanian democracy, but the incomplete or confused codification of the relationship between the President and the Prime Minister. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5715]
65.5412 Solon, SOLOMON —
Mapping cardinal cases of the Israeli Supreme Court, the article demonstrates how, in the Israeli constitutional experience, the concept of national security came to be transformed from a balancing right to a background element. It argues that while Israeli constitutionalism indeed awarded national security parameters a decisive role in the realms of the human rights balance judicial discourse, it equally embarked on a procedure of delineating the existence of national security as an autonomous consideration, in cases where national security exigencies ceased to be obvious in the Israeli reality. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5282]
65.5413 STINSON, Callie —
Against a backdrop of environmental degradation, population growth, increased temperature variability, migration, conflict, and radicalization, governments in the Sahel are increasingly concerned with addressing the complex and interrelated threats tied to water security. This evolving landscape demands innovative approaches to water-management that leverage skills and expertise from a wealth of disciplines to achieve shared security and development objectives. Military forces in the Sahel are important but seemingly overlooked stakeholders in this effort. This paper explores how national governments in the Niger Basin can adjust their security budgets to create and deploy military units capable of enhancing basic water infrastructure. Through long-term cross-sector partnerships, African militaries can develop domestic capacity to execute projects that align with a comprehensive, integrated water sector policy framework. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4861]
65.5414 STONE, Bruce —
This article explores the institutional requirements of accountability for an anticorruption agency in a parliamentary democracy. It suggests that approaching public accountability as “the satisfaction of legitimate expectations about the use of discretion” is useful in understanding or designing an accountability regime for such a powerful agency requiring independence from the executive. The approach facilitates identification of a variety of stakeholders and a range of institutional means by which their legitimate expectations may be satisfied. Despite the recognition, in consequence, of multiple agents and channels of accountability, parliament must remain central to the accountability regime and can achieve this through an appropriately designed oversight committee. Examination of a selected Australian agency, the Western Australian Corruption and Crime Commission, provides support for these propositions. [R, abr.]
65.5415 STRANDH, Veronica; EKLUND, Niklas —
This article analyzes how and why Swedish counterterrorism policy has changed since 2001. It raises the issue of how counterterrorism interacts with other factors on the governmental agenda, which priorities are made, and how these can be understood. Although empirical evidence on the real political influence of emergent interagency networks is still lacking in the case of Sweden, we analyze the importance of focusing events. In the light of the Swedish national strategy for counterterrorism, we analyze the annual reports from the Swedish Security Service. We also explore linkages between the counterterrorism and crisis-management literatures, and argue that the reassuring overtones in Swedish counterterrorism policy of late can be understood not only as the result of changes in threat perception and policy, but also in institutional change. [R]
65.5416 STREŽNEVA, Marina V. —
An assessment of the potential of national parliaments to capitalize on the Treaty of Lisbon and on new forms of their engagement with supranational institutions aimed at enhancing their legitimizing influence provides a clear picture of European decision-making. There are three ways for national parliaments to intensify their involvement: parliamentary control over national executives; control of compliance with the subsidiarity principle in European legislative proposals and supranational decisions; political dialogue with the European Commission and interparliamentary cooperation. Conditions are ripe for more active stance of national parliaments in EU affairs. The “system of early warning” about subsidiarity principle violations, provided for in the Treaty of Lisbon, seems to be the most promising option. National parliaments, however, need to demonstrate more persistence when using new instruments.
65.5417 SUBOTIĆ, Jelena —
The article challenges the international norms scholarship by questioning what power international norms actually have in domestic politics of adopting states. I analyze the process of diffusion, contestation, and localization of transitional justice norms — ways of dealing with legacies of past violence — in the Western Balkans. I choose three principal transitional justice concepts — truth, justice, and reconciliation — and analyze how their local meaning in the Western Balkans diverged normatively from that of international transitional justice advocates, and to what political effect. I trace the processes of normative divergence of international transitional justice norms to demonstrate how the domestic understanding of international norms produced new meanings and practices and fundamentally challenged the principal assumptions behind the global governance of post-conflict reconstruction. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6247]
65.5418 SUH Jae-Jung —
I assess the limits and potential of South Korea's democracy as revealed by a review of political developments related to the Cheonan incident. I argue that the incident's aftermath shows that South Korea's democratic principles and procedures remain vulnerable to pressures generated by national security concerns, although this vulnerability was covered to a limited degree by an open public sphere and active civil society. Korea's political functioning in terms of republican principles and procedural democracy was seriously tested as imperatives of national security created the “state of exception”. But civil society appropriated new technologies as well as old tactics to generate “public spheres” of deliberation. I suggest that Korean democracy during the Cheonan crisis reflects the resiliency and vulnerability of the “division system” in which South Korea's politics is embedded. [R] [First of a series of articles on “The Cheonan incident [in South Korea]”. See also Abstr. 65.5447, 6039, 6067]
65.5419 SULIMA, Snejana —
A detailed analysis of Moldovan electoral legislation since the country's independence in 1991 allows for a greater understanding of candidates' behavior during elections based on the ways in which they interpret or even modify electoral legislation in accordance with their political self-interest. Despite a relatively uniform formal basis, Moldovan political leaders have often circumvented the democratic sense of electoral standards, guided by their personal objective to either come to power or to keep a government position. [R, trad.] [First article of a thematic issue on “Moldova facing the challenge of multiple crises”, edited and introduced, pp. 5–16, by Julien DANERO IGLESIAS, Petru NEGURA and Djordje TOMIC. See also Abstr. 65.5586, 5994, 6252]
65.5420 TAŞ, Hakki —
G. O'Donnell's influential work “Delegative democracy” [Journal of Democracy 5(1), Jan. 1994: 55–69; Abstr. 44.4814] set the discourse on a peculiar type of democracy. Lying between representative democracy and authoritarianism, the uniqueness of delegative democracy lies in its features, including an absence of horizontal accountability, strong centralized rule, individual leadership with unchecked powers, a cult figure embodying the nation and clientelist practices. Turkey, though a parliamentary system, has also displayed the distinctive features of delegative democracies. This paper identifies three characteristics of delegative democracy, which are responsible for the lack of democratic consolidation, if not the erosion of democracy itself: anti-institutionalism, an antipolitical agenda and clientelism. Arguing that delegative democracy is the best concept with which to examine contemporary Turkey, the paper lays out how, post-2011, Turkey has demonstrated the three elements of delegative democracy. [R, abr.]
65.5421 THOMSEN, Danielle M. —
This article examines why the percentage of Democratic women in Congress has increased dramatically since the 1980s while the percentage of Republican women has barely grown. The central claim is that ideological conformity with the party influences the decision to run for office, and I suggest that partisan polarization has discouraged ideological moderates in the pipeline from pursuing a congressional career. The findings have gendered implications because, first, Republican women in the pipeline have historically been to the left of their male counterparts, and second, there is a dearth of conservative women in the pipeline. [R]
65.5422 TILLIN, Louise —
Despite the sustained interest among political scientists in the effects of federal design on ethnic conflict, economic development and prospects for democratic stability, there has been little sustained attempt to explain when and why territorial maps change over time. A historical institutionalist framework draws attention to the ways in which constellations of internal borders are underpinned by — and reproduce — patterns of power. The framework explains territorial change by studying the multiple layers that structure political life in federal settings and which through their interactions produce change. The article explains territorial change in two countries with contrasting federal origins: India and the US. In so doing, it questions the tendency within comparative politics to treat both countries as places of exception. [R, abr.]
65.5423 TRAVKINA, Natal'ja M. —
The results of the 2014 mid-term elections are analyzed. The Republicans won a landslide victory over the Democrats. The main factor that contributed to the Republican gains in the Senate and House among others, was mass discontent of the American electorate with the Obama politics and the style of governance. In the end two interpretation models of the election results are presented. [R]
65.5424 TRIDIMAS, George —
The ancient Athenian democracy emerged in 508 (all dates BCE), became a dominant naval power, fought a multitude of external wars and ended in 322 after it was defeated by Macedon and was replaced by oligarchy. The paper employs a political economy framework to examine the demise of democracy. It illustrates that war was a means of redistribution, benefiting the majority of poorer Athenians at the expense of the rich elite, who bore a disproportionate burden of its cost. A model of conflict is set up to study the incentives of the poor majority to go to war. After analyzing a dynamic setting, it also investigates the circumstances when after defeating Athens her enemy chooses to impose oligarchy that disenfranchises the poor. I conclude that the fall of the democracy was neither unavoidable nor inevitable. [R, abr.]
65.5425 TUDOROIU, Theodor —
In power since 2009, Moldova's pro-democracy and pro-European ruling coalition has been unable to implement effectively much-needed reforms. Presenting the details of recent key events and using quantitative assessments, this article argues that the main cause of Moldova's present problems is state capture. Cynical elites have engaged in a fierce competition for the capture of state institutions and for the control of policymaking in order to promote their own private economic interests. The ensuing delegitimization of state institutions and of the Moldovan state itself is highly detrimental to the country's democracy and sovereignty. [R]
65.5426 TURNER, Catherine —
This paper explores the relationship between the framework of transition and the enactment of a new constitution for Egypt. It uses the relatively under-explored concept of transitional constitutionalism, interrogating some of the key claims on which transitional constitutionalism is based, and questioning their application in the Egyptian context. The paper explores the broader paradox of the imposition of a framework of transition that is rooted in principles of liberalism in the context where liberalism is far from the agreed or prevailing political model. [R]
65.5427 TURNER, Ryan —
The High Court plays a central role in the Australian political system, and the exercise of judicial power has far-reaching consequences for the legislative and executive branches of government. This article presents a historiography of the study of the High Court by political scientists, using H. Irving's “The Constitution and the judiciary” as a foil. In order to foster cross-disciplinary study and research within the political science discipline, this article sets out a new research agenda for the future study of the High Court and the law by political scientists. This research agenda provides new insights into (among other topics) how judges exercise power and the changing relationship between the judiciary and the legislative and executive branches. [R]
65.5428 UNAH, Isaac; ROSANO, Kristen; MILAM, K. Dawn —
Does public mood influence the decisions of US Supreme Court Justices? Under what conditions might Justices vote against their typical ideological leanings and in favor of public opinion? We employ both quantitative and qualitative methods to address these questions. For the quantitative portion, logistic regression-analysis indicates a strong relationship between public mood and Supreme Court Justices' votes both in the aggregate and for a number of liberal and conservative Justices individually during the 1946 to 2011 Court terms. For the qualitative portion, we examine Justice H. Blackmun's personal papers in the Library of Congress for evidence of an apparent “switch” from a attitudinal posture to a public mood posture. We find four cases in which he made such a switch. [R, abr.]
65.5429 VALLE TAVARES DUARTE, Fabiola del; CHIRINOS PORTILLO, Loiralith Margarita; LAGIOIA FOSSI, Michelle Giuliana —
This research aims to determine participation as the character of democracy in the 1999 Constitution of the Bolivarian republic of Venezuela. In the 1999 Constitution of Venezuela's Bolivarian Republic, participation constitutes a character of democracy, because without democracy, there is no participation and correspondingly, without participation, there is no democracy. To favor participation and thereby, strengthen democracy, this study recommends that the Venezuelan state safeguard and guarantee use of the means of participation regulated in the 1999 Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. [R, abr.]
65.5430 VAN DER BEKEN, Christophe —
Due to the unfeasibility of achieving a perfect overlap between ethnic and territorial boundaries, every ethnic-based territory will contain ethnic minority groups. This is also the case in the Ethiopian Federation where all nine regions are ethnically heterogeneous, albeit to different degrees. This article investigates how Ethiopia's regions are approaching their minority groups by analyzing the relevant regional constitutions and laws. The analysis shows that the main minority protection mechanism is the establishment of ethnic-based local governments. Although this device is not without merit as far as minority protection is concerned, the impracticality of achieving ethnically homogeneous territories is its major limitation. The article recommends a number of complementary legal instruments striving for more comprehensive minority protection. [R, abr.]
65.5431 VAN VLIET, Olaf; WANG Chen —
[Although] employment rates have increased in many European countries since the beginning of the 2000s, poverty rates have stagnated and in some countries even increased. In the welfare state literature, it has been argued that these disappointing poverty trends may be partly attributable to the reforming of traditional welfare state programs into social investment policies, because the latter are less redistributive. This paper contributes to the social investment literature by empirically analyzing the distributional effects of shifts from traditional welfare state arrangements to social investment policies in fifteen European countries for the period 1997–2007. Our results suggest that the detrimental effect of social investment policies, described in some specific cases in the literature, cannot be generalized across a larger group of European countries. [R, abr.]
65.5432 VEENENDAAL, Wouter P. —
The Principality of Liechtenstein challenges the prevailing view in political science that “small is democratic”. Located in the heart of Western Europe, the Principality is ruled by a monarch with extensive political powers. The article examines how the smallness of the Principality contributes to the maintenance of powerful traditional leadership, and which strategies are used to legitimize the Liechtensteiner system vis-à-vis its population. On the basis of interviews with Liechtensteiner respondents, it is found that the smallness of Liechtenstein contributes to the position of the monarchy due to (1) the lack of alternative sources of identification, (2) the perception of the Prince as a neutral arbiter standing above the quarreling political factions, and (3) the dominant cultural code that limits citizens' opportunities to criticize the monarchy. [R, abr.] [See also Abstr. 65.5445]
65.5433 VELÁZQUEZ LÓPEZ VELARDE, Rodrigo —
The principal aim of this paper is to evaluate two key aspects of executive-Iegislature relations during the administration of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa: the approval ratings of the legislative agenda of the executive and the amendments or vetoes made by the president to the bills of law approved by lawmakers. It also examines whether any of the constitutional changes approved over this period altered the balance of power in the relationship between the president and Congress. The analysis indicates that neither the presidential nor the multiparty system, nor the lack of a majority for the president's party in Congress led to legislative paralysis, but they did hinder the approval of a number of key reforms for the country. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5358]
65.5434 VENUGOPAL, Rajesh —
This paper examines the developmental causes and consequences of the shift from a parliamentary to a semi-presidential system in Sri Lanka in 1978, examining its provenance, rationale and unfolding trajectory. Drawing on a wide range of sources, it sets out an argument that the executive presidency was born out of an elite impulse to create a more stable, centralized political structure to resist the welfarist electoral pressures that had taken hold in the post-independence period, and to pursue a market-driven model of economic growth. [R, abr.]
65.5435 VIOLA, Eduardo; BASSO, Larissa —
Climate change has proved to be one of the greatest threats to human survival on Earth. Its mitigation requires that the greatest Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emitters adopt low carbon development, reducing emissions substantially. Brazil is among them. Although deforestation is still the main source of Brazilian emissions, since 1990 emissions from energy systems and industrial processes have increased and their shares in total Brazilian emissions have been consistently larger. The article analyzes Brazilian energy-climate policy and politics from 1990 to 2014 in order to clarify Brazilian progress towards low carbon development and Brazilian positions in the international climate-change regime. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5996]
65.5436 VIVODA, Vlado; GRAETZ, Geordan —
This article analyzes nuclear policy-making in Japan in the aftermath of Fukushima, with the aim to identify key theoretical, institutional and organizational drivers and constraints to future change in Japan's nuclear energy policy. Despite the growing anti-nuclear sentiment and concerns about the environmental risks of nuclear power, we contend that the continuing power of vested interests will make it difficult for Japan to completely abandon nuclear power during the course of the next decade. However, given the independence of the newly established nuclear regulator and the fact that an effective veto power is held by local government officials, some of whom are opposed to the recommissioning of nuclear plants in their prefectures, we argue that the nuclear policy and regulatory landscape in Japan will undergo moderate change. [R, abr.]
65.5437 WADE, Peter —
This essay explores the argument that D.S. FitzGerald and D. Cook-Martin make in their book Culling the Masses: the Democratic Origins of Racist Immigration Policy in the Americas [Cambridge, 2014] about the relationship between liberalism and racism, in terms of a balance between inclusion and exclusion. I challenge their dismissal of approaches that see an integral connection between the two and of approaches that see liberalism as inherently opposed to racism. I also discuss their characterization of Latin American “racist anti-racism” and finish by questioning the way that they separate racism from economics. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5290]
65.5438 WANG Yuhua; MINZNER, Carl —
Over the past two decades, the Chinese domestic security apparatus has expanded dramatically. “Stability maintenance” operations have become a top priority for local Chinese authorities. We argue that this trend goes back to the early 1990s, when central Party authorities adopted new governance models that differed dramatically from those of the 1980s. They increased the bureaucratic rank of public security chiefs within the Party apparatus, expanded the reach of the Party politicallegal apparatus into a broader range of governance issues, and altered cadre evaluation standards to increase the sensitivity of local authorities to social unrest. We show that the origin of these changes lies in a policy response to the developments of 1989–1991, namely the Tiananmen democracy movement and the collapse of communist political systems in Eastern Europe. [R, abr.]
65.5439 WENZELBURGER, Georg —
Although the politics of law and order are currently a major issue of debate among criminologists, comparative public policy research has largely neglected it. This article fills that gap by bringing together criminological and public policy theories, and by examining law-and-order policies in twenty Western industrialized countries. It adds to the existing literature in two important ways: it provides a straightforward quantitative test of the existing criminological explanations of law-and-order policies using public spending as the dependent variable; and it shows that governments' partisan ideology matters for law-and-order policies. Government ideology influences how much countries spend on public order and safety, but the effect depends on the budgetary room for maneuver and the strength of institutional barriers. [R]
65.5440 WHITAKER, Beth Elise —
Exclusionary rhetoric often emerges in the context of political competition in Africa, but why are anti-immigrant strategies used by politicians in some transitional democracies and not others? Drawing on broader comparative literature, this article proposes three conditions under which politicians are likely to “play the immigration card”: when the costs of immigration become concentrated for key interest groups; when embracing anti-immigration rhetoric will divide the support base of an opponent; and when the backing of anti-immigration groups is necessary to build a winning electoral coalition. A comparative case analysis of Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana provides preliminary support for these hypotheses. [R]
65.5441 WIDMAIER, Wesley —
I integrate historical institutionalist and feminist institutionalist insights to make sense of the interplay of gender and professional socialization in limiting the scope for pre-crisis regulation and post-crisis reform. First, I highlight the scope for inefficiency in the use of information, arguing that policy success over time can engender tendencies to misplace confidence and intellectual closure. Second, I stress the role of professional and gender socialization in enabling agents to resist such inefficiencies and so limit the scope for intellectual closure. In empirical terms, I then advance three case-studies addressing the roles of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, in Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Troubled Asset Relief Program Congressional Oversight Panel in challenging the pre-crisis deregulatory consensus. [R, abr.]
65.5442 WILLIAMS, Damian —
I examine the process from the establishment of Nepal's first Constituent Assembly to the short-lived deliberations of the Assembly, followed by the dissolution of the Assembly for failing to achieve its mandate. I also trace Nepal's constitution-making process along the post-sovereign model, and assess whether they adhered to or diverted from the model. [R]
65.5443 WILLIAMS, Michelle Hale —
Scholars assessing the impact of radical right-wing parties have produced mixed findings in terms of whether effects tend to be direct or indirect and more or less salient. J. Carvalho's [Impact of Extreme Right Parties on Immigration Policy: Comparing Britain, France and Italy, New York, 2013] engages existing literature on impact-assessment examining the cases of the UK, France and Italy. His findings caution against overstatement of impacts on immigration policy, suggesting that effects are contingent on party-system competition and mainstream party agency. This article considers the mixed results pointing to a lack of existing tools for measuring indirect party impacts. It contends that existing theory on party impact struggles to conceptualize empty spaces in political ideology, attributing agency to moving parties and not to others that may be pushing them. [R, abr.] [First article of a symposium on “João Carvalho's Impact of Extreme Right Parties on Immigration Policy: Comparing Britain, France and Italy, introduced by Anthony M. MESSINA. See also Abstr. 65.5222, 5357, 5380, and João CARVALHO's rejoinder, pp. 1362–1367]
65.5444 WINTERS, Matthew S.; CAWVEY, Matthew —
Despite having 40 per cent of the world's potential for geothermal power production, Indonesia exploits less than five per cent of its own geothermal resources. We explore the reasons behind this lagging development of geothermal power and highlight four obstacles: (1) delays caused by the suboptimal decentralization of permitting procedures to local governments that have few incentives to support geothermal exploitation; (2) rent-seeking behavior originating in the point-source nature of geothermal resources; (3) the opacity of central government decision-making; and (4) a historically deleterious national fuel subsidy policy that disincentivized geothermal investment. We situate our arguments against the existing literature and three shadow case studies from other Pacific countries that have substantial geothermal resources. We argue for a more centralized geothermal governance structure. [R]
65.5445 WOLF, Sebastian —
The research note comments on W. Veenendaal's article “A big prince in a tiny realm: smallness, monarchy, and political legitimacy in the Principality of Liechtenstein” [See Abstr. 65.5432]. It is argued, inter alia, that the phenomenon of “princely self-restraint” should not be underestimated in Liechtenstein's constitutional reality. The character of the microstate's actual political system strongly depends on the individual personality of the Reigning Prince. A strong monarch who acts as a political actor with his own agenda should not be conceptualized as a neutral traditional leader. From the perspective of many citizens of Liechtenstein, the principality's political system is legitimate since it combines traditional authority and legal-rational authority in a unique way. Largely due to the powerful role of the government, the microstate is characterized by consensus-oriented hierarchical governance. [R, abr.]
65. 5446a WONG, Mathew Y. H. —
I argue that traditional party models may be meaningfully applied to the case of Hong Kong, which is a hybrid regime. This is due to the unique constitutional arrangement separating sovereign Beijing from the Hong Kong polity, allowing opposition parties to compete freely in some elections. Due to the lack of a ruling party, elections are highly competitive among political parties. A “stunted but contested” party system is in place. The major parties in Hong Kong are then classified as elite, mass, catch-all, or cartel according to their characteristics, structure, and resourcefulness. The resulting typology is shown to have good explanatory power with regard to parties' polling patterns, even when compared with other popular frameworks for political parties in Hong Kong. [R, abr.]
65.5446b WRIGHT, Tony —
The legislation on recall of MPs, introduced as a response to the parliamentary expenses scandal, was presented as filling an accountability gap. The nature of this alleged gap is examined, and it is argued that the accountability of MPs is more complicated than the recall proposal suggests. This includes issues about the regulation of parliamentary standards. Finally, the recall proposal is located within the context of discussion about the condition of representative democracy. [R]
65.5447 YOU Jong-sung —
The Lee Myung-bak government's response to the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan in March 2010 was a hard-line policy that met with widespread public doubt and criticism. His conservative government reacted to critics with suppression of free speech and use of state power to control the media. As a result, international ratings of press freedom and internet freedom for South Korea were downgraded. The government relied on national security rhetoric; however, its primary legal tools were not the National Security Law but rather criminal defamation and broadcasting and internet regulations. I discuss some factors that make South Korean democracy vulnerable to erosion of press freedom, including the enduring influence of the Cold War, fragility of liberalism, and the lack of executive constraints. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5418]
65.5448 ZEMNI, Sami —
To understand the current stalemate in the drafting process of the Tunisian constitution, it is important to fathom the path Tunisia has chosen to walk since President Ben Ali fled the country. This article apprehends the post-Ben Ali era as a period of extraordinary politics, i.e., a moment of explicit self-institution of society in which popular participation, following Kalyvas's analysis, aims to transform the institutions of state as well as social imaginaries, cultural orientations and economic structures. It analyses the period following Ben Ali's departure as one in which the organization of free elections and the writing of a new constitution by an elected Constituent Assembly not as a technical process of institution-building aimed at creating a new political system, but as a re-constitutive phase of the political. [R, abr.]
65.5449 ZUBEK, Radoslaw —
Recent research suggests that committees in parliamentary democracies may, at least partly, be endogenous to the prevalence of coalition government. I examine the conditions under which parliamentary majorities reform legislative rules to expand or reduce committee power. I expect that, ceteris paribus, the greater the conflict inside the governing coalition, the higher the probability that parties in government will adopt reforms expanding committee power and the lower the chance that they will implement changes reducing such power. These expectations are tested using original new data on the reforms of committee agenda powers undertaken in eight European states within 20 years from democratic transition. I find some evidence to support the endogeneity of committee power to the ideological heterogeneity of parliamentary government. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5450]
65.5450 ZUBEK, Radoslaw —
Questions regarding the origin and evolution of legislative institutions are at the heart of comparative legislative studies. Much research in this area focuses on the US Congress; in contrast, comparative studies of European democracies have been more limited. Addressing this imbalance, this special issue showcases newly emerging research on legislative organization in Europe. In doing so, it brings together contributions that explore the rationales behind the emergence of, and variation in, national European voting practices, investiture rules, minority rights, committee power, agenda control, debating rules and individual MPs' rights. [R] [First article of a thematic issue on “Explaining legislative organization in European democracies”. See also Abstr. 65.5098, 5250, 5259, 5325, 5332, 5337, 5404, 5449]
65.5451 BAILEY, Nick; BRAMLEY, Glen; HASTINGS, Annette —
This introduction to the symposium sets out the context for local government in the UK. It outlines the scale of the reductions in funding since 2010, showing how uneven these cuts have been across the country and the reasons for this. It also describes the increased exposure to risk of both local government and of the citizens and communities it serves. The central question for the papers which follow is how local government is responding to these twin challenges. The papers provide insights from a number of detailed studies of individual authorities, exploring the strategies adopted to manage in response. The analyses focus on the distributive consequences for individuals and communities, but they also reflect on the wider consequences for local government itself. [R, abr.] [Introduction to a symposium of the same title. See Abstr. 65.5465, 5471, 5480]
65.5452 BELL, David N. F. —
This article traces the changing funding relationships between Scotland and the UK government. Beginning from the Barnett Formula, it examines how the changing support within Scotland for greater political autonomy from Westminster has influenced the mechanisms that have determined Scotland's fiscal structure. Increasing support for the SNP, and then for the Yes campaign in the September 2014 independence referendum, has led to a mixture of new powers being granted to the Scottish Parliament. The Scotland Act 2012 extends the Scottish government's control over income tax and some other small taxes. Although independence was rejected by the Scottish people in September 2014, the “Vow” made by the Westminster parties immediately before the vote will cause a very substantial change in intergovernmental relations within the UK, which the Barnett Formula may not survive. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5479]
65.5453 BELLA, Arturo Di —
This paper analyzes the alternative territorialities that characterize the conflict on the installation of a US military MUOS [Mobile User Objective System] ground station in Sicily (Italy). The proponents see territory from a techno-centric vision as a site of strategic importance for the global politics of securitization since it serves the optimization of the US military “system of systems”. On the other hand, the No-MUOS mobilization resists this image of territory by claiming it as a place of everyday life, and opposes hegemonic territorialization through the manipulation of an ensemble of discursive and practical mediators within different spheres of action. The local conflict around a radar infrastructure evolves into a clash between different logics of territorial organization: a conflict mostly concerning the control over spatial borders, knowledge production, and imaginary circulation. [R]
65.5454 BERRY, Michael J.; LAIRD, Frank N.; STEFES, Christoph H. —
US states have led the federal government in instituting policies aimed at promoting renewable energy. Nearly all research on renewable portfolio standards (RPSs) has treated RPS adoption as a binary choice. Given the substantial variation in the renewable energy goals established by RPSs, we propose a new measure of RPS ambition that accounts for the amount of additional renewable energy production needed to reach the RPS goal and the number of years allotted to reach the standard. By measuring RPS policy with more precision, our analysis demonstrates that many factors found to affect whether a state will adopt an RPS do not exert a similar effect on the policy's ambitiousness. Most notably, our analysis demonstrates that Democratic control of the state legislature is the most consequential factor in determining the ambitiousness of state RPS policies. [R]
65.5455 BIGGERS, Daniel R.; HANMER, Michael J. —
Recent elections have witnessed substantial debate regarding the degree to which state governments facilitate access to the polls. Despite this newfound interest, however, many of the major reforms aimed at increasing voting convenience (i.e., early voting and no-excuse absentee voting) were implemented over the past four decades. Although numerous studies examine their consequences (on turnout, the composition of the electorate, and/or electoral outcomes), we know significantly less about the factors leading to the initial adoption of these policies. We provide insights into such motivations using event-history analysis to identify the impact of political and demographic considerations, as well as diffusion mechanisms, on which states opted for easier ballot access. [R, abr.]
65.5456 BROGAARD, Lena; PETERSEN, Ole Helby —
This article presents the results of a process evaluation of the first public-private partnership (PPP) in a Danish municipality established with the aim of creating economic growth and new jobs among local businesses. The article focuses on drivers and barriers and builds on program evaluation theory. The analysis shows that the intention of a partnership-based collaboration between the municipality and private business has only partially been achieved. Difficulties with realizing the expected benefits were especially due to nuclear decision-procedures and changing objectives by the public partner in the PPP project. [R]
65.5457 BRUNETTO, Yvonne, et al. —
This paper compares the impact of management practices on employee's perception of resource adequacy and in turn engagement of local government employees in Australia and the US. A survey design was used involving 250 local government employees working in Australia and 265 working in the US. The overall findings identify significant paths from management practice, through to resource adequacy and in turn, employee engagement. Additionally, the findings identify a significant difference in perceptions of the work environment for US local government employees compared with those in Australia. In particular, employees in the US perceive a significantly higher level of satisfaction with management (both perceived organizational support and leader-member exchange), perceive significantly lower levels of resource inadequacy and are much more engaged than their local government counterparts in Australia. [R, abr.]
65.5458 CAIRNEY, Paul —
Debates on Scottish constitutional reform go hand-in-hand with discussions of political reform. Many thought that the Scottish political system could diverge from the UK, to strengthen the parliamentary system, introduce consensus politics and further Scotland's alleged social and democratic tradition. Yet the experience of devolution suggests that Holyrood and Westminster politics share key features. Both systems are driven by government, making policy in “communities” involving interest groups and governing bodies, with parliaments performing a limited role and public participation limited largely to elections. The Scottish government's style of policy-making is distinctive, but new reforms are in their infancy and their effects have not been examined in depth. The article identifies Scotland's ability to make and implement policy in a new way, based on its current trajectory rather than the hopes of reformers. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5479]
65.5459 CHEN Minglu —
The number of entrepreneurs in the system of People's Political Consultative Conferences (PPCC) has increased dramatically in the last two decades. Although the political importance of these local assemblies is usually dismissed, entrepreneur participation suggests a need for further investigation. Based on research on a city-level PPCC, this article interprets this phenomenon further. In the process of investigating private entrepreneurs' involvement in the PPCC, this article re-examines the role of the local PPCC and highlights private entrepreneur PPCC members' attitude to and expectations from the Party-state. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5484]
65.5460 DARAYEESAHO, Khomainee; RANI, Midatala —
While local development is flourishing, there are a number of challenges impeding to moving to more local governance, noticeably the central government bureaucrats' attempts to maintain and protect their power and interests. Relations between central and local governments in Thailand are those of fluctuation due to political instability caused by a series of coups over the past sixty years. Once again, the latest coup in May 2014 and the subsequent military junta have posed a new threat to the already vulnerable local governments. This short article provides an overview of the evolution of decentralization in Thailand, articulate problems impeding its progress, and address the potential threat under the junta rule. [R, abr.]
65.5461 DIETRICHSON, Jens; ELLEGÅRD, Lina Maria —
Central government bailouts of local governments are commonly viewed as a recipe for local fiscal indiscipline, as local governments learn that the center will come to the rescue in times of trouble. However, little is known about the consequences of bailouts granted conditional on local governments first making efforts to improve the situation. We examine a case in which the Swedish central government provided conditional grants to 36 financially troubled municipalities. We use the synthetic control method to identify suitable comparison units for each of the 36 municipalities. To compare the development of costs and the fiscal surplus of admitted municipalities to that of their most similar counterparts during the decade after the program, we then estimate fixed effects regressions on the resulting sample. [R, abr.]
65.5462 EDWARDS, Barry C. —
Although research demonstrates that favorable ballot position can deliver candidates a small windfall of votes in local, nonpartisan, and primary elections, it is not clear whether ballot-order laws have had any impact on the composition of US legislatures. I estimate the substantive significance of ballot-order rules by comparing the legislators of states that alphabetically order ballots to those elected by states that randomize or rotate ballot-order. I also compare legislators elected by states that started or stopped alphabetically ordering ballots in recent decades. I find that states that alphabetically order ballots disproportionately elect candidates with early alphabet surnames. My research challenges the prevailing belief that ballot-order affects only minor elections and suggests that seemingly innocuous rules have altered our political landscape. [R, abr.]
65.5463 ESCOBAR, Oliver —
Public engagers are officials tasked with facilitating collaborative performances in the theatres of deliberation that increasingly populate local governance. In Scotland, they work to involve citizens, communities and organizations in deliberative policy-making. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork, this paper shows how these policy workers deploy their own field of specialist knowledge during the scripting of participatory processes. The analysis eschews conventional notions of “scripted participation” as tokenistic or manipulative, thus seeking a more sophisticated understanding of the know-how that animates engagement practice. The findings reveal the micro-politics of official participation processes through the “behind-the-scenes” work of engagement practitioners. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4837]
65.5464 FAN Yongmao —
In China, the central government decides on policies but requires its local subordinates to provide the financial resources. The politics of this practice implies that local government has to take different strategies to cope with the unfunded mandates with various consequences. As an empirical study framed by Niskanen's rational choice theory and Dunleavy's “bureau-shaping” model, this paper examines how the unfunded mandates impact local government behavior. Its main focus is the question of how the local officials respond, the extent to which they comply or resist and the techniques they use to adapt to these mandates. It finds when deciding how to pay the bill for the center, local officials have to take a number of principles into consideration. [R, abr.]
65.5465 FITZGERALD, Amanda; LUPTON, Ruth —
Compared with other service areas, spending on local government has suffered particularly large cuts under the austerity measures of the Coalition government in England since 2010. This article provides detailed evidence from three London boroughs as to the impacts of these cuts. Following an analysis of the scale and distribution of the cuts, we describe how local authorities have responded, utilizing categories of efficiencies, reinvestment and retrenchment. We then address the extent to which these responses demonstrate local authority resilience. We find that the boroughs have demonstrated, in the period covered, a capacity to “bounce forward” from the external shock of the cuts, corresponding to a concept of “resilience as transformation”. However, we conclude that a broader notion of resilience is also needed. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5451]
65.5466 FOX, Ashley M.; BLANCHET, Nathan J. —
In May 2011, a year after the passage of the [US] Affordable Care Act (ACA), Vermont became the first state to lay the groundwork for a single-payer health care system, known as Green Mountain Care. What can other states learn from the Vermont experience? This article summarizes the findings from interviews with nearly 120 stakeholders as part of a study to inform the design of the health reform legislation. Comparing Vermont's failed effort to adopt single-payer legislation in 1994 to present efforts, we find that Vermont faced similar challenges but greater opportunities in 2010 that enabled reform. A closely contested gubernatorial election and a progressive social movement opened a window of opportunity to advance legislation to design three comprehensive health reform options for legislative consideration. [R, abr.]
65.5467 GARLICK, Alex —
In 2000, Virginia [US] became the last state in the nation to add party labels to its ballots for state-level races. This article assesses the impact of this reform on citizen participation and the partisan behavior of down-ballot voters using precinct-level election returns. It finds that after the application of labels, roll-off in contested, down-ballot races dropped by about a percentage point, a reduction of approximately 15%. Roll-off dropped more in precincts with a larger share of African-Americans. Also, the association between Republican vote-shares in the Lt. Governor and state legislative races and presidential vote-share in the 2000 general election became stronger in the presence of party labels. This result suggests that the labels made voters behave more as national partisans in state-level contests. [R]
65.5468 GONG Ting —
In contrast to the early campaign-style anti-corruption strategy based on nationwide uniformity, disparate local integrity initiatives and programs have proliferated in China in recent years. Local innovation in managing government integrity has been encouraged by the Center. Drawing on the author's fieldwork in Guangdong, this article investigates the rationale behind such development and addresses the question of why the central leadership has become receptive to local initiatives in cadre-management, an area where political conformity was deemed necessary by an authoritarian regime. It suggests that the strategic adjustment testifies to the institutional failure of the earlier anti-corruption regime that manifested in, inter alia, an acute agency loss problem. The emerging approach to integrity management nevertheless has paradoxical institutional roots. [R, abr.]
65.5469 GRAÇA FEIJÓ, Rui —
X. Gusmão recently mentioned that a “Second Maubere Miracle” is underway, implying that a major political reform will soon shake the roots of Timor-Leste's public administration. Decentralization, defined in a very broad sense, has been a constitutional mandate since independence, but successive governments have failed to engage this reform despite paying lip-service to its necessity. This essay reviews the options before the policy-makers — both in theoretical terms (distinguishing between the various definitions of decentralization) and in the pragmatic forms that have been contemplated so far — and discusses their implications for the process of rooting a modern democracy in the country both at the intermediate, district level and at the grassroots, suku (village) level. [R, abr.]
65.5470 HALLIGAN, John —
The ACT embraces different even contradictory principles. As a city-state, its institutions combine the roles of local and state government. It adheres to the Westminster system with its division of powers between the legislature and the branches, yet the division is somewhat fluid, and the structure is in some respects municipalized. The ACT also operates as the capital city for the Australian nation, which entails shared responsibilities with the Commonwealth for some purposes; retention of the status of a territory rather than a state within the federation and recognition of municipal functions but not local governance. This unlikely fusion of elements has been argued to produce a hybrid system of governance, which makes for tensions between principles of governance and a mix of opportunities and challenges. [R, abr.] [First article of thematic issue on “Centenary Canberra — Past, present and future”, edited and introduced by the author and Richard HU. See also Abstr. 65.5504, 6244]
65.5471 HASTINGS, Annette, et al. —
The scale of the cuts to local government finance, coupled with increasing demand for services, has led to unprecedented “budget gaps” in council budgets. Arguably, two competing narratives of the trajectory of local government have emerged in which contrasting futures are imagined for the sector — a positive story of adaptation and survival and more negative one of residualization and marginalization. Drawing on case-study evidence from three English local authorities, the paper distinguishes and provides examples of three strategic approaches to managing austerity — efficiency, retrenchment and investment. It demonstrates how and why the balance of these strategies has shifted between the early and later phases of austerity and considers the extent to which the evidence of the case studies provide support for either the survival or marginalization narrative. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5451]
65.5472 HAYES, Thomas J.; MEDINA VIDAL, D. Xavier —
To what extent can state governments influence economic inequality? How do state fiscal policies of redistribution affect families in different economic situations? Using a large database of state fiscal policy-making tools (taxing and spending) between 1976 and 2006, we examine the effect of these tools on state-level inequality as well as the average incomes of families in different economic groups. We find that state taxing and spending efforts can influence these indicators of economic inequality, though these fiscal policy tools can have differential effects. Spending on unemployment compensation and cash assistance as well as revenue from taxes on corporations is found to reduce state-level inequality. We also find unemployment compensation to positively benefit the bottom 10th percentile of income earners, whereas the inheritance tax helps all income groups. [R, abr.]
65.5473 HOEKSTRA, Myrte —
Western European national policies increasingly portray diversity as negative and migrants as “others” who do not belong to the national community. This article examines how local governments articulate alternative discourses of belonging based on residents' shared membership in the civic life of the city. In a Dutch case study, the ways in which local policymakers diverge from exclusionary national narratives are examined. It is argued that discourses about urban citizenship offer opportunities for the inclusion of migrants by drawing new boundaries between “good” citizens and those who are unwilling to participate. [R]
65.5474 HONTA, Marina; BASSON, Jean-Charles —
Decentralization reforms in France have helped to reshape relations between the state and cities. While many researchers maintain that cities have capitalized on this new climate to assert their power, others offer a more nuanced view of these changes, highlighting that the ability of cities to establish themselves as a relevant and autonomous level of political regulation has yet to be affirmed. This article analyzes local health-care governance, the foundations of which have been called into question in France by the adoption of a series of reforms. The provisions of these reforms, which have been driven by the ministries of Health, Urban Affairs and Decentralization, and Civil Service, have changed the institutional, partnership and financial framework, and, in doing so, have raised many questions. [R, abr.]
65.5475 JOCHIM, Ashley; LAVERY, Lesley —
The Common Core State Standards Initiative was adopted by forty-five [US] states and heralded by supporters from both sides of the political aisle. Four years later, several states have rescinded their support and dozens more have introduced legislation to reconsider or limit participation. While standard explanations for opposition have focused on Republican state legislators and conservative ideological groups and emphasized concerns about a perceived loss of local control, our analysis reveals that opposition to the standards shifted considerably over time, engaging these groups and issues initially but expanding to include Democratic policy-makers and their allies as implementation proceeded. A range of issues that were largely ignored when the initiative was adopted were brought to the fore as the policy had to be reconciled with existing systems and institutions. [R, abr.]
65.5476 JOSHI, Devin K.; McGRATH, Kathleen —
Four decades ago, the Indian states of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu had identical scores on the human development index. Both states have since experienced similar rates of economic growth and Gujarat has received more foreign investment, but Tamil Nadu has witnessed much stronger advances in human development. What explains this divergence? Through comparative historical, statistical and public policy analysis and interviews, we conclude that the implementation of government policies as a manifestation of political ideology and the quality of public administration have played a defining role in explaining Gujarat's more lopsided and Tamil Nadu's more balanced human development trajectories. Our findings suggest that a more egalitarian ideology and higher quality of public administration have been crucial to Tamil Nadu's success in simultaneously improving human and economic development. [R]
65.5477 KAMIN, Sam —
Although marijuana possession remains a federal crime, twenty-three [US] states now allow use of marijuana for medical purposes and four states have adopted tax-and-regulate policies permitting use and possession by those twenty-one and over. I examine recent developments regarding marijuana regulation. I show that the B. Obama administration, after initially sending mixed signals, has taken several steps indicating an increasingly accepting position toward marijuana law reform in states; however the current situation regarding the dual legal status of marijuana is at best an unstable equilibrium. I also focus on what might be deemed the last stand of marijuana-legalization opponents, in the form of lawsuits filed by several states, sheriffs, and private plaintiffs challenging marijuana reform in Colorado (and by extension elsewhere). [R, abr.]
65.5478 KAUDER, Björn; POTRAFKE, Niklas —
We investigate a case of political favoritism in which members of the Bavarian parliament hired relatives as office employees who were paid using taxpayers' money. The family scandal was a much-discussed issue in the German media because of upcoming state and federal elections. Being involved in the scandal had no apparent effect on re-election prospects or voter turnout: for example, the total vote-share of the reigning CSU increased from 47% in the 2008 election to 50% in the 2013 election in districts whose representatives were revealed to have hired relatives, resembling party gains elsewhere. Voters did not appear to punish the incumbent government. The CSU embodies Bavarian identity and was able to overcome the family scandal, as also had been the case in previous scandals. [R]
65.5479 KEATING, Michael —
Scottish self-government and European integration are linked. Europe has become an important framework for the independence project. Evidence for Scots being more pro-European is ambivalent, but there is a pro-European consensus in Scottish political parties and civil society. In the referendum campaign, the No side suggested that an independent Scotland might not gain admission to the European Union. If the UK as a whole should vote to withdraw from the EU in a future referendum but Scotland to stay in, the independence question would re-emerge. In the absence of independence, a number of issues arise as to how Scottish interests can best be represented in the EU. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5479]
65.5480 KENNETT, Patricia, et al. —
A key feature of the rise of neoliberal politics and policy has been the progressive shift of risk from corporations and national states to the local government, individuals and households. We argue that, in the UK, “great risk-shift” has not only been intensified by recession and austerity but has also been marked by the unevenness of the redistribution of risk and insecurity across scales and places, and between different types of household. In order to capture the differentiated nature of experiences and impacts of recession, risk and insecurity, this article first considers the spatial and temporal dynamics of recession and the great risk shift. It then localizes and embeds these dynamics within the city regions and local authorities of Bristol and Liverpool. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5451]
65.5481 KJAERGAARD, Marie —
Despite a large number of empirical studies on the flypaper effect, it remains disputed whether the effect exists and to what extent it is asymmetrical. The flypaper effect suggests that intergovernmental grants tend to result in higher increases in public expenditures than a similar increase in citizens' private income would have led to. An asymmetrical effect exists when the fiscal response differs depending on whether grants are increased or decreased. By considering political institutions that moderate the effect of intergovernmental grants, this article offers a theoretical explanation that accounts for the mixed empirical evidence. The local response to intergovernmental grants is tested using a reform of the Danish intergovernmental grant scheme in 2007. [R, abr.]
65.5482 KRUG, Barbara; LIBMAN, Alexander —
This paper investigates under which conditions non-democratic political regimes are capable of making credible commitments to maintain a certain level of local autonomy and to incentivize local bureaucrats. We compare two big non-democratic countries — Russia and China. While China has managed to establish a relatively stable system, with substantial decision-making rights resting with sub-national governments, in Russia relations between the center and the regions have been highly unstable and driven primarily by the extent to which central elites consolidated their power. We argue that China has been able to make credible commitments because its non-democratic rule is based on competition between vertical elite networks that span regional and central political arenas, and because the country has limited access to natural resources: these two characteristics explain the difference between the two cases. [R, abr.]
65.5483 KUKOVIČ, Simona —
The rapid development and diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICT) provides various political and administrative institutions with new opportunities for civil political action. There are new tools, channels and methods, which can be utilized both in order to transform closed representative democracy systems into more open and communicative ones and to facilitate new forms of authentic civil political action — participatory democracy. The theoretical concepts of paper are participatory democracy and eParticipation, which are placed in the eGovernance framework. Based on empirical data, I [consider] whether there are adequate tools for eParticipation available to Slovenian citizens at local level of government and if the concept of “eCitizens” can be applied in the Slovenian case. [R, abr.]
65.5484 LI, Linda Chelan; YANG Zhenjie —
Local governments in China are seriously under-funded relative to their assigned expenditure responsibilities for public services, resulting in the infamous “revenue-expenditure gap”. The dominant explanation of local fiscal difficulties given in the literature refers to central government behavior, namely the excessive centralization of tax revenue, but it does not tally with the large flows of central subsidies to local coffers more recently. [Our] alternative account stresses the working of an intermediary level embedded in the multi-tiered governance structure of a large country, and the interaction between local officials' fiscal behavior and the revenue-expenditure gap. Employing fine-grained analysis of aggregate statistics and local case-data, we argue that broader intergovernmental dynamics and practices of local intermediaries, and not only central government policy, are critical to fiscal health and government performance at the county level. [R] [First of a series of articles on “Local elites in the People's Republic of China”. See also Abstr. 65.5459, 5766, 5821]
65.5485 LIBERTO, Adriana Di; SIDERI, Marco —
We study the connection between economic performance and the quality of government institutions for the sample of 103 Italian NUTS3 regions, including new measures of institutional performance calculated using data on the provision of different areas of public services. In order to address likely endogeneity problems, we use the histories of the different foreign dominations that ruled Italian regions between the 16th and 17th c. and over seven hundred years before the creation of the unified Italian State. Our results suggest that past historical institutions play a significant role on the current public administration quality and show that the latter makes a difference to the economic performance of regions. Overall, our analysis confirms that the quality of institutions matters for development, and that history can be used to find suitable instruments. [R]
65.5486 LIDDLE, Joyce; ORMSTON, Christianne —
The Northern Way (NW) was a pan-regional, multi-level initiative between three English northern regions, set up to promote economic growth and close a £30 billion output gap. This paper redresses the limitations with data from existing evaluations and key stakeholder interviews. Findings reveal that partners developed good collaborative working, gathered robust data on critical economic and social issues, and learnt much during 2004–2008. Between 2008 and 2011, activities were refocused on a narrower set of critical priorities and partners developed real policy learning and became a credible voice for the Northern regions. After closure, it became evident that NW left a “vacuum” as an effective coordinator of evidence and views from three Northern regions. [R, abr.]
65.5487 MANGANARO, Francesco —
The structure of local authorities and relations with the state have been the subject of attention of the legislature from national unification. However, the principle of autonomy introduced by the Constitution remains locked until the institution of the regions. Despite the reform of Title V, the process of autonomy undergoes downsizing as a result of the economic crisis. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5266]
65.5488 MANOHARAN, Aroon; FUDGE, Marc; ZHENG Yueping —
This research focuses on the trends in municipal e-governance among large municipalities based on a worldwide survey in 2011. The study replicates previous surveys conducted every other year since 2003 and the longitudinal assessment analyzes specific features of municipal websites. This paper examines these longitudinal trends in terms of four different clusters: (1) digitally mature cities, (2) digitally moderate cities, (3) digitally minimal cities, and (4) digitally marginal cities, and identifies the best practices among them. There were significant changes in the top ranking cities, with Seoul, Toronto, Madrid, Prague, and Hong Kong representing the highest level in e-governance. [R]
65.5489 MAYBIN, Jo —
What kind of work is policy-making, and what kinds of knowledge do public administrators draw on in practice? This paper draws on an ethnographic study of civil servants working in England's Department of Health to offer an account of public administration work as directed towards building connections between ideas and actors to make policies “happen”. The knowledge critical to this work is a shared “policy know-how” about how to enact policy-making in this context. However, rational-technocratic accounts of the work of public administration as problem-solving informed by expert knowledge claims and analysis were also found to play an important role in the civil servants' work, both as a legitimizing device and a source of meaning and faith for individual actors seeking to make sense of their work. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4837]
65.5490 McEWEN, Nicola; PETERSOHN, Bettina —
Drawing on the distinction between self-rule and shared rule in multilevel states, this article argues that shared rule has been the neglected element of the UK devolution settlement. The ability of the devolved administrations to participate in, and influence, national decision-making through shared-rule mechanisms is very limited. The article argues that the lack of shared rule is especially problematic in light of the increasing complexity of the Scottish devolution settlement in the wake of the Scotland Act 2012 and the Smith commission report. Creating a more robust intergovernmental system which could manage these new interdependencies will be a significant challenge, and yet, without such a system, the new settlement will be difficult to sustain. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on Scotland, introduced, pp. 186–191, by Paul CAIRNEY. See also Abstr. 65.5452, 5458, 5479, 5499, 5501, 5631, 5634, 5686, 6179, 6248]
65.5491 MEDINA VIDAL, D. Xavier —
Survey, which reveal [US] state legislators' attitudes and orientations toward the news media. Building on the view that Spanish-language media provide an important representational link between Hispanic constituents and their political representatives, I argue that the level of media sophistication or “media entrepreneurship” state legislators bring to their representative role is a function of legislators' Spanish media environments. Through statistical tests of the relationships between the Spanish-language media environment, state lawmakers' perceptions of the media's effectiveness, and their use of media tools, I find evidence that district-level Spanish-language media contexts influence lawmakers' level of engagement with the news media. [R, abr.]
65.5492 MILITA, Kerri —
Recently, many US states that allow citizen initiatives have passed laws designed to make it more difficult for an initiative to qualify for the ballot, thereby making it harder for citizens to bypass the legislature and make direct changes to public policy. Such laws have reduced both the number of measures that make the ballot and the number that pass on Election Day. I show that laws governing access of initiatives to the ballot also shape the policy agenda; provisions making it harder for proposals to get on the ballot decrease the complexity of the initiatives on the ballot. As voters are reluctant to vote for complex measures they do not understand, more restrictive laws actually increase the likelihood that an initiative will pass. [R, abr.]
65.5493 MOSES, Joel C. —
In September 2014, Russia held regional and local elections while simultaneously launching a municipal reform to consolidate greater Kremlin control over Russian city government. The reform largely removes the last remaining vestige of democratic pluralism in Russia by eliminating directly elected mayors and city councils. Both the elections and the reform encapsulated V. Putin's unquestioned authoritarian dominance over Russian subnational politic. Combined with Russia's difficulties in foreign and economic policies, the reform may leave Russia internally less governable and its political future less stable than the results of the September elections might otherwise suggest. [R]
65.5494 NICHOLSON-CROTTY, Sean; NICHOLSON-CROTTY, Jill —
Unfortunately, we know very little about the decisions [US] states make regarding the volume of federal grant aid they pass through, or about the types of sub-recipients most likely to receive that money. Drawing on delegation theory, this study develops the argument that the amount and target of pass-through funding will be a function of the state's capacity to produce desired goods, shared policy preferences between state and local actors, and the relative capacity of sub-state actors to produce those same goods. We test these hypotheses in analyses of the pass-through of ARRA grants to sub-recipients by state governments between 2009 and 2012. The results suggest that delegation theory provides a useful way to understand both the volume of pass-through that states engage in as well as the target of those monies. [R, abr.]
65.5495 OWENS, Ryan J., et al. —
High-profile advocates are pushing states to move away from judicial elections and toward a “merit” method because it purportedly produces the best quality judges. Quality, however, is difficult to measure empirically. Rather than attempt to measure quality, we examine whether certain types of state supreme courts are more forward-looking than others. States are likely to desire forward-looking behavior among judges because it can protect judicial legitimacy, help states to control policy, and could be more efficient than myopic behavior. Using a recent innovation in matching called covariate-balancing propensity scores, we find that the US Supreme Court is equally likely to review and reverse decisions by judges regardless of their selection or retention methods. [R, abr.]
65.5497 PANTALONE, Pasquale —
This paper addresses the issue of reform of the local government, with specific reference to the establishment of metropolitan cities as stated in decree n. 56/2014. Specifically, the author, after outlining the troubled regulatory changes that accompanied the establishment of metropolitan cities in our system, proceeds to illustrate the present norms (i.e. the decree n. 56/2014), indicating some critical aspects, including (possible) profiles of unconstitutionality. The author also dwells on the “precariousness” of the reform itself in light of the constitutional bill being discussed by the Italian Parliament dealing with, among other things, the revision of Title V of the second part Constitution. In conclusion, the author analyzes and compares the metropolitan statues approved to date with a view to making a first assessment of the implementation of the reform. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5266]
65.5498 READER, Nathaniel —
This article investigates the policy impact of one of Australia's electoral matters committees (EMC), the Victorian EMC. Using a mixed-methods case study of the Victorian EMC's 2008/2009 inquiry into voter participation and informal voting, it argues the Victorian EMC influenced the introduction of direct electoral enrolment in June 2010 through the Electoral Amendment (Electoral Participation) Bill. To assess the Victorian EMC's impact on the Victorian government, this article conducts quantitative-analysis of the number of references made in second reading speeches for the Bill, and then content-analysis. [R, abr.]
65.5499 RIDDELL, Sheila, et al. —
During the course of the referendum campaign, the Scottish government argued that free tuition for Scottish and EU students symbolized Scotland's preference for universal services and was intrinsically fairer than the “marketized” systems operating in the rest of the UK. Invoking principles of both social justice and pragmatism, three distinct critiques of the Scottish government's higher education policy were mounted and adopted by different policy actors for different political purposes. Following a discussion of these arguments, this article concludes that a more nuanced discussion of higher education policy in Scotland is required, focusing not just on the absence of tuition fees but also on the distribution of debt and allocation of funds across the entire education system. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5479]
65.5500 RODRÍGUEZ-GARCIA, María Jesus —
The relationship between descriptive representation and substantive representation has been widely discussed. The literature and empirical analysis show that substantive representation also depends on the action of other critical actors, such as gender agencies and the women's social movement. Comparative research has shown the existence of a common pattern in post-industrial democracies: the development of women-friendly policies depends on the existence of coalitions between these critical actors. However, the analysis usually focuses on the national or regional level, and there is very little analysis at the local level, despite this being a political arena in which these processes can be developed. This article analyzes the effect of coalitions of critical actors on the responsiveness to the demands of women's groups in the case of Spanish municipalities using a representative survey. [R, abr.]
65.5501 RUMMERY, Kirstein; McANGUS, Craig —
Scotland has laid claim to being “different” from the rest of the UK with regards to disability policy. This article examines the evidence for that with regard to long-term and social care, and discusses the possibilities opened up by the devolution of disability benefits. It asks whether Scotland will demonstrate policy divergence from the rest of the UK, and whether that is likely to be beneficial for disabled people. It argues that Scotland has the potential to create better social policies for disabled people, but faces significant challenges in doing so. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5479]
65.5502 SEVERS, Eline; CELIS, Karen; MEIER, Petra —
This article situates itself within ongoing scholarly debates on the conditions of democratic representation. It, more precisely, posits traditional concerns for the ‘“indirectness” of political representation — that is the possibility for citizens’ alienation and exclusion from decision-making — against contemporary accounts that conceive of such “indirectness” as quintessential to democracy; mobilizing citizens' judgment and, potentially, drawing them into the decision-making process and making it more inclusive. Juxtaposing these two theoretical accounts with the practice of representation, this article researches — based on 70 semi-structured interviews with members of the Flemish regional parliament — how representatives themselves conceive of representation and deal with its indirectness. [R]
65.5504 STEWART, Jenny; LITHGOW, Shirley —
In Australia, community engagement is mandated at local government level across a wide range of policy and administrative issues, from health, to transport, to city planning. Numerous studies have, however, found that the reality falls well short of the ideal of meaningful citizen input into decision-making. Cases where government-sponsored processes have “made a difference” are difficult to find. The reasons for this apparent failure have proved difficult to identify in detail. As a planned city with a highly educated population, Canberra should be a prime site for the involvement of citizens in many aspects of urban planning. The reality is that community engagement remains at the lower end of the scale of collaborative governance. We probe the nature of Australian Capital Territory governance and the developing contours of power in the city. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5470]
65.5506 TORRES LÓPEZ, M. Asunción —
The object of this article is to show the general lines of the reform of the local regime carried out in Spain under Law 27/2013, on rationalization and sustainability of the local administration. A reform brought on by the economic crisis that has made necessary a global analysis on the functioning of all the public administration in order to reduce the public deficit and public expenditure, giving place to diverse structural reforms. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5266]
65.5507 TUROVSKIJ, Rostislav F. —
Local self-government is analyzed from the point of view of “principal-agent” theory which the author considers most relevant for state-municipal relations in nowadays Russia. The author concludes that local self-government ceases to fulfill its immanent duties of local community agent and becomes an agent of state power, both federal and regional instead. The study of revenues and expenditures of local self-government reveals that the principal confines the financial autonomy of its agent and at the same time cannot supply it with necessary resources by way of budget transfers. As a result the agent faces its diminished authority which may be seen in the examples of healthcare where local self-government has ceased its functioning and housing and communal services which have become much less financed. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6013]
65.5508 VINING, Aidan R.; LAURIN, Claude; WEIMER, David —
Although governments worldwide are increasingly choosing to deliver services through organizations with greater autonomy than traditional bureaus, the implicit assumption that such agencification contributes to long-run efficiency remains largely untested. Agencification gives agency managers more autonomy and access to incentive mechanisms that lead to greater efficiency if they are not offset by inefficiencies resulting from managerial discretion. We test the hypothesis that agencification improves efficiency by examining the longer-run performance of 13 agencies in the province of Québec, Canada over approximately 10 years. We find that these agencies experienced long-term productivity gains, but that these gains reached a plateau over the time period studied. In addition, we describe changes in several measures of performance. [R, abr.]
65.5509 WINDETT, Jason H.; HARDEN, Jeffrey J.; HALL, Matthew E. K. —
Courts of last resort in the American states offer researchers considerable leverage to develop and test theories about how institutions influence judicial behavior. One measure critical to this research agenda is the individual judges' preferences, or ideal points, in policy space. Two main strategies for recovering this measure exist: P. Brace, L. Langer, and M. Hall's Party-adjusted judge ideology (“Measuring preferences of state supreme court judges”, Journal of Politics, 62(2), 2000: 387–413; Abstr. 50.3816); and A. Bonica and M. Woodruff's judicial CFscores (“A common-space measure of state supreme court ideology”, Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, doi: 2014, 10.1093/jleo/ewu016). We introduce a third measurement strategy that combines CFscores with item response (IRT) estimates of judicial voting behavior in all fifty-two state courts of last resort from 1995 to 2010. [R, abr.]
65.5510 WONG, Kenneth K. —
Under President B. Obama, over 80 percent of [US] states have received executive approval for waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act in the absence of Congressional reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). These comprehensive ESEA waivers have been quite ambitious, in that they were designed to address broad changes in K-12 education in nearly all fifty states and not in response to specific-state concerns or to foster experimentation on a focused set of issues. In reviewing the actual state implementation, we found that the Obama administration has enjoyed substantial success in using the waiver process to leverage states to adopt policy changes. The major obstacles to the accomplishment of administration objectives are internal state political dynamics. [R, abr.]
65.5511 WOO Junjie —
Statutory boards represent an important feature of Singapore's effective and efficient model of public administration. Despite their autonomy and separation from the rest of Singapore's civil service, statutory boards represent policy-making units in their own right, developed and utilized by the government in the achievement of its policy objectives. Based on first-hand interviews and other primary data, this paper provides an analysis of two Singaporean statutory boards: the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Land Transport Authority, focusing in particular on their roles as policymaking units. It sketches out and [examines] Singapore's unique policy style. This contributes to a better understanding of Asian policy styles in the process, a topic which has thus far received scant attention in the existing policy styles literature. [R]
65.5512 ZHANG Yanlong —
This study offers a sociopolitical perspective on the worldwide diffusion of liberalization reforms in infrastructure industries. It unpacks the heterogeneity in the extent to which the private sector is allowed to participate in these industries through an analysis of the formation of public-private partnerships in Chinese cities. This study considers the effects of horizontal and vertical diffusion mechanisms on the adoption of different types of public-private partnerships in different infrastructure sectors. An analysis of projects with private participation in 333 Chinese cities between 1992 and 2008 reveals that the spatial effects appear to be significantly modulated when the influence from structurally equivalent peer cities are considered. [R, abr.]
65.5513 ZHU Ling; CLARK, Jennifer H. —
The question of how the American political process shapes inequality remains unsettled. While recent studies break ground by linking inequality to political institutions, much of this work focuses on national-level income inequality. The literature is lacking in its examination of inequality in other issue areas at the subnational level. This research explores how partisanship in government affects subnational-level inequality in health care coverage in the context of racial diversity. Using a new Gini-coefficient measure of inequality in health insurance coverage, we find a negative relationship between the seat share of Democratic representatives and inequality in health care coverage but only in states with racially diverse populations. [R, abr.]