Abstract
(a) Central institutions/Institutions centrales
65.6649 ABDULAI, Abdul-Gafaru; HULME, David —
Through an analysis of Ghana's HIPC [Highly Indebted Poor Country] Fund, established as part of the PRSP [Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers] process, this article shows how aid-financed efforts to reduce regional inequality in Ghana have failed. Dominant political elites agreed to policies reducing regional inequality in order to have access to aid funding but, once approved, these funds were allocated on quite different criteria in ways that marginalized the poorest. This analysis reinforces the growing recognition that developmental outcomes in most poor countries are shaped not so much by the design of “good” policies per se, but more importantly by the power relationships within which policy-implementing institutions are embedded. [R, abr.]
65.6650 ACKERMANN, Kathrin; ACKERMANN, Maya —
The paper analyzes the link between personality traits and attitudes of Swiss citizens toward equal opportunities for immigrants. We examine the extent to which this relationship is moderated by the socio-structural context. We test the assumption that the direct links between personality traits and attitudes toward equal opportunities are strengthened by perceived ethnic diversity. Based on our empirical analyses, we replicate central findings of the research on personality traits and attitudes toward immigrants for the Swiss context. While openness toward experience and agreeableness are positively related to a preference for equal opportunities, conscientiousness is negatively linked to these attitudes. Furthermore, our results reveal that the link between conscientiousness and attitudes toward equal opportunities is significantly moderated by the perceived share of foreigners in the neighborhood. [R, abr.]
65.6651 AGRAWAL, Arun; CHHATRE, Ashwini; GERBER, Elisabeth R. —
We used a quasi-experimental research design to study the extent of motivational crowding in a recent sustainable development intervention in northern India. The project provided participants with both private and communal material benefits to enhance their incomes, and environmental and social information to inculcate pro-environmental motivations. We compared changes in reported motivations of participants for conserving forest resources, before and after project implementation, with changes in reported motivations of matched nonparticipants. We found that villagers who received private economic benefits were more likely to change from an environmental to an economic motivation for forest protection, whereas those who engaged in communal activities related to the project were less likely to change from an environmental to an economic motivation. [R, abr.]
65.6652 AHMED, Naeem —
This paper critically examines the counterterrorism strategy of Pakistan, which it adopted after 9/11 [2001], by arguing that so far, it has proved ineffective and counter-productive in uprooting the terrorist network of Pakistan-based militant Jihadi and extremist groups that also have links with Al-Qaeda. In this respect, the paper, besides defining and assessing Pakistan's counterterrorism strategy, also analyzes various factors which have contributed to the inefficacy of the country's counterterrorism strategy. The paper emphasizes upon the need for formulating an effective counterterrorism strategy of Pakistan. [R]
65.6653 Al-IRYANI, Lamis; De JANVRY, Alain; SADOULET, Elisabeth —
The Yemen Social Fund for Development (SFD) was established in 1997 to combat national poverty and reinforce the limited existing social safety net. Since its inception, SFD has been widely viewed as effective in implementing programs throughout the country and has steadily expanded its activities, despite Yemen's weak state and political unrest. In designing a novel approach to implementing its programs, SFD provides a model of how to use the Social Fund approach to deliver good aid in hard places. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6381]
65.6654 ANCESCHI, Luca —
Citizens of Kazakhstan have greater access to the internet now than at any time in the past. However, the N. Nazarbayev regime has systematically cut off the supply of political analysis on the country's web sites while simultaneously shifting popular on-line consumption habits in non-political directions. The result is that the presence of the internet in Kazakhstan is helping the authoritarian regime remain in power. [R] [See Abstr. 65.7060]
65.6655 ANDERSSON, Katarina; KVIST, Elin —
This article illustrates how neoliberal reasoning dominated the policy process leading to adoption of the Act on System of Choice in the Public Sector. With the use of a discursive policy-analysis, the authors specifically explore how neoliberal logic dominated, and also how choice and equality were understood and interpreted in the policy process. They conclude that the neoliberal turn in eldercare claiming to center on the individual choice of persons in need of care runs the risk of creating unequal care that decenters the eldercare worker and creates precarious work situations. [R, abr.]
65.6656 ARAS, Bülent —
Turkey has expanded its foreign policy horizons in geographical terms, as well as in terms of Ankara's involvement in global issues and in international organizations. Turkey's new foreign policy and line of geopolitical thought marks a considerable degree of discontinuity with the previous era. Turkey's ambition is to take on a central role in world politics under the guidance of the foreign policy vision of former Foreign Minister and current Prime Minister A. Davutoglu. This paper analyzes the extent to which Turkey's Foreign Ministry has been transformed in accordance with the new geopolitical thinking. It focuses on the capacity-building and reform of the Foreign Ministry to understand how policymakers bridge the gap between ideas and institutions to ensure that the geopolitical perspective is an enduring and long-term project. [R] [See Abstr. 65.7528]
65.6657 ARBAN, Erika —
Subsidiarity has become one of the key principles of EU law since its introduction in the Treaty of Maastricht, but in recent years other federal or decentralized systems have cemented this principle into their constitutions: one example is Italy, where subsidiarity was encapsulated in Art. 118 of the constitution as amended in 2001. This article surveys some of the contributions from Italian constitutionalism and adds to the debate on subsidiarity, especially with regards to the stimulating, yet controversial, interpretation of the principle offered by the Italian constitutional court, which permeated it with a “centralist” essence. The article explores how subsidiarity is construed beyond EU law and argues that, while revealing all the elasticity of this principle, the interpretation offered by the Italian constitutional judges presents some risky consequences. [R]
65.6658 ASH, Konstantin —
While prominent work argues that the government must employ a mix of side-payments and repression to fragment opposition to its rule, Belarus's history since the ascension of President A. Lukashenko in 1994 shows that the opposition has been repressed after most parliamentary and presidential elections without any substantial cooptation. I argue that electoral contestation and subsequent post-electoral repression have led to the Belarusian opposition's fragmented state. This state is grounded in competition for foreign aid, which creates a need among Belarusian opposition leaders to demonstrate their ability to mobilize support through campaigns. Invariably, successful opposition leaders emerge as the principal challengers to the regime, leading to their arrest or exile. Repression then fosters division within antigovernment movements and restarts the cycle for new aid-seeking parties and leaders. [R, abr.]
65.6659 BACON, Laura —
This article presents a case-study from Liberia that focuses on the relationship between police reform and women, peace and security. It explores the Liberia National Police's (LNP) innovative efforts between 2003 and 2013 to recruit more female officers and to train a specialized unit to address sexual- and gender-based violence (SGBV). The analysis focuses on two key goals of the LNP: representation, through the Education Support Program, and responsiveness, through the Women and Children's Protection Section. Assessed by these two metrics, the Liberian police reform can be considered a qualified success. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6381]
65.6660 BAHÇECIK, Şerif Onur —
While the perspective of “liberalism of fear” assumes that human rights limit the despotic power of the state, this paper argues that human rights reforms promoted in the context of institution- and capacity-building programs have had significant power effects by enhancing the disciplinary capacities of the Turkish state and blunting the transformative potential of rights claiming. The reforms increased state surveillance by rechanneling criminal justice processes towards producing evidence (such as telecommunications data, DNA collection, etc.) rather than testimonies. Instead of limiting state power, these reforms enhanced the disciplinary mechanisms of social control. [R, abr.]
65.6661 BAIRETT, Richard L., Jr. —
I illuminate the relationship between media freedom — one dimension of transparency — and executive power. I theorize that politicians prefer to avoid monitoring and negative publicity, and that both presidents and prime ministers often can do something about it via their constitutional powers and influence accrued through partisan support. Using new panel data on Central and Eastern European prime ministers and presidents, I find that proactive legislative powers for both executive types and increased partisan support for prime ministers negatively affect media freedom. My model explains most of the variation in Central and Eastern European media freedom, predicts high press freedom in Western Europe, and has important implications for the broader relationships between executive power, transparency, and accountability. [R, abr.]
65.6662 BALCELLS, Laia; FERNÁNDEZ-ALBERTOS, José; KUO, Alexander —
Few studies examine support for regional redistribution, even though such issues are politically salient in many democracies. We test models that hypothesize that such preferences are affected by regional and individual income, as well as other arguments beyond the traditional political economy framework. We focus on informational assumptions and implications of these models with an experiment embedded in a nationally representative survey in Spain. We randomly inform some citizens of the true relative income of their region to assess the impact of this information on regional redistribution preferences. We find that citizens’ learning about their region's relative position affects these preferences in a manner consistent with some of the political economy models. We also find some support for out-group concerns as an important factor. [R, abr.]
65.6663 BALDI, Gregory; GOODMAN, Sara Wallace —
How do the states in Western Europe turn outsiders into insiders? This article introduces a new qualitative framework that we term national membership conditionality structures (MCS). This framework includes not only status acquisition rules, such as those governing naturalization and settlement, but also, crucially, civic integration requirements and social benefit eligibility standards. The article illustrates how linkages across these policy sectors shape different membership-making processes for third-country nationals by examining the MCS variation in Great Britain and Germany, two countries that both experienced significant migration inflows beginning in the first post-war decades. As a contrast to these two “mature” MCS cases, a study of Spain is also included as a “nascent” case, whose recent experience with large-scale immigration provides an opportunity to consider an MCS under active construction. [R, abr.]
65.6664 BALFOUR, Lawrie —
In contrast to sterile forms of apology or the evasions of color-blind political discourse, calls for reparations explicitly link the realization of democratic ideals to a history of anti-Black violence and exploitation [in the US]. I explore three dimensions of Ida B. Wells's anti-lynching writings that anticipate and enrich contemporary demands for reparations for slavery and Jim Crow. First, Wells's commitment to truth-telling models how to criticize received understandings of both past and present and revise them in the service of more democratic ways of life. Second, her gender- and sexuality-conscious analysis of the political and economic causes and effects of anti-Black violence adds a dimension that is missing from many reparations arguments. Third, Wells both advocates an active citizenry and demands collective responsibility for the protection of black citizenship. [R, abr.]
65.6666 BARDAKÇI, Mehmet —
Despite the favorable climate created with the launch of the Alevi Initiative, which aimed at the settlement of the grievances held by the Alevi community, the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP) government's over-cautious approach not to offend the Sunni-Hanefi segments of the electorate has cost them the trust of the Alevi community. Besides, the weak EU political conditionality and the embedded nature of the Sunni-Hanefi interpretation of Islam in both the state and society, not to mention in the legislation, have deterred the AKP government from achieving a full-fledged settlement to the Alevi issue. [R]
65.6667 BEATH, Andrew; CHRISTIA, Fotini; ENIKOLOPOV, Ruben —
Over the past two decades, community-based approaches to project delivery have become a popular means for governments and development agencies to improve the alignment of projects with the needs of rural communities and to increase the participation of villagers in project design and implementation. This article briefly summarizes the results of an impact evaluation of the National Solidarity Program (NSP), a community-driven development program in Afghanistan that created democratically-elected community development councils and funded small-scale development projects. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6381]
65.6668 BECCARIA, Franca —
Using Italy as an international comparative case study, the paper challenges the universal application of the public health approach in alcohol policy. It offers insights into support for the drinking patterns paradigm and argues for an increased contribution from the social sciences to understanding and addressing the alcohol issue. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6396]
65.6669 BEDASSO, Biniam E. —
This article explains the political economy dynamics behind the first two orderly presidential successions in post-colonial Kenya. It proposes a conceptual framework that shows how instrumental ethnicity plays out in a quasi-differentiated society in which ethnic organizations are the key conduits for the flow of rents between political and economic elites. More specifically, it shows how the internal fragmentation of ethnic groups intensifies the structural uncertainties that are commonly associated with intra-elite pacts in weakly institutionalized polities. [R, abr.]
65.6670 BEHURIA, Pritish —
Different strategies have been used by the Rwandan government to promote capitalist accumulation. In some sectors, party and military owned enterprises are predominant. In others, the government has chosen to embrace market-led reforms. Ultimately, the vulnerability experienced by ruling elites contributes to the choice of how capital accumulation is promoted in different sectors. Ruling elites use party and military enterprises to centralize rents and establish control over the direction of economic policy. However, centralizing rents is a political choice and excludes individuals from developing access to rents. [R, abr.]
65.6671 BEREZNYAKOV, Dmitrij V.; KOZLOV, Sergej V. —
Symbolic politics in post-Soviet Ukraine is unfolding in the conditions resulting from the collapse of the state and the erosion of symbolic resources for constructing national identity. One of the factors that contributed to the failure of the Ukrainian version of state construction is the particular format of symbolic politics selected by Ukrainian intellectual and political elites as an actual scenario for constructing Ukrainian national identity. Symbolic politics is viewed as a communicative process of legitimizing political dominance and constructing a collective identity regardless of any particular type of a political regime. This is based on the fact that all political regimes seek to achieve effective political communication, which stabilizes relations of domination over the long term by developing legitimate reception of the social world. [R, abr.]
65.6672 BETTINGER, Keith Andrew —
Since the fall of long-time strongman Suharto and his authoritarian “New Order” government in 1998, Indonesia has embarked upon a series of decentralization and democratization reforms. This new era of decentralized politics has come to be known as Reformasi and has significantly altered the political landscape of the archipelago as national and subnational levels of administration continue to contest the balance of power. Indonesia's national parks, which remain under the authority of the national government, have become arenas for negotiated encounters between local resource users, aspiring district elites and the national government. This essay explores three legacies of incomplete and unfinished decentralization as they related to national-park-based conservation, using Sumatra's Kerinci Seblat National Park as a case study. [R]
65.6673 BEW, Paul —
The apparent prevalence of “sleaze” issues in public life — most notably the “cash for questions” scandals involving Tory MPs — provoked the decision to establish the Committee on Standards in Public Life. Lord Nolan's committee immediately enunciated seven principles of public life: honesty, accountability, integrity, selflessness, openness, opportunity and leadership. Over the years, many of the Committee's recommendations have been accepted. There is today vastly greater transparency. The principles have been widely accepted; it is clear the public expects that they should be observed by public servants, including, perhaps especially, MPs. Yet it is equally clear that there is a widespread and still deepening mood of public cynicism on standards matters. [R, abr.]
65.6674 BHATTACHARYYA, Harihar —
This article introduces a conceptual distinction between diversity-claims and equality-claims in order to reflect critically on the relation between federalism and democracy in India, which is not adequately problematized and somewhat neglected. Federalism and democracy suggest two different problematics, but in India democracy has often played second fiddle to the claims of diversity. As a result, India's success as a federation has not been paralleled by its record as a democracy in terms of its equality functions. Since the article engages with the issue of accommodation of diversity in the wake of federation-building, and the relation between federalism and democracy, critical references are made to the relevant theoretical literature in order to point out federalism's new problematic and its pitfalls. [R, abr.]
65.6675 BINDMAN, Eleanor —
This article examines how socially oriented (SO) NGOs in Russia conceptualize the state's role in guaranteeing social rights and negotiate relations with the state. It demonstrates that these organizations see the state as playing a key role in guaranteeing social rights. This facilitates a degree of agency in their relationship with the authorities, who are increasingly keen to use the experience SO NGOs provide for service-delivery. This challenges the dominant view of compliant social NGOs which fully cooperate with the authorities and highlights the need for a more nuanced understanding of Russia's state-civil society relations. [R] [See Abstr. 65.7547]
65.6677 BOLLER, Robert; HALBERT, Debora —
This article interrogates the concept of global citizenship through the disruptive lens of the American expatriate. The inquiry uses empirical research done on American expatriates, including the results of a survey conducted by the authors, to better understand issues of citizenship and politics among American expatriates. The theoretical literature on citizenship and transnationalism argues that immigrants and expatriates help challenge the hegemony of the nation-state, a claim that can be tested by investigating how expatriates view their own experiences. By juxtaposing the empirical work of researchers focused on American expats with the theoretical work of citizenship and globalization theorists, we find that political affinity and national identity continue to matter for those living outside the US, but within a larger global context. [R, abr.]
65.6678 BORCHARD, Michael —
Contrary to previous predictions, B. Netanyahu won the general election in Israel and will continue his leadership with a razor-thin majority. By highlighting the recent developments in Israeli society, the author explains the difficulties in forming the new government with coalition partners and shares an analysis of voter behavior and how it came to Netanyahu's re-election. How stable is the new Israeli government and to what extent will the election results have implications for the German-Israeli relations? [R]
65.6679 BOSWELL, John —
The deliberative systems’ account makes room for all sorts of communication and action that the classical account of deliberative democracy excluded. But should this leniency also extend to the representation of toxic narratives which aggressively oppose expertise and vilify marginalized groups? This comparative analysis explores the implications of marginalizing such narratives from empowered sites of policy advice and formation. It contrasts the more restrictive Australian obesity debate, where the toxic, anti-Nanny State narrative on this issue has become taboo, with the more permissive British one, where this narrative is aired more fully throughout the deliberative system. The findings show that wider and deeper expression of the anti-Nanny State narrative in the UK has a number of net deliberative and democratic benefits. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6889]
65.6680 BOSWELL, John; CORBETT, Jack —
Disenchantment with politics appears to be proliferating throughout contemporary liberal democracies, as outlined in the growing literature on anti-politics. Overwhelmingly, this literature has focused on the disaffection citizens express towards the policy process. Here, using policymaking on the issue of obesity in Australia and Britain as a case study, we show that disenchantment is not limited to citizen outsiders; the élite policy actors at the core of the process are cynical, too. Indeed, we unveil an élite cast of “stoic democrats” who see little reward for their continual efforts. We also point to the limits of stoicism highlighted by this “extreme” case, as some élites begin to challenge the legitimacy of formal policy processes, subvert their norms, or ignore them altogether, all in search of more direct impact. [R, abr.]
65.6681 BOTHE, Winnie —
In 2008, Bhutan inaugurated a written constitution, thereby instituting the state as a constitutional monarchy. The constitution is almost unanimously described as democratic by international media and academics. The ease with which this apparent consensus on its democratic character has been achieved, however, raises the important question of how best to approach the theory of constitutional democratization. In approaching the issue of democratization as a move towards popular control, this article discusses the ambivalence of the Bhutanese constitution towards this principle in a cultural context where social order is seen as constituted within the unity of king, country, and people. Curiously, this raises the question whether this model is suitable as a blueprint model for countries with different historic and cultural trajectories from the European ones. [R, abr.]
65.6682 BOUHON, Frédéric —
German, Belgian and British electoral law, considered under the scope of the equality principle, includes two [contradictory] categories of rules: some rules tend to distribute equally among the governed the faculty to influence the composition of the elected assemblies, while others tend to distribute it unequally. The inequality effect of the rules within the second category may be to some extent legally justified by general interest, but this effect ensures also the rulers means to remain in power, which is hardly justifiable from a legal perspective. In these legal systems, not only [should] the Parliament or its members represent the governed, but the parties themselves are expected to be sufficiently representative to [sit in] the legislative assemblies. [R]
65.6683 BRÄNDSTRÖM, Annika —
This article combines two existing theories that propose different factors to account for variation in outcomes: ministerial resignations as a consequence of cabinet-formation and individual positions; or resignations as a result of blame-management strategies involving individual actors within the cabinet and beyond. Ten crisis episodes in Sweden are analyzed and compared. The findings suggest that individual political power bases and experience matter to how well blame-management strategies can be employed, while the composition of the government gives structural constraints. The dynamic interplay and framing battle between incumbent decision-makers, and external arenas and the skill with which individual ministers engage and frame responsibility, play a key role in determining their post-crisis careers. [R, abr.]
65.6684 BRISTOW, Dan; CARTER, Lauren; MARTIN, Steve —
The creation of a network of What Works Centers in the UK reflects a belief that the provision of high-quality evidence can improve public policy decisions. The literature on evidence-based policy suggests that rational, technocratic models belie the complex and contested nature of the policy process and that What Works Centers are likely to face a number of challenges as they seek to synthesize and mobilize knowledge. Wide variations are found between the What Works Centers in terms of their resources, the evidence standards they use, their audiences and approaches to transmitting evidence. Tracking their development and their impact over time should, therefore, provide valuable insights about “what works” in promoting evidence-based policy and practice. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6396]
65.6685 BRYAN, Joe —
In 2008, the US Southern Command launched Operation Continuing Promise as an ongoing mission to provide humanitarian aid and assistance to vulnerable populations in the Caribbean and Latin America. Conceived as a means of fostering regional security, the Operation's humanitarian aim was designed to improve regional security by ensuring life against the risk of a range of disasters. Much as that mission reflects biopolitical analyses of humanitarianism that emphasize the ability to protect life as the basis for sovereignty, closer attention to the timing and location of SOUTHCOM's efforts offers a more contextual understanding. That approach is developed here through an analysis of Operation Continuing Promise's stop in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, contrasting SOUTHCOM's focus on biophysical vulnerability with intended recipients’ sense of their condition as a historical and political outcome. [R, abr.]
65.6686 BUZOGÁNY, Aron —
How did the national parliaments in CEE countries adapt institutionally to the challenges of Europeanization? In formal terms, the institutional solutions to control governments in their EU-related activities are among the strongest ones in the EU. However, the results of policy transfers using the “best practice” examples of mostly Scandinavian parliaments has led to several discrepancies between formal rules and their actual use. Building on the theoretical literature on the Europeanization both of CEE states and of national parliaments, this contribution suggests that the suspected general decoupling between formal structures and rules-in-use seems to be overstated; indeed, CEE parliaments have developed very differentiated activities in relation to parliamentary control in EU affairs which fit the exigencies of their respective political systems quite well. [R, abr.]
65.6687 CAMGUILHEM, Benoit —
The separation between nationality and residence that defines French citizens living abroad makes it necessary to adjust the form of representation of this part of the population with relation to common law. Such a task poses both legal and practical difficulties that the current system of representation of French people abroad fails to overcome. Even though they are represented in both chambers of Parliament, the terms of this representation remain unsatisfactory. In terms of extraparliamentary representation, the increasing of representatives by the law of 22 July 2013 has led to a complex system which unsuccessfully tries to align representation with common law.
65.6688 CAMPBELL, Rosie; LOVENDUSKI, Joni —
The notion that voters are demanding ever more constituency activity from their MPs is now a widely-accepted tenet of British politics. There is a great deal of survey work demonstrating that voters place a high priority on constituency connections of all kinds, but we know less about how voters’ priorities compare with MPs’ ranking of constituency work against competing aspects of their role. We compare matched surveys of voters and MPs and establish that there is less difference between the priorities they give to constituency versus other activity than we might expect. [R]
65.6689 CAPANO, Giliberto —
Education policy is a highly interesting field from the point of view of governance, given the substantial changes that have been made throughout the world to the governance of such policy over the last 30 years or so. Western governments in particular have made significant changes in the governance arrangements of their education policy in order to achieve two fundamental goals: increased efficiency and greater accountability. In this process, the role of governments has changed but not diminished. This paper explores such developments by comparing the trajectories of governance reforms in three federal countries (Australia, Canada and Germany). [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6309]
65.6690 CARLIN, Ryan E.; SINGH, Shane P. —
We explore the effects of localized economic shocks from trade on roll-call behavior and electoral outcomes in the US House, 1990–2010. We demonstrate that economic shocks from Chinese import competition cause legislators to vote in a more protectionist direction on trade bills but cause no change in their voting on all other bills. At the same time, these shocks have no effect on the re-election rates of incumbents, the probability an incumbent faces a primary challenge, or the partisan control of the district. Though changes in economic conditions are likely to cause electoral turnover in many cases, incumbents exposed to negative economic shocks from trade appear able to fend off these effects in equilibrium by taking strategic positions on foreign-trade bills. [R, abr.]
65.6691 CERON, Andrea; MAINENTI, Marco —
Scholars agree that ideology affects judicial decision-making. We demonstrate that this proposition holds true even when the judiciary is independent of political control. Focusing on Italy (1983–2013), where the politicization of the judiciary was an issue well before the entry of S. Berlusconi into politics, we estimate judicial orientations according to the support for factions within the National Judiciary Association. The results show that ideology affects trial court activity against deputies. As the support for left-wing factions increases, prosecutors are more likely to investigate right-wing parties. Conversely, as the share of right-leaning factions grows, investigations of moderate or rightist parties decrease. [R]
65.6692 CLARKE, M.T. —
This article argues that the early chapters of Machiavelli's Discourses constitutes a deliberate rejection of the ways in which Rome had been described and evaluated in the humanist political literature of the quattrocento and especially Poggio Bracciolini's Oration on Behalf of Venice. While agreeing with Poggio that early humanist portraits of Rome had been too idealized to be historically accurate, Machiavelli criticizes Poggio's own more critical view of Roman republicanism on both historical and theoretical grounds. [R]
65.6693 COHEN, Elizabeth F. —
Time serves as a form of political currency that can be exchanged for rights. That is, increments of time are used to represent different values, such as loyalty, civic knowledge, or cultural assimilation; and then these increments are inserted along with other variables into formulae that confer or deny rights. The deployment of time in this way creates a political economy of time in which durations of time are used as currency for states and citizens to transact over rights. This article studies the effects of the political economy of time on immigrants in the US during the post-1965 era. It shows that their time has slowly been devalued over the past half century and reveals the potential of actions, such as deferred departure, to create and legitimize a class of permanent semicitizens. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.7178]
65.6694 COHEN, Jeffrey E. —
Why do presidents go public so much if the effects of going public are so unpredictable? Debate in the literature on the effects of going public stems in part from the large number of variables that mediate between presidential public communication and public opinion. This article hypothesizes that different types of presidential communication provide voters with different types of information about the president. This information, in turn, interacts with the voter's political predispositions, so that different types of voters will react differently to each presidential communication. An experiment embedded in a nationally representative survey is used to test the hypothesis, and results provide support for it. [R, abr.]
65.6695 CONSTERDINE, Erica —
Under the Labour governments of 1997–2010, Britain's economic immigration policy was transformed from a system underpinned by restriction to a comparatively expansive regime. Based on over 50 elite interviews, the article explains why economic immigration policy shifted so radically, by examining how the organized public and political elites influenced policy and policy-change. The article tests G. Freeman's client politics model and challenges the claim that sections of the organized public drove the expansionary reforms. In contrast, it is argued that the logic and idea behind the policy reforms were fundamentally underpinned by the Labour Party's Third Way framework, in particular the Party's business-friendly approach and its fixation with globalization. The article demonstrates that immigration policy-making in Britain is an elite-driven pursuit, and that parties, and the ideas which configure them, shape immigration policy. [R] [See Abstr. 65.6724]
65.6696 COSTA, Patrício; FERREIRA DA SILVA, Frederico —
This article examines how the evaluation of party leaders’ traits influences voting behavior. The work incorporates data from election studies across seven countries with different social contexts (Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Germany, UK, Italy and Hungary). Characteristics of leaders were placed into two groups: competence and warmth, in accordance with the stereotype content model and relevant studies on evaluations of leaders’ traits. Since different personality traits were evaluated within each country, the analysis was based on the two aforementioned dimensions and the political ideology of the leader. Multiple sequential binary logistic regression models were performed to analyze the predictive power of competence and warmth on voting behavior, controlling for socio-demographic and political ideology variables of voters. [R, abr.]
65.6697 CRANE, Nicholas Jon —
Contemporary political geographers accommodate everyday practice in accounts of state power but arguably tend to retain a bias towards sites easily identified with the state. This bias complements a frequent conflation of policing and the state in recent scholarship on the post-political. This article challenges these assumptions by showing how rituals of anti-stateness may themselves paradoxically give to the senses a partitioned world of state domination and non-state resistance that delimits political possibility. I specifically examine activist participation in such policing through analysis of student-left commemorations of 1968 in Mexico City. My analysis of such activism also reveals tension in processes that consolidate a partitioned state/non-state world. I show that, through vinculación, some activists establish unaccounted-for solidarities that exceed the categories through which state power has in the past been exercised. [R, abr.]
65.6698 CREEMERS, Rogier —
In 2013, a debate on constitutionalism erupted between liberals advocating better implementation of China's Constitution and anti-constitutionalist voices claiming that this would harm the political order and the reform project. The debate emerged against the background of a choppy political transition and proliferating social concerns, as well as hopeful expectations regarding the new leadership. However, the anti-constitutionalist position was closely aligned with the new Politburo Standing Committee's agenda, which continues to reject the notion of a law-based political order and institutionalization of fundamental relationships between the Party, the state and citizens. This has significant implications for the direction of Chinese legal reforms and related scholarly understandings. [R]
65.6699 CURLEY, Tyler M. —
Many scholars have begun to uncover the precedents that continue to shape modern emergency-management. In an effort to clarify the main analytical assumptions of the existing scholarship, I construct three models of emergency state-building: permanent emergency state, national security state, and contract state. The models each share an underlying framework of historical institutionalism, which defines the state as a stabilized material institutional structure that is disrupted by emergency conditions — exogenous shocks that cannot be incorporated into the normal state-building processes or legal order. Yet this perspective is ill-equipped to explain institutional change. I propose discursive institutionalism as an approach that emphasizes how discourse and ideas construct emergencies as objects of government management — in different ways, at different times. [R, abr.]
65.6700 DAYRELL, Carmen; URRY, John —
This article examines the centrality of Brazil within the future of climate policy and politics. The state of the carbon sink of the Amazon rainforest has long been an iconic marker of the condition of the Earth. Brazil has been innovative in developing many non-carbon forms of energy generation and use and it has played a major role in international debates on global warming since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. We examine various ways in which climate change has come to be centrally important in Brazilian public opinion. Survey evidence shows that Brazilians are the most concerned about issues of climate change — with less climate-change skepticism as compared with more “advanced” societies. [R, abr.]
65.6701 DeLISLE, Jacques —
Xi Jinping and China's fifth-generation leadership have promised a greater role for law in pursuing major goals of the regime. The agenda for law emphasizes its potential contributions to pushing forward economic reform and sustaining economic development under more challenging conditions. Another major initiative of the Xi leadership — an energetic anti-corruption drive — has taken place outside formal legal channels. Rights-protection lawyers and law-focused NGOs have faced heightened repression. These seemingly contradictory trends are consistent with a conception of law that remains reformist and developmentalist for the economy and that is becoming less liberal, more top-down and narrowly instrumentalist, particularly on politically sensitive issues. Chinese leaders’ preferences concerning how to “use law to rule the country” are somewhat constrained by factors beyond their control. [A]
65.6702 DIAKHATE, Meïssa —
A closer look at El Hadj Mbodj's analysis of legitimacy allows for a better understanding of the successional process that African heads of state typically go through. The study of some hypotheses of independence of entry furthermore provides the basis for a critical examination of the independence of constitutional jurisdiction's performance. Using El Hadj Mbodj's method therefore proves especially helpful when it comes to identifying two major aspects of the ambiguous constitutional jurisdiction in French-speaking black African states: the ambiguities that result from statutory guarantees and the depreciation of the authority of decisions.
65.6703 DODD, Lynda G. —
Recent political science scholarship examining the institutional features of the rights revolution has highlighted the importance of the private enforcement of civil rights. This article discusses a less well-known line of [US] Supreme Court cases concerning government liability that have undermined effective private enforcement of constitutional rights. I examine the impact of the Court's “procedural assault” on private civil rights enforcement and possible responses to the recent protests in Ferguson, Missouri, and elsewhere across the country regarding police use of force. After identifying the ways in which the Court has undermined a core strand of the rights revolution, I assess the challenges confronting the B. Obama administration and civil rights leaders as they respond to these developments. [R]
65.6704 DOLEK, Caglar —
Private security has become a central form of everyday policing in the Southern and Northern countries alike, and has thereby redefined the modern conception of security, conventionally understood as the exclusive domain of the state. The relevant academic literature has seemed to problematize the issue either as a facet of the erosion of state monopoly of violence or as a dispersion of neoliberal governmentality. These positions — neo-Weberian and neo-Foucauldian, respectively — fail to grasp both the role of the capitalist state in the privatization of security and its class character. The Turkish case is quite telling about the constitutive role of the state in this process, which has been a class-driven project, reflecting contested class relations, from the 1960s to the 2000s. [R]
65.6706 DUNCAN, Grant —
The New Zealand Cabinet Manual is regarded as an authoritative guide to the conduct of the executive in that country, and it is now a public document accessible online. A similar Manual has been adopted in the UK, but these documents raise questions about the consequences of creating an authoritative written version of constitutional convention. For instance, could a Cabinet Manual prevent constitutional change or lead to biased understandings of conventions? Could the content of a Cabinet Manual have a decisive effect on judicial review? The article examines the experience surrounding the New Zealand Cabinet Manual in order to address some of the critical questions that parliamentarians and academics have raised about the possible effects of such documents upon constitutional conventions. [R, abr.]
65.6707 DUVENDACK, Maren; MACLEAN, Kate —
This paper looks at the use of economic and social “evidence” in debates on microfinance. Microfinance was originally inspired by small-scale women's savings and credit organizations. When its potential to become a financially sustainable, even profit-making, development intervention was recognized, microfinance underwent a “revolution” that was to convert it into a much lauded development “panacea”. Microfinance's reputation has, however, been tarnished by reports refuting the evidential basis for claims made on its behalf. We trace the intervention's ascendance and the evidential basis on which microfinance was promoted. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6396]
65.6708 DŽANKIĆ, Jelena, et al. —
This Introduction explains the origins of the project of exploring citizenship and citizenship-related issues in the framework of Europeanization in the new states in South East Europe. It defines the terminology used in the contributions and explains the conceptual underpinnings of the project and the structure of the edited collection. Finally, these introductory remarks also give an overview of the contributions to the special issue. [R] [Introduction to a thematic issue of the same title, edited by the author. See Abstr. 65.6709, 6721, 6809, 6841, 6844, 7045, 7279]
65.6709 DŽANKIĆ, Jelena —
This research analyzes the effect of Europeanization on sovereignty in the post-Yugoslav states by examining the evolution of the different states’ policies related to extradition of their own nationals. Extradition is an important aspect of these countries’ political transformation, because the rule of law and regional co-operation are enshrined in the set of conditions these countries have to meet to enter the EU. The research thus looks at how the different post-Yugoslav states approach the extradition of their own nationals, and whether they have altered them in view of the requirements of the accession process. This paper looks at the dynamics between the duty of the state to protect its citizens and the transformative power of Europeanization in the Western Balkans. [R] [See Abstr. 65.6708]
65.6710 EMMENEGGER, Patrick —
During the first half of the 20th c., some of the strongest union movements failed to provide much protection against dismissal. This contrasts with countries with comparatively weak union movements, where workers benefited from far-reaching statutory protection. This counterintuitive outcome can be explained by the unions’ interest in maximizing institutional control by regulating dismissal protection in collective agreements. Yet such pre-emptive regulation was possible only [in] unique circumstances: it required a strong trade union movement that could conclude collective agreements before the advent of employment contracts being regulated by statutory labor law. The regulation of dismissal protection by means of collective agreements had unintended consequences. As regulation progressed faster in statutory labor law, countries with weaker union movements soon obtained higher levels of dismissal protection. [R]
65.6711 ESCOBAR, Cristina —
In order to explain non-citizen enfranchisement in Latin America, this article takes into account three dimensions: domestic (citizenship tradition, immigration levels, internal politics), global (international and bilateral agreements, human rights discourse) and regional (common markets, diffusion, geopolitics). The article identifies two main modalities: from the early 20th c. to the 1980s, when democracy was not a necessary condition and when national factors prevailed. Starting in the 1990s, democratization in Latin America has brought a new wave of noncitizen enfranchisement, this time with more influence of global and regional factors and, in various cases, in connection with external voting rights. [R] [See Abstr. 65.6310]
65.6712 EVANS, Bryan; SAPEHA, Halina —
This article is based on select results taken from a survey of NGO and provincial government policy workers. It provides an empirically-based assessment of how government and non-government policy workers engage with one another in the policy process. The data suggest that policy co-construction and co-production are a significant feature of the process but there is some need for nuance. The data presented here indicate that the extent of policy engagement may not be as broadly inclusive as the proponents of New Governance suggest. [R]
65.6713 FEARON, James D.; HUMPHREYS, Macartan; WEINSTEIN, Jeremy M. —
International donors have embraced interventions designed to strengthen the ability of communities to solve collective-action problems, especially in post-conflict settings. We exploit the random assignment of a development program in Liberia to assess the effects of such interventions. Using a matching funds experiment we find evidence that these interventions can alter cooperation capacity. However, we observe effects only in communities in which, by design, both men and women faced the collective action challenge. We find evidence that program effects worked through improvements in mobilization capacity that may have enhanced communities’ ability to coordinate to solve mixed gender problems. The combined evidence suggests that the impact of donor interventions designed to enhance cooperation can depend critically on the kinds of social dilemmas that communities face, and the flexibility they have in determining who should solve them. [R, abr.]
65.6714 FEIGENBAUM, James J.; HALL, Andrew B. —
We explore the effects of localized economic shocks from trade on roll-call behavior and electoral outcomes in the US House, 1990–2010. We demonstrate that economic shocks from Chinese import competition cause legislators to vote in a more protectionist direction on trade bills but cause no change in their voting on all other bills. At the same time, these shocks have no effect on the re-election rates of incumbents, the probability an incumbent faces a primary challenge, or the partisan control of the district. Though changes in economic conditions are likely to cause electoral turnover in many cases, incumbents exposed to negative economic shocks from trade appear able to fend off these effects in equilibrium by taking strategic positions on foreign-trade bills. [R, abr.]
65.6715 FENNELLY, Katherine; PEARSON, Kathryn; HACKETT, Silvana —
We examine patterns of congressional action and inaction on immigration issues in the US over the past two decades, with attention to the impact of partisan polarization and examples of the effects of public opinion on members’ votes and the immigration agenda itself. Our analysis covers 391 immigration policy votes between 1993 and 2012. Analyzing 10 Congresses allows us to test hypotheses about the effects of partisan polarization on immigration policy-making in Congress over time. Congressional attention to immigration issues has waxed and waned, and relatively few bills were enacted in the period under study. The relatively short list of enacted legislation is due to existing mechanisms for stifling major change such as comprehensive immigration reform. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6724]
65.6716 FISHER, Lucy —
This article examines the rising prominence of House of Commons select committees during the 2010–2015 Parliament, which takes into account the impact of the Wright reforms. The new system of electing committee chairs and members is explored as a central reform that has burnished the autonomy, independence and credibility of the committees. In addition, the characteristics of the coalition government and circumstances entailed by a two-party executive are seen as factors that have made more robust the neutrality of the committees, [seen] as impartial [scrutinizers] of government policy and personnel. As the system has been strengthened and received greater attention from the government, the public and the media, select committees have also come to present a platform upon which certain members and chairs have grown their profile. [R, abr.]
65.6717 FORD, Robert; JENNINGS, Will; SOMERVILLE, Will —
We examine the link between public opinion and policy in the UK over the past 30 years. We show that public views about immigration are responsive to changes in immigration levels and differences between migrant groups, and that policy-makers are sensitive to these changes. Policy-makers face growing constraints in responding to the public mood on migration. The interaction of public opinion, policy and constraint has produced three distinct policy regimes. (1) 1982 to 1997: Policy-makers faced few constraints, immigration was tightly controlled and the public were unconcerned about the issue. (2) 1997 to 2004: migration policy was selectively liberalized in response to external and interest group pressures, producing increasing inflows and growing public demands for restriction. (3) 2004-[present], public demand for restriction is strong but policy-makers face significant constraints in responding. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6724]
65.6718 FRANÇOIS, Abel; GROSSMAN, Emiliano —
This article analyzes different standard measures of legislative turnover. Two main concerns are discussed: (1) the very definition of turnover: incoming MPs versus first-term MPs; and (2) the level of analysis: the whole chamber versus political groups. To illustrate this discussion, turnover in the French lower chamber, the Assemblée Nationale, is studied. It is shown that the choice of a particular measure is not trivial since empirical results are affected by the definition adopted. If the distinction between incoming and first-term MPs does not greatly modify results, the choice of the level of analysis leads to contradictory results. It is shown that the very logic of electoral contests leads to renewal mostly among those who lost previous elections, while incumbent majorities that lose elections hardly experience renewal. [R, abr.]
65.6719 FRANZIUS, Claudio —
The Energy Transition is a challenge for the transformation of the legal foundations of the power supply. This raises the question about responsibility for technical and societal innovations. The energy efficiency law, the emissions trading and the promotion of renewable energies show that not all the responsibility has been shifted to the supranational level and that Member States retain considerable room for action. I outline how the responsibility for innovation between the EU and the Member States is distributed and what the value of model competition for energy and climate change law is. Neither the fundamental freedoms nor state aid law are able to restrict unduly the Member States in their scope of action. [R]
65.6720 FREDERICK, Brian —
This study builds on previous research by examining the impact of gender when predicting roll-call voting behavior in the US House and the US Senate over several recent congresses. In order to unearth gender effects, it employs a longitudinal design based on turnover in the membership of both the House and the Senate. Through a comparison of the voting records of members of Congress representing the same geographic territory, it holds constituency constant while allowing for gender and party to vary. It does so with models including dependent variables that measure roll-call ideology and support for women's issues exhibited in the voting records of members in both institutions. The results show that male and female members in each chamber representing the same constituency amass virtually indistinguishable voting records on the liberal-conservative policy dimension. [R, abr.]
65.6721 GEDDES, Andrew —
This Conclusion highlights the broader conceptual, empirical and methodological contributions of this edited volume. Reflecting on the paired articles, it explores the implications of the collection on the interplay between the modes of governance that constitute citizenship regimes and their effects on “lived citizenship” that characterize individuals’ experiences of this governance. [R] [See Abstr. 65.6708]
65.6722 GELMAN, Jeremy; WILKENFELD, Gilad; ADLER, E. Scott —
The president is the most influential policy actor in US politics, and his legislative program greatly influences Congress's agenda. Yet little research has focused on what factors affect the president's choices when constructing his agenda. We develop a theory that determines when a president will include an issue in his program. We hypothesize that presidents structure their agendas around the congressional calendar for consideration of expiring laws and salient issues. Using data over 28 years and across 12 policy areas, we find presidents build their programs around these policy-making opportunities. We assert that presidential agendas are less driven by individual priorities than previous accounts have concluded. [R]
65.6723 GIEST, Sarah —
The paper argues that many networks collaborate too loosely to have the capacity to reach strategic goals or mobilize local players. There is often a disconnect between national policy goals and on-the-ground dynamics. Instead, government should adopt a network perspective which does not eliminate state action, but involves network management institutions at arm's length of government. As an example for this mode of network governance, the research looks at the Swedish “National Network for Wind Power”, which was initiated by government and is now led by four wind coordinators managing the development of on- and off-shore wind electricity. The paper compares Swedish performance before and after the introduction of the wind network and shows how these government efforts have transformed Sweden from a weak performer to being a frontrunner in Europe. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6309]
65.6724 GILLIGAN, Chris —
The issue of immigration has become a major topic of discussion and policy activity in liberal democratic states in the 21st c. In the policy discourse, the media discussion and the academic literature, two key assumptions typically underpin thinking on the topic: first, that a majority of the public favor more restrictions on immigration and second, that public pressure pushes policy on immigration controls in a restrictive direction. This collection opens up discussion on these assumptions. This introductory contribution introduces the topic of the public and the politics of immigration controls and briefly outlines some of the key points from the articles in the collection. We suggest four key questions for future research on the public the politics of immigration controls. [R] [Introduction to a thematic issue of the same title, edited by the author. See Abstr. 65.6695, 6715, 6717, 6794]
65.6725 GOETZ, Klaus H. —
Acceleration, time pressure and the marginalization of time-consuming democratic institutions and procedures dominate time-centered critiques of democratic government. Such analyses suffer from several limitations. Against this background, the present article focuses on synchronization within the EU multilevel system as the decisive challenge of institutional design. This argument is illustrated with reference to budget policy in the EU, before options for dealing with synchronization requirements are discussed. [R] [See Abstr. 65.6503]
65.6726 GOLUB, Stephen; KAYA, Ayse; REAY, Michael —
The [US] Federal Reserve has unrivaled access to economic data, high-level connections to financial institutions, and a large staff of professionally trained economists. Why then was it apparently unconcerned by the financial developments that are now widely recognized to have caused the 2008 financial crisis? Using a wide range of Fed documents from the pre-crisis period, particularly the transcripts of meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), this paper shows that Fed policy-makers and staff were aware of relevant developments in financial markets, but paid infrequent attention to them and disregarded significant systemic threats. Drawing on literatures in economics, political science and sociology, the paper then demonstrates that the Fed's intellectual paradigm in the years before the crisis focused on “post hoc interventionism”. [R, abr.]
65.6727 GRAD, Franc; KAUČIČ, Igor —
The Constitution of Slovenia guarantees local government; nevertheless, it does not regulate forms of local democracy. Thus, the legislation envisages numerous different ways of citizen's participation, both direct and indirect, in decision-making in local communities. Still, the local elections remain the most important way of citizens’ influencing decision-making in local communities. [R]
65.6728 GRIMM, Dieter; BEAUD, Olivier —
The EU is often criticized for not being democratic enough, a flaw which could be solved by giving more powers to its Parliament. But the solution is not that simple: the problem also lies with the role of the Commission and the European Court of Justice. But in the current context, it is hard to debate these issues without being accused of Euroskepticism. [R]
65.6729 GROTZ, Florian; MÜLLER-ROMMEL, Ferdinand —
Recent studies on parliamentary democracies have stated that prime ministers’ duration of office is comparably lower in Central Eastern than in Western Europe. Analyzing the cases of 90 prime ministers in eleven countries of Central Eastern Europe from 1990 to 2014 major differences in their duration are found across countries: In Bulgaria, Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic prime ministers stayed in office only for a short period of time while the average duration of their counterparts in Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary was similar to that in Western Europe. Furthermore, several prime ministers have served in government for more than four years; some of them have been re-elected; others came back to office after a period of resignation. We explain these variances by different “political experience” of prime ministers. [R, abr.]
65.6730 GUZMÁN TOVAR, César —
This article analyzes the strategic aspects of the reasoning that led to the formulation of science and technology policies in Colombia, Mexico and Argentina over the last decades. The author examines the models used to regulate scientific systems and networks since 1990 in the aforementioned countries, and how these networks have produced knowledge systems for their nations. The article explores various nuances and perspectives from sociology and other social sciences in order to show the prevalence of the capitalist production ideology on the regional scientific models. [R]
65.6731 HAEDER, Simon F.; WEBB YACKEE, Susan —
All administrative processes contain points of entry for politics, and the US president's use of the OMB to review government regulations is no exception. Specifically, OMB review can open up a pathway for interest groups to lobby for policy change. We theorize that interest group lobbying can be influential during OMB review, especially when there is consensus across groups. We use a selection model to test our argument with more than 1,500 regulations written by federal agencies that were subjected to OMB review. We find that lobbying is associated with change during OMB review. We also demonstrate that, when only business groups lobby, we are more likely to see rule change; however, the same is not true for public interest groups. [R, abr.]
65.6732 HAMLIN, Rebecca —
American asylum policy has developed gradually over many decades, which can be divided into five distinct eras. The relationships between the categories of refugee, asylum-seeker, and undocumented immigrant have shifted frequently, and answers about which asylum-seekers qualify for refugee status in the US have been both politically constructed over time and contingent on the politics of the moment. Asylum-seekers, therefore, have sometimes been assumed to be refugees, and at other times have been automatically lumped together with undocumented economic migrants. Asylum policy development has also been driven by a much larger conflict in American politics: the rise of legal institutions representing a commitment to international human rights, and the conservative backlash to that emergence. All of these forces have contributed to the current era, characterized by deterrence policies and litigation challenging their enforcement. [R] [See Abstr. 65.7178]
65.6733 HAN Heejin —
The impacts that governments and institutions have on environmental policy-making constitute a core concern in environmental politics. Authoritarian environmentalism (AE) presents a model of top-down, non-participatory environmental policy-making. The model, however, remains underspecified with its premises untested and its application confined to non-democratic countries. This study addresses these gaps through a case study of South Korea's Four Major Rivers Restoration Project. The study illustrates how various path-dependent legacies from the era of the authoritarian developmental state shaped the policy context in which policy-makers in democratic Korea adopted AE as its approach to environmental governance. [R, abr.]
65.6734 HANRETTY, Chris —
I investigate the non-unanimous decisions of judges on the Estonian Supreme Court. I argue that since judges on the court enjoy high de jure independence, dissent frequently, and are integrated in the normal judicial hierarchy, the Estonian Supreme Court is a crucial case for the presumption that judicial disagreement reveals policy preferences. I analyze dissenting opinions using an ideal point response model. Examining the characteristics of cases which discriminated with respect to the recovered dimension, I show that this dimension cannot be interpreted as a meaningful policy dimension, but instead reflects disagreement about the proper scope of constitutional redress. [R]
65.6735 HANSEN, Eric R.; TREUL, Sarah A. —
As public opinion in the US has shifted on questions of gay rights in the last decade, some members of Congress have likewise adjusted their behavior to address issues of concern to their lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) constituents. We argue that the number of LGB constituents in a district affects the representatives’ behavior. Although the size of the LGB population positively affects the substantive representation members provide to their LGB constituents, population is conditioned by majority public opinion on LGB issues in determining members’ low-cost, symbolic representation of LGB constituents. More favorable majority attitudes toward the minority allow the member to provide more symbolic representation to LGB constituents through low-cost gestures and actions. Statistical tests provide support for our hypotheses. [R, abr.]
65.6736 HANSEN, Martin Ejnar; FAZEKAS, Zoltán —
In nearly all studies on legislative party competition, all votes are treated equally. This article argues that the cooperation between parties varies substantively depending on the type of legislation analyzed. However, establishing a measure of the relative significance of votes has challenged legislative studies for decades. A novel measure for legislative significance is therefore proposed: length of debate. Using parliamentary votes from 23 legislative periods in the Danish parliament from 1953 to 2003 and debate length as measurement for bill significance, analyses are presented that focus on between-party voting patterns on significant and non-significant legislation and the presence, extent and features of legislative cartels is discussed. The results suggest that looking only at significant legislation reveals more clearly the legislative cartels within the legislature. [R, abr.]
65.6737 HARTMANN, Christof —
Expatriate voting has gained in importance over the last decade in Sub-Saharan Africa. This article gives an empirical overview of existing regulations in all independent states of the continent and examines some explanatory approaches in the African context. One approach claims that expatriate enfranchisement is a functional response to the increasing importance of migrants and their remittances. A second explanation refers to the role of domestic political structures and regime types. A third cluster of explanatory factors links external voting to the interests of political parties. Both in the broader comparative analysis and by looking more specifically at the cases of Ghana, South Africa, Cape Verde and Nigeria, all three approaches specifically contribute to understanding variation of external voting rights in Sub-Saharan Africa. [R] [See Abstr. 65.6310]
65.6738 HAYWARD, Janine —
New Zealand's electoral referendum in 1993 — at which New Zealand abandoned first-past-the-post in favor of mixed-member proportional representation — has been described as “an electoral earthquake” after “generations of dormancy” [P. Norris, “Introduction: the politics of electoral reform”, International Political Science Review 16 (1), Jan. 1995: 3–8; Abstr. 45.1596]. A. Renwick [The Politics of Electoral Reform: Changing the Rules of Democracy, Cambridge, 2010] has argued that the referendum is an example of electoral reform by elite-mass interaction, which is very rare in Western democratic nations. New Zealand is, therefore, a valuable case for analysis of electoral reform. This article analyzes New Zealand's electoral politics, specifically asking whether Renwick's theory of elite-mass interaction also explains the outcomes of New Zealand's electoral politics in 2011/2012. [R, abr.]
65.6739 HEIN, Michael —
The fight against political, especially government, corruption has dominated Romanian political discourse for many years. However, the vast majority of the political elite have continuously opposed the prosecution and conviction of defendants of corruption crimes. After a long constitutional conflict that seriously inhibited the fight against government corruption between 2006 and 2009, law-enforcement agencies finally began to experience some success. Nevertheless, the extent of government corruption has remained consistently high. This article analyzes the struggles that have occurred between 2004 and 2013 in the fight against government corruption in Romania and particularly examines the interplay between formal and informal factors in this field. [R]
65.6740 HENSENGERTH, Oliver —
This paper studies environmental norm contestation in Cambodia's hydropower sector, exemplified by the Kamchay Dam. In Cambodia, different discourses [regarding] hydropower stem directly from a local contest over the path of Cambodia's development, but use global norms as reference points: one emphasizes environmental protection, using environmental impact assessment (EIA) as point of reference; and one emphasizes the utility of the clean development mechanism (CDM) to attract large-scale investment into the energy sector while downplaying the need for environmental protection. While EIA and CDM are complementary, key actors present them as contradictory. The paper argues that the norm-diffusion literature, by presenting norm conflicts as hierarchical local-global conflicts, has paid insufficient attention to the fact that local actors actively draw on global norms to justify domestic development policies. [R, abr.]
65.6741 HERZOG, Alexander; BENOIT, Kenneth —
Economic crisis and the resulting need for austerity budgets have divided many governing parties and coalitions in Europe despite strong party discipline in the legislative voting on these harsh budgets. We measure these divisions using automated text-analysis methods to scale the positions that legislators express in budget debates in an effort to avoid punishment by voters for supporting austerity measures while still adhering to strict party discipline by voting along party lines. Our test case is Ireland, a country that has experienced periods of rapid economic growth as well as one deep financial and economic crisis. Tracking dissent from 1987 to 2013, we show that austerity measures undermine government cohesion as verbal opposition markedly increases in direct response to the economic pain felt in a legislator's constituency. [R, abr.]
65.6742 HILL, Seth J.; TAUSANOVITCH, Chris —
While it is widely agreed that [the US] Congress has polarized over the past 40 years, there is considerable disagreement about the extent of public polarization and its connection to congressional polarization. We present the first estimation of time-series of polarization using the same method on the most comprehensive data for both the public and the Senate. With statistics of various definitions of polarization, we find little increase in the dispersion of views in the public from 1956 to 2012 but do find an increase in ideological sorting starting around 1980. The two time-series bear little resemblance to one another with respect to divergence. Further, while congressional sorting exceeds that in the public today, we find that Congress has always been unrepresentative of the public. [R, abr.]
65.6743 HILLEBRECHT, Courtney; MITCHELL, Dona-Gene; WALS, Sergio C. —
Political elites in emerging democracies are likely to promise improvements on human rights. From an empirical perspective, however, emerging democracies tend to perform rather poorly in this domain. Given this tension between elite rhetoric and performance, it is important to examine the extent to which citizens in emerging democracies evaluate democracy and new democratic leaders’ performance on the bases of their perceptions of respect for human rights. Conventional wisdom suggests that economic satisfaction, not human rights concerns, drives individuals’ support for democracy. We investigate the extent to which specific and diffuse political support is related to individuals’ perceptions of respect for human rights in the context of an emerging democracy. [We use] two representative survey data-sets from Mexico from 2003 and 2010. [R, abr.]
65.6744 HIRSCHMANN, David —
The focus of this paper is a debate in the Mauritius National Assembly concerning a proposed autonomous revenue authority. The purpose is to apply and build on a selection of a few key contributions to the literature on “representation”, more so those focused on rendering. It illustrates the interaction between changing scholarly constructs of representation and rendering and a fuller comprehension of practice. Furthermore, it seeks to add new insights that arise from this case relating mainly to continuities and codes. [R, abr.]
65.6745 HOCHSTETLER, Kathryn; KOSTKA, Genia —
This article examines developments in the renewable electricity sector in Brazil and China since 2000. The two countries share many interests with respect to solar and wind power, but institutional differences in state-business relations led to different outcomes. In China, in a context of corporatist state-business relations, state interventions were more far-reaching, with the state coordinating with state-owned banks, offering large financial and investment incentives to state-owned or state-connected enterprises. By contrast, in Brazil's public-private partnerships, state support to promote renewable energies was shaped by a stronger preference for competitive auctions and stricter financing rules. The differences in state-business relations help explain the observed developmental trajectories in wind and solar power. [R] [See Abstr. 65.6532]
65.6746 HUGHES, Tyler; CARLSON, Deven —
This article analyzes the relationship between divided government and delay in the consideration of important legislation. We also introduce a more nuanced measure of divided government — the strength of the president's party in Congress — that measures both the presence and magnitude of inter-branch conflict. Using a Cox proportional hazards model to analyze delay of important legislation from 1949 to 2010, the results indicate both divided government and the strength of the president's party in Congress are significantly related to legislative delay. When the parties are moderately or highly polarized, there is a significant relationship between the strength of the president's party and legislative delay. Taken together, these findings enhance our understanding of how inter-branch conflict affects the policy-making process in Congress. [R, abr.]
65.6747 HURWITZ, Jon; PEFFLEY, Mark; MONDAK, Jeffery —
Studies focusing on Black-Latino intergroup perceptions in zero-sum environments (e.g., jobs) have found little perceived out-group discrimination or a tendency for each group to perceive the injustices faced by the other group. In contrast, we examine the non-zero-sum criminal justice domain. Although we find some asymmetry — that is, blacks are somewhat more likely to see discrimination toward Latinos than vice-versa, we mainly find both groups acknowledge the discrimination faced by the other disadvantaged group, especially those who feel closely linked to the fate of their own group. [In] such circumstances, blacks and Latinos recognize a common sense of deprivation and discrimination and are likely to regard the other group as facing comparable victimization, potentially seeing the other group as a coalition partner for remediating mutual concerns. [R]
65.6748 HUTCHESON, Derek S.; ARRIGHI, Jean-Thomas —
The article compares the institutional constraints that limit the potential electoral impact of external voting in national legislative elections in the 28 Member States of the EU. It shows that the discrepancy between policy aims and outcomes can be mainly attributed to a variety of institutional constraints restricting the scope of the policy (through residence and professional qualifications); limiting eligible voters’ access to the ballot (through cumbersome registration procedures and voting methods); and reducing the electoral weight attributed to their votes (through distinct modes of representation). It argues that the discrepancy is at least partly the result of a combination of electoral and normative concerns about the influence that external voters could and should have in elections. [R, abr.] [See Abstr 65.6310]
65.6749 IMAMOVA, Navbahor —
This article provides an Uzbek journalist's view of the role of social media in Central Asia. She argues that, despite state restrictions, social media are having a positive impact in the region, encouraging people to learn how to communicate their ideas, stimulating critical thinking and fostering the ability of individuals and groups to change their society. [R] [See Abstr. 65.7060]
65.6750 ISAZA ESPINOSA, Carolina —
Starting from the acknowledgement of the importance of accountability for contemporary public administration, this article develops both conceptual approaches about accountability and a case study, that of Colombia. The purpose is to analyze the institutional design for accountability in the Colombian case. The resulting panorama is more complex than the dichotomy on accountability deficit-overload would suggest. [R, abr.]
65.6751 JEFFREY, Alex; JAKALA, Michaelina —
This paper examines how establishing a new legal institution shapes understandings and practices of citizenship. It studies the creation of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CBiH) between 2002 and 2014 and, in particular, its emerging jurisdiction over war crimes trials since 2006. International sponsors of this institution herald the establishment of the Court as an important step toward achieving justice for the crimes committed during the 1992–1995 conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). But alongside its legal function, intervening agencies have emphasized an allied objective to use the Court to consolidate state structures and foster a civic sense of Bosnian citizenship. Using qualitative data, this paper argues that the creation of the CBiH illuminates a series of divergent understandings of citizenship. [R, abr.]
65.6752 JIBAO, Samuel S.; PRICHARD, Wilson —
This article offers new insights into the political dynamics of property tax reform through a case study of Sierra Leone, focusing on variation in experiences and outcomes across the country's four largest city councils. Based on this evidence, the article argues that elite resistance has posed a particularly acute barrier to local government tax reform, but that ethnic diversity has sometimes served to strengthen reform by fragmenting elite resistance. [R, abr.]
65.6753 JOHANNSEN, Margret —
In view of the failed peace process, the Palestinians are pursuing the goal of a sovereign Palestinian state autonomously. In part of the west Bank, the PA has established the institutions required for a functioning state. As a non-member observer state in the UN, Palestine enjoys most of the rights of full members, with the exception of voting. Such progress in legal terms stands in stark contrast with the situation on the ground: the Israeli occupation and the internal Palestinian divide. [R]
65.6754 JOHN, Peter; MacDONALD, Elizabeth; SANDERS, Michael —
Does an incentive — in the form of a lottery — increase voter registration, particularly among poorer members of society? In the summer of 2012, two groups of 20,000 randomly selected households from a London Borough were informed that they would be placed into a prize draw if they registered to vote by 28 September 2012. One group was offered £5000 and the other £1000, while the remaining households in the borough received the standard letter with the same deadline but no lottery offer. The registration rates after the deadline were 46.2 per cent in the £1000 group and 46.6 per cent in the £1000 group compared to 44.7 in the control. Levels of registration in the two treatment groups are statistically different to the control, but not from each other. [R, abr.]
65.6755 JOHNSON, Paul —
This article provides a critical analysis of the Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA) 2014 and the process by which it was enacted by the Parliament of Uganda. Drawing on Hansard (the Official Report), as well as other parliamentary documents, I examine how the legislation was shaped and formed during its parliamentary passage. I argue that, as a result of flawed scrutiny and insufficient debate, as well as procedural irregularities, Parliament enacted a statute that is not only unjust but also often ambiguous, incoherent or redundant in the context of Ugandan law. I suggest that close scrutiny of the parliamentary process can provide a means of questioning and challenging the legitimacy of the legislation and the Parliament that made it. [R, abr.]
65.6756 JOU, Willy; ENDO, Masahisa —
In recent years, the impact of party leaders on voting behavior has attracted increasing attention, leading some scholars to identify a phenomenon of “presidentialization”. Many extant studies of this topic in Japan are limited to one or two electoral cycles. In order to trace long-term trends, this paper analyzes longitudinal survey data to investigate the existence and magnitude of the effect party leader evaluations exert on vote-choice in Japan. Empirical results show that while only dominant and forceful personalities substantially influenced voters’ likelihood of supporting their parties in the 1980s and 1990s, by the 2000s assessments of most major party leaders had a significant impact on their parties’ electoral performance. In short, party leaders affect vote-choice due not to their personalities, but instead to the position they hold. [R, abr.]
65.6757 JUNGE, Dirk; KÖNIG, Thomas; LUIG, Bernd —
How does the risk of gridlock affect the type of legislative output? Do bureaucratic agents expand their activities when they can expect that the principals are unable to overrule them? This article introduces a novel approach for calculating the risk of gridlock in bicameral legislatures in order to estimate its impact on bureaucratic activities, combining data on all secondary and tertiary acts of the EU from 1983 to 2009. The findings reveal that bureaucratic activities expand when the risk of gridlock increases and an overruling of tertiary acts becomes less likely. This may sustain the EU's overall decision-making productivity, but its bureaucratic nature may raise further questions about democratic legitimacy and principal-agent problems in the representation of interests. [R]
65.6758 KARAMANIDOU, Lena —
The article examines the immigration policy agendas of two Greek mainstream parties, center-right New Democracy (ND) and center-left PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Party) since 2000. Drawing on the analysis of parliamentary proceedings and key political texts, it first analyzes areas of consensus and disagreement on the mainstream parties’ positions in relation to immigration control and citizenship. Second, it considers the impact of far-right parties — namely, the radical right Laikos Orthodoxos Synagermos and the extreme-right Golden Dawn — on the immigration agendas and positions of the two mainstream parties in the context of the Greek austerity crisis. Despite a decline of trust, suggested by the recent electoral successes of the far-right and other “fringe” parties, PASOK and ND did not ignore the “immigration issue” — they co-opted the far-right agenda. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6805]
65.6759 KASHWAN, Prakash —
This article investigates forest policies and institutions surrounding REDD+ [Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation] in three heavily forested countries: India, Tanzania, and Mexico. The comparative analysis leads to three key insights. (1) Each of the case-study countries has multiple land-tenure statutes that result in different distributions of the costs and benefits of forest protection for key stakeholders. (2) Land-tenure regimes that offer local communities the most secure forest rights are not necessarily those associated with benefit-sharing mechanisms outlined in national REDD+ policy proposals. (3) A credible commitment by government to share REDD+ benefits with forest-dependent people is contingent on the interests of key actors involved in the policy process. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6532]
65.6760 KATTUMURI, Ruth —
This paper analyzes the institutional framework and setting within which evidence has become linked to policy in India, and the role that multidisciplinary researchers play in the policy process. It draws on a number of empirical studies exploring sustainable and equitable development in India to illustrate the two-way relationship between researchers and policy-makers, and to demonstrate the value in policy-oriented research of combining quantitative and qualitative methods. The author assesses the potential impact and effectiveness of evidence-based policy-making within the institutionalized strategic planning framework of the National Institution for Transforming India Aayog. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6396]
65.6761 KATZENSTEIN, Mary Fainsod; WALLER, Maureen R. —
The American state, through a process of outright “seizure,” now exacts revenue from low-income families, partners, and friends of those who cycle in and out of the nation's courts, jails, and prisons. We document policies which pressure individuals (mostly men) entangled in the court and prison systems to rely on family members and others (mostly women) who serve as the safety net of last resort. Our second objective is to [express] an argument that the government is seizing resources from low-income families to help finance the state's own coffers, including the institutions of the carceral state itself. This practice of seizure constitutes the very inversion of welfare for the poor. [R, abr.]
65.6762 KELLER, Eric; KELLY, Nathan J. —
This paper examines how financial deregulation and the partisan underpinnings of deregulation shaped the path of income inequality in the US. Using time-series data from 1914 to 2010, we assess the effect of partisan politics on financial deregulation and, in turn, the effect of deregulation on income inequality. We find that financial deregulation has generally declined when Democrats attain more power in Washington and that deregulation has contributed to rising inequality. We also learn that the partisan effect on deregulation has diminished since the early 1980s, suggesting that one way partisan politics has contributed to the recent rise in inequality is related to convergence on matters of financial deregulation. We explore several potential explanations for this post-1980 partisan convergence. [R, abr.]
65.6763 KIILO, Tatjana; KUTSAR, Dagmar —
This paper exploits framing-analysis to examine how evidence from research and public consultations plays out in the process of public policy-formation, as exemplified by the case of the Estonian Government's new integration strategy for ethnic minorities. The strategy uses “culture steering” to address a horizontal policy area, namely second-language learning (SLL) policies for adults. The authors draw on diverse forms of evidence from contrasting ideological stances to examine how a government administration functions as a knowledge-broker in a post-socialist country. They discuss the appraisal process and review various ways of framing and reframing evidence, while also exploring the potential for policy-learning. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6396]
65.6764 KIM Yejoo; VAN DER WESTHUIZEN, Janis —
The National Economic Development and Labor Council (NEDLAC) was established as a corporatist institution, defined as a representative and consensus-seeking body coordinating to reach agreement through negotiation and discussion involving the state, organized business, and organized labor. It signaled the equal participation of the state and societal actors in the decision-making process in democratic South Africa. However, after two decades, NEDLAC is facing questions regarding its relevance. The imbalance in the power dynamics diminished the power of labor to bargain vis-à-vis the state and business. Labor's inability to represent a broader constituency beyond the formally employed, the lack of technical capacity within the labor movement, and NEDLAC's organizational inefficiency negatively affected the corporatist institution, which is now on the verge of demise. [R]
65.6765 KIRKLAND, Christopher —
The low turnout of the 2012 police and crime commissioner (PCC) elections have led to questions surrounding their legitimacy and have even led to the former Deputy Prime Minister N. Clegg describing the elections — elections his party helped to introduce — as a “failed experiment”. Despite this, the election of a majority Conservative government in May 2015 appears to offer some longevity to the role of police and crime commissioners and cements next year's PCC elections in the political diary. Concerns in the immediate aftermath of the elections focused upon the costs of the elections. I offer some suggestions as to what lessons could be learned from this experiment [R, abr.]
65.6766 KJELLSTAD, Kari Marie —
This paper is based on a case study of the UN's capacity-building of the Liberian National Police ten years after the reform was introduced. I conducted fieldwork within a unit in the Criminal Service Department of the police, and the paper describes the challenges the Liberian police face on a daily basis. It employs a professional theory perspective, and shows some of the special needs of the police. It focuses on challenges following politicization of the police in Liberia, and how this complicates exercise of the profession in the country. Furthermore, it discusses the conditions needed for democratic policing. The main assumption is that knowledge and resources alone are not enough. Good professional practice is a prerequisite for a democratic police force, and this is a political choice. [R]
65.6767 KOIVUMAEKI, Riitta-Ilona —
Economic nationalism has returned to Latin America. This article examines what has allowed leaders to advance their nationalistic agendas and expropriate foreign investment, despite the institutional safeguards that investors have established. Case studies of Venezuelan and Bolivian hydrocarbon nationalization show that the deterrent power of the investment regime of the 1990s, institutionalized in bilateral investment treaties, is weakest precisely when it is most needed by investors. When a commodity boom increases profits in the sector, the host government is motivated to expropriate multinationals. Ironically, the price increase also enables governments to bear the treaties’ costs by accepting international arbitration and paying any resulting compensation. Using data from 130 in-depth interviews conducted in Venezuela and Bolivia, this article demonstrates the limits of the constraints of globalization. [R]
65.6768 KOMODROMOS, Marcos —
Social media are becoming progressively more important in any organization's marketing and client-base development platform, performing a strategic function in providing information sources for everyone. Recently, for instance, microblogging services such as Twitter, along with social networking sites like Facebook, are reputed to have the potential for increasing political participation nationally and internationally. In times of crisis, social media offer a different approach to stimulate citizen engagement in political life, reshaping creative structures and methods of contemporary political communication in the way that politicians and citizens can interact with one another. This study investigates the current role of the social media used by MPs and politicians to reach, communicate and network with their audiences (citizens), or groups of people, in times of political change and crisis in Cyprus. [R, abr.]
65.6769 KÖNIG, Thomas —
This article investigates under which conditions it is possible to overcome the inherent interest divergence among chancellors, ministers and experts. Following a model of S. Fang and R. W. Stone [“International organizations as policy advisors”, International Organization 66(4), Oct. 2012: 537–571; Abstr. 63.96], the existence of a reform-prone minister is a necessary condition for chancellors to trust experts’ reform recommendations. Using data on the recommendations for the German Hartz reforms, I find that the political parties put emphasis on the topics of this reform neither in their programmatic manifestos for the 2002 election nor in their coalition agreements. However, I show that the Economic Expert Council changed its recommendation strategy in its annual report of 2002/2003 after the reform-prone minister W. Clement came into office. [R, abr.]
65.6770 LAMPTON, David M. —
This article discusses the rationale for, and progress to date of, creating a National Security Commission in China, a move first announced in late 2013. Central impulses for the Commission's establishment are to help better coordinate a very fragmented bureaucracy and to advance Xi Jinping's drive to consolidate his personal power over the internal and external coercive and diplomatic arms of the governing structure. The Commission is a work in progress and its full institutional maturation will take a protracted period. In the midst of the Commission's construction, there is considerable confusion among subordinates in the foreign policy and security areas about lines of authority and ultimate objectives. Beyond Xi Jinping, it is difficult to discern an authoritative voice. [R, abr.]
65.6771 LARUELLE, Marlene —
This article examines how the nation is presented and staged on the small screen in Kazakhstan. Television is a mirror in which the nation can project itself as an “imagined community”. However, the Kazakhstan authorities waited a long time before investing in the small screen. As the country feels more pressure from Russia and younger generations seek a greater sense of Kazakh identity, the authorities seem decided to invest into soft power tools that reinforce Kazakhstani/Kazakh cultural autonomy. After a brief overview of the Kazakhstani televisual landscape and its recent evolutions in ownership, language, and audience ratings, I examine documentary films as a reflection of official historiography, and then decrypt the broadcast “Signs. Legends of the Steppe”, which encapsulates the new genre I name patriotic entertainment. [R] [See Abstr. 65.7060]
65.6772 LAW, Anna O. —
This article explores competing interpretations of American federalism and immigration authority during the 18th c. I argue that the 1787 Constitution did not clearly place the authority to manage migration with the national government. In fact, the Constitution did not discuss entry and exit policy, including the power of deportation. The debates over the Alien and Sedition Acts illustrate the diversity of opinions about the proper balance of authority between the national and subnational governments with regard to migration policy. Debates over the potential expansion of national power were particularly heated in the antebellum period because migration policy and slave policy were inextricably linked. In the end, whatever guidance the Constitution provided on migration policy was tainted by the document's endorsement of slavery. [R] [See Abstr. 65.7178]
65.6773 LEBOVITZ, Michael A. —
This article establishes that constitutional checks were not deteriorating but proliferating in the late Roman republic. Even as old constitutional barriers to action were swept aside in the increasingly violent contest between optimates and populaces, new configurations of checks and balances were being improvised to take their place, often with no clear legal warrant, occasionally drawing on the same idiom of state necessity and salus populi. Far from the antithesis of Roman emergency government, then, the tactics of obstruction and delay that became so prominent in the late republic can be thought of as its second face, and this may carry implications for how we understand the problem of “emergency powers” in our own time. [R, abr.]
65.6774 LECOURS, André; ARBAN, Erika —
Federalism — discussed as a potential system of governance — has failed to take shape in Nepal and, to a certain extent, in Italy. In Italy, the federal option was rejected at the time of Risorgimento, and constitutional reforms in the 2000s never transformed the country into a federation as desired by political actors such as the Northern League despite some decentralization. In Nepal, the 2007 interim constitution specified that the country would be federal, but the first Constituent Assembly elected to write a new constitution was unable to produce a federal map acceptable to the major political parties and the second is wrestling with the same issue. In both cases, federal structuring was attacked by political actors who argued that it could promote disunity, undermine solidarity, and possibly lead to disintegration. [R, abr.]
65.6775 LINHART, Eric; RAABE, Johannes —
One central question of democracy research is that of government-formation. During the latter, parties mainly bargain over the allocation of ministries as well as future policy. Coalition theory oftentimes applies a one-dimensional, purely office-oriented perspective on ministries by disregarding their impact on policy outputs. In order to alleviate this problem, our contribution investigates which attributes politicians typically associate with which portfolios, based on a survey of German state politicians. Our results show that there are key portfolios which are evaluated as highly influential by politicians regarding various attributes. At the same time, the evaluation of different portfolios clearly varies depending on the specific attribute. Furthermore, there are pronounced differences between parties. [R, abr.]
65.6776 LLOYD, John —
The Leveson Inquiry recommended that a new press regulator be created, with a statutory backing — which the government and opposition agreed should be a Royal Charter. A Press Recognition Panel, backed by the Charter, has been created, but has attracted no requests for recognition. Only one regulator has been set up — IPSO: it has a membership of most of the newspaper and magazine groups in the UK, but will not ask for recognition, since it does not wish to have any formal link with the state. Though the campaign against the Royal Charter has been grossly overblown, the press is right to refuse to join an institution which is guaranteed by the state. State-backed regulation, in any form, will not in the UK lead to tyranny, censorship or any more than occasional meddling. [R, abr.]
65.6777a LODGE, Tom —
A decade ago it seemed likely that African governments would be destabilized by the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This article tests some of the presumptions in such forecasting with an examination of the South African case. It assesses the effects on the public health system of the South African government's efforts to cope with the illness. Efforts to implement universal treatment of people who are HIV-positive appear to have strengthened government, while the costs have been affordable. The efforts have extended the embrace of the public health system and prompted the engagement of civil society in policy-formation and – implementation. [R, abr.]
65.6777b LOUWERSE, Tom; OTJES, Simon —
This study establishes the effect of parliamentary specialization on cosponsorship of parliamentary proposals in parliamentary systems with high levels of party unity. Existing studies on presidential systems suggest that co-sponsorship is mainly related to legislators’ policy preferences. It is proposed that in parliamentary systems co-sponsorship is, in the first place, structured by the division of labor in parliamentary party groups: MPs who do not have overlapping policy portfolios will not co-sponsor proposals. Other explanations, such as policy distance and the government-opposition divide, only come into play when MPs are specialized in the same field. This expectation is tested using data from the Netherlands, a parliamentary system with a clear division of labor between MPs. It is found that specialization has a very large impact on co-sponsorship. [R]
65.6778 LUCIFORA, Claudio; MORICONI, Simone —
This paper investigates the relationship between political instability and labor market institutions. We develop a theoretical model in which political instability creates incentives for a government to introduce labor market regulation in the economy. The distortionary effect of regulation on unemployment effectively puts a constraint on the design of fiscal and public policies. We empirically investigate these predictions using panel data for 21 OECD countries for the period 1985–2006. Our results are consistent with the view that political instability is associated with more regulated labor markets, lower labor taxation, and lower unemployment benefit replacement rates. [R]
65.6779 LUNDBERG, Erik —
This article analyzes the recurrent “erosion thesis” in the governance literature, arguing that bureaucratic or procedural public-sector institutions have come to play a less significant role in public-policy formation. Evidence from the Swedish policy-making institutions referred to as “governmental commissions” and adoption of the perspective of interest organizations support the claim. Using various theories of institutional change, I show that increased government control has reduced the influence of governmental commissions on policy, but not eliminated the belief held by interest organizations that the commissions are legitimate institutions. [R]
65.6780 LUPIEN, Pascal —
In the past decade, Latin America has witnessed the emergence of a political discourse that links popular participation to citizenship accompanied by an explosion of participatory mechanisms. Yet there is little qualitative research that looks at how participatory experiences affect people's perceptions of their role as citizens or to what extent the discourse transmitted through these institutions encourages participation or compliance. This article examines conceptions of citizenship among individuals who engage in participatory mechanisms in Venezuela, Ecuador and Chile. Using discourse-analysis, it finds that participants in Venezuela and Ecuador have developed a “radical” conception of active citizenship that differs from the liberal interpretation in Chile. Regardless of the preferred model, however, state discourse establishes parameters around citizenship. [R, abr.]
65.6781 MacLEAN, Lauren M., et al. —
Roughly 60 per cent of Africans lack access to electricity, negatively impacting development opportunities. NGOs have started promoting distributed generation — small-scale, localized electricity generation — to change this situation. Despite widespread need, however, the dispersion of these distributed generation NGOs (DG-NGOs) is uneven, with high concentrations in a few African countries. Drawing on an original database and field research, we analyze location variation among DG-NGOs across the continent. We find that DG-NGOs are likely to operate in democratic settings with large populations that lack access to electricity. International DG-NGOs are also likely to operate where aid-allocation levels are relatively high. [R]
65.6782 MAKSIMOVSKA, Aleksandra; STOJKOV, Aleksandar; SCHMIDT, Patrick —
This study investigates the causal link between ethnic diversity and local government finances by focusing on the case of Macedonia. In particular: whether fiscal decentralization is used as a part of broader strategy for prevention and mitigation of inter-ethnic conflicts. It argues that low level of political culture and inter-ethnic tensions are frustrating the development of the government policy along a course of decentralization. The study confronts two emerging scenarios regarding decentralization and inter-ethnic relations. The first puts the economic development at the forefront of country's stability and treats decentralization as a driving force: rising economic stability reduces inter-ethnic tensions. In the second, the inter-ethnic stability is the main pillar of the country's stability, which is expected to be accomplished through decentralization. [R, abr.]
65.6783 MARCOS-MARNÉ, Hugo —
This article aims at continuing the tradition of empirical studies of deliberative democracy. With this purpose, it applies the Discourse Quality Index (DQI) developed by J. Steiner, et al [The Foundations of Deliberative Democracy: Empirical Research and Normative Implications, Cambridge, 2004] to the analysis of the Debate sobre el Estado de la Nación in the Spanish Parliament. This work places Spain in a comparative context (comparisons ad extra) and analyzes differences among the specific issues addressed in the chamber (comparisons ad intra). Comparative analyzes in this article show that institutional elements have important effects on deliberation levels, and also that the ideology of parliamentary groups plays a stronger role in deliberative practices than the relative size of such groups or the specific issues included in the debate. [R]
65.6784 MATTHEWS, Felicity —
This article offers the first complete in-depth analysis of the 2010–2015 Coalition Government's record on the constitution, focusing on the gap between rhetoric and reform, and the way in which constitutional traditions have confounded the ability to effectively manage the tensions that exist within the UK's uneasy settlement. It sets out the institutional and ideational factors that have influenced attitudes towards constitutional reform, focusing on [how] dilemmas of office have confounded meaningful attempts to alter Britain's constitutional fabric. It argues that three critical factors together explain the Coalition's record on the constitution: the clash of constitutional philosophies within the Coalition; the dilemmas confronting the Liberal Democrats in the transition from opposition to government; and, the extent to which the governing norms of constitution effectively neuter attempts to its reform. [R, abr.]
65.6785 MAZZOLENI, Martino —
Decentralization has been a matter of partisan divide in most European countries in the past decades, usually supported by parties excluded from power or with a strong territorialized support. On the basis of an analysis of party discourse and legislative behavior and the concerned literature, this article interprets the changes to regional governance and powers enacted in France in the last 5 years, in the light of decade-long political competition on this dimension. The laws no. 2010–1563 and 2015–29 aimed to rationalize a cumbersome and costly local government system. They confirm the divisive nature of territorial government reform in a majoritarian political system such as France. [R]
65.6786 McCANN, Pamela J. Clouser; SHIPAN, Charles R.; VOLDEN, Craig —
The [US] national government can influence state-level policy-making by adopting laws that specifically direct the states to take certain actions or by providing financial incentives. But can national institutions also influence state-level policy change by drawing attention to an issue and by providing information about it, even when these activities do not produce new national laws? In other words, do policy ideas diffuse from the national government to the states? We examine whether hearings and the introduction of bills in Congress about antismoking restrictions influenced state-level adoptions between 1975 and 2000. Our findings reveal that national policy activities stimulated state policy adoptions, but only for states with professionalized legislatures and strong policy advocates. [R]
65.6787 MCELWAIN, Kenneth Mori; WINKLER, Christian G. —
Japan has the oldest unamended constitution in the world. We examine the determinants of its longevity and recent proposals seeking its amendment. While traditional revision attempts have focused on ideological provisions such as Article 9 and the imperial system, changes to political institutions, particularly bicameralism and local governance, have become a focal point since 2005. Our comparative analysis demonstrates that the constitution's enumeration of institutions is uncommonly vague, leaving room for significant reforms. However, we also show that the most recent (2012) amendment proposal by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) would not “fix” this lacuna, leaving the constitution an international outlier. [R]
65.6788 McNEW-BIRREN, Jill —
Substantial changes in US policy regarding lead are explored through a punctuated equilibrium theory-based consideration of scientific advance reflected in environmental policy. Despite the century-long presence of the US's oldest lead processing plant in Herculaneum, Missouri, the extent of local contamination identified in the early 2000s surprised residents, industrial representatives, and environmental regulators alike. Conditions in Herculaneum revealed disparities between current understandings of health protection from lead exposure and potential hazards associated with local conditions. A substantial disconnection between developments in the scientific understanding of toxic substances and regulation to protect the community appropriately from identified threats inspired a punctuation in the regulatory framework for managing lead contamination. [R, abr.]
65.6789 McTAGUE, John; PEARSON-MERKOWITZ, Shanna —
Is there a relationship between legislators’ religious affiliations and the consistency of their voting records? Building on the theory of “the personal roots of representation”, we argue that a legislator's likelihood of switching positions depends on whether the issue is central to [his] personal values. We evaluate this claim using a data-set including senators’ religious affiliations and “culture war” votes from 1976 to 2004 and find that different religious groups vary in their voting consistency on issues such as abortion, public prayer, and gay and lesbian rights. [R]
65.6790 MENALDO, Victor; YOO, Daniel —
Does democracy induce financial development? There are good theoretical reasons to believe this to be the case, but the evidence adduced to support this claim has been mixed. We posit that only democracies that appeal to the median voter should experience financial development because those democracies have adopted their own constitution after transition, rather than having inherited one from an authoritarian predecessor. We empirically test this theory by focusing attention on Latin America, where there have been several reversals and improvements in financial outcomes and where many countries have cycled between regime types. We find robust support for it across different specifications. [R, abr.]
65.6791 MEURK, Carla, et al. —
This article draws together theory from political science, media, and science and technology studies to examine the past, present and possible future roles of “media” in influencing evidence-informed policymaking in mental health in Australia. The authors develop a nuanced understanding of the role that media-framing, focusing events and participation have played in the evolution of mental health policy. Media are shown to influence evidence utilization in policy-development in complex ways. The authors consider how the global circulation of ideas that media enable affects policy issues within national jurisdictions. Their findings are relevant to policy issues in areas where media are deliberately used both to achieve individual behavior change and influence policy. [R] [See Abstr. 65.6396]
65.6792 MILLER, Joshua A. —
I reflect on the relationship between teaching and imprisonment. I describe a college program at a prison in Jessup, Maryland, and argue that liberal arts-style college classes should be widely available in prisons even as we work to dismantle the current system of mass incarceration. [R]
65.6793 MOKHTARI, Shadi —
This paper argues that within the Middle East's uprisings and transitions, deployments of human rights had notable emancipatory effects; yet invocations of the discourse continued to emerge from, converge with or (re)produce various power-laden domestic and international political dynamics. The human rights paradigm served as a primary discourse of the most serious challenge to Arab authoritarianism and its Western sponsorship in contemporary history, with the outcome in Tunisia exemplifying its potential to influence both the processes and substance of genuine political change. The period's events and ethos also created openings for rights claims to be made by marginalized groups and facilitated local actors’ agency in driving the region's human rights politics and agendas. [R, abr.]
65.6794 MORALES, Laura; PILET, Jean-Benoit; RUEDIN, Didier —
The existence of a gap between public preferences for more restrictive immigration policies and relatively expansive immigration policy in Western democracies has received considerable attention. Sometimes, this gap has been explained by the nature of immigration policies: dominated by elites while the public remained uninterested. In many countries, however, immigration has gained considerable salience among the public. There are competing expectations and accounts relating to whether policy-makers ignore or follow public demands on immigration. We examine the potential drivers of variations in the opinion-policy gap on immigration in seven countries (1995–2010). We analyze the effect of the politicization of immigration on this opinion-policy gap. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6724]
65.6795 MOREIRA DA SILVA, Miguel —
This paper identifies the key-challenges in the next years, and draws a vision towards future power grids. Firstly, an overview on the role of power systems is carried out, in the scope of the energy transition. Operational problems are also sketched out, when it comes to managing power grids under the new energy paradigm (with new energy technologies and services). In the end, threats and opportunities for the national electrical system are raised. Although the complexity of building a smart and secure power grid, one concludes that the opportunities overcome the threats. [R] [See Abstr. 65.7245]
65.6796 MÜFTÜLER-BAÇ, Meltem; SÜLEYMANOĞLU-KÜRÜM, Rahime —
How is the EU and its foreign policy perceived externally? This paper focuses on Turkey and the political deliberations within the Turkish Parliament, in order to assess the external perceptions of the EU. The paper analyzes the political debate in Turkey through an investigation of the proceedings of the Turkish Parliament, from 1998 to 2012. The proceedings enable us to analyze the different political camps’ positions by looking into their deliberations on the European foreign policy thoroughly. [R, abr.]
65.6797 MULLEN, Beau —
This paper looks at the events in Egypt specifically and the state of exception generally to [address] the following question: is the implementation of a state of exception ever a morally legitimate act, or is it merely a power grab by an authoritarian regime? I conclude that while the overthrow of Egypt's first democratically elected president and the ensuing crackdown on Islamists are certainly tragic events, in this particular case they are justified (to a degree) to promote justice for the Egyptian people. The paper explores the divergent attitudes concerning the state of exception, particularly in the works of C. Schmitt and G. Agamben. [R]
65.6798 MULLER, Pierre —
This article provides a historical overview and critical appraisal of the evolution of policy analysis in France, since the 1970s. Although its origins are clearly rooted in the sociology of organization, it was first institutionalized within the field of political science. Research has developed strongly in this context with a stress on sector-level studies. The field is today internationalized, more than most other subfields of French political science. This may account for the rather difficult relations between policy analysis and “mainstream” French political science. Finally, French policy analysis maintains a certain number of specificities. There is a strong preference for qualitative methods and “cognitive” approaches that contrast with research elsewhere. It is also characterized by strong emphasis on the historical dimension of policymaking and the interest in critical theory. [R, abr.]
65.6799 NAUGHTON, Barry —
Xi Jinping's economic reforms should be seen as a response to the situation bequeathed to him by the previous Hu-Wen administration. On balance, Hu-Wen achieved little with respect to economic reforms and in some ways went backwards. This reform retreat was accompanied by a substantial increase in the power of bureaucratic agencies such as the National Development and Reform Commission and the State Assets Supervisions and Administration Commission. Xi Jinping's reforms can be seen both as an effort to overcome the crisis of confidence about economic reform that became pervasive in China over the past decade, and an effort to shake up entrenched bureaucracies that may have begun to block reforms. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on “Mainland China's reform and transition? The opportunities and challenges of the Xi-Li administration. Part I”, introduced, pp. 1–22, by David M. LAMPTON. See also Abstr. 65.6855, 6869]
65.6800 NAYAR, Baldev Raj —
Electoral success during reform requires maintaining a prudent balance in meeting the requirements of the two basic state functions of accumulation and legitimacy. Initially, the Congress-led UPA government was the unintended beneficiary of the economic acceleration resulting from a global boom and the earlier economic reforms in aid of accumulation. The growth acceleration, however, also escalated rising expectations. To advance its legitimacy in order to assure continuance in power, the UPA government emphasized a distributive strategy to the neglect of accumulation. However, the rupture in growth acceleration because of external shock and internal economic mismanagement aggravated the loss of legitimacy stemming from a series of corruption scandals. The consequence was the emergence of an enormous “gap” between rising expectations and the existing reality of economic stagnation and high inflation. [R, abr.]
65.6801 NILI, Shmuel —
This article constructs an argument for the development of green energy that can appeal to Americans moderately skeptical of climate change. I make two moves: (1) while environmentalists often justify the development of green energy through references to future generations, I show that they need a present-oriented argument focused on negative duties to respect rights in order to justify prioritizing the development of green energy to environmental skeptics in the US. (2) I construct such an argument, calling on affluent democracies to develop green energy in order to be able to stop their complicity, through oil trade, in petrocrats’ violation of their peoples’ property rights. I anticipate multiple objections, including the objection that stopping trade with petrocrats will not lead to green energy as a replacement. [R, abr.]
65.6802 NOAKES, Stephen; FORD, Caylan —
We explain the persistence of the Communist Party's campaign to suppress the Falun Gong religious movement. We argue that the unrecoverable investment of more than a decade's worth of suppression work, compounded by the ineffectiveness of these efforts (as evinced in official documents and by the continuation of resistance activities), limits the state's ability to halt its campaign against Falun Gong. Our findings shed light on some of the Chinese state's current strategies for the management and control of domestic opposition groups, and challenge the view of the Party as adaptable and highly capable of reform from within. [R]
65.6803 NULMAN, Eugene —
I test the dynamic model as it pertains to interactions, utilizing the case of the proposed third runway at Heathrow airport, which included a variety of environmental campaigners, powerful corporations, political actors and parties, and a countermovement. The campaign is broken down into phases that represent the predominant interactions between actors, and the process of phase changes is explained using a process-tracing approach. The findings highlight the importance of cognitive mechanisms over objective factors. However, explanations offered by more static models retain some explanatory power and therefore should not be discarded altogether. [R, abr.]
65.6804 O'LEARY, Chris —
In October 2010, the UK's Coalition Government announced a radical reduction in the number of public bodies in the UK. This research tests the impact of three factors identified in the termination literature as affecting agency survival: political turnover, age and agency type. The research found that advisory Non-Departmental Public Bodies were five times more likely to have been identified for abolition or merger than other agency types. The research also found that agency age was a factor, but that political turnover was not significant. [R]
65.6805 ODMALM, Pontus; BALE, Tim —
Although immigration is one of the key issues of contestation in Western Europe, the extent to which it plays a part in electoral competition in individual states varies considerably, especially when it comes to the use made of the issue by parties generally considered mainstream rather than extreme. We suggest some explanations for this variation and for why the immigration “issue” is rarely a top election priority even though the political mainstream has continuously been prompted to make it one. Immigration imposes conflicting ideological “pulls” on parties and they pursue a number of ownership strategies to bypass such tensions. [R] [Introduction to a thematic issue of the same title, edited by the authors. See Abstr. 65.6758, 6831, 6847, 6864, 7103, 7124]
65.6806 OGBONNAYA, Ufiem Maurice; OGUJIUBA, Kanayo —
The emergence of regional parliamentary assemblies (RPAs) in Africa has been on the ascendancy since the mid-20th c. The essence of these parliaments is to contribute to regional economic and political integration through oversight, legislation and representation. However, the ability of Africa's RPAs to perform these functions has been challenged by institutional and legal factors. Using five regional parliaments (the East African Legislative Assembly, the Economic Community of West African States Parliament, the Inter-Parliamentary Union of Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the Pan-African Parliament and the South African Development Community Parliamentary Forum) as case studies, this paper examines the impact of these challenges on the functionality and viability of Africa's RPAs. [R, abr.]
65.6807 OLSON, Laura Katz —
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) seeks near-universal health insurance coverage in the US. Medicaid is central to this expansion: half of the newly enrolled population was initially scheduled to participate in the program by extending eligibility to all households with income at or below 138 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. However, in 2012 the Supreme Court ruled that states had a choice of whether to adopt the expansion. Currently, 23 states have opted out, undermining the ACA significantly. This article assesses how partisanship, in the overall context of the neoliberal agenda, has affected US state governments in making the decision as to whether they will participate in this key component of President B. Obama's reform bill. [R, abr.]
65.6808a OYEDEMI, Toks —
What are the pragmatic meanings of the intersection of citizenship, rights, and technology access? Specifically, what does citizens’ right to technology mean for African states? This paper examines citizenship, rights, and internet in South Africa, and attempts to move the discourse beyond philosophical rhetoric to practical policy interpretations. It examines interpretations and reactions of policy-makers to the idea of internet access as a citizen's right, and through a survey explores the views of many youth on this subject. [R, abr.]
65.6808b PANAGEOTOU, Steven; SHEFNER, Jon —
The proliferation of debt crises around the world since the 1980's has generated debt-repayment negotiations prioritizing austerity in debtor countries. This forty-year history of debt crises in the Global South and North now allows comparison of these negotiations and their impacts. We examine the distinct and historically specific trajectories in Latin American and Greece, highlighting the foundations of each experience of debt crisis. We focus on the institutions responsible for managing crisis and their reliance on similar austerity strategies to compel debtor countries into a neoliberal restructuring of their economies. This paper examines the similarities and differences in austerity policy through a comparative-historical analysis of Latin American and Greek experiences of debt crisis. The results of such policies and the political actors involved in implementing austerity are also examined. [R]
65.6809 PANTIĆ, Nataša —
This paper explores interactions between citizenship and education in six post-Yugoslav contexts. It maps out policies shaping the intended young citizens’ identities, which might differ from their lived experiences of citizenship. Focusing on the ethnocentric, multicultural, and civic dimensions of citizenship, the paper looks at how education governance structures and policies promote inclusive and exclusive citizenship by adopting and adapting international norms protecting group and individual rights. Observance of the EU membership criteria and relevant norms are an important driving force for adopting social inclusion and minority rights in education-relevant legislation and policy documents. The study illustrates how the domestic consolidation and limited implementation of these norms created tensions between ensuring group rights in education and protection of individual human rights and nondiscrimination. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6708]
65.6810 PAPADIMITRIOU, Antigoni; GORNITZKA, Åse; STENSAKER, Bjørn —
This article examines the Tempus program, a core neighborhood policy instrument the EU has used to promote public management reforms. Tempus is the oldest and most dominant instrument to modernize higher education in central and East European countries. It promotes the adoption of key managerial reforms elements. Drawing on these perspectives on policy-diffusion, we analyze the relative impact of the program. Based on data from over 50 Western Balkan universities, we compare institutions deeply involved in the Tempus program and those minimally involved or non-affiliated with Tempus. [R, abr.]
65.6811 PASTUSZKO, Grzegorz —
The article deals with the issue of the National Assembly in Poland. It includes a detailed analysis of the legal rules that define its process. More specifically, it is about the competences like: learning to the oath of the President, and to the President's speech, removing the President from office, impeaching the President and holding him responsible to tribunal of the State. The scope of the research comprises the following elements: constitution, standing orders, bills and, finally, political praxis. This article answers the question whether the present legal rules are the right option or should be changed. [R]
65.6812 PLÓCIENNIK, Sebastian —
Poland's radical economic and political reforms after 1989 were an enormous success. In Ukraine, Warsaw's liberal path is considered a role model. However, circumstances differ considerably. Ukraine's economic decline may indeed be so glaring that the population is ready for far-reaching reforms. However, it is incomparably more difficult to reform Ukraine's deformed oligarchic capitalism, and Russia's war against Ukraine diverts resources. In addition, the international situation is much worse than it was for Poland in 1989: the EU will not support Ukraine to the same extent as it did the Central European countries, and the years of global neoliberal consensus are over. [R] [See Abstr. 65.7440]
65.6813 PRIEBUS, Sonja; LORENZ, Astrid —
The article describes the recent changes of parliamentary rules in Hungary and demonstrates which far-reaching consequences institutional changes below the constitutional level can have. It analyzes the changes after 2010, which were enacted by the governing parliamentary majority of Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Alliance and Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP). Their two-thirds majority enabled them to enact several changes to the Standing Orders, to create a new law on parliament and finally, just before the general elections of April 2014, to pass a completely new set of Standing Orders. These changes affect the functioning of parliament, its position in the political system and its way of decision-making. [R, abr.]
65.6814 PUSANE, Özlem Kayhan —
This article explores the major reasons why Turkey could not end the PKK insurgency despite its military defeat in the late 1990s. It argues that Turkish governments have failed to sufficiently address two key aspects of their low-intensity conflict with the PKK, namely the fact that the PKK is not just a group of armed militants, but rather a complex insurgent organization and that it appeals to a large number of Kurds. Turkey's inability to definitively quell the PKK insurgency raises significant questions regarding the justification and effectiveness of the use of military force in dealing with insurgencies. [R]
65.6815 QUAGLIA, Lucia; ROYO, Sebastián —
This paper explains why Spain experienced a full-fledged sovereign debt crisis and had to resort to euro-area financial assistance for its banks, whereas Italy did not. It undertakes a structured comparison, dissecting the sovereign debt crisis into a banking crisis and a balance of payments crisis. It argues that the distinctive features of bank business models and of national banking systems in Italy and Spain have considerable analytical leverage in explaining the different scenarios of the crises in each country. This “bank-based” analysis contributes to the flourishing literature that examines changes in banking with a view to account for the differentiated impact of the global banking crisis first and the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area later. [R] [See Abstr. 65.7276]
65.6816 RAITANO, Michele; FANTOZZI, Roberto —
Tax evasion is a complex phenomenon affected by many factors and shaped by policy-makers’ and citizens’ behaviors. Distinct claims about the acceptability of tax evasion between center-right and center-left coalitions have clearly emerged in Italy in the last decades. According to the ruling coalition, these different attitudes could have influenced tax compliance, affecting reported incomes of the self-employed, who have much more room to engage in tax avoidance or evasion strategies than employees. Using a longitudinal administrative dataset recording the entire working life of the sampled individuals, we focus on the period 1996–2005 and, following a difference-in-differences design and carrying out fixed effects estimates, we test whether self-employed earnings, compared to employees earnings, significantly changed after the change in the ruling coalition. [R, abr.]
65.6817 RAJAGOPALAN, Shruti —
There has been a decline in rule of law in India, reflected in the frequent amendments to the Indian Constitution. This paper analyzes the historical, ideological, and economic context for constitutional amendments to understand the reason for the deterioration of constitutionalism in India. I argue that the formal institutions of socialist planning were fundamentally incompatible with the constraints imposed by the Indian Constitution. This incompatibility led to frequent amendments to the Constitution, especially in the area of Fundamental Rights. Consequently, pursuit of socialist policies gradually undermined the Constitution. The contradictory mixture of socialism and constitutionalism led to economic and political deprivations that were never intended by the framers. I demonstrate this incompatibility using evidence from five-year-plans and constitutional amendments in India. [R]
65.6818 RAMESH, M.; WU Xun; HOWLETT, Michael —
The paper assesses the usefulness of conceptions of different modes of governance for understanding policy outcomes by studying the experience with hierarchical and non-hierarchical governance modes in the health care sector in China, India, and Thailand. It shows their experience with non-hierarchical modes to have been largely disappointing and that all three, but especially Thailand, are in the process of reverting to a more hierarchical mode of service delivery. The conclusion is that non-hierarchical governance is not a substitute for or an improvement upon hierarchical governance in health care due to the many market and government failures that afflict the sector and affect the ability of different governance modes to function effectively. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6309]
65.6819 RAMÍREZ GONZÁLEZ, Victoriano; DELGADO MÁRQUEZ, Blanca Luisa; LÓPEZ CARMONA, Adolfo —
Many young democracies [strive to] achieve a representative electoral system that does not hinder governability. Poland represents an illustrative example of such changes, with the implementation of four electoral laws since 1991. This paper (1) explores the electoral changes implemented in Poland during recent years to detect the distortions produced, and (2) presents a proposal of amendment of the Polish electoral system based on biproportionality that corrects the previously identified deficiencies in representation. The results reveal that the proposed modification does not only maintain the positive levels of governability already achieved in Poland, but it also yields a more proportional system that is more equitable to small and medium parties. [R]
65.6820 RIBEIRO, José Félix —
In the last 40 years, in an evolutionary way and under the leadership of the US, an ecosystem has been taking shape that structured, at a global level, the oil offer and the regulation of its price, which broke away from the business-minded need of control by the countries supplied by territories with a vast wealth of energy resources. After describing this ecosystem, the paper introduced three particular examples that demonstrate the central role of the US in increasing the world-wide oil offer, within and outside the OPEC. [R] [See Abstr. 65.7245]
65.6821 RODRÍGUEZ RUIZ, Blanca —
The current crisis of representative democracy and the emphasis on citizens’ direct participation in public affairs is taking place at a time when western societies are becoming more diverse, and plural and have a higher percentage of foreign population. This raises the question, to what extent are foreigners guaranteed access to mechanisms of direct participation in public matters. This paper sustains a substantive understanding of citizenship and political participation open to foreign population and defends that, beyond political participation strictly understood (Article 13 of the Spanish Constitution), the Spanish Constitution embraces this understanding. It then analyses to what extent the Spanish legal order conforms to it. [R]
65.6822 ROLLBERG, Peter —
In 2010, the first episode of the television miniseries Astana — My Love — were screened in the presence of the Kazakhstani authorities. Systematic allusions to President N. Nazarbayev throughout the episodes give the work, presented as a major cultural and societal event, a quasi-official status. Such productions blur the lines between political indoctrination and popular entertainment. Astana — My Love — reflects Kazakhstan's ongoing debates about its national identity and strategies for the future. The miniseries deserves scholarly attention because of the way the Kazakhstani authorities use it to define the past, assert an important role for the country's president, name desirable allies in the present and in the future, and lay out what they define as positive ethical and cultural values in a neo-capitalist authoritarian environment. [R] [See Abstr. 65.7060]
65.6823 ROLLER, Edeltraud —
This paper addresses the assertion that preferences for a comprehensive welfare state hamper and delay the emergence of a liberal-democratic culture in East Germany. Two questions are explored: first, has the impact of welfare-state values on support of the German democratic regime declined in East Germany since re-unification and adapted to the lower levels observed in West Germany? Second, are attitudes towards different welfare-state programs equally important for citizens’ approval of the German democratic regime? Empirical analyses on the basis of representative public opinion surveys conducted between 1991 and 2012 confirm that the effect of welfare-state values in East Germany has converged to the smaller-effect size observed in West Germany. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6592]
65.6825 ROTER, Petra; FENKO, Ana Bojinović —
This article analyzes collaboration in the process of post-conflict reconstruction in Kosovo. Based on extensive empirical research, we focus on the parliamentarization in Kosovo in the context of a multistakeholder partnership (MSP). We investigate the creation, operation and effects of co-operation within an MSP called the Kosovo Assembly Support Initiative (ASI). This MSP is relevant for the study of parliamentary affairs because of its goals to help in the creation of a functioning national parliament, but also because several other national parliaments contributed to this goal within the broader post-conflict peace-building in Kosovo. [R]
65.6826 ROTHSTEIN, Bo —
Disregard for the rule of law and failure to get corruption under control are seen as detrimental to economic and social development. The China paradox refers to the fact that in all commonly used measures of levels of corruption and the quality of government, China is a country that scores quite low. China also lacks the Weberian model of bureaucracy that is seen as central for development. It is argued that this paradox is the result of disregarding the existence of a different public administration model in China — the cadre organization. Instead of rule-following, this organization is marked by high commitment to a specific policy doctrine. The argument is that while very different from Weberian bureaucracy, this organization is well suited for effectively implementing policies for economic and social development. [R, abr.]
65.6827 ROTHSTEIN, Bo; TEORELL, Jan —
Issues about corruption and other forms of “bad government” have become central in large parts of the social sciences. An unresolved question, however, is how countries can solve the issue of systemic corruption. This article develops a new theoretical model for explaining this type of institutional change, based on E. Ostrom's theory of common pool resource appropriation. Sweden during the 19th c. illustrates the model by showing how the country made a transition from being largely patrimonial, nepotistic and corrupt to a modern, Weberian, efficient and impartial state structure. [We] stress the importance of previous changes in courts and the legal system; recognition of the problem by the main contemporary political actors as shown in debates in the Diet; and the new liberal ideology that made an important impact on the Swedish political scene. [R, abr.] [See also Abstr. 65.7498]
65.6828 RUSU, Gabriela Adriana —
What is the Constitutional Court role in determining the powers of the president? Does the constitutional court, by ruling on legal conflicts of constitutional nature between the president and other public authorities, participate in the reinforcement of the presidential institution, thereby changing the diminished semi-presidentialism as desired by the constituent? According to the constitution, the Romanian president carries out several functions both concurrently and in a complementary manner when it comes to other public authorities, the government in particular. The exercising of those powers can cause legal conflicts of constitutional nature. By adjudicating these conflicts, the constitutional judge recognizes new prerogatives of the President and thus changes the system of jurisdiction, which affects not only bicephalism, but also institutional equilibrium, as provided by the Constitution.
65.6829 SÁNCHEZ MUÑOZ, Óscar —
The starting point is a critical analysis of the political party funding system in Spain since the restoration of democracy, highlighting its three main shortcomings: it does not favor equal opportunities in the electoral competition, it does not reinforce the connection between parties and society, and it does not guarantee transparency. The last reform approved in 2015 does not change the essence of this system and represents only a slight correction of its failures. Therefore, the need for a new paradigm is becoming increasingly clear and in this article we can find some of the keys of this new model based on “citizen funding”, equally away from corporate financing and from excessive weight of public funding. [R]
65.6830 SARACENO, Chiara —
Midway the European 2020 strategy, the goal to reduce poverty and social exclusion seems farther away than at the onset. This is largely due to the long duration of the financial crisis started in 2008, which still haunts many of the EU countries, as well as to the austerity measures set in place to face it. The failure in contrasting poverty and social exclusion, however, has also deeper roots, already present in the Lisbon strategy and have not been corrected in the Europe 2020 one. They consist in the almost exclusive focus on employment growth as the main road out of poverty, with absolute priority given to fiscal consolidation. [R, abr.]
65.6831 SCHMIDTKE, Oliver —
In Germany, issues of immigration and integration have gradually moved into the centre of competitive party politics over the past 20 years. This article highlights two central features of this development: (1) in recent years there has been a notable gap between highly polarizing (populist) public debates and a pragmatic shift in policy-making among the country's mainstream parties. (2) The immigration issue poses a considerable challenge to the core political identity of the center-left and the center-right. On the basis of a frame-analysis of electoral politics, this article argues that, despite immigrants’ traditional support for the Social Democratic Party, Chancellor A. Merkel's Christian Democratic Party has recently been successful in claiming ownership over the immigration issue by linking it to policy fields in which it commands public trust, namely economic and security policies. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6805]
65.6832 SCOT, Jean-Paul —
In order to clarify the French debate on laïcité, this paper first criticizes two widespread myths: “religion is back” and “the Muslim threat”. It then analyzes how those who pretend to redefine laïcité either try to reestablish organized religions in the state (Socialist Party/UMP), to prevent public religious expression (i.e., Muslim) in the public sphere (Front national). [R]
65.6833 SERDÜLT, Uwe —
This article mainly fills a gap in the English-speaking literature on the recall in Switzerland in order to allow for future comparative work. After a historical introduction, the reasons for the introduction, institutional rules as well as practice of the recall are assembled in an inductive but systematic way. Currently, the recall in Switzerland exists only in a minority of 6 of 26 cantons but not on the national level. The procedure is usually directed at parliament, the government or both. So far, there was only one successful recall vote in the Canton of Aargau in the year 1862. This particular case is therefore described in more detail. Furthermore, a comprehensive overview of all recall attempts and votes is drawn up. [R, abr.]
65.6834 SHAFIEV, Abdulfattoh; MILES, Marintha —
This article provides an overview of the development of the internet in Tajikistan, particularly focusing on state efforts to repress on-line freedom beginning in 2012. The article argues that many forces shape Tajikistan's virtual community, including civil society activists, the state and its “volunteers”, the Tajik diaspora and various media and internet-focused companies. None of these groups fully control what happens online, leading to an intense struggle over the medium's future. [R] [See Abstr. 65.7060]
65.6835 SHAPOVALOVA, Natalia —
In Ukraine, governments have been announcing decentralizing reforms for the past ten years. The government in power since 2014 has for the first time swiftly tackled the project. An action plan foresees reducing central government hierarchies and strengthening local self-government. So far, however, the project has failed because of the constitutional amendments necessary for the adoption of the package. Now, a constitutional commission is to remedy the situation. So that the reform can be implemented and become a success, investments in communication and infrastructure are desperately needed. [R] [See Abstr. 65.7414]
65.6836 SHARIPOVA, Dina —
Despite government efforts, post-independence Kazakhstan has largely failed to provide high-quality medical services to its population. State retrenchment in the public healthcare system has led to the deterioration of medical service delivery. It has provided incentives for people to widely use informal reciprocal exchanges — personal connections and informal monetary and non-monetary payments — to gain access to better medical care. In contrast to the existing explanations focusing mostly on the cultural origin of the continuity of informal exchanges, I argue that state retrenchment from the social sphere and under-provision of state goods and services have perpetuated informal exchanges in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. [R, abr.]
65.6837 SIKKA, Prem —
In the 2010–2015 Parliaments, the UK House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts held hearings and investigated some of the operations of the tax-avoidance industry. Its reports have been highly critical of the role of big accountancy firms in designing, marketing and implementing tax avoidance schemes which have enabled their clients to avoid taxes. The Committee's recommendations set a reform agenda but drew a lukewarm response from the government. An examination of the Committee's reports provides an indication of the trajectories of future debates and policies. [R]
65.6838 ŠMÍD, Tomáš; MAREŠ, Miroslav —
This article analyzes the steps taken by the Russian government, with the aid of a powerful local clan, the so-called Kadyrovtsy, to subdue the Chechen insurgency. It highlights the strategy used by Russia, under whose patronage former anti-Russian guerrilla fighters were transformed into paramilitary allies of the Russian government; later, these former insurgents were incorporated into the regular Russian army and other state security forces. The article also identifies problems connected with the activities of the Kadyrovtsy in Chechnya and Russia, and the spillover into the diaspora; it also contextualizes the issues faced by the contemporary Chechen ruling clan and the geopolitics of the Caucasus within the research framework of paramilitarism and counterinsurgency. [R]
65.6839 SOKHEY, Sarah Wilson —
Despite domestic opposition and several policy alternatives, in 2001 the Russian government adopted a pension reform that was potentially costly and had uncertain long-term benefits. Demographic and fiscal pressures created the desire to reform and a more cooperative Duma made it possible to do so. These points do not explain why V. Putin chose the pension-privatization option. Russia's pension reform is best understood as part of a state-building strategy to diminish the role of powerful bureaucracies. Russia's welfare state was not merely the product of a powerful and popular president, but rather a tool to create a stronger executive. [R]
65.6840 STADTMÜLLER, Sven —
In recent years, a growing body of evidence documents a high conditionality of attitudes changes triggered by political frames, which have raised doubts on the effectiveness of framing strategies in general. Taking this as a starting point, this paper examines whether different frames dealing with the increase of the retirement age in Germany can convince people of this reform. The results of an online experiment leave behind a mixed impression: frames do, on aggregate level, influence recipients’ attitudes in the intended direction. However, these effects only occurred in certain groups of participants while others remained immune to them. [R] [See Abstr. 65.6429]
65.6841 STAMBOLIEVA, Marija —
This article examines the relationship between changing political institutions and notions of citizenship, and changing welfare policies in the context of post-communist transformation. The welfare diversity can be attributed to inherited legacies and the transitional context, and particularly the political responses to it. They can be best understood in the context of democratization processes which have affected both the notion of citizenship as well as the welfare state reform. Additionally, increasing internationalization challenged existing structures and offered new perspectives. The EU's role has, however, been quite uneven in this process. Based on the combined effect of these influences in the post-Yugoslav space, four social citizenship types could be discerned: neo-corporatist (Slovenia), accommodating (Croatia), paternalistic (Serbia and Montenegro), and neoliberal (Macedonia and Kosovo). [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6708]
65.6842 STEVENS, Jacqueline —
Since 2012, the Deportation Research Clinic, part of the Buffett Institute for Global Studies at Northwestern University, has been pursuing research on government misconduct under the rubric of what J. Stevens calls “forensic intelligence”. The Clinic uses law and publicity, including scholarship, to create new realities, which in turn produce new facts and knowledge. Stevens draws on scholarship by S.M. Amadae, N. Chomsky, Ph. Green, Ch. Johnson, K. Osgood, I, Oren, M. Rogin, and F. Saunders to explain the relation of “forensic intelligence” to the “national intelligence” paradigm now organizing mainstream political science research. The article describes how US government and economic elites distort research and teaching priorities, and provides examples from Northwestern University. [R]
65.6843 STUBAGER, Rune —
Influence upon the societal agenda is an important power resource in modern democracies. Consequently, inequalities in such influence across different segments of the public have important democratic implications. Using time-series methods on a unique Danish dataset, this article investigates the existence of inequalities in agenda power across groups with different levels of political sophistication and finds that the most sophisticated members of the public possess more such power vis-à-vis the media and politicians than the less sophisticated. The existence of inequalities in agenda power across different segments of the public, even in the homogenous Danish society, implies that countries characterized by higher levels of inequality should experience even larger disparities, thereby jeopardizing the democratic principle that all citizens have equal access to placing issues on the agenda. [R]
65.6844 STUBBS, Paul; ZRINŠČAK, Siniša —
The paper explores the development of clientelist welfare in Croatia through an examination of captured and categorical distributional effects, the dominance of nationality over territorial-based citizenship claims, and the politicization of the nature and scale of governance. The privileging of the rights of war veterans and of those of Croatian ethnicity particularly from neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina constitute dominant clientelist practices largely resistant to change. The capacity of the EU accession process to counter clientelist aspects of welfare has proved to be extremely limited. Although the accession process impacted and reconfigured economic, political and social arrangements, this was not a radical “break” with the social and political circumstances, particularly in the 1990s, which had produced and consolidated these clientelist welfare arrangements. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6708]
65.6845 SUBERU, Rotimi —
Since making the transition from military to civilian rule in 1999, Nigeria has witnessed intensive, but largely unfulfilled, pressures for comprehensive federal constitutional change. This article analyzes the multiple ethno-political drivers and institutional themes of Nigeria's constitutional struggles, the conflicting approaches to federal reform by governmental, civic, and ethno-regional groups, and potential pathways to a more effective governance of the country's constitutional challenges. The article contends that incremental constitutional change and non-constitutional renewal, including benign constitutional transgressions and creative legislative and judicial interventions, offer the most feasible path to federal accommodation and development in Nigeria in the absence of national consensus on the desirability and modality of wholesale, mega-constitutional reform. [R]
65.6846 SULKUNEN, Pekka —
I analyze the Turkish nation-building process and compare it to other similar ones, especially those of the Nordic countries. As even the Turkish government led by R.T. Erdogan has accepted, the solution to the Kurdish question depends on the general democratization process of Turkish society. Why has a solution to the issue of national integration seen no progress in Turkey, as it has in another newly-built nation-states since the beginning of the 21st c.? The argument suggests that on both the Turkish and Kurdish sides of the conflict, there are “black holes”, cultural perceptions of the “other” (Kurds and Turks, respectively) with a gravity so strong that they absorb all efforts to negotiate and to build democratic institutions. The argument rests on Gellner's nation-building theory and on J. Donzelot's Durkheimian view of republicanism. [R]
65.6847 SUPER, Betsy —
This article addresses competition over immigration in the Dutch and Flemish party systems. By looking at when, whether and how mainstream parties engage with immigration in each place, this article [examines] how parties compete on an issue under non-ownership conditions. Drawing on an analysis of party manifestos, it supports the concept of combined competence and positional competition, and of parties emphasizing immigration when they have a distinct position, and shows how the presence of intra-party tensions is relevant for understanding how parties choose to emphasize (or avoid) immigration as part of their electoral strategy. On the other hand, there is less support for the premise that party size predicts emphasis on immigration. These results are discussed with respect to the wider implications for understanding party strategies in Western Europe. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6805]
65.6848 SZABÓ, Zsolt —
Parliament's right of inquiry, one of the most important tools of the opposition to control the government backed by the parliamentary majority, was designed as a minority right for the first time in Germany. In contrast to the optional minority initiative, the mandatory minority initiative is a German invention. This model was adopted by some European countries such as Albania, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia; in Hungary, it was abolished in 2014. However, the experiences show that due to a lack of effective legal guarantees, this legal institute functions properly only in Germany. This paper looks at the legal background and practice of the mandatory minority initiative in a number of European countries and also at the possible reasons why parliamentary inquiries fail. [R, abr.]
65.6849 TAVAKOLI, Heidi; CESSAY, Ismaila B.; COLE, Winston Percy Onipede —
In the decade following the end of the civil war, the Government of Sierra Leone made substantial progress in strengthening public financial management. Improvements were achieved across all aspects of the budget cycle and were particularly notable with regard to budget execution functions. The main factors that appear to have contributed to these improvements are a strong starting position at the beginning of the cease-fire; political appetite for public financial management reforms; a cadre of motivated and professional local technical advisers; and considerable international support coordinated through budget support operations. [R] [See Abstr. 65.6381]
65.6850 TERADA, Takashi —
I show how Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has promoted two major national and international economic policies — Abenomics and Japan's involvement in the Trans-Pacific Partnership — by focusing on his administration's domestic political struggles. Both agendas become significant in the face of China's regional engagement, demonstrating the inextricable ties between international affairs and domestic politics, a combination essential for grasping the “Abe effect” in foreign policy. [R] [See Abstr. 65.7473]
65.6851 THORPE, Rebecca U. —
I examine the political consequences of prison development in the US. I theorize that the prison apparatus not only upholds a system of racial hierarchy and class stratification, but also links the economic stability of lower-class, rural whites to the continued penal confinement of poor, urban minorities. Analysis of an original dataset suggests that local reliance on existing prison infrastructure throughout many economically-depressed rural communities strengthens political support for harsh criminal punishments and militates against reform efforts. Political representatives have powerful interests in protecting rural prison investments, regardless of their actual economic impact in host communities. The evidence indicates that rural prison development contributes to the perceived economic viability and political power of rural areas, while reinforcing forms of punishment that destabilize poor urban neighborhoods and harm politically marginalized populations. [R]
65.6852 TICHENOR, Daniel —
This essay highlights several key conceptual and empirical gaps for understanding the politics of immigration policy history, and spotlights the meaning and implications of conflicts over problem definition, reform impasses, “strange bedfellow” compromises, and immigrant agency. The study underscores the increasing intensity and texture of struggles over “illegal” immigration over time. This essay also highlights how rare shifts from gridlock to major policy change have been driven by unexpected alliances, the necessity of painful compromises to appease disparate actors, and the contradictions produced by immigration reform packages. Finally, this essay highlights the role of immigrants as transformative agents in immigration politics, who employ strategies of litigation, civil disobedience, protest, and electoral mobilization. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.7178]
65.6853 TOENS, Katrin —
Drawing on the concept of power as developed by the multiple streams approach, the article highlights two structures of opportunities: process and history. Both are illustrated by the empirical example of the Bologna process. I analyze the European and German origins of this higher education reform process as well as the patterns of institutionalization across different levels of policy making. In conclusion, I argue that paradigmatic policy-change has been possible only by a combination of both sequential strategic action and the usage of process constitutive politics such as deadlines, conference mechanisms, and follow-up-structures. [R] [See Abstr. 65.6503]
65.6854 TØNNESEN, Anders —
This paper describes two Norwegian governance networks. While both address questions about land-use and transport, the ways in which they are democratically anchored differ. Starting out from goals set for climate-friendly transport, linkages between democratic anchorage and network effectiveness are discussed. In some ways the network with the lowest stakeholder involvement, and therefore the smallest network structure, has come furthest — measures are implemented quickly and extensive resources are used to improve public transport. The other network does not have the same implementation rate or resource-use, but has shown strong efforts to mobilize and coordinate a wide set of actors. Both approaches involve important elements for reducing emissions from transport, specifically the effectiveness and toughness of one and the broader mobilization of the other. [R, abr.]
65.6855 TSAI, Kellee S. —
The Xi-Li administration faces the dual challenge of managing state capitalism and shadow banking as China enters a phase of more moderate economic growth. During China's first three decades of reform, private sector development occurred in parallel with prioritization of state-owned enterprises in strategic industries, and growth surged. This pattern of state capitalism rested on an unarticulated bifurcated financing arrangement whereby the formal banking system primarily served public enterprises, while private businesses relied primarily on informal finance. However, China's response to global financial crisis disrupted the preceding equilibrium of financial dualism under state capitalism. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6799]
65.6856 TURBINE, Vikki —
This article draws on three pieces of qualitative research conducted with women in provincial Russia over the last 10 years. The first section analyzes women's discussions of their everyday rights claims and their engagement in “consentful” forms of contention. The second section uses the “Pussy Riot” case as an example of women's human rights activism coded as “contentious”. Finally, the article highlights the blurred boundaries between contentious and consentful contention that can occur when women engage in online spaces. The article suggests a spectrum of contentious politics for women's rights claims that vary depending on the political opportunity structures available. [R] [See Abstr. 65.7547]
65.6857 TWIGHT, Charlotte —
The Dodd-Frank Act, ostensibly passed to address causes of the financial crisis of 2007–2009, created government entities whose powers may be setting the stage for even worse problems with the financial system. With this Act, [US] federal officials acquired vast, open-ended, easy-to-abuse powers, and they secured the Act's passage using tactics making it difficult for the public to comprehend, resist, or modify the bill. Even repeal of Dodd-Frank is made difficult by its statutory language. [R]
65.6858 VALLE, Alexandre Del —
Since the Islamist-oriented Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in Turkey in 2002, the country has seen some spectacular changes. Huge numbers of new mosques have been built, the army has been taken off the streets, the Islamic headscarf may once again be worn in schools, and freedom of speech has been curtailed. Foreign policy, too, has shifted. While still pursuing its application to join the European Union, Ankara has also adopted a “neo-Ottoman” policy towards the Arab/Muslim world in general and a multilateral diplomacy towards Asian countries. This post-Kemalist Turkey sells itself as a champion of the Sunni masses. Wagering on the success of the “Arab spring” movements, it summarily ditched its old ally, Bashir al-Assad of Syria, and threw itself behind the rebels seeking to topple his regime, even going so far as to support, more or less openly, certain jihadi Islamist groups, which it sees as useful allies in its fight against its own domestic, Kurdish enemy. [R]
65.6859 VAN DE HAAR, Edwin —
As one of the oldest independent fiscal institutions in the world, the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) has a long history of providing evidence for policy-making. Uniquely, its activities include the analysis of election manifestos, the national budget and the coalition agreement, as a derivative from its provision of leading macroeconomic forecasts. This paper analyzes the CPB's role within the Dutch political system, its place in public administration and the different methods it employs to provide evidence for policy-makers. It then focuses on two different types of activities, the costing of election manifestos and ageing studies, using a multi-methods approach to illustrate how the CPB's influence extends to setting policy agendas and policy targets, and to reveal critical factors for success and failure. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6396]
65.6860 VIESTI, Gianfranco —
This paper deals with the economic and social situation in Europe at the end of 2014, after the great international financial and economic crisis of 2008–2009 and the following European crisis. It deals mainly with the consequences of both crisis and of the economic policy enacted in the EU, on European society and economy. It neither investigates and discusses why the crisis started and continued, nor presents and suggests a possible way out. Its focus is in between the start and the possible end of the economic recession and of the social difficulties. Its key message is that the consequences of the crisis [do] not allow any easy or foreseeable end, with the current economic policy and with the current social and economic dynamics. [R, abr.]
65.6861 VRAGA, Emily K., et al. —
Although social media are increasingly studied for their political impact, not enough is known about how distinct forms of Facebook activity, such as general news consumption and expression vs. issue-specific engagement, explain orientations toward a particular issue. Using a Republican sample, we demonstrate that only issue-specific engagement on Facebook — and not other forms of online behaviors — is consistently associated with a greater sense of personal influence on the issue of climate change and energy, which suggests that distinguishing between types of Facebook activity is important. [R]
65.6862 WALTER, Stefanie —
Why do some states successfully address balance-of-payments crises with austerity and structural reforms while others do not? This article argues that the globalization of finance has increased voters’ vulnerability to exchange-rate devaluation. Vulnerable voters are therefore more willing to accept painful measures aimed at internal adjustment in order to prevent exchange-rate devaluation. In contrast, internal adjustment is very difficult to implement politically where voters’ vulnerability to devaluation is low. A comparative case study of eight Eastern European countries shows that the vulnerability profiles of the national electorates can explain why these countries reacted very differently to the global financial crisis of 2008–2010. [R]
65.6863 WEE, Lionel —
This paper highlights the dynamic nature of the relationship between government and society, drawing on as a case study the changing relationship between the Singapore government and the citizenry. I discuss the conditions under which the People's Action Party is under pressure to change its style of government. I make two key points. (1) Concepts such as habitus and act [E. Isin and Greg M. Nielsen, Acts of Citizenship, London, 2008] are relevant to our understanding of government. (2) The distinction between act and habitus, at least as articulated by Isin, confuses two ontologically distinct entities: a disposition to act, and the action itself. I suggest that this confusion arises in part from Isin's failure to examine carefully the communicative modes of engagement between the government and the citizenry. [R, abr.]
65.6864 WIDFELDT, Anders —
This article focuses on how the Swedish mainstream parties on the center-left and the center-right have dealt with the immigration issue. After brief overviews of trends in immigration and public opinion, the history of immigration in Swedish politics since the 1980s is discussed. I argue that the 2002 election campaign was of pivotal importance for a number of reasons — most importantly because it politicized labor immigration. The main empirical part consists of a qualitative content-analysis of 25 election manifestos from 2002, 2006 and 2010, [which] shows a clear difference between the mainstream parties and the Sweden Democrats. More importantly, there are differences also among the mainstream parties, in terms of the relative amount of space devoted to immigration as well as substantive content. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6805]
65.6865 WILSON, R. Paul —
In 2010, Prime Minister S. Harper quietly created a system of Minister's Caucus Advisory Committees (MCACs), requiring ministers to consult with their backbench colleagues before taking policy proposals to cabinet. Based on interviews with Conservative MPs, ministers, political staffers and public servants, the paper argues that MCACs increase MPs’ influence over government policy and enhance cohesion within the government's parliamentary caucus. By constraining ministers’ policy freedom and providing the prime minister with regular political intelligence concerning policy proposals, MCACs reinforce his preeminence within cabinet and represent a significant innovation in the relationship between the executive and government caucus. [R]
65.6866 WIMMEL, Andreas —
In the euro crisis, the committees of the Bundestag have regularly discussed draft laws for the implementation of euro rescue measures, which were previously agreed on by the heads of state and government of the EU. This article traces the control activities of the lead committees in the national legislative procedure and analyzes the impact of the parliamentary opposition on recommendations for decisions. Although the Budget Committee in particular has passed several amendments they did not affect the substantial content of the measures and agreements adopted at the European level. Moreover and as a result of the complex multi-level system of the EU, the parties in opposition failed to reach their goals although they held a veto position in the plenary of the Bundestag. [R]
65.6867 WING, Susanna D. —
Constitutions in Africa are often considered fragile. Mali is an example of both constitutional crisis and constitutional durability. While Mali was upheld as a democratic model, the 2012 military coup might lead one to argue that Mali's recent history reflects constitutional weakness. However, the swift reinstatement of the constitution, popular commitment to its preservation, and attempts to pursue the post-coup transition in a constitutional manner all illustrate the domestic and international legitimacy of Mali's 1992 constitution. This article analyzes the process of the proposed Malian constitutional referendum that, though constitutional in itself, contributed to the March 2012 overthrow of President Touré. [R, abr.]
65.6868 WIRLS, Daniel —
This article provides the first detailed study of the origins of staggered Senate terms, which typically have been interpreted as part of the framers’ intent to create an insulated, stable, and conservative Senate. I draw upon three sources of evidence — the meaning and application of “rotation” in revolutionary America, the deliberations and decisions at the Constitutional Convention, and the arguments during Ratification — to show that the origins of and intentions behind staggered terms offer little support for the dominant interpretation. Instead, staggered terms, a mechanism to promote “rotation” or turnover of membership, were added to the Constitution as a compromise to offset, not augment, the Senate's longer terms by exposing a legislative chamber with long individual tenure to more frequent electoral influence and change. [R]
65.6869 WU Yu-Shan —
While not denying the virtues of the age-based system, this paper argues that there are limits on the forced rejuvenation scheme. It looks at how cadres on the CCP's Central Committee are excluded from competing for the top leadership positions because of their age. Four groups of elite are identified, T2 (zongshuji, zongli), SCP-T2 (changweu), PB-SCP (juwei), and CC-PB (zhongwei), and their frustration over exclusion from competing for the T2 positions in the next major leadership turnover (next even-numbered Party Congress) measured (Exclusion and Frustration rate, EFR). An overall score is also calculated to measure the total frustration with the system (Total Exclusion and Frustration, TEF). It is shown that the EFR and TEF are extremely high, and tension is bound to accumulate in the system. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6799]
65.6870 YILMAZ, Zafer —
Even if protecting the traditional family structure has been a permanent feature of political debates in Turkey, the family has become the target of public policies immediately after the Justice and Development Party came to power. The new pro-family social policy agenda of the party does not simply aim to protect the family as it is officially claimed, but endeavors to transform it in line with neo-conservative principles. This article discusses the historical and political background of these newly initiated policies by evaluating the intrinsic relation among the legitimization of social power of the state, the management of social question, and this family-centered social policy agenda. [R]
65.6871 ZHELYAZKOVA, Asya; YORDANOVA, Nikoleta —
Research on member states’ compliance with EU legislation often focuses on the timing of self-reported implementation measures. It is generally assumed that the earlier a member state adopts an implementation measure the more compliant it is. This is problematic because early measures may only partially address the goals of a EU directive. We study whether and when reporting national legislation to signal directive implementation is associated with detected non-compliance by the European Commission. We find that unless facing strong reputational costs, member states often do report pre-existing measures of low fit to a given directive without making timely adjustments. Indicating compliance problems, this generally leads to the European Commission opening infringement cases. [R]
65.6872
Articles by Susanne SCHMID; Kay HIALBRONNER; Stefan LUFT; Stephan MAYER; Serap GÜLER; Herbert BRÜCKER.
(b) State, regional and local institutions/Institutions locales et régionales
65.6873 ANDREW, Simon A.; JUNG Kyujin; LI Xiangyu —
This paper examines the importance of grass-root emergency response groups in emergency preparedness. Consistent with the Institutional Collective Action framework, we highlight key constraints associated with local government strategies of mutual resource exchange and barriers to intergovernmental collaboration. We examine local governments’ emergency preparedness using survey data collected in the North Central Texas [US] region. We employed a simple OLS analysis to determine mutual exchange and Poisson estimations on the likelihood of local governments receiving and providing external assistance. Findings showed that the presence of grass-root organizations in a jurisdiction is associated with emergency preparedness, highlighting the importance of norms of volunteerism. Local political institutions and participation in federally funded programs also have an effect on local government decisions. [R]
65.6874 ANESSI-PESSINA, Eugenio; SICILIA, Mariafrancesca —
This paper analyzes, in terms of presence, determinants and purposes, the misrepresentation of expected revenues during budget formulation and the misrepresentation of actual revenues during budget execution. We use six-year panel data from Italian municipalities with populations above 15,000. Our results suggest that overestimations of current revenues are more frequent than underestimations, during both budget formulation and budget execution. In terms of determinants, our results highlight the impact on revenue misrepresentation of both political orientation and fiscal stress. Finally, in terms of purposes, we show that revenue underestimation during budget formulation and revenue overestimation during budget execution may contribute to the formation of surpluses. [R, abr.]
65.6875 ARMESTO, María Alejandra —
The existing hypotheses about the relationship between political competition and particularistic spending predict opposite consequences. One view suggests that political competition — divided government — constrains the executive and reduces particularism; the opposite perspective predicts greater particularism as a result of side payments in exchange for legislative support. Both hypotheses rest on the assumption, which is not always true, that partisan veto-players are present in the legislature. This article argues that this assumption is crucial for both hypotheses and shows that where this condition is not met the predictions do not hold. The article explores the effects of government with and without a majority on particularistic spending where legislatures are institutionally weak. It analyzes spending on local public goods by subnational governments in Mexico and Argentina. [R, abr.]
65.6876 BACHE, Ian, et al. —
This paper [examines] how the UK government's headline climate-change targets are translated into action at the local level in the transport sector, drawing on research in two English regions. These headline targets are identified as a symbolic meta-policy that results in little action on the ground and which challenges established conceptions of policy implementation. Both the “meta” and “symbolic” aspects of the policy offer part of the explanation for the lack of substantive action on the ground. As a meta-policy, the headline targets across government require the elaboration of other policies at other levels such as targets for government departments and local authorities, but these are largely absent, leaving the meta-policy without teeth. Over time, these headline targets have developed into a symbolic policy, serving political goals but having little practical effectiveness. [R]
65.6877 BAE Kwang Bin —
The relationship between redistributive spending and income inequality has been of interest to researchers for several decades. Existing literature has largely focused on country-level studies and may be broadly divided into two groups: studies that find a positive relationship between the two and studies that find a negative relationship. The positive association is usually explained through the median voter theory and the negative association through the social insurance theory. This study offers a test of the median voter and social insurance hypotheses by examining the relationship between economic inequality, voter-turnout and redistributive spending at the sub-national level among the 50 largest counties in Texas [US] over years 2006 to 2012. [R, abr.]
65.6878 BENITO, Bernardino; VICENTE, Cristina; BASTIDA, Francisco —
This paper analyzes the impact of the recent Spanish housing boom and the subsequent burst on local public finances. Particularly, we investigate the effect of the rise and later fall in revenue from urban development on local government debt. Using a sample of the Spanish largest municipalities in the period 2003–2011, we find that debt was substituted by revenue from urban development during boom years and this substitution effect vanished after the burst of the boom. Our results also reveal that local public finances have worsened after the burst of the housing bubble since now they have larger current spending and smaller savings. [R]
65.6879 BOEHMKE, Frederick J.; SHIPAN, Charles R. —
Once legislators delegate policy-making responsibility to executive agencies, they have the ability to oversee and potentially influence the actions of these agencies. We examine whether legislative professionalism enhances the ability of legislatures to influence executive agencies and obtain more preferred outcomes. We study these effects in the context of annual nursing home inspections performed by [US] state administrators. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6935]
65.6880 BREUILLARD, Michele —
The paper presents an up-to-date analysis of the French local government system and its potential for realization of local democracy. It is structured into three sections in which the pros and cons, the improvements and shillyshallying delineate local democracy in France. First, through the restricted French vision that participative democracy only supplements, not enriches representative democracy. Second, the structural and organizational crisis of representative local democracy are examined against the context of continuing process of decentralization. Finally, the paper concludes that the way local democracy is being defined and operated in France today raises more questions than it provides answers. [R, abr.]
65.6881 BUSSU, Sonia —
Since the early 1990s, several reforms in Europe have fostered strong local executives and introduced directly elected mayors, envisaging for laymen councilors a role of steering and scrutiny. This has often translated into a weakened role whereby councilors often feel bypassed. By the same token, new participatory initiatives have gained much popularity, often reinforcing the direct relationship between the mayor and the local community, while councilors struggle to renew their role vis-à-vis the citizens. This paper examines the case of Italy to draw conclusions on how councilors perceive their role after the reforms. Findings are based on data from four medium-sized Italian cities characterized by different socio-economic contexts and political culture: Trento in Trentino-Alto Adige, Prato in Tuscany, Sassari in Sardinia, and Lecce in Puglia. [R, abr.]
65.6882 CADIOU, Stéphane, ed. —
Introductions by the editor, pp. 337–350, and Nicolas KADA, pp. 351–362. Articles by Sébastien SÉGAS; Luc ROUBAN; Stéphane CADIOU; Thomas PROCUREUR and Marie-Ange GRÉGORY; Sébastien GARDON and Éric VERDIER; Isabelle GARCIN-MARROU; Laurent GODMER and Guillaume MARREL; Virginie ANQUETIN.
65.6883 CHERNICK, Howard; LANGLEY, Adam H.; RESCHOVSKY, Andrew —
This paper describes a new city fiscal dataset, called fiscally standardized cities (FiSCs), that directly addresses the varying roles of municipal governments, counties, school districts, and special districts in the financing of central [US] cities. By taking systematic account of fiscal data for all the major units of government in large cities over a long period (1977–2012), the FiSC data permit investigation of a wide range of important comparative policy issues for cities. The article describes the methodology used to construct FiSCs, and gives a number of examples to illustrate the potential uses of the FiSC data. For example, it shows how spending comparisons between cities can be fundamentally misleading unless account is taken of the varying roles of overlapping governmental units. [R, abr.]
65.6884 COLAK, Alexandra Abello; PEARCE, Jenny —
This article explores the potential contribution to a better understanding and practice of urban security from participatory research methodologies with communities most affected by insecurity and violence. It focuses on the case of Medellín, Colombia, and analyzes the “Medellín Model”, an approach to urban security widely regarded as innovative and successful. It locates this approach in a history of efforts to reframe security in Latin America, where urban violence has escalated greatly. The shift from “security as repression” to “security as management” has ushered in new models for governing “ungoverned” neighborhoods. The scrutiny of the effectiveness of these models is limited, however, by the accumulated mistrust and fear in such spaces. This article analyzes a methodology for researching security practice on the ground. [R, abr.]
65.6886 COPUS, Colin —
The paper reports the results of research conducted among councilors in England which explored how they operate in complex governing networks with a range of public and private bodies. Councilors are faced with devising strategies to exert influence over and to try to shape and direct the policy decisions taken by the individual players and to draw a myriad of decisions into an overall direction and coherence. Councilors can either act ideologically (a key set of political principles and goals) or pragmatically (an assessment of what it is possible to achieve). The paper explores the approaches councilors have developed to engage in governance networks and assesses whether or not they act ideologically or pragmatically. It introduces the concept of RealLocalPolitik to explain the tension and choice between these approaches. [R, abr.]
65.6887 CURRIE, Denise; TEAGUE, Paul —
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have become common inter-organizational arrangements associated with “New Public Management”. Discussion about their effective operation has often focused on successful management methods, with less discussion about how these arrangements specifically overcome obstacles and problems. We address this deficiency in the literature by analyzing the conflict-management system employed within the London Underground PPP (when it was still in operation). We conclude by identifying several lessons from this case that we believe should inform the design of such systems, one of which is the role of knowledge-management. [R]
65.6888 DHANJU, Richa; O'REILLY, Kathleen —
Good governance scholarship has been preoccupied with the donor-driven conditionalities imposed on aid-receiving developing countries. Limited attention has been given to power struggles and resistance from government actors (bureaucrats and politicians) to embrace internally driven good governance programs. To address this gap, this article ethnographically examines a good governance initiative of the Delhi government (India) to reform its welfare system in partnership with NGOs. The study indicates that the conflict between government and non-governmental actors over the authority to govern the poor eventually maintained the status quo of the welfare system while the poor remain marginalized. [R]
65.6889 DODGE, Jennifer —
Civil society organizations play myriad roles in democracies. Scholars are beginning to pay more attention to their deliberative potential, rethinking whether or not and how they may broaden and enrich public deliberation. Drawing on a discursive approach to deliberative democracy that focuses on interpretive practices, this article analyzes the deliberative potential of a range of civil society organizations in the controversy over hydraulic fracturing in New York State (US). It finds that civil society organizations compete to frame hydraulic fracturing as environmental risk, landowner rights, economic opportunity and/or clean energy. The lack of a shared frame has resulted in political gridlock. On the surface the gridlock appears dysfunctional, but may have enhanced deliberative democracy by highlighting “frontiers of disagreement” in the case. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on “The sites of deliberative democracy”, edited, introduced, pp. 241–248, and concluded by John DRYZEK and Selen ERCAN. See also Abstr. 65.6315, 6380, 6501, 6590, 6679, 7115]
65.6890 ELY, Todd L. —
Advisory ballot measures are a direct democracy tool that solicits voter opinions. Local election data from California [US] are used to assess the practice and consider whether the advisory nature allows policy-makers, as has been assumed, to treat the voting outcomes as nonbinding. In California, the advisory ballot measure is generally binding for elected officials while allowing limited discretion in compliance with voter preferences. Purposes include solicitation of policy guidance, directing the use of new revenues, and signaling public sentiment to higher-level governments. The results provide empirical insight into how governments respond to public participation in policy and management decisions. [R]
65.6891 FISHER, Robert; DeFILIPPIS, James —
This article is not a comprehensive survey of the entirety of community organizing (CO) in the US context, but instead addresses key components over time and critical themes in CO using particular examples to draw out central lessons for the field. Critical themes include CO's broad proliferation and organizational diversity, inherent political and contested nature, dialectic contextualization, and limited success. Contemporary efforts such as Asset-based Community Development, ACORN, the Tea Party, immigrant rights organizing, Occupy Wall Street, and the Right to the City Alliance are used to flesh out these critical themes as well as illustrate the current landscape and challenges for CO in the US. [R]
65.6892 GALLETTA, Sergio; JAMETTI, Mario —
We explore how the presence of direct democracy across hierarchical levels of government in a federation affects the level of public expenditure. We revisit the effect of direct democratic institutions on public policies. Particularly, we are interested whether the effect of upper-level (state) direct democratic institutions on lower-level expenditure varies with lower-level direct democracy. Empirically, we exploit the large institutional variation in the degree of direct democracy both for state (cantons) and local governments (municipalities) in Switzerland. [R, abr.]
65.6893 GARRETT, Kristin N.; JANSA, Joshua M. —
Scholars have suggested that interest groups affect the diffusion of innovations across states by creating a network of information between the states that aids in the spread of policy ideas. Still, the unique role that interest groups play in policy-diffusion networks is not fully understood, largely because the current methodology cannot parse out interest group influence. We address analyze the actual text of legislation, moving away from binary adoption to a more nuanced measure of policy similarity. This allows us to distinguish whether [US] states emulate other states or interest group model legislation. We use text similarity scores in a social network analysis to explore whether early-adopting states or interest groups are more central to the network. We apply this analytical framework to two policies — abortion insurance coverage restrictions and self-defense statutes. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6935]
65.6894 GIL, Olga; ZHENG Tian-Cheng —
This article explores the applicability of the model developed by H. Chourabi et al. [Understanding Smart Cities: An Integrative Framework, Hawaii International Conference, 2012] to the urban reality of Shanghai. Eight variables of the model are examined against the Shanghai case. The findings are that for Shanghai the smart city plan inherits a process of transformation from the beginning of 1990s in four areas of public policy. [R, abr.]
65.6895 GLEBOV, Viktor A.; MAKUHIN, Aleksandr V. —
The article analyzes the experience of building a strong system of local government in Republic of Poland, [since] 1989. Collapse of the socialist system in Eastern Europe, with its own view the local government only as a system of party representation “on the ground” has prompted reformminded part of Polish society to establish the concept of “self-governing Republic”. [Among] the principles that guided the architects of this fundamental reform were principles of subsidiarity, with broad involvement of local communities in the management of administrative units, and principle of “economic autonomy”, which gave local authorities real economic and financial capacity to develop their own territories. This fact allowed most local governments not to be subsidized, which would be totally dependent on the distribution of funding by the central government authorities. [R, abr.]
65.6896 HARDING, Robin —
In contexts of limited information and weak state capacity, it can be difficult for citizens to attribute the provision of public goods and services to political action. As a result, voters often have little information about government performance on which to condition their electoral support. Such contexts are frequently characterized by clientelism or ethnic politics, and there is a widespread impression that African elections are little more than contests in corruption or ethnic mobilization. Using an original panel data-set containing electoral returns and detailed information on road conditions throughout Ghana, the author provides robust evidence that when a public good can be attributed to political action, as is the case with roads in Ghana, electoral support is affected by the provision of that good. [R, abr.]
65.6897 HEINEMANN, Friedrich, et al. —
In the context of German federalism and its current reform debate, this article explores the federal reform preferences of members from all sixteen German Länder parliaments. We examine the role of Länder self-interest, party ideology, and individual characteristics to understand the preferences for tax autonomy and fiscal equalization. One clear result is the joint importance of ideology and jurisdictional interests. We use the empirical results to simulate which type of reform would garner the necessary support in Germany's upper house, the Bundesrat. Finally, we draw conclusions for federal reform strategies which could enjoy the support of veto-players who feel disadvantaged. [R]
65.6898 HICKS, William D. —
This article argues that legislative parties’ strategic incentives and capabilities are a function of their size, their ideological homogeneity, and the governor's party. It shows that the distribution of legislative seats between the parties influences legislative efficiency, depending on the level of polarization between the parties and the party of the governor. A small partisan seat-margin reduces legislative efficiency when the parties are polarized and when the government is divided. Polarization and divided government can either positively or negatively affect legislative efficiency, depending on the distribution of seats held between the two parties. This research demonstrates the conditional influence of political parties. Based in multilevel modeling techniques, this research also contributes to the literature with robust evidence including 48 state legislatures, through 19 years. [R, abr.]
65.6899 KERBY, Matthew; MARLAND, Alex —
Little is known about how elected representatives attempt to manipulate public opinion and news media through their participation on regional open-line radio or media straw polls. This article examines the systematic attempts by political actors to engage these media in Newfoundland, Canada, where politics is characterized by the hyper-local nature of 590-VOCM radio programming. Our mixed-method study draws from talk radio call-in logs, online straw-poll vote results, observation of the production of open-line programming, and insights from local media personnel. [R, abr.]
65.6900 KIM Cheongsin —
This study uncovers the different effects of economic recessions on city contracting, which vary with institutional characteristics. Drawing on the literatures of public finance and management, it is hypothesized that recessions have a positive relationship with contracting and this relationship will be stronger in governments with the council-manager form or the charter status than in those with the mayor-council form or the general-law status, respectively. The hypotheses are tested on all available California [US] cities over 17 years, from 1993 to 2009. [R, abr.]
65.6901 KOPRIĆ, Ivan; KLARIĆ, Mirko —
The paper analyzes traditional and new forms of citizens participation at the local level in comparative perspective, but with special focus on the Croatian situation. The traditional forms of citizen participation are referendum, citizens’ initiative, deliberative assemblies, sub-municipal governance, and occasional consultative meetings. The main new forms are introduction of the direct election of mayors and recall referendum, strengthening the role of local mayors, and independent actors in local politics. Five modes of fostering local democracy in Croatia are analyzed: minority representation, classic forms of direct democracy, direct election of mayors and recall procedure, youth councils, and independent local political actors. Special attention is devoted to sub-municipal governments. [R]
65.6902 KRØTEL, Sarah M. L. —
Studies on contracting out have provided much needed knowledge about the effect of contracting on different types of services, yet much remains unknown about the antecedents driving the adoption of new contracting practices. The focus of previous studies that have addressed the antecedents of contracting has been on the financial benefit of specific services. This study incorporates the innovation diffusion literature to explore organizational and managerial influences on a novel contracting practice: the contracting out of energy efficiency improvement services in Danish municipalities. It finds that the antecedents driving the adoption of contracting out may result from inter-organizational influences as much as managerial factors. [R]
65.6903 KRUEGER, Brian S.; XU Ping —
[This] study to take advantage of the variation in US states’ exposure to global markets, ideological orientations of the governments, and the relative size of the public sector, to assess the role of trade exposure on government spending in the American states. Using state-level data from the past three decades, we use error correction models (ECMs) to test three competing globalization theories. We find that the effect of trade exposure on government spending varies across states. Our results suggest that when conservatives control state governments, high levels of trade exposure negatively relate to changes in public expenditures such as welfare and infrastructure. With liberal governments in power, trade exposure does not accelerate state spending growth in welfare and infrastructure, which diverges from the pattern found in European social democracies. [R, abr.]
65.6904 KUKOVIĆ, Simona; BREZOVŠEK, Marjan —
The paper analyzes the usage of e-participation tools in Slovenian municipalities. The paper originates from the theory of e-democracy in connection with information and communication technology (ICT). ICT allows citizen participation and inclusiveness in the processes of decision-making by use of various e-participation tools (e-contact, e-forum, e-survey, e-petition, etc.). An emphasis is placed on local democracy and its various forms, i.e. representative, market, network and (most importantly for this paper) participatory democracy, one of the increasing elements of which is also e-participation. We analyzed the official web pages of all 211 Slovenian municipalities and found that while all municipalities offer e-access and various of e-consultations t its citizens, other e-participation tools can rarely be found. [R, abr.]
65.6905 KULL, Michael; TATAR, Merit —
This article looks into the everyday practices of Estonian local governments regarding the emergence of multi-level governance (MLG) and their mobilization in EU affairs and policies, especially regional policy. The theoretical framework is the concept of MLG, also emphasizing the principles of subsidiarity and partnership. The article contributes new empirical insights from a country outside of the mainstream scholarly debates on MLG. We test and answer five interconnected theses linking MLG with practices of the principles of subsidiarity and partnership and the status of a small, unitary state in the European integration process. For many Estonian municipalities, the EU has hardly any effect. We identified almost no adjustment of local-government structures and routines to EU pressures. There is hardly any involvement of local actors in policy-making processes or in networking. [R, abr.]
65.6906 LACHAT, Romain; KRIESI, Hanspeter —
This paper analyzes citizens’ voting behavior in the April 2011 elections of the regional governments in the cantons of Zurich and Lucerne. These elections were conducted with a majoritarian electoral system in a multi-member district. In both cantons, the number of candidates in competition is relatively limited due to “voluntary PR”, that is, a coordination effort among parties that aims to achieve a proportional distribution of government seats. If citizens cast all of their votes, they must support candidates from various ideological camps. Alternatively, they can limit the number of votes used to cast a more concentrated vote. This paper examines what factors lead citizens to cast an ideologically concentrated or dispersed vote. [R, abr.]
65.6907 LAM Wai Fung; CHAN Kwan Nok —
The punctuated equilibrium theory contends that government attention-allocation is universally leptokurtic in that long periods of stability are punctuated by bursts of rapid and radical change; the empirical evidence in support of this claim is however exclusively drawn from democratic systems. The absence of electoral politics and institutional decentralization in authoritarian regimes could presumably affect institutional friction; whether and how this might pose as a qualification to the thesis is of major interest. By analyzing four streams of government actions in Hong Kong from 1946 to 2007 straddling the colonial and postcolonial regimes, we find that government processes are generally leptokurtic even under authoritarian regime institutions, with the degree of the dispersion of decision-making power across the streams of actions affecting the magnitude of punctuation. [R, abr.]
65.6908 LEE, John —
The article offers some explanation for China's incapacity to translate its supposed economic clout and importance into strategic leverage at America's expense. Analysis of the economic relationship between China and key Southeast Asian countries reveals that these economic partners are not as dependent on the Chinese economy as rising trade numbers suggest. Indeed, one should not overestimate the role of China in driving prosperity in the region, or assume that China has emerged as the primary driver prosperity in the region. In reality, advanced economies and firms from those economies such as America's remain far more important to major Southeast Asia countries than does the Chinese economy and Chinese firms. Such a situation is likely to persist into the foreseeable future. [R, abr.]
65.6910 LIN, Nick C. N. —
The information theory of legislative organization suggests that legislative committees are designed to provide their parent chamber with necessary information to legislate. Despite empirical evidence for various aspects of the theory, we have limited knowledge of committees’ influence on legislative outputs. I argue that informative committees are more than information-providers, that they also substantively impact legislative outcomes. With supportive evidence from the US state legislatures, this article shows that the presence of an informative committee system not only lowers the number of bills introduced to the legislature but also enhances the chamber's efficiency in transforming legislative proposals into laws. [R]
65.6911 LOWATCHARIN, Grichawat; MENIFIELD, Charles E. —
This study examines the premise that increased internet access leads to higher levels of governmental transparency. We assess the impact of geographic, demographic, socio-economic, and institutional factors on governmental transparency in 816 out of 1055 counties in the twelve Midwestern [US] states. The findings from the most extensive ordered logistic model show that total land area, population density, percentage of minority population, educational attainment, and the council-manager form of government are statistically associated with higher levels of government transparency at the county level via the internet. [R]
65.6912 MOORE, Matthew; RECKER, Nicholas —
Researchers have begun to point out that social capital does have a downside. Communities that use bonding social capital to mobilize residents to action have the potential to exclude outsiders from their communities. The number of governments in a county could be used as an indicator of bonding social capital within a region. Residents use their local government to create and pass laws that have the potential to exclude others. The current analysis used the number of governments as a proxy for bonding social capital. Findings demonstrate that as the level of bonding social capital (the number of governments) increased, the social capital in the county increased. Residents use their bonding social capital to respond to others, which then increases the level of social capital to be able to mobilize in the future. [R, abr.]
65.6913 NILSSON, Jens —
The party and trustee principles are two representational styles used to describe how politicians make decisions. Swedish politicians have historically relied more on the party principle than the trustee principle. This article studies the decision-making practices of local Swedish politicians by exploring to what extent they rely on these principles when making decisions on two issues that diverge in political dignity: tax level and organizational change in the municipal administration. The study draws on new institutional theory, in which theories from rational choice and sociological institutionalism were used for modeling and performing a large study. Although Swedish politicians still rely on the party principle when making decisions, there is a significant difference as to what extent they do so in regard to the two policy issues. [R, abr.]
65.6916 PLUMB, Alison —
This research note examines patterns of MPs’ voting behavior during “conscience” or “free” votes on three “morality politics” issues in the lower house of the New South Wales state parliament in Australia: adoption rights for gay couples; scientists’ use of therapeutic cloning; and the status of the Sydney Medically Supervised Injection Centre. First, the research note reviews the literature on conscience voting and hypothesizes that party will be the main predictor of voting patterns, but also establishes that previous studies have almost exclusively focused on national legislatures. Next the research note discusses methodological issues. Third, it presents the analysis of free-vote patterns in the New South Wales parliament on the three “morality politics” issues, along four key variables: party; sex; social ideology; and religion. [R, abr.]
65.6917 PLÜSS, Larissa —
Metropolitan decision-making in flexible policy networks based on voluntary cooperation is present in most industrialized countries and a widely debated topic in governance research. The article investigates the democratic deficit of metropolitan governance with respect to the role of the municipal councilors and their inclusion in such institutions. The objects of study are local councilors in Swiss metropolitan areas, where regional cooperation is traditionally organized in functional associations that correspond to the flexible, informal logic of governance networks. The impact of metropolitan governance on the councilors’ political influence and on their behavioral patterns is assessed on the basis of large-scale survey data and comprehensive multilevel analyses accounting for the multilevel system of Swiss federalism. [R, abr.]
65.6918 REINGEWERTZ, Yaniv —
This article analyzes the link between fiscal balance and political fragmentation. While a large body of literature states that political fragmentation leads to fiscal deficits, others suggest that political fragmentation is associated with political competition, which tends to improve fiscal balance. These hypotheses are tested using budgetary and political data of municipalities in Israel for the years 1998–2006. The results suggest that both hypotheses may be correct, depending on voting behavior. In Arab municipalities, where residents vote according to clan affiliation, low levels of political fragmentation are associated with large debts. On the contrary, in Jewish municipalities, low levels of political fragmentation are associated with small debts, since in these cases, coalition-formation requires less spending and is easier to sustain. [R]
65.6919 REYES PÉREZ ALBERDI, Maria —
This study considers the constitutional acceptability of an automatic referendum in Spain, based on the powers of public consultation laid out in most Statutes of Autonomy. It analyzes the legal, jurisdictional and case-law framework surrounding this type of consultation. The study finds that it is fully constitutionally acceptable, since the general legal framework to which autonomy law on public consultation through referendum is subject is incorporated into state law — preferably the Constitutional Law on referendum procedures in Art. 92 of the Spanish Constitution. [R]
65.6920 ROQUE DALLABRIDA, Valdir —
Territorial governance usually exists in contexts of social complexity and multi-scalar relations deriving from challenges facing the practical applications of planning and management processes. Following a theoretical framework review, we highlight those that may be considered foundational principle of territorial governance practices, and incorporate them in a proposal for a methodology based on the knowledge and perception of the actors involved to evaluate Brazilian and Portuguese experiences. [R, abr.]
65.6921a ROSENBERG, Lior —
The Village Redevelopment Program is an ambitious policy which attempts to reshape the physical living environment in the countryside. In implementing the policy, local officials nationwide largely subsidize wealthy villages. Based on fieldwork conducted in two counties in different provinces, this article points to a politics of command as the main reason. It concludes that superiors through the normal Chinese mechanisms for promoting new programs, have left local officials with little choice but to subsidize wealthy villages. This finding has implications for China's governance in a wider sense. [R]
65.6921b ROSENBERG, Gerald N. —
Why is it that state governments continue to put obstacles in the way of women exercising their constitutional rights? What explains this combination of a four-decades-old constitutional right, it continual use by millions of women, and continued and even growing legislative opposition to it? I explore this seeming conundrum, arguing that it can be understood as the coming together of three strands of American political design: (1) the inability of the US Supreme Court to change people's minds about controversial issues, including abortion; (2) the federal system's disproportionate rewarding of intense minorities, giving them more legislative influence than their numbers suggest; and (3) the coalition between the Republican Party and religious social conservatives. Thus, [although] support for legal abortion has grown and that opposition is shrinking, access remains contested. [R, abr.]
65.6922 SCULLY, Roger; JONES, Richard Wyn —
This article examines the public legitimacy of the National Assembly for Wales. Both the Assembly and the broader system of devolved government for Wales initially enjoyed very limited public support. Support for devolution in general has risen substantially, while some elements of public attitudes towards the Assembly itself now appear distinctly positive. However, public legitimacy, defined as “diffuse support” for the Assembly, remains limited. The article then examines what factors explain levels of diffuse support for the National Assembly. We found that variation in such support is best accounted for by factors associated with “non-material consequentialism”: perceptions of the impact of the Assembly on the process of government. The conclusion assesses the implications of the findings. [R, abr.]
65.6923 SERDÜLT, Uwe; WELP, Yanina —
Focusing on the relatively longstanding experience of neighborhood councils in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo (1993—), this research note analyzes how sustainable democratic innovation is and to explain subsequent results. Sustainability is assessed through the evolution of citizens’ participation in elections and through the number of candidates who apply to become neighborhood councilors. For both indicators, a consistent decline in the levels of participation over time is found. This is deemed to be a consequence of an institutional design that seriously limits the performance of neighborhood councils in terms of their influence in the decision-making process and their acquisition of legitimacy and political capital. [R]
65.6924 SVENSSON, Sara —
The article discusses the determinants of local government contact networks within cross-border cooperation organizations (Euroregions). Relying on social capital theory, a combination of social network and qualitative analytical tools are applied on data from two Scandinavian and two East Central European cases. The analysis reveals that, even in favorable circumstances, contact networks are thin and Euroregions fail to develop into truly integrated political spaces. The analysis also shows that contact patterns on one side of the border, determined primarily by inter-municipal cooperation, will matter for how contact networks are formed across the border. [R, abr.]
65.6925 SZEŽCILO, Dawid —
Participatory budgeting (PB) is a global phenomenon exemplifying a shift towards collaborative and participatory governance. This umbrella term embraces a huge variety of mechanisms of public participation in the budgetary process: from advanced consultation to a specific type of direct democracy. This article presents the results of an extensive analysis of the Polish model of PB applied in nine municipalities of different size. It demonstrates that the model disseminated in Poland is based on quasi-referendum that guarantees the citizens direct impact on local budgets. However, participation is limited to a minor part of local budgets and it is not accompanied by public deliberation over strategic issues. Therefore, the Polish model of PB does not offer a genuine shift towards participatory local governance. [R]
65.6926 TAGOE, Michael; ABAKAH, Ellen —
This article suggests that although women participate in voting during district assembly elections and are very active in voluntary associations where the majority of them exhibit their leadership skill, they are marginalized in local governance politics. Their leadership qualities have not been translated into leadership opportunities in local governance because of factors such as patriarchy, poverty, lack of access to financial resources, and illiteracy. The study recommends that more attention should be paid to more training at the grassroots level using women's voluntary associations to improve women's agency in contesting for, and participating in, local governance elections. [R]
65.6927 TARASENKO, Anna —
This paper examines how civic organizations dealing with social rights have responded to Russian welfare reforms. As beneficiaries of the Soviet paternalistic system of social provision, their interest has been to resist neoliberal policy shifts. However, the crackdown on NGOs under President V. Putin de-incentivises making challenging political claims. By distinguishing between “rent-seeking” and “profit-seeking” activities of NGOs (resulting in either the redistribution or production of public wealth), this paper enhances understanding of state-society relations in Russia. It highlights contradictory practices that allow the state to reduce overt, politicized protest by providing channels for certain privileged social groups and organizations. [R] [See Abstr. 65.7547]
65.6928a TAVARES, António F.; RODRIGUES, Miguel —
This manuscript tests two competing hypotheses from the regionalism/localism literature regarding local government size. The Leviathan hypothesis argues that fragmentation induces lower spending through more decentralized government structures which are smaller relative to the size of the local economy. This argument is in sharp opposition with the supporters of regionalism who argue that territorial centralization can produce economies of scale and significant cost savings, reduce overlaps and promote a more efficient local government. These competing hypotheses derived from the literature are tested using data collected from all 278 local governments of continental Portugal. We measure local government size as both per capita total expenditures and per capita grant transfers to sub-city governments and territorial fragmentation as the number of sub-city governments per 1,000 individuals. [R, abr.]
65.6928b THACHIL, Tariq; TEITELBAUM, Emmanuel —
Social scientists largely see ethnic politics as inhibiting public goods provisioning within developing democracies. Such parties are thought to uniformly rely on distributing excludable benefits to co-ethnics, rather than on providing public goods to all. We argue that ethnic parties can vary substantially in how they mobilize support and behave in office. Much of this variation depends on the breadth of the identity they activate. Although “narrow” ethnic parties do indeed entrench patronage politics, the rise of more “encompassing” ethnic parties can actually improve levels of voter autonomy, expand the effective size of winning coalitions, and increase spending on broadly available public goods. We develop and test this argument with evidence from the Indian states over four decades. [R, abr.]
65.6929 THRASHER, Michael, et al. —
This article combines individual-level survey responses from local councilors in Britain with aggregate-level data that describe characteristics of the wards that elect each councilor. The survey data report each councilor's social and political characteristics, the average hours per week performing council duties and the range and frequency of activities undertaken. The ward-level data include a measure of relative social deprivation, electoral competitiveness and other features. The analysis shows that councilors representing relatively deprived areas spend more time on council activities than do councilors representing more affluent areas. The findings establish that assessments of what councilors do and the roles that they might adopt should take account of the types of ward being represented. [R, abr.]
65.6930 TONKISS, Katherine; SKELCHER, Chris —
The abolition of the Audit Commission in England raises questions about how a major reform was achieved with so little controversy, why the agency lacked the institutional stickiness commonly described in the literature on organizational reform and why it did not strategize to survive. We apply argumentative discourse-analysis to rich empirical data to reveal the pattern and evolution of storylines and discourse coalitions, and the ways in which these interact with and affect the practices of Parliament, the media and the Audit Commission itself. Our analysis shows that the politics of administrative reform are as much about discursive framing and the ability of pro-reformers to gain discursive structuration and institutionalization as they are about the material resources available to a newly elected government and its ministers. [R, abr.]
65.6931 WILFORD, Rick —
This article discusses the attempts to reform the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive by the former's Assembly and Executive Review Committee. It situates the Committee's review of the Belfast Agreement's Strand One institutions within the context both of prior proposals to effect reform and the constraints, institutional and behavioral, created by Northern Ireland's model of consociational democracy. [R]
65.6932 WILLIAMS, Jill M. —
The deadly consequences of unauthorized migration has compelled the emergence of what W. Walters refers to as the humanitarian border — the concentration of humanitarian aid and services along the edges of the global North. This paper expands on Walters’ work through an in-depth analysis of the emergence and transformation of the humanitarian border in southern Arizona, US. Through an examination of transformations in how migrant care is provisioned, overseen, and regulated in southern Arizona, this paper traces a shift from humanitarian exceptionalism to contingent care whereby care is increasingly linked with enforcement efforts. This analysis illustrates how care functions as a technology of border-enforcement, increasing the reach of the state to govern more bodies and more spaces. [R, abr.]
65.6933 WOODS, Neal D. —
In many [US] states, agency rules are subject to review and possible veto by elected political officials in the legislative and/or executive branches. The consequences of this rule review authority are little understood. Using time-series cross-section data on state environmental compliance costs, this study investigates the impact that several types of administrative rule review procedures have on the stringency of state environmental regulation. The findings suggest that (1) both gubernatorial and legislative rule review powers are systematically associated with reduced environmental compliance costs, (2) legislatures controlled by the Democratic Party use rule-review powers to reduce these costs less than Republican ones, (3) the latter effect is observable only when legislatures have the power to amend or veto rules without the approval of the governor. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6935]
65.6934 WU Yonghong; WILLIAMS, Dan —
Using data of “member items” in New York State [US] during 2007–2010, we investigate how political factors such as majority party affiliation, tenure of service, and legislative leadership affect the distribution of state earmarked funds. The statistical results suggest that majority party affiliation and tenure of service have significant effects on the total earmarked funding state legislators may receive each year. Senate leaders or members of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee can also secure additional earmarks to fund their community projects. This research fills the gap in literature on subnational earmarking. [R]
65.6935 YACKEE, Susan Webb —
Most lobbying is invisible, meaning that interest groups routinely contact government officials “off the public record”. While such lobbying is ubiquitous, whether and how it may affect public policy decision-making remains largely unknown. I theorize that lobbying that employs both invisible and visible tactics is the most influential. I study the development of 38 health-related regulatory policies in Wisconsin [US] to assess this argument. I employ government records, survey data from more than 350 individuals, and interviews with 15 state policy-makers. I find that invisible and visible lobbying — when performed in combination — are associated with greater regulatory policy change. From a normative perspective, these results are both reassuring and troubling. [R, abr.] [First article on “Regulation in the states”, edited and introduced, pp. 319–321, by Charles BARRILLEAUX. See also Abstr. 65.6879, 6893, 6933]
65.6936 ZHANG Qian Forrest —
A government's political identity is a key factor in meta-governance; it powerfully shapes a government's policy aims and implementation preferences at the most abstract level and forms a stable governance mode. Dissonance between a pre-existing governance mode and the government's evolved political identity will lead to governance failures and pose political challenges to the government. In the case of vegetable retail in Shanghai, the neoliberal developmental state transformed the hierarchical governance into market governance; but as it evolves into a corporatist welfare state, market imperfections come to be perceived as governance failures, and the government responds by reintroducing hierarchical measures. [R] [See Abstr. 65.6309]
65.6937 ZHU Qian-wei —
The article summarizes six patterns of innovation of organizational structure in the reform of local government, e.g., the structures of grid, flat, matrix, super-ministry and net, and analyzes the problems of the innovation. Also the article, based on the analysis, points out the future development of the reform. It holds that the optimization of organizational structure is of great importance for functioning of organization, but has been limited by various factors, among that the institutional factor is most obvious. It also holds that the administrative institution, the balance between efficiency and interests, information technology, and the capability of civil servants are important variables in the future reform of local government. [R]