Abstract
(a) Central institutions /Institutions centrales
72.3219 ACS, Alex —
Presidential directives are often assumed to be checked only by external actors, like Congress and the courts. But the internal constraints facing presidents can also be substantial. I study a model where a president can induce compliance with a directive by removing some subordinate agents (the appointees) but not others (the careerists), and where the relative contribution of each agent to the directive’s success is unobservable. The model suggests that the formal authority presidents have to issue directives and remove subordinates can advance presidential goals, affording presidents real authority. But real authority is not guaranteed, and the resulting uncertainty can shape presidential decision-making: when to issue a directive, how ambitious to make it, and which agencies to target. [R, abr.]
72.3220 ADLER, E. Scott ; CAYTON, Adam —
We argue that closer competition for control of the House of Representatives and increases in the cost of campaigns have elevated the importance of campaign fundraising in the committee assignment process. When the majority party holds a narrow margin, we expect them to give freshmen and electorally marginal lawmakers abnormally lucrative committee assignments. We test this argument using both a novel measure of committee fundraising quality and data on committee assignments, campaign contributions, and election results from 1985 to 2012. We find support for our expectation regarding freshmen, but not marginal lawmakers. Our findings are consistent with the view that party leaders are using committee assignments to increase their party’s total fundraising when control of the chamber is close, possibly at the expense of other goals. [R, abr.]
72.3221 AGUNYAI, Samuel Chukwudi ; OJAKOROTU, Victor —
Legislative committees are a critical part of any democratic, parliamentary, internal operating system. It is impossible to overstate their responsibilities in lawmaking, ensuring responsible representation of constituents, and monitoring government institutions to make certain that there is accountability to the public. However, the extent to which the Nigerian Parliament performs these functions through its committee system has been viewed with suspicion, as members who are supposed to expose corruption are deeply involved in it. In contrast, Singaporean parliamentary committees have had some success in combating corruption, as evidenced in the ranking of the country as the least corrupt in Asia. Given the significant difference in the two committee systems, the essay asks the question: What can Nigerians learn from the Singaporean parliamentary committee system about corruption control? While studies have examined the consequences of corruption in all sectors of the economy, including the Nigerian Parliament, there is little knowledge about how corruption among legislative committees discourages foreign direct investment and causes industries to leave Nigeria. [R, abr.]
72.3222 ALAUZEN, Marie —
L’article interroge l’actualité du souci de continuité de la représentation politique en se penchant sur le signe de la présence de l’État par l’écrit: le visage de Marianne. Ce cas retrace, pas à pas, la manière dont ce signe graphique a été stabilisé dans les écrits administratifs, à partir de 1997, dont ses usages ont été policés et dont sa multiplication a été soigneusement contrôlée. Il met en évidence une épreuve diffuse de figuration au cours de laquelle l’entité “État” s’est construite dans la continuité d’un visage-signe et d’une signification négociée : État-gouvernement, État-service public, État-garant de l’identité des individus-usagers. [R]
72.3223 ANSOLABEHERE, Stephen ; KURIWAKI, Shiro —
The premise that constituents hold representatives accountable for their legislative decisions undergirds political theories of democracy and legal theories of statutory interpretation. But studies of this at the individual level are rare, examine only a handful of issues, and arrive at mixed results. We provide an extensive assessment of issue accountability at the individual level. We trace the congressional roll-call votes on 44 bills across seven Congresses (2006-2018), and link them to constituent’s perceptions of their representative’s votes and their evaluation of their representative. Correlational, instrumental variables, and experimental approaches all show that constituents hold representatives accountable. [R, abr.]
72.3224 ARANA ARAYA, Ignacio —
Thirty-one presidents from every Latin American country excluding Mexico — who were governing from 1945 to 2012 tried forty times to change the constitution of their countries to overstay in office. These attempts often caused severe political instability. Current explanations of the variability of term limits have centred on the context in which presidents govern despite the protagonism of the leaders in the constitutional changes. I argue that the personality traits of presidents are an important driver of their overreaching behaviour. Centred on the paradigm of the “Big Five,” I propose hypotheses about a causal relationship between each of the five core personality factors — openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism — and the presidents’ attempts to alter their term limits. To test the theory, I use data about presidents who governed from 1945 to 2012. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 72.4119]
72.3225 ARMALY, Miles T. —
Evidence of procedural fairness leads individuals to support Supreme Court decisions, even ones with which they disagree. Yet, in some settings, unfair behavior is seen as acceptable, even praiseworthy, if it yields a pleasing outcome for one’s group. The loyalty norm occasionally trumps the fairness norm, and group loyalty has taken on increasing importance in American politics. I use a nationally representative survey with an embedded experiment, and a convenience sample survey experiment, to relate group (i.e., partisan) loyalty and perceptions of (un)fair behavior to support for the Court. I find that when group concerns are unclear, individuals tend to punish the Court for unfair behavior. However, despite conventional wisdom regarding fairness and support, individuals fail to censure unfair behavior when their group benefits from the Court’s impropriety. [R, abr.]
72.3226 AVILA GOMIDE, Alexandre de —
This article analyzes the political-institutional determinants of bureaucracy quality among a group of newly industrialized countries in Latin America and East Asia democratized in the Third Wave. Four causal conditions are examined for the occurrence of higher levels of bureaucratic “weberianess” in the selected cases: historical sequence, political parties’ institutionalization, electoral competition, and ethnic politics. The study employs the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to explore the expectation that each of these conditions’ implications depends on other conditions’ presence or absence. The findings disconfirm claims about the critical role of party system institutionalization for Weberian bureaucracies in new democracies. Besides, the analysis did not declare a professional public administration’s prior existence before democratization as a necessary or sufficient condition for the outcome of interest. [R, abr.]
72.3227 BÄCK, Hanna, et al. —
One of the most important decisions coalition partners make when forming a government is the division of ministries. Ministerial portfolios provide the party in charge with considerable informational and agenda-setting advantages, which parties can use to shape policies according to their preferences. Oversight mechanisms in parliaments play a central role in mitigating ministerial policy discretion, allowing coalition partners to control each other even though power has been delegated to individual ministers. However, we know relatively little about how such mechanisms influence the agenda-setting and gatekeeping powers of ministers and how much influence minister parties have on policy output relative to the government as a whole in different institutional settings. We analyze original data on over 2000 important social and economic policy reform measures adopted in nine Western European countries over 20 years. [R, abr.]
72.3228 BADAS, Alex ; SIMAS, Elizabeth —
Judicial nominations, particularly those to the Supreme Court, have been a salient topic in recent presidential and senate elections. However, there has been little research to determine whether judicial nominations motivate political behavior. Across three studies we demonstrate the important role judicial nominations play in influencing political behavior. In Study 1, we analyze the extent to which voters perceive judicial nominations as an important electoral issue. We find that Republicans — and especially strong Republicans — are more likely to perceive judicial nominations as important. In Study 2, we analyze how congruence with an incumbent Senator’s judicial confirmation votes influences voters’ decision to vote for the incumbent. We find that congruence with a Senator’s judicial confirmation votes is a strong predictor of vote choice. Finally, in Study 3, we analyze data from an original conjoint experiment aimed at simulating a Senate primary election where voters must select among co-partisans. [R, abr.]
72.3229 BARTELS, Brandon L. ; KRAMON, Eric —
We fill a gap in the literature by theorizing — via a presidential appointment mechanism — how partisan alignment with the incumbent president (presidential copartisanship) influences Supreme Court job approval. Analysis of data from 1986 to 2019 (supplemented by longer-term confidence data) shows that a president’s copartisans are significantly more approving of the Court than outpartisans. Analysis of the American Panel Survey surrounding high-salience events during the transition from Obama to Trump shows that Republicans, who significantly increase in Court approval following Trump’s election victory, are anticipatory of Trump’s prospects of changing the Court. Democrats, whose approval significantly declines only after Justice Gorsuch’s confirmation, are not anticipatory but reactive to the president’s confirmed appointee. [R, abr.]
72.3230 BATURO, Alexander —
When authoritarian incumbent presidents run in elections, they have significant incumbency advantage and almost always win. When incumbents comply with term limits or do not run for other reasons, they tend to designate successors in their stead. However, their chosen successors often lose. Do they lose because they cannot command the same electoral advantage in loyalty, resources and name recognition that incumbents can, or because succession and elections that follow occur in a more liberal environment? The identification of effects of presidential succession is challenging because individual decisions to leave office, or not, depend on existing power relations. Drawing from studies on authoritarian elections and democratization by elections, I propose an explanation why many incumbents are unable to transfer their incumbency advantage to handpicked successors. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 72.4119]
72.3231 BECHER, Michael ; BROUARD, Sylvain —
Although executives in many democracies have constitutional powers to circumvent the majoritarian legislative process to make policy, political scientists know relatively little about whether and when ordinary people hold executives accountable for the process they use. To study this issue beyond the American presidency, we conduct a series of large survey experiments in France, where the institution of the confidence procedure puts the government in a strong position relative to parliament. Our experiments highlight that public evaluations of the executive reflect a fundamental trade-off between policy and process. If they face significant opposition in the legislative process, executives either have to accept policy failure or risk punishment for the use of procedural force. [R, abr.]
72.3232 BECKER, Stefan ; BAUER, Michael W. —
Whether and how bureaucrats are influential actors in policy-making are core questions of Public Administration (PA) research; however, most studies have focused on executive bureaucracies, while their legislative counterparts have received only limited attention. Now that a new research agenda on parliamentary administrations has emerged, this article seeks to bridge the gap between PA and legislative studies to compare and contrast bureaucratic influence in both branches. For this purpose, the article introduces established determinants of influence in the study of governmental administrations and applies them to the legislature. It shows that, based on the dominant configuration of individual, organisational and institutional factors, the likelihood of specific modes of bureaucratic influence is different from governmental administrations. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 72.3243]
72.3233 BLACK, Ryan C. ; OWENS, Ryan J. —
When arguing at the US Supreme Court, former High Court law clerks enjoy significant influence over their former justices. Our analysis of forty years of judicial votes reveals that an attorney who formerly clerked for a justice is 16 percent more likely to capture that justice’s vote than an otherwise identical attorney who never clerked. What is more, an attorney who formerly clerked for a justice is 14 to 16 percent more likely to capture that justice’s vote than an otherwise identical attorney who previously clerked for a different justice. Former clerk influence is substantial, targeted, and appears to come from clerks’ personalized information about their justices. These results answer an important empirical question about the role of attorneys while raising normative concerns over fairness in litigation. [R]
72.3234 BOLTON, Alexander —
Increasing ideological polarization and dysfunction in Congress raise questions about whether and how Congress remains capable of constraining the activities of other actors in the separation of powers system. I argue Congress uses nonstatutory policymaking tools to overcome the burdens of legislative gridlock in an increasingly polarized time to constrain executive branch actors. I leverage a new data-set of committee reports issued by the House and Senate appropriations committees from fiscal years 1923 through 2019 to empirically explore these dynamics and evaluate my argument. Traditionally, these reports are a primary vehicle through which Congress directs agency policymaking in the appropriations process. Committees increasingly turn to them when passing legislation is most difficult and interbranch agency problems are most pronounced. [R, abr.]
72.3235 BOYD, Brendan —
This research note reports on the findings from a survey conducted in partnership with the Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC). Despite robust debate among public administration experts about the role public servants should play in Canadian democracy, there has yet to be a systematic study of how public servants themselves view democracy and their role within it. We ask: What role do public servants play in democracy? The survey questions public servants about their views and contributions to democracy to gain a better understanding of what role they are playing in Canada’s system. [R]
72.3236 BUSSING, Austin —
Most bills that pass the House of Representatives do so under suspension of the rules. Despite the procedure’s prevalence, however, we know little about its systematic use. Although the supermajoritarian threshold for passage of bills under suspension typically precludes the majority party from using these bills for partisan policy, I argue that leadership control over the procedure still allows for the pursuit of party goals. Speakers split the suspension agenda between noncontroversial but substantively important legislation and parochial bills that serve credit-claiming goals of individual members. I argue that Speakers have been strategic in appeasing minority party demands for inclusion. Using data on bills considered under suspension from 1973 to 2015, I demonstrate that the distribution of suspension bills systematically favors electorally vulnerable majority party incumbents, and largely excludes their minority party counterparts. [R, abr.]
72.3237 BUTCHER, Jordan ; GOOCH, Aric Dale —
At the forefront of American democracy lies the representative. There has been ample debate over congressional representation and how members of Congress are to act in response to their constituents. We take on the task of assessing the path to congressional representation by analyzing eight institutional dimensions of representation during the founding. We uncover why term limits, recall, annual terms, small constituencies, and the right of instruction were rejected under the Constitution after they had been so highly regarded a short time earlier. The Federalists sought to promote their view of good representation through institutional design, rejecting prior views of representation used in state governments. Instead, the Constitution was designed to encourage representatives to serve according to their own judgment as trustees. [R, abr.]
72.3238 CANELO, Kayla S. —
Scholars have sought to understand the dual characterization of Supreme Court justices as both legal and political actors. One way to further uncover this complexity is to assess how the justices engage with the interest groups that file amicus curiae or “friend-of-the-Court” briefs. Scholars have revealed that the justices often “borrow language” from these briefs in their opinions. However, much less often, they cite the amici. These two uses are distinct in that one is revealed to the reader while the other is not. So which interest groups do the justices decide to cite and which do they borrow language from? I find the justices borrow more language from ideologically similar interests, but that ideology plays a less central role in the decision to cite. [R, abr.]
72.3239 CASTAGNINO, Florent ; FAYETON, Jonathan —
Les exercices de gestion de crise constituent une activité de plus en plus fréquente, visant à entraîner les forces de l’ordre et les services de secours. S’ils consistent à mettre ces derniers à l’épreuve en les confrontant à un événement adverse fictif, comment expliquer qu’à l’exception de points d’améliorations mineurs, ces “tests” se soldent systématiquement par une validation globale du dispositif? En analysant les exercices comme des “épreuves d’États”, cet article fait apparaître les contraintes organisationnelles pesant sur les scénarisations, ainsi que leur fonction performative au travers de laquelle se joue la légitimité de l’État à garantir la sécurité des populations. [R]
72.3240 CHEN Chung-An ; XU Chengwei —
Despite compromised work morale, Chinese public employees generally feel reluctant to quit a public service job. The present study looks deeply into government career entrenchment, defined here as “public employees’ perceived career immobility due to the concern for alternative career availability and substantial losses upon career shifting.” By using mixed methods, the authors identify and measure four distinctive types of government career entrenchment, namely, emotional cost, career investment, limited alternatives, and extrinsic rewards. Evidence further shows that emotional cost and extrinsic rewards are more associated with positive work attitudes, while career investment and limited alternatives are more related to negative work attitudes. At the end of the article, we discuss how the developed government career entrenchment scale can be used for future research. [R]
72.3241 CHIRU, Mihail ; ENYEDI, Zsolt —
Technocratic cabinets and expert, non-political ministers appointed in otherwise partisan cabinets have become a common reality in recent decades in young and older democracies, but we know little about how citizens see this change and what values, perceptions and experiences drive their attitudes towards technocratic government. The article explores the latter topic by drawing on recent comparative survey data from nine countries, both young and consolidated democracies from Europe and Latin America. Two individual-level characteristics trigger particularly strong support for the replacement of politicians with experts: low political efficacy and authoritarian values. They are complemented by a third, somewhat weaker factor: corruption perception. At the macro level, technocracy appeals to citizens of countries where the quality of democracy is deficient and where technocratic cabinets are a part of historical legacy. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 72.3084]
72.3242 CHRISTENSEN, Johan ; MANDELKERN, Ronen —
Economists are by many accounts the most influential group of experts in contemporary political decision-making. While the literature on the power of economists mostly focuses on the policy ideas of economic experts, some recent studies suggest that economists also hold particular technocratic ideas about the policy process. The article systematically tests this argument. Focusing on economists within government bureaucracy, the study is based on a quantitative analysis of a large-scale survey of Norwegian ministerial civil servants. It finds that economists are more likely to hold technocratic role perceptions than officials with other educational backgrounds only if they work in the finance ministry or in higher administrative grades. [R, abr.]
72.3243 CHRISTIANSEN, Thomas ; GRIGLIO, Elena ; LUPO, Nicola —
The article introduces the special issue on ‘Administering Representative Democracy. The European Experience of Parliamentary Administrations in Comparative Perspective’, explaining how it seeks to make a major addition to the study of parliaments as well as of public administration. It specifically aims at demonstrating that parliamentary bureaucracies are ‘silent’ organisations playing a fundamentally serving function, and yet they offer a crucial contribution to the well-functioning of representative assemblies. It explores the distinctive nature of this subject matter in Europe, and in this way ties into the wider debates about the functioning of representative democracy. [R] [Introduction to a thematic issue on “Administering representative democracy: the European experience of parliamentary administrations in comparative perspective”, edited by the authors. See also Abstr. 72.3232, 3262, 3281, 3917]
72.3244 CLADI, Lorenzo —
The royal prerogative is one of the most significant elements of the UK’s government and constitution. During the premiership of Gordon Brown and the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition led by David Cameron, there was momentum for a reform of the royal prerogative. During the Conservative premiership of Theresa May, the impetus for reform of the royal prerogative has seemingly diminished. This article analyzes how the UK Government has made use of the royal prerogative in terms of deploying the armed forces, making and unmaking international treaties and proroguing Parliament. It asserts that while such powers have not been compromised, the ability of Prime Ministers to use them without parliamentary consent has been subject to greater contestation. This has appeared to rein in the discretion of Prime Ministers. [R, abr.]
72.3245 DE BOER, Noortje —
This paper studies the intended and unintended effects of street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style. More specifically, it answers to what extent street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style affects citizens’ obedience (i.e. intended effect) during face-to-face encounters and willingness to publicly shame bureaucrats (i.e. unintended effect). Building on insights from street-level enforcement and the social interactionist theory of coercive actions, a trade-off is theorized between the effect of enforcement style on citizens’ on-the-spot obedience and on public shaming. [R, abr.]
72.3246 DEFACQZ, Samuel ; DUPUY, Claire —
The article advances the study of e-participation in renewed directions by focusing on a category of actors that has long been overlooked: elected politicians. It zeroes in on legislators who while key actors of representative democracy chose to be involved in an e-participation initiative. This article generates theoretical propositions on how they make use of e-participation platforms in their work as parliamentarians. Based on a qualitative analysis of interviews about the main e-participation platform in France, Parlement & Citoyens, the article shows that parliamentarians’ usages of such participatory tools tend either toward a policy-oriented logic or a vote-seeking purpose. These usages can also be categorized as tending toward either a representative or a participatory democracy logic. [R, abr.]
72.3247 DUCK-MAYR, JBrandon —
Judges, scholars, and commentators decry inconsistent areas of judicially created policy. This could hurt courts’ policy making efficacy, so why do judges allow it to happen? I show judicially-created policy can become inconsistent when judges explain rules in more abstract terms than they decide cases. To do so, I expand standard case-space models of judicial decision making to account for relationships between specific facts and broader doctrinal dimensions. This model of judicial decision making as a process of multi-step reasoning reveals that preference aggregation in such a context can lead to inconsistent collegial rules. I also outline a class of preference configurations on collegial courts (i.e., multi-member courts) in which this problem cannot arise. [R, abr.]
72.3248 ERIKSON, Josefina ; JOSEFSSON, Cecilia —
In this article, we introduce a Gendered Workplace Approach for studying the gendered nature of parliaments. This approach, which is informed by a feminist institutionalist perspective, addresses the potentially gendered character of both formal and informal institutions that regulate the inner workings of parliament, taking into consideration the obstacles and opportunities facing MPs of different genders. From a gender perspective, our framework focuses on five dimensions of paramount importance for MPs’ working conditions. These are (1) the organisation of work, (2) tasks and assignments, (3) leadership, (4) infrastructure and (5) interaction between MPs. [R] [See Abstr. 72.3507]
72.3249 ERLINGSSON, Gissur Ó. ; WITTBERG, Emanuel —
Being elected to a governing body for the first time has been described as both a unique and transforming experience. Accordingly, theorists of elite political socialisation assume that deepened political participation fosters internal political efficacy and satisfaction with democracy. Does this assumption hold for individuals who step up from being grass-root members to become local councillors? In a novel, explorative approach to the question, a longitudinal panel design is employed where perceptions and attitudes of 71 elected and 66 unelected candidates that stood for the 2014 local elections in Sweden are traced over a four-year period. The respondents answered three surveys: right before the 2014 election, mid-term 2016, and close to the 2018 election. We test if the elected newcomers’ internal efficacy and satisfaction with decision-making structures became stronger the more deepened, formal political experience they got. [R, abr.]
72.3250 FIGUEROA-GUTIÉRREZ, Verónica ; NAVIA, Patricia —
Studies on the cohesion by legislators in roll call votes have reported an effect of being a member of the ruling coalition, the origin and relevance of the bill, the electoral cycle and other institutional design features. But the theory also links voting cohesion to the subject of the bill, an issue not sufficiently addressed on studies on party-level cohesion in Latin American presidential democracies. This article tests four hypotheses including the subject of the bill on the 6468 roll all votes in the Chamber of Deputies of Chile between 2010 and 2017 legislative years. Rightwing legislators are more cohesive in roll call votes on issues related to defense and citizen security. Contrary to expectations, leftwing legislators are not more cohesive on social issues or human rights. Ruling coalition legislators are less cohesive on budget votes. The subject of the bill seems more important for rightwing legislators than leftwing ones: although it is speculated that this might be due in Chile to the fact that the rightwing coalition is comprised by a smaller number of parties which shares more ideological homogeneity. [R]
72.3251 FINGER, Leslie K. ; LASTRA-ANADÓN, Carlos X. —
Many public services in the USA are administered through non-state actors, many of which are nonprofits with broad social missions. Some scholars show that contracting these organizations can compromise their broader goals and political activities, while others find that such arrangements empower the organizations to engage in advocacy and influence policy. We argue that not only can contracting strengthen nonprofits’ capacities to engage in politics and advance their missions, but it can mobilize political activity among those working for and engaging with the nonprofits. We use the case of Teach For America (TFA) and an instrumental variable approach that leverages plausibly exogenous variation in the timing of TFA’s arrival in states to show that contracting TFA is related with the arrival of new education reform advocacy groups spearheaded by TFA alumni. [R, abr.]
72.3252 FITSILIS, Fotios —
In April 2021, the Committee for the Future of the Parliament of Finland (Eduskunta) organised an extraordinary hearing, that is, of an artificial intelligence (AI). While some legislatures and research groups had already begun to study the implication of AI in the parliamentary domain, this took the parliamentary world by surprise. It was the first time a parliament has directly interacted with an AI system in an actual parliamentary process. This research note attempts to conduct a preliminary analysis on the experiment and discusses its implications for future actions in the development of parliamentary tools and services using AI-based technologies. Analysis is dedicated to intra-parliamentary workspace, while considering possible effects on the main functions of parliament such as law-making and oversight. [R, abr.]
72.3253 FOX, Justin ; POLBORN, Mattias —
We explore the effects of a particular facet of separation of powers — namely, the executive’s independence from the legislature — on maintaining a norm of legislative restraint in which antagonistic factions refrain from passing laws that infringe on their rival’s liberties. Our main result establishes that executive independence may sometimes undermine and at other times facilitate legislative restraint, depending on the probabilities with which the factions hold legislative and executive power. Our results contribute to the larger game-theoretic literature exploring the effects of political institutions; our results also contribute to the literature exploring how institutions designed to protect liberty affect tacit cooperation among rival factions. [R]
72.3254 FRUHSTORFER, Anna ; HUDSON, Alexander —
As presidents approach the end of their constitutionally defined term in office, they face a number of difficulties, most importantly the deprivation of sources of power, personal enrichment, and protection from prosecution. This leads many of them to attempt to circumvent their term limits. Recent studies explain both the reasons for the extension or full abolition of term limits, and failed attempts to do so. Key explanations include electoral competition and the post-term fate of previous post holders. What we do not know yet is how compliance with term limits may be tied to the current president’s expectations for their post-term fate. In particular, we do not know whether leaders who attempt to remove term limits and fail to do so jeopardize their post-term career as a result, and conversely, whether leaders who comply will have better outcomes in terms of security, prestige, and economic gain. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 72.4119]
72.3255 GAILMARD, Sean —
The power of assemblies in the British new world grew far beyond the bounds intended at their creation. Although the British crown instructed royal governors to use legal powers to restrain assemblies, they were unsuccessful. I develop a formal model to account for this. In this model colonial assemblies can challenge the agenda-setting powers of colonial governors. In equilibrium, the crown cannot distinguish between a strong governor holding agenda power against a tough assembly, and a weak governor conceding agenda power to a moderate one. Weak governors therefore avoid conflict with the assembly, yet conceal their weakness from the crown. But the assembly challenges weak governors even more. This creates a dynamic path of growing assembly power. The model provides a strategic logic of endogenous institutional change. [R, abr.]
72.3256 GELEDAN, Fabien —
Cet article étudie la manière dont les systèmes de représentations de l’État influent sur le travail de modernisation lors d’un épisode particulier: la Révision générale des politiques publiques (RGPP). L’État est figuré dans les analyses abstraites tirées des rapports RGPP, mais aussi de documents de travail, émanant des modernisateurs eux-mêmes. Devenu mammouth, l’État est désigné comme corps à réformer. Lui est opposée, en creux, l’image d’un corps idéal : celui de l’État optimal. À travers cette étude, il s’agit de renouer avec l’étude des représentations [R]
72.3257 GRAVES, Melissa —
This paper compares political and social histories of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It argues that both perspectives are equally essential in understanding the Bureau’s complexity. By looking at historical sources surrounding the FBI’s Watergate investigation, the paper compares insights emerging from traditional sources of political history such as presidential and Congressional libraries as well as Bureau archives with the social history that emerges from agents’ oral accounts. In analyzing the sources that emerge from both a top-down and bottom-up view of the Bureau, it becomes clear that power is diffuse across the organization and resides not only in such obvious places as that of the director and senior leadership but also in unexpected places like that of a new agent. [R, abr.]
72.3258 GRAY, Thomas R. ; JENKINS, Jeffery A. ; POTTER, Philip B. K. —
Research on presidential power delineates between a modern era of relative autonomy and an earlier period of congressional dominance. What drove this change? Unlike prior arguments about presidential entrepreneurship and the rise of the United States as a global power, we attribute the emergence of the modern presidency partially to an institutional change — the adoption of direct election of senators that culminated in the 17th Amendment. With direct election, senators were selected by individual voters rather than state legislators. These senators answered to a new principal — the general public — that was (in the aggregate) less informed and less interested in foreign policy. As a result, senators had less incentive to constrain presidential foreign policy preferences. We find evidence for this shift in the relationship between the piecemeal adoption of direct election and senate votes to delegate foreign policy authority to the executive. [R, abr.]
72.3259 GREENE, Steven, et al. —
Wearing face masks to combat the spread of COVID-19 became a politicized and contested practice in the US, largely due to misinformation and partisan cues from masking opponents. This article examines whether Public Service Announcements (PSAs) can encourage the use of face masks. We designed two PSAs: one describes the benefits of using face masks; the other uses a novel messenger (i.e., a retired US general) to advocate for them. We conducted two studies. First, we aired our PSAs on television and surveyed residents of the media market to determine if they saw the PSA and how they felt about wearing face masks. Second, we conducted a randomized experiment on a diverse national sample. Both studies suggest that exposure to our PSAs increased support for face masks and induced greater compliance with public health advice. [R, abr.]
72.3260 GROTZ, Florian, et al. —
Even though Prime Ministers (PMs) are the central actors in parliamentary democracies, little comparative research explores what makes them perform successfully in office. This article investigates how the political careers of PMs affect their performance. For this purpose, we make use of a unique expert survey covering 131 cabinets in 11 Central and Eastern European countries between 1990 and 2018. Performance is defined as a two-dimensional set of tasks PMs ought to fulfill: first, managing the cabinet and directing domestic affairs as tasks delegated to their office, second, ensuring support of parliament and their own party, who constitute the direct principals. The findings indicate that a simple political insider career is not sufficient to enhance prime-ministerial performance. Rather, PMs who served as party leaders have the best preconditions to succeed in office. [R]
72.3261 HANRETTY, Chris ; MELLON, Jonathan ; ENGLISH, Patrick —
We test the electoral accountability of British legislators for their stance on Brexit. We find that there is very limited issue accountability. Individuals who disagreed with their representative’s stance on Brexit were 3 percentage points less likely to vote for them. The aggregate consequences of these individual effects are limited. A one-standard-deviation increase in the proportion of constituents agreeing with their incumbent’s Brexit stance is associated with an increase of 0.53 percentage points in incumbent vote share. These effects are one and a half times larger when the main challenger has a different Brexit stance to the incumbent. A follow-up survey of MPs shows that MPs’ estimates of the effects of congruence are similar in magnitude. [R, abr.]
72.3262 HÖGENAUER, Anna-Lena —
Past research has identified a trend towards the bureaucratisation of the parliamentary scrutiny of EU affairs. It highlighted the role of parliamentary staff in selecting relevant issues, advising on subsidiarity and procedures and drafting of opinions and resolutions. However, while administrators clearly play a role, less is known about the Europeanisation of parliamentary administrations. In particular, the impact of the growing Europeanisation of sectoral committees on the Europeanisation of staff is unexplored. This article presents data from a survey of parliamentary administrations in 2021, which shows that the Europeanisation of parliamentary administrations extends beyond the main units in charge of EU affairs and affects sectoral committee staff more generally. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 72.3243]
72.3263 IE, Kenny William —
Cabinet committees are important sites of executive politics in Canada. This article examines the extent to which two representational attributes — gender and region — determine influence, as a function of cabinet committee structure. Employing a dataset of ministers under the three most recent prime ministers, I find that female ministers are less likely than male ministers to be influential in terms of connections to other ministers, to belong to the core of most influential ministers and to be represented on the most powerful committees or chairing committees. However, there is evidence of improvement over time. While regional representation is an imperative in cabinet making for Canadian prime ministers, its role in determining ministerial influence within committees is not evident: ministers from less-represented regions are no more likely to be influential than other ministers. [R, abr.]
72.3264 IERACI, Giuseppe —
The institutional design of democratic regimes has attracted much attention from a legal and political perspective, because it affects the actual distribution of power among political actors and the effectiveness of their decisions. The article advances a classification of the democratic institutional design, with particular reference to the triangular interactions among Presidents, Governments, and Parliaments. Moving from the assumption that the arrangements among these three top political institutions identify the main patterns of the democratic government, the distinction among Parliamentary, Presidential, and Semi-Presidential systems set by the constitutional law is rejected and a new classification schema is advanced. In this new perspective, the institutional design of democracy consists of the institutional roles of authority, procedural resources attached to them and arenas of confrontation among the roles. [R]
72.3265 JIANG Junyan ; SHAO Zijie ; ZHANG Zhiyuan —
Fighting corruption is often seen as a crucial step toward building better institutions, but how it affects political selection remains less well understood. This article argues that in systems where corruption functions as an informal incentive for government to attract talent, anticorruption initiatives that curb rent-seeking opportunities may unintentionally weaken both the quality and the representativeness of the bureaucracy. The authors test this argument in China using an original nationwide survey of government officials and an identification strategy that exploits exogenous variations in enforcement levels created by the recent anticorruption campaign. The study finds that intensified enforcement has generated potentially negative selection effects. [R, abr.]
72.3266 KOCIJAN, Bojana ; KUKEC, Marko —
This article calls for greater attention to immigration attitudes of national MPs who absent harmonized immigration policy at the EU level remain the chief decision-makers and are thus responsible for swift government reaction to large influx of immigrants as witnessed in summer 2015 and spring 2020. Against this background, attitudes of MPs toward non-EU immigrants can be highly informative for understanding the foundation and direction of future immigration policy reforms. Although knowledge of MPs immigration attitudes is seemingly important, studies interested in this topic remain scarce. To test the relative importance of identity and economic aspects of MPs’ immigration attitudes, this study adopts few wellestablished theoretical approaches from citizen-level research. [R, abr.]
72.3267 KÖNIG, Thomas, et al. —
Although democratic governance imposes temporal constraints, the timing of government policy-making activities such as bill initiation is still poorly understood. This holds especially under coalition governments, in which government bills need to find approval by a partner party in parliament. We propose a dynamic temporal perspective in which ministers do not know whether they face a cooperative or competitive partner at the beginning of a term, but they learn this over time and use their agenda control to time further bill initiation in response. A circular regression analysis using data on more than 25,000 government bills from 11 parliamentary democracies over 30 years supports this temporal perspective, showing that ministers initiate bills later in the term when their previous bills have experienced greater scrutiny. [R, abr.]
72.3268 LESLIE, Patrick ; ROBINSON, Zoë ; SMYTH, Russell —
We examine whether Justices appointed to the High Court of Australia are more likely to find in favour of the Federal Government when the Prime Minister who appointed them is in office than when subsequent Prime Ministers are in office, over the period 1995 to 2019. We find evidence of a loyalty effect, even when subsequent Prime Ministers are of the same political party as the Prime Minister who appointed them. We distinguish between Justices appointed by Labor and Liberal Prime Ministers and show that the loyalty effect holds for Justices appointed by the Howard and Turnbull governments. These findings are important because they are central to the understanding of judicial independence and the rule of law. [R]
72.3269 LOCK, Daniella ; GREZ HIDALGO, Pablo ; LONDRAS, Fiona de —
We consider the one-year review (OYR) by Parliament of temporary powers in the Coronavirus Act 2020 (CVA). The OYR stands as a key concession on the part of the UK government to enable scrutiny of Covid-19 lawmaking, after the CVA was rushed through Parliament at the beginning of the pandemic. We argue that despite appearances, this review was another example of Parliament being marginalized during the Covid-19 pandemic, a broken promise on the part of the current government to Parliament. In presenting this analysis, we argue that two changes could be made in the upcoming and penultimate review of the CVA in September 2021, in order to enable Parliament to engage in meaningful scrutiny in this review. [R, abr.]
72.3270 LOWANDE, Kenneth ; ROGOWSKI, Jon C. —
While existing research argues that national emergencies weaken formal checks on executive authority and increase public appetites for strong leadership, no research evaluates whether crises increase mass support for the president’s institutional authority. We study this question in the context of the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic with an experiment embedded in a national survey of more than 8,000 US adults. We find no evidence that the public evaluated policies differently if they were implemented via unilateral power rather than through the legislative process, nor did the severity of the pandemic at either the state, local, or individual levels moderate evaluations of executive power. Instead, individuals’ partisan and ideological views were consistently strong predictors of policy attitudes. Our results suggest that elite and mass polarization limit the opportunity for crises to promote public acceptance of strengthened executive authority. [R, abr.]
72.3271 MEYER, Chase B. —
Research has found numerous differences between amateur and quality candidates in the realm of campaigns and elections, but little research has been conducted on the ideological differences between the two classes of candidates once they enter Congress. Using ideology scores and background data from members of the House since the 103rd Congress, I demonstrate that previously serving in an elected office exerts a moderating effect on Representatives’ ideologies. These findings suggest that Representatives who had never served in elective government before joining Congress are less likely to compromise with the other party and thus more likely to add to Congressional polarisation. However, not all previous experience before joining Congress is equal. Previous experience serving at the local level, such as major or city council member, appears to have the greatest moderating effect on the ideology of members of the House. [R]
72.3272 MILLER, Cherry M. —
Recruitment to key positions in institutions can be viewed as one way to introduce strategic reforms; however, little research has been conducted as to the effectiveness of the practice within parliaments. Even less has been written about the recruitment practices for non-elected parliamentary actors. Applying a feminist discursive institutionalist analysis, this article highlights the main discourses prominent in discussions around the recruitment to the Clerk of the House of Commons in 2014. It is argued that there are three discourses that rhetorically de-gendered career structures in the UK House of Commons, while two discourses explicitly gendered the applicant to the position of Clerk. The article discusses the broader significance of these insights for analysing parliaments as gendered workplaces, and for member engagement with parliamentary administrations. [R] [See Abstr. 72.3507]
72.3273 MINOZZI, William ; CALDEIRA, Gregory A. —
Legislators often rely on cues from colleagues to inform their actions. Several studies identify the boardinghouse effect, cue-taking among US legislators who lived together in the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, there remains reason for skepticism, as legislators likely selected residences for reasons including political similarity. We analyze U.S. House members’ residences from 1801 to 1861, decades more than previously studied, and show not only that legislators tended to live with similar colleagues but also that coresidents with divergent politics were more likely to move apart. Therefore, we deploy improved identification strategies. First, we estimate that coresidence increased voting agreement, but at only half of previously reported levels. Second, we study legislators who died in office, estimating that deaths increased ideological distance between survivors and deceased coresidents. [R, abr.]
72.3274 MURDOCH, Zuzana, et al. —
The representation of specific groups and social interests within (or by) the civil service has long been a concern of public administration scholarship. Yet, much of this literature focuses on representation at a single point in time. In this article, we propose a more dynamic perspective. In terms of theory, we postulate specific temporal relationships between triggering cues (e.g., a crisis event) and the representation decisions of civil servants. We specify two complementary mechanisms underlying these relationships: that is, a sensemaking process whereby the perceived meaning and relative salience of distinct groups and interests changes over time; and a shift in bureaucrats’ discretion to represent specific groups or interests changes over time. We illustrate these time-dependent processes using interview and survey data from the European Commission. [R]
72.3275 NELSON, Michael —
Presidential crises come in multiple forms. The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC exemplify a type of crisis marked by a combination of four qualities: (1) a sudden event that is (2) unanticipated and (3) requires (4) an urgent response by the president. This article offers an account of the day’s unfolding events as White House and other officials experienced them. It does so in the words of participants. Like all historical methods, oral history is imperfect. Among its advantages, however, is that it supplements documentary White House records that have become steadily less revealing. The article concludes with a brief discussion of certain post-9/11 measures designed to enhance security, some of which have been effective but none of which forestalled the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol. [R, abr.]
72.3276 O’BROCHTA, William —
Sitting attendance is a symbolic way for Peers to show citizens that they are being productive and hence is often explained by electoral motivations that Peers lack. I argue that Peers make decisions to attend sittings when critical events threaten their position in the legislature. Attending at these times — namely after scandals and House of Lords reform debates — is an attempt to counteract negative impressions about the House and its members. Other critical events that may impact elected legislators such as terrorist attacks and natural disasters should have no impact on Peers attendance. Using a newly compiled dataset on attendance and critical events, I show that Peers respond by increasing attendance only after House of Lords reform debates in either House; attendance after scandals, natural disasters, and terrorist attacks is unchanged. [R, abr.]
72.3277 PALMIERI, Sonia ; BAKER, Kerryn —
We extend empirical understandings of feminist institutionalism by outlining a new methodological approach to the study of parliament as a gendered workplace. We argue that while a localised approach to studying institutional change allows a more nuanced appreciation of the role of local cultural context, internationalised norms can be an interesting starting point to work back from. A case study of the New Zealand parliament’s ‘family-friendly’ workplace practices illustrates this methodological approach. By tracing the establishment of family-friendly practices in this parliament, our study shines a light on the intractable nature of local institutional context in global norm-diffusion and hints at the next phase of work required to further the agenda of transformational gender-sensitive parliaments. [R] [See Abstr. 72.3507]
72.3278 PALUS, Christine K. ; YACKEE, Susan W. —
When the bureaucracy’s political principals hold different preferences for policy, does this increase the bureaucracy’s policymaking autonomy? Existing theory strongly suggests “yes.” We, however, argue that this pattern will materialize only when the bureaucracy’s principals are all on the same side of the political divide. (i.e., unified government). Using data gathered from the American states at two time points, we capture preference divergence by measuring the ideological distance between the bureaucracy’s key political principals — legislators, governors, and courts — on the common left-right dimension. We measure policymaking autonomy through multi-faceted surveys of state agency leaders. In keeping with our argument, we demonstrate that greater preference divergence across the bureaucracy’s principals is associated with increased agency policymaking autonomy under unified — but not under divided — government. [R, abr.]
72.3279 PAVONE, Tommaso ; STIANSEN, Øyvind —
We challenge the prevalent claim that courts can influence policy only by adjudicating disputes. Instead, we theorize the shadow effect of courts: policy-makers preemptively altering policies in anticipation of possible judicial review. While American studies imply that preemptive reforms hinge on litigious interest groups pressuring policy makers who support judicial review, we advance a comparative theory that flips these presumptions. In less litigious and more hostile political contexts, policy-makers may instead weaponize preemptive reforms to preclude bureaucratic conflicts from triggering judicial oversight and starve courts of the cases they need to build their authority. By allowing some preemptive judicial influence to resist direct judicial interference, recalcitrant policy-makers demonstrate that shadow effects are not an unqualified good for courts. We illustrate our theory by tracing how a major welfare reform in Norway was triggered. [R, abr.]
72.3280 PEDERSEN, Helene Helboe ; BORGHETTO, Enrico —
The COVID-19 pandemic challenged parliamentary decision-making, which is normally based on time-consuming deliberation and scrutiny. We ask how national parliaments met this challenge during the first wave in the spring 2020, and we argue that institutional powers of the executive designed to handle crises just like a pandemic, paradoxically, increase challenges to democratic decision-making because the parliament misses opportunities to negotiate institutional adjustments accommodating pressure of government takeover. We evaluate this argument based on a comparative study of parliamentary activity in Italy and Denmark during the first wave of COVID-19 and find that both parliaments came under pressure with regard to law-making and control, but only the Danish parliament was able to install effective mechanisms to regain lost powers. [R, abr.]
72.3281 PETERS, B. Guy —
If legislatures are to be effective rulemaking organisations, they require information and advice, usually provided by legislative staff. The levels of staffing varies markedly across countries, although most legislatures in European democracies have relatively small staffs. This article discusses the importance of different forms of staffing for assisting legislatures, and supporting democracy. [R] [See Abstr. 72.3243]
72.3282 POUPIN, Perrine —
Cet article s’intéresse aux différentes réponses des pouvoirs publics face à un conflit d’aménagement contre le projet d’une immense décharge à Shies (région d’Arkhangelsk), situé dans le Grand Nord russe et devant recevoir de grands volumes de déchets ménagers de Moscou. En prenant comme traceur la façon dont l’État se manifeste à travers la carrière du problème public du traitement des déchets et selon différents modes, l’étude de cas documente un ensemble de dispositifs et d’instruments de pouvoir et notamment des phénomènes d’emboîtement des secteurs public et privé qui façonnent le contenu et les contours de la politique du traitement des déchets dans la Russie contemporaine. [R]
72.3283 PREBILIČ, Vladimir —
The state responded to the non-military form of endangering people’s lives in accordance with the National Plan for Protection and Rescue in the Event of an Outbreak of an Infectious Disease or Human Pandemic. However, especially in the first wave, many shortcomings of such a plan became apparent in the implementation of tasks at the level of local communities. They reacted differently to the threat and relied on a high degree of self-initiative, due to the limited functioning of the Protection and Rescue System at the regional level. Weaknesses were analysed and then largely remedied at the start of the second wave, so the response was more coordinated and more effective. [R, abr.]
72.3284 RESH, William G., et al. —
We analyse United States presidential appointee positions subject to Senate confirmation without a confirmed appointee in office. These “vacant” positions are byproducts of American constitutional design, shaped by the interplay of institutional politics. Using a novel dataset, we analyse appointee vacancies across executive branch departments and single-headed agencies from 1989 to 2013. We develop a theoretical model that uncovers the dynamics of vacancy onset and length. We then specify an empirical model and report results highlighting both position and principal-agent relations as critical to the politics of appointee vacancies. Conditional on high status positions reducing the frequency and duration of vacancies, we find important principal-agent considerations from a separation of powers perspective. [R, abr.]
72.3285 ROSENTHAL, Maoz —
Prime Ministers who want to improve the likelihood of their political survival must increase their approval ratings. To do so, they must rely on their party’s popularity, their own reputation for competence and their ability to strategically set the public agenda. This paper focuses on strategic agenda setting and its contribution to Prime Ministers’ approval rating. Strategic agenda setting includes heresthetic moves that set the public agenda and rhetoric that frames the policy options that the agenda includes. Prime Ministers in competitive political environments use heresthetic moves to anchor the public agenda around policy dimensions they dominate and use rhetoric to frame policies as hopeful and certain in comparison to competing policies. I verify this claim using an extensive dataset of British Prime Ministers’ approval ratings between 1960 and 2000. [R]
72.3286 ROZENBERG, Olivier —
In many ways, Brexit has revealed the importance of the British Parliament. Westminster’s central role — whether preserved or regained — is interesting from a political science perspective, not only because many experts accept, even implicitly, the theory of deparliamentarization, but also because legislative studies have been incapable of accounting for the different registers of and rationales for action exhibited over the course of the 2010s by British MPs when arguing for or against Brexit. Focusing on the parliamentary agenda and committees of legislative studies has in fact led many to overlook important elements that can shed light on other sectors of political science, from party sociology to international relations. In addition, the chaotic sessions of the House of Commons in 2019 are a rare illustration of the pertinence of social choice theory, which should encourage political scientists to go beyond Brexit and use the conceptual framework of political economy to understand the multiple forms of derationalization at work in contemporary parliaments. [R] [See Abstr. 72.3054]
72.3287 RUSSELL, Annelise —
This article extends research on gendered congressional communication by looking at how women in the Senate build reputations on Twitter, specifically assessing whether they set themselves apart with the policy agendas they promote online. Senators take advantage of Twitter’s low-cost and user-driven messaging to cultivate a reputation with their legislative expertise, and this research shows that women are curating a more comprehensive and broad agenda than gender stereotypes would otherwise suggest. Senators’ legislative communication on Twitter shows that women on both sides of the aisle are expanding their policy agenda to reach beyond “female issues.” Women are often stereotyped as less policy-oriented and only capable in gender-specific policy areas, but women in the Senate are actively communicating about contested policy issues and articulating diverse agendas. [R, abr.]
72.3288 RUSSELL, Annelise ; WEN Jiebing —
Social media incentivizes members of Congress to routinely advertise their policy agenda for the public; however, it is unclear whether those expressed policy priorities are linked to their legislative behaviour. The incongruous nature of unlimited, online messages with constrained policy agendas necessitates assessing the association between what politicians say and their institutional actions. Using a dataset of senators’ tweets from the 114th Congress, we analyse policy rhetoric on Twitter and bill sponsorship across a variety of issues in the Senate to show that senators’ policy priorities on Twitter are representative of congressional activity. These results broaden the application of social media as a tool for policy agendas — extending theories of limited attention to lawmakers’ political communication. [R]
72.3289 RYAN, Josh M. —
The extant literature suggests that members choose committees for distributive reasons and seek more prestigious committees as they move up the seniority ranks. But why do some members chose committees like Rules and Judiciary which are not distributive in nature? I claim that committees also offer representational benefits: namely, the ability to signal ideological preferences to constituents. Members from moderate districts seek out committees with jurisdictions over consensual issues, while members from extreme districts prefer committees with highly partisan jurisdictions. Using a unique dataset of committee partisanship constructed from committee roll-call votes, I show that members are more likely to select ideologically congruent committees and more likely to leave noncongruent committees, though this relationship is conditioned by the distributive value of the committee. [R, abr.]
72.3290 SAGITULY, Gaziz ; GUO Junhua —
One of the priority directions of administrative reforms that take place in the Republic of Kazakhstan is the enhancement of civil service effectiveness. And, the success of reforms will mostly be determined by the condition of civil service, which depends on the performance of civil servants. Taking into consideration the importance of motivated and satisfied employees on their commitment, this study was aimed to identify the relationship between motivation and job satisfaction on employees’ commitment and studying the mediating role of job satisfaction on the relationship of civil servants’ motivation and organizational commitment in the central and local executive bodies in Kazakhstan. In total, 1205 civil servants from 5 ministries and 4 regional administration completed a questionnaire adapted from previous studies. The results show significant relationships exist between work motivation dimensions and organizational commitment as well as work motivation and job satisfaction. Moreover, the study found the mediating effect of job satisfaction on the hypothesized relationships. [R, abr.]
72.3291 SEBŐK, Miklós ; MAKSZIN, Kristin ; SIMONS, Jasper —
Despite the diffusion of the paradigm of central bank independence, there is still meaningful variation in the operating missions of central banks both across countries and over time. Through a detailed qualitative case study, this article develops the concept of the operating mission of the central bank and applies it to the case of the Hungarian National Bank (MNB) to provide a more complete understanding of mission shift. Our findings demonstrate the critical role of policy agency, as the central bank governors moulded the operating mission of the central bank, even in the face of dominant international norms. [R]
72.3292 SMREK, Michal —
This article compares access to bill-making and senior legislative offices among male and female MPs when their respective parties are in government or in opposition. Using an original dataset with all Czech MPs elected between 1996 and 2017, the article finds that female legislators face a more restricted access to these important legislative assignments when their party is part of government and when their value as a means of generating political capital is high. This points to the specific conditions under which female MPs might be arbitrarily held back by their parties in the parliamentary workplace. [R] [See Abstr. 72.3507]
72.3293 SVENSEN, Eric Paul —
Over the past few decades, scholars have developed a rich research record on the causes and consequences of low presidential approval ratings. While this literature has provided valuable insight on presidential approval, little attention is paid to how agency failures also impact approval. In this article, I argue this understudied topic can provide additional leverage to help understand when public trust in the president is eroded. Using Markov Regime switching models of weekly approval ratings for the Bush and Obama presidencies, I demonstrate approval falls when agency failures make national headlines. In addition, findings also show that the impact of these events hinge on the number of failures and not the magnitude of any one breakdown in particular. [R]
72.3294 THIEME, Sebastian —
Tests of legislative gatekeeping theories have been hampered by the absence of status quo estimates, making these tests vulnerable to selection bias. I overcome this problem with a novel data-set on positions by private interests in Iowa, Nebraska, and Wisconsin because these states’ legislatures record organizations’ positions on lobbied bills irrespective of whether the bills receive floor consideration. This permits an estimation of the ideological locations of status quo policies for bills with and without floor consideration and in turn rigorous empirical tests of agenda-control theories. The data provide substantial evidence of partisan and nonpartisan gatekeeping and can adjudicate among the two models of gatekeeping in specific circumstances. In particular, they corroborate partisan gatekeeping in the Iowa House and the Wisconsin Assembly and cannot distinguish between the two accounts in the other chambers. [R, abr.]
72.3295 TRIDIMAS, George —
In the transition to democracy some autocracies transformed to republics while others evolved to constitutional monarchies. The paper inquires how constitutional monarchy is established. It models a hereditary king and a liberal challenger who coexist over a succession of periods and fight for power which brings office rents and the right to decide one’s preferred policy. The outcome of the confrontation is uncertain and may vary from period to period. If the king wins, he establishes absolute monarchy, but if the liberal wins he establishes a republic. Instead of fighting they may agree on a constitutional monarchy and share office rents and policy making responsibilities. Whether constitutional monarchy is agreed depends on the marginal utilities from rents and policy preferences of the two actors, the sizes of the benefits from rents and policy, the rates by which they discount the future, and the probabilities of winning office. [R, abr.]
72.3296 TSEBELIS, George —
Recent empirical analyses argue that constitutional amendment rules do not matter at all. Using the Veto Players approach to measure constitutional rigidity, this article proposes a new index covering ninety-four democratic countries. It explains the underlying logic of the veto-players approach and describing the specific derivation of the rules for the construction of the rigidity index, which aggregates all institutional provisions in a logically consistent way. It then explains why the lack of constitutional rigidity is a necessary but not sufficient condition for significant constitutional amendments in democratic countries. Finally, the author creates a new dataset on the significance of constitutional amendments and estimates the appropriate (heteroskedastic) model, which corroborates the theoretical expectations and demonstrates that more significant amendments lead to a better fit. [R, abr.]
72.3297 VALLÉE-DUBOIS, Florence ; GODBOUT, Jean-François ; COCHRANE, Christopher —
This article analyzes the effect of procedural rule-change on the dynamics of parliamentary speeches in the Canadian House of Commons between 1901 and 2015. During this period, several new rules were introduced to reduce the opportunities for private members to speak during the debates so that the government could get its business done within an acceptable amount of time. Our analysis looks at the impact of these rule changes on the content and orientation of all individual speeches made by members of Parliament. The results indicate that parliamentary rules had an important effect on the topic and duration of debates. [R, abr.]
72.3298 VandenBEUKEL, Jason Robert ; COCHRANE, Christopher ; GODBOUT, Jean-François —
Since 2015, the Canadian Senate has undergone a series of reforms designed to make it more independent, ideologically diverse, and active in the legislative process. We use loyalty scores and vote scaling algorithms to situate the voting behaviour of senators, focusing primarily on the 41st and 42nd Parliaments (2011-2019), the period just before and after the changes, respectively. We find that the reforms have led to a loosening of party discipline across all parties and caucuses but that independent senators appointed under the reformed process are the most likely supporters of the government’s agenda. We also find that the Senate has become more willing to use its formal powers. [R]
72.3299 WEHNER, Joachim ; MILLS, Linnea —
There is frequent public and media concern over the cost of bloated cabinets in many Sub-Saharan African countries. Scholarship on elite clientelism links cabinet positions with corruption and practices that undermine sound policymaking. This article presents new data on the number of ministers in African governments and documents a robust negative association with several measures of governance, both across countries and in a regression framework that exploits within-country variation over time and accounts for various potential confounders. This suggests policymakers, donors, investors, and citizens should pay close attention to the number of ministers appointed to the cabinet. [R, abr.]
72.3300 WIRTZ, Bernd W. ; BIRKMEYER, Steven ; LANGER, Paul F. —
Mobile government services have significantly gained importance for practitioners and researchers. However, there is a lack of empirical investigation into the diffusion of mobile government among users. Based on the technology acceptance model and related literature, we derived a structural model providing the central antecedents of citizens’ usage intention of mobile government services and its effect on word-of-mouth intention. Findings from a sample of 161 German public administration students largely supported the model. Only the anticipated effect of perceived interactivity on intention to use was not supported. [R]
72.3301 ZUBEK, Radoslaw —
Much recent research on coalitions and policy-making in parliamentary democracies requires high-quality data on the strength of legislative institutions. In this article, I introduce a new index of committee policing strength which improves on existing measures in important ways. I specify key index parameters using a binary rooted tree model and engage human coders to score formal rules. I obtain a novel time-series of committee policing strength in 17 western and eastern European democracies since 1945. I validate the new estimates through convergent validation and discuss ways in which the new index contributes to future work. [R]
(b) State, regional and local institutions/Institutions locales et régionales
72.3302 AFONSO, Whitney —
This article outlines how counties and municipalities in North Carolina prepared their fiscal year 2020-21 budgets amid the uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to an April 2020 survey, 92 percent of jurisdictions reported anticipating a general-fund shortfall for FY 2021, and over 20 percent expected shortfalls exceeding 10 percent of their general funds. Over three-quarters of jurisdictions reported not budgeting for any new positions, and over half instituted hiring freezes. This research presents important insights into how counties and municipalities prepared for the recession and highlights the differences and similarities of those strategies. [R]
72.3303 ALBALATE, Daniel, et al. —
Since the turn of the century, a global trend of re-municipalization has emerged, with cities reversing earlier privatizations and returning infrastructure and public service delivery to the public sector. The reversal of privatization measures is not an entirely new phenomenon. In the US, for example, returning public services to in-house production has been a longstanding feature of ‘pragmatic public management’. However, many cases of re-municipalization that have occurred since the early 2000s represent a distinctive shift from earlier privatization policies. High-profile cases in cities including Paris and Hamburg have thrust re-municipalization into the limelight as they have followed public campaigns motivated by dissatisfaction with the results of privatization and a desire to restore public control of vital services, such as water and energy. [R, abr.] [Introduction to a series of articles on “Re-municipalization of local public services: incidence, causes and prospects”, edited by the authors. See Abstr. 72.3304, 3330, 3333]
72.3304 ALBALATE, Daniel ; BEL, Germà ; REEVES, Eoin —
Since the early 2000s, the terms ‘re-municipalization’ and ‘reverse privatization’ entered the lexicon as several examples emerged of governments taking ownership of assets and services that had previously been privatized or outsourced. Various methods are used to implement re-municipalization decisions and differences are observed across countries and sectors. The approaches most frequently adopted are re-municipalization through contract termination and contract expiration. We utilize a wide database of re-municipalizations worldwide to analyse the factors that influence governments’ choice between these two approaches. The results from our multivariate analysis find a pattern of historical recurrence in the characteristics of the current re-municipalization process. [R] [See Abstr. 72.3303]
72.3305 ARENDS, Helge —
Fiscal decentralisation theory calls for enhanced local revenue and spending responsibilities to promote the efficiency of public service delivery. However, some have pointed to the danger of local capture cancelling out these effects. I examine the argument that organised crime violence (OCV) intensifies as mafias fight for access to local government resources, which they consider an attractive income source. I regress violence on local spending (LS) in Mexican municipalities over the period 1995-2015. I find a significant relationship between LS and the intensity of violence: higher levels of LS per capita are strongly related to higher homicide rates, conditional on them being positive. [R, abr.]
72.3306 COCHRANE, Caroline —
Despite the varying challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Northwest Territories, a northern Canadian jurisdiction with unique and challenging circumstances from governance style to geography to limited health care capacity, has been one of the leading jurisdictions in Canada to contain the spread of COVID-19. [R]
72.3307 CÓRDOVA, Abby ; ESPAÑA-NÁJERA, Annabella —
As decentralisation reforms devolved greater responsibilities to local governments, improving local governance has become central to strengthening democracy. With the promise of increasing citizen representation and government transparency at the local level, in 2015 El Salvador implemented a new electoral system. The new system allowed for the election of opposition parties in municipal councils for the first time. In the context of El Salvador, we examine how opposition parties’ numerical representation influences the views of governing and opposition party members about multi-party councils’ effectiveness to improve local governance. [R, abr.]
72.3308 DE LA RIVA AGÜERO, Renzo —
Municipalities in the Global South confront significant implementation challenges for the delivery of services, especially as service complexity increases. Waste management, which includes services of different complexity such as simple waste collection and complex waste disposal, is a useful sector to study. This article conducts an exploratory case study in four Peruvian municipalities to learn about the relationship between administrative capacity, political influence, and civil society participation and the performance of two waste services. The findings highlight the need to more closely consider service-specific administrative capacity in future research on performance, particularly when analyzing more complex services. [R, abr.]
72.3309 DEKKER, Rianne ; OLIVER, Caroline ; GEUIJEN, Karin —
Local governments have to take authoritative decisions about the placement of controversial but necessary facilities such as Asylum Seeker Centres (ASCs). Opposition from local residents against such facilities is often considered to be an expression of NIMBYism. This article explores whether a policy of community involvement addressing the underlying reasons for local opposition can mitigate such opposition towards an ASC. It uses a mixed methods approach combining survey data and semi-structured interviews among neighbourhood residents about an ASC in Utrecht. Local opposition is associated with experiences of economic competition and cultural threat. The policy strategy did not moderate these effects. Those who became involved were a selective group of locals who were largely already accepting of the centre and its inhabitants and involvement was often incidental. [R, abr.]
72.3310 FELIS, Paweł ; SZLĘZAK-MATUSEWICZ, Joanna ; ROSŁANIEC, Henryk —
The paper addresses differences in financial effects of local tax policy. Its aim was to examine the effects of decisions taken within the realm of tax authority in a country which applies area-based property taxation. The paper validates the hypothesis, according to which the impact of local tax policy upon tax revenues of local units depends on the social and economic potential of regions (in Poland called “voivodeships”). We believe that municipalities (called “gminas” in Polish) are more active in pursuing local tax policy (i.e., in reducing property tax rates) in regions whose social and economic position is weaker. Statistical and econometric analyses confirmed our theoretical assumptions and provided the evidence that the hypothesis is correct. [R, abr.]
72.3311 FLINK, Carla ; WALTER, Rebecca J. ; XU Xiaoyang —
Diffusion models explore the reasons policies transfer across governments. In this study, we focus on US state level efforts in affordable housing. Drawing predominately from policy diffusion literature, our research examines the determinants of the creation of state Housing Trust Funds (HTFs). We utilize event history analysis with logit regressions and survival modeling to examine how problem severity, neighbor adoption, economic standing, elected leadership, housing investment, and demographics predict state HTF adoption. Results indicate that both problem severity and elected leadership predict the adoption of HTFs. This work improves our understanding of state policy diffusion and efforts in housing affordability. [R]
72.3312 GIMPEL, James G. ; HIGHTOWER, Tristan M. ; WOHLFARTH, Patrick C. —
Knowing where legal complaints arise can tell us something about them and reveal clues about their conditions of origin. In this paper, we examine the geographic origins of litigation challenging the boundaries of electoral districts — an increasingly salient and prominent source of political conflict. We construct an original dataset of all redistricting cases in state and federal courts nationwide, from 1960 to 2019. We show that redistricting litigation surfaces not just in states where there are regions undergoing rapid population change or that have a greater proportion of aggrieved racial minority groups but also in areas where there is close partisan competition. The filing of redistricting litigation is highly responsive to hypercompetitive political environments, suggesting that parties pursue judicial intervention vigorously when political power hangs in the balance and not simply due to demographic changes associated with decennial population measurement. [R, abr.]
72.3313 GUZIEJEWSKA, Beata ; MAJDZIŃSKA, Anna ; ŻÓŁTASZEK, Agata —
A substantial portion of local government funding in Poland comes from intergovernmental transfers. It may lead to the flypaper effect, which means that external revenues contribute to greater local government spending than locally-collected revenues. This study analyses how different revenue categories influenced local government spending in Poland between 2009 and 2018. Panel econometric models are used to test a hypothesis about whether the flypaper effect occurred in that period and to identify the potential causes. The results confirm to some extent that all three levels of local government were affected by the flypaper effect, and they point to intergovernmental transfers (general grants, specific grants, and shares of corporate income tax revenue) as the main causes. [R, abr.]
72.3314 HAQ, Hilman Syahrial, et al. —
This study aimed to keep the quality of judges’ decisions and to reduce the burden of cases that accumulate in the courts. This research was conducted through observation, interviews, and literature study at the mediation center in the Sasak community with a qualitative analysis, using a case and statute approach. It was found that based on the Regional Regulation Number 9 of 2018, the mediation center and the court can be integrated institutionally through several concepts: first, making the mediation center as a filtering instrument of dispute so that the court ultimately only functions as a final settlement; second, making the executive power on the peace agreement produced by the mediation center in a peace deed (vandading deed); third, the Sasak community’s control-management procedure based on local laws in the form of the Mediation Center Institution is an alternative to resolve local community disputes. [R]
72.3315 HOLBROOK, Thomas M. ; HEIDEMAN, Amanda J. —
We investigate the relative roles of local tax policies and respondent attitudes and characteristics in shaping support for local taxes. Using a unique set of survey data collected across dozens of cities over several years, combined with contextual data on local tax systems, we can offer a comprehensive picture of who supports, and who opposes local taxes. We use measures of satisfaction with local taxes, using data gathered across dozens of localities; we incorporate measures of the local tax systems to help account for city-to-city variation in local tax attitudes; and we incorporate measures of racial attitudes to account for an important non-material element heretofore not incorporated in studies of local tax attitudes. Integrating these factors into an explanation of local tax policies rounds out and offers a more realistic understanding of attitudes in this critical policy area. [R, abr.]
72.3316 HORVAT, Tatjana, et al. —
Based on the sample of all municipalities in Slovenia from 2008 to 2014, the authors answered how austerity measures affect the expenditure side of the revenue and expenditure account of municipalities. The authors used a statistical program to process the data. The research intends to anticipate timely action in the next economic crisis. The results showed that the austerity measures represent a reduction in annual holiday pay abundantly visible in the first year. Other savings measures in wages and expenses for employees are less visible in the first year and more visible in the following years. There is a positive correlation between the variables payroll and other employee expenditure and the number of employees. The authors propose to change the legislation in the area of financing of municipalities. [R]
72.3317 JAGRIC, Timotej, et al. —
A GRIT methodology (Generation of Regional Input-Output Tables) to generate and analyze regional input-output tables is applied for a small, middle-income nation, where the single national input-output table is partitioned into numerous regional tables. Missing values data are imputed using an evolutionary stochastic population-based nature-inspired optimization algorithm with self-adapting control parameters and exogenous superior data are introduced as well. A nonsurvey study is carried for each regional economy by computing various multipliers, such as output, income, value-added, employment, and import multipliers, and outlining financial properties, development, and interconnections of the various regions in Slovenia. Finally, the effects of financing the regional healthcare sectors are examined. [R, abr.]
72.3318 KARABIN, Tetyana O., et al. —
The obligations assumed by the Ukrainian state by ratifying the association agreement between Ukraine and the European Union have become a reference point for transformations taking place in various spheres of public life, including local self-government. The article analyzes Ukraine’s compliance with EU requirements regarding local self-government organisation, achievements in this field, and determining the prospects for reform. The analysis is grouped into four blocks: implementation of administrative and territorial reform; budget decentralisation; optimization of the organization of local public authorities (executive bodies formation of regional (oblast) and district (rayon) councils, the establishment of prefectures); land reform (transfer of land management to communities). The powers of local self-government bodies and state bodies were transformed in implementing municipal, territorial, fiscal and land reforms. [R, abr.]
72.3319 KARPIUK, Mirosław —
This article discusses the local government’s position in the national cybersecurity system. It refers to the status of the local government administration in cyberspace, including the duties and responsibilities ensuring cybersecurity. In Poland, the local government is considered the basic form of decentralisation of public power, as a result of which the legislator has entrusted it with a significant portion of public duties. The list of such duties also encompasses telecommunication responsibilities carried out in cyberspace. In general practice, cyberspace is also used to carry out other responsibilities. The local government has the most extensive knowledge on the matters concerning a given (local or regional) community, referring also to cybersecurity; however, the legislator has not awarded this entity with any special status. [R, abr.]
72.3320 KIM Jieun ; O’BRIEN, Kevin J. —
Studies of local governance in China often point to nimble experimentation but problematic implementation. To reconcile these competing images, it is useful to clarify the concepts of experimentation and implementation and see how they unfolded in one policy area. The history of China’s Open Government Information (OGI) initiative shows that the experimentation stage sometimes proceeds well and produces new policy options, but may falter if local leaders are unwilling to carry out an experiment. And the implementation stage often poses challenges, but may improve if the Center initiates new, small-scale experiments and encourages local innovation. This suggests that the experimentation and implementation stages are not so different when officials in Beijing and the localities have diverging interests and the Center is more supportive of a measure than local officials. [R, abr.]
72.3321 KORAC, Velibor —
With the adoption of the new Law on Certification of Signatures, Manuscripts and Transcripts the Montenegrin legislator did not take into account the fact of introducing the notary services into the legal system of Montenegro. Unlike most of the comparative legislations, certification of signatures, transcripts and manuscripts have not been transferred to the exclusive competence of notaries, but a competitive competence of notaries, local administration authorities and the courts in carrying out these assignments has been retained. Further retention of competitive jurisdiction in this matter is not justified any more. The analysis of this decision has shown that it leads to an unequal position, depending on the authority before which the certification is performed, whereas the obligations and professional competences of offic$ials and notaries are different. [R, abr.]
72.3322 LEWIS, Orion A. ; TEETS, Jessica C. ; HASMATH, Reza —
This article argues that policymakers’ individual attributes influence their willingness to engage in policy innovation, and that this influence is responsive to, but not determined by, changes in the institutional structure. We derive these findings by employing principal component analysis of original data from surveys of local policymakers in China, to inductively locate different personalities. We find statistically significant personalities that influence a willingness to innovate, and that this influence is responsive to changes such as heightened risk. In addition to parsing the influence of extrinsic and intrinsic motivations on policy innovation, we further find that the traditional risk-acceptant policy-entrepreneur personality does not explain innovation well. [R]
72.3323 LIZEWSKI, Bartosz ; CZERW, Jarosław —
The basis for the matter discussed herein is the presentation of a new paradigm in modern law, i.e. the creation of hybrid legal institutions. The specificity of this construct consists in the combination of elements of public law and private law in order to achieve mutual benefits. Meeting these two interests is perfectly illustrated by the institution of public-private partnership. The essence of the partnership is the implementation of infrastructural projects in the public sphere by a private entity. A detailed analysis of this institution gives grounds to propose a thesis about the need to change the model of management in local government. The inclusion of private entities in the performance of tasks in the public sphere forces the verification of the traditional way of managing the local government staff. [R, abr.]
72.3324 MARLOWE, Justin —
Budgets and financial statements convey essential information about revenues, expenditures, assets, and liabilities. But perhaps more important, they also convey positivity, negativity, fairness, uncertainty, and other social sentiments. This essay examines what we know, and what we need to know, about how state and local governments communicate financial sentiment. The main conclusion is that they do convey clear financial sentiments through traditional financial reporting methods and through new channels like social media. Moreover, those sentiments shift predictably in response to broader economic trends and policy priorities, and can shape how investors and other stakeholders view a government’s finances. [R, abr.]
72.3325 MOUTSELOS, Michalis ; SCHÖNWÄLDER, Karen —
Participation and representation of disadvantaged groups are important, but partly still understudied aspects of democratic politics. The article looks at the inclusion of migrant representatives in urban governance networks making use of original survey data from 40 large cities in France and Germany. We find that about half of policy-relevant urban actors in both countries and across cities cooperate with migrant associations regularly. This indicates that urban governance networks are furthering the civic and political presence of migrants. Cooperation with migrant associations is more likely when specific representative local institutions (foreigner/integration councils) exist, and is also boosted by the overall density of governance networks in a city. Politicians and local administrators remain central actors in such networks, while social welfare organizations emerge as important interlocutors with migrant associations. [R, abr.]
72.3326 REUTTER, Werner —
This paper examines the contribution of German subnational constitutional courts to the judicialization of politics in the German Länder. This research goal entails three dimensions. First, I have to define and measure judicialization. To accomplish this task, I use an index recently developed by an international group of scholars of comparative politics. Second, based on major theoretical approaches, I identify possible causes that might give reasons for judicialization, namely institutional preconditions and preferences of justices. In a third step, I use a linear regression in order to test the theory empirically and find links between causes and effects of judicial decision-making in subnational constitutional courts. The findings confirm institutionalist approaches that contribute to explaining decision-making in German subnational constitutional courts. [R]
72.3327 ROMERO, Francine S. —
While most US cities have a tree protection policy, the subsequent impact on the reduction of canopy loss is unclear. To rectify this, I utilize a theoretically grounded framework of influence comprised of clear identification of the problem/public support, adequate resources, and sound policy logic. This is then tested in a comparative case study of Charlotte, North Carolina, and San Antonio, Texas. While Charlotte benefits from public recognition of the problem and adequate resources, its regulations are weak, lacking a logical connection to aspirational outcomes. San Antonio’s regulations are stronger, but combined with weaker problem identification and resources. Through quantitative and qualitative assessments, I find that San Antonio’s strict regulations may have stabilized loss rates, while Charlotte’s weaker rules have not. [R, abr.]
72.3328 RUDOLPH, Lukas ; WAGNER, Markus —
Does a large influx of asylum-seekers in the local community lead to a backlash in public opinion towards foreign populations? We assess the effects of asylum-seeker presence using original survey and macro-level municipality data from Austria, exploiting exogenous elements of the placement of asylum seekers on the municipality level. Methodologically, we draw on entropy balancing for causal identification. Our findings are threefold. First, respondents in municipalities receiving asylum-seekers report substantially higher exposure on average, but largely without the stronger contact that would allow for meaningful interaction. Second, hostility towards asylum-seekers on average increased in areas that housed them. Third, this backlash spilt over: general attitudes towards Muslims and immigrants are less favorable in contexts with local asylum-seeker presence, while vote intention for the main anti-immigration party is higher. [R, abr.]
72.3329 RUOHONEN, Janne ; SALMINEN, Lassi ; VAHTERA, Veikko —
Local governments often use corporations for public service output. In Finland, limited liability companies can be used as a means to produce functions that a municipality is required to engage in by law or those functions that are optional for a municipality. This paper explains the current state, regulative background and reasons for corporatisation in Finnish municipalities. We then present a legal analysis of the legal strategies provided in the legislation that a municipality can use to govern and steer its external corporate bodies. Understanding the legal boundaries and possibilities is imperative for extending local self-governance to MOCs, and to align their goals with those of the municipality. [R]
72.3330 SCHOUTE, Martijn ; GRADUS, Raymond ; BUDDING, Tjerk —
This study investigates the influence of service, financial and political characteristics on municipalities’ choices of four service delivery modes in the Dutch local government setting, thereby making a distinction between services in the physical and in the operational domain. It shows that, overall, use of inter-municipal cooperation and, to a lesser extent, municipalityowned firms increased substantially from 2010 to 2018. For use of private firms, we find remarkable differences. Whereas this use increased for the physical domain, it decreased for the operational domain. For both domains, we find that in-house production decreased substantially. We also find that the influence of especially transaction cost characteristics on the likelihood that municipalities choose a certain institutional form differs between 2010 and 2018, as well as between the physical and the operational domain. [R] [See Abstr. 72.3303]
72.3331 ŠEHOVIC, Damir, et al. —
The aim of this paper is to determine the direction and scope of the impact of socio-economic determinants on the fiscal success of Montenegrin municipalities. The research model is conducted in a panel data framework, using traditional methods. The study covers the period 2009-2018. The model considers the correlation of fiscal success in 23 Montenegrin municipalities (from the Northern, Central and Southern regions) with social (number of citizens or population, number of pensioners) and economic (unemployment, taxes, grants, level of public debt) determinants. According to the results of the analysis, almost all determinants have a significant impact on fiscal success. Tax revenues, as a measure of fiscal decentralization, have a statistically significant positive impact on fiscal success, while the unemployment rate, the number of citizens and the number of retired persons have demonstrated a negative impact. [R]
72.3332 TAN Zhao —
This study explores how the Chinese local state uses corruption as an informal institution to elicit compliance from village cadres. While serving as the state’s key agents for governing the countryside, village cadres differ from other state agents in several ways, including that they are democratically elected, they do not have promotion opportunities, and they receive a low official salary. In this context, I argue that the local state has utilized corruption to incentivize and mobilize village cadres to follow its directives. Based on fieldwork conducted in nine villages located in three different provinces, I find that the local state would allow village cadres to engage in corruption as a reward as long as they can accomplish their state tasks. [R, abr.]
72.3333 VOORN, Bart —
A growing literature demonstrates increasing remunicipalization of local public services. Yet, while this literature is becoming extensive, many debates still exist about remunicipalization’s causes. This article reports the findings of a meta-analysis of the remunicipalization literature, focusing on the question: how do country, sector and method effects affect the findings of remunicipalization studies? I include articles on remunicipalization under different terms (‘remunicipalization’, ‘reverse privatization’, ‘insourcing’ and ‘contracting in’), using a large range of methods (case studies, surveys and document analysis) and covering a large period (1995-2019). I find 30 causes of remunicipalization that are considered and found in the literature. Political and pragmatic factors appear to be most frequently considered and found as causes of remunicipalization in the literature; environmental factors are less often considered but seem highly relevant. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 72.3303]
72.3334 WU Yonghong —
The deduction of certain state and local taxes (SALT) from the US federal income tax base provides substantial amounts of indirect federal subsidy to state and local governments and also allows cross-state exportation of deductible state and local taxes. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) limits the SALT deduction and increases standard deduction per filer each year. This study examines the impact of TCJA on the distribution of this indirect federal subsidy and exportation of major state and local taxes. Using individual income tax data from the Internal Revenue Service, this research shows that the law narrows the disparity in states’ receipt of the indirect federal subsidy and reduces the capacity of high-tax states to export their taxes to other states. [R, abr.]
72.3335 XI Chen ; LIU Jingping —
Drawing on an ethnographic study in two counties in Hunan province, this article explores how political brokerage has contributed to political order in China by facilitating contentious and non-contentious bargaining between the government and ordinary people. To account for the changing role of village leaders in rural politics, the article develops a concept of dual brokerage. This concept not only recognizes formal and informal linkages between village leaders and the two principals — the government and the community of villagers — but also underscores the interactivity between the linkages. We contend that despite the tensions between village leaders’ roles as state agents and as village representatives, these two roles in the reform era tend to be mutually beneficial. [R, abr.]