Showing papers on "Legislation published in 2001"

Setting the terms of relief: Explaining state policy choices in the devolution revolution

Abstract: The landmark welfare legislation of 1996 offers students of politics a unique opportunity to pinpoint the determinants of state-level policy choices-a case in which the fifty states responded virtually simultaneously to a single policy mandate. Taking advantage of this opportunity, we investigate the factors that led states to make restrictive policy choices after 1996 and use this analysis to evaluate general -theories of welfare politics. Specifically, we test six types of explanations for why some states responded by adopting 'get-tough" program rules: theories that identify welfare policy as a site of ideological conflict, as an outcome of electoral politics, as a domain of policy innovation, as an instrument of social control, as an outlet for racial resentments, and as an expression of moral values. The results of our ordered and binary logit models suggest that state policies have been shaped by a variety of social and political forces, but especially by the racial composition of families who rely on program benefits. n 1996, the federal government passed legislation that transformed public assistance provision in the United States. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) abolished the federal entitlement to aid that grew out of the Social Security Act of 1935 and reached fruition through legal victories in the 1960s (Mink 1998; Lurie 1997). In its place, the federal government created Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a system of block grants that gives states more freedom to select among policy tools but also imposes a forceful mandate to promote work, reduce welfare usage, and change poor people's behaviors (Albelda and Tilly 1997). In this article, we present a political analysis of the ways states responded to this new policy environment. Specifically, we investigate the factors that shaped state-level policy choices after 1996 and use this analysis as a basis for evaluating general explanations for welfare policy outcomes. Our study builds on a long tradition of quantitative research that has attempted to illuminate state-level politics by asking why states adopt different welfare policies (Howard 1999; Rom 1999; Brace and Jewitt 1995; Peterson and Rom 1990; Plotnick and Winters 1985). The analysis presented here, however, departs from prior work in two important respects. First, most state-level research has sought to explain interstate differences in benefit levels and spending patterns (Howard 1999, 424-425;

The sustainability debate

Abstract: This paper serves as an introduction to this special issue of the journal on the topic of sustainability. It commences with definitions of sustainability, followed by a description of the roles played by governments and corporations as developers of standards and legislation, and investors in products and processes, respectively. The paper then goes on to discuss the company capacities required to achieve sustainability, paying particular attention to operations management capabilities and the management of human resources. The discussion of these topics is related to the content of the other papers subsequently presented in this special issue, and the paper concludes with suggestions for further research.

The Myth of the Dichotomy: Complementarity of Politics and Administration in the Past and Future of Public Administration

Abstract: At the heart of the practice of public administration is the relationship between administrators, on one hand, and political leaders and the public on the other hand. The nature of that relationship and the proper role of administrators in the political process have been the subject of considerable debate. Anxiety about administrative legitimacy has been particularly intense in the United States, where the rise of the administrative state was out of synch with a democratic society (Stillman 1997), but similar issues have arisen in other countries as well (Rutgers 1997). As the field emerged, it was important to differentiate a practice based on professional knowledge and values from political particularism, but the extent and scope of the differentiation were unclear. It was also necessary to reconcile the tensions among complying with the directions of elected officials, maintaining professional integrity, and serving the public. Observers differ as to whether American thinking about the relationship of public administration to society has experienced major shifts over time or has gradually evolved. Along the lines developed by Lynn, the case can be made that there has generally been continuity in the development of public administration in the United States rather than an abandonment of the traditions of the field. Whereas Lynn organizes his reexamination around the bureaucratic paradigm, my emphasis is the core relationship between politicians and administrators.(1) Not only did traditional thought, as Lynn observes, seek to maintain "balance between administrative capacity and popular control on behalf of public purposes defined by electoral and judicial institutions," it also sought to justify the contributions of public administrators to shaping the definition of public purposes. Put simply, early contributors to the development of public administration acknowledged a policy role for administrators that has often been ignored. Even the politics-administration dichotomy that is a part of the traditional paradigm usually incorporates the ideas of accountability and responsibility--although the paradigm can be expressed in ways that seem to preclude these qualities by portraying administration as mechanically instrumental--but the emphasis on a strict dichotomy of politics and administration will not accommodate the policy role of administrators that has come to be widely recognized. In the past--and, I would argue, in the present as well--there was simultaneous emphasis on separation and insulation of administrators from political interference, on one hand, and interaction and incorporation of administrative contributions in the design and the implementation of public policy, on the other hand. Wilson and Goodnow favored such contributions, as did Leonard White, who acknowledged but dismissed concerns about the growth of administration "controlling in the first instance the application of law to the individual case, cooperating also in the formulation of policy" (1926, 33). Although legislative control of administration is critical, he argued, "it is nevertheless important to remember that the administration cooperates indispensably with the legislature, and that without its assistance, the task of legislation would become much less informed and much less effective." These founding fathers of the field never advocated the dichotomy attributed to them--a conclusion demonstrated repeatedly (Golembiewski 1977; Rabin and Bowman 1984, 4; Rohr 1986, 31; Van Riper 1984, 209-10).(2) Still, the myth that public administration began as a narrow, confined, and insulated activity is regularly repeated partly because, as Lynn implies, it is self-satisfying to view ourselves as enlightened and to view earlier, particularly prewar scholars and practitioners, as benighted. There are a number of reasons why the dichotomy idea has persisted. It is convenient to explain the division of roles in terms of total separation because it is easier to explain than a model based on sharing roles, particularly since the separation model does not limit the actual policy contributions of administrators in practice. …

Workplace Bullying: What we know, who is to blame and what can we do?

Abstract: Workplace bullying is an area that has attracted significant press attention throughout the last decade. A variety of well publicized surveys have revealed that this is an issue endemic in working life in Britain; and, at a conservative estimate, over half the working population can expect to experience bullying at work (either directly by being bullied, or through witnessing it) at some stage in their careers. This is now seen to be a disturbing event, with something like a fifth of witnesses and a quarter of direct targets leaving their organizations.This serious damage to individuals has been accorded little direct research in Britain, although it has resulted in court cases brought under health and safety and equal opportunities legislation. The recognition of the problem and the emergence of court cases, have both served to focus employers on the need to deal with the issue. The recent strike vote at Ford in Dagenham, asking the employer to enforce existing anti-harassment policies, highlights the fact that having paper policies is not enough. Workplace Bullying is derived from the largest survey ever carried out on workplace bullying, supported by the CBI, TUC, Federation of Small Businesses, IPD, and the HSE among others. This study covered 5,500 people, but the book goes beyond it to explore all the issues associated with what is becoming a major issue in organizations.

Education in a Post-Welfare Society

Abstract: This is the second edition of "Education in a Post-Welfare Society" (first published in 2001) which provided a critical overview of education policy since 1945 - a period during which governments in the UK, particularly in England, moved from creating and sustaining a welfare state to promoting a post-welfare society dominated by private enterprise and competitive markets The first edition took readers through a descriptive review of Acts, reports and events in education 1945-2000, placing in context the avalanche of legislation and initiatives that have "reformed" education into a competitive enterprise in which young people "learn to compete" locally, nationally and globallyThis edition continues the policy story up to 2005, and covers two terms of a New Labour government and their plans for a third term It also continues an examination of the relationship of education policy to social class, race, gender and the economy The book continues to demonstrate how a relatively decentralised education system became a system in which funding, teaching and curriculum are centrally controlled, and privatisation encouraged, with education being narrowed to an economic function, becoming a prop for global market economy rather than a pillar of welfare stateChronologies of education acts, reports and initiatives are provided at the beginning of the first seven chapters, major legislation is summarised and suggestions for further reading made Chapters on the middle classes and education, the relationship of policy to race, gender and disability, and education and the economy follow The book is an invaluable resource for all those concerned with social policy and education, including educational researchers, professionals and politicians

Non-compliance in the European Union: pathology or statistical artefact?

Abstract: Does the European Union have a compliance problem? This article argues that we have simply no evidence that the EU suffers from a serious compliance deficit which is claimed by the European Commission and academics alike. First, there are no data that measure the actual level of non-compliance in the EU member states. Second, the statistics published by the European Commission, which allow us to compare non-compliance between the different member states, are often not properly interpreted. If we control for changes in the Commission's enforcement strategy, on the one hand, and the rising items of legislation to be complied with as well as member states that have to comply, on the other hand, the level of non-compliance in the EU has not significantly increased over time. Moreover, non-compliance varies significantly and is focused on four particular member states that account for up to two-thirds of all violations of Community law.

The Role of Constitutional Courts in the Establishment and Maintenance of Democratic Systems of Government

Abstract: What role do courts play in the establishment and maintenance of constitutional democracies? To address this question, we elaborate a model that draws on existing substantive literature and on theories that assume strategic behavior on the part of judges, executives, and legislatures. This model, in turn, leads to several behavioral predictions about the interactions among the relevant political actors. Although those predictions could be assessed in many distinct contexts, we focus on Russia. In particular, we provide a demonstration of how the model helps make sense of the behavior of the Constitutional Court (Konstitucjonnyj sud) in light of the difficult political situation it confronted. We conclude with some thoughts on the broader implications of our theory for the study of courts throughout Eastern Europe and how it may well illuminate constitutional politics in other parts of the world. Before World War II, few European States had constitutional courts, and virtually none exercised any significant judicial review over legislation. After 1945 all that changed. West Germany, Italy, Austria, Cyprus, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Greece, Spain, Portugal and even France . . created tribunals with power to annul legislative enactments inconsistent with constitutional requirements. Many of these courts have become significant-even powerful-actors. -Herman Schwartz (1992:741) European constitutional courts have created situations in which legislators feel obliged to enter into constitutional discourse, both an internal discourse and a discourse with the court, to make and to take seriously constitutional arguments, and to cast and recast statutory language in the light of potential constitutional objections. -Martin Shapiro & Alec Stone (1994b:417) [T]here is an expansion of judicial power afoot in the world's political systems. -C. Neal Tate (1995:27) Today, at the end of the twentieth century, it is scarcely possible to recount, much less understand, the major political and social developments in industrial societies without attention to legal norms, courts and judges. -Sally J. Kenney, William A Reisinger & John C. Reitz (1999:1) These quotes, from legal academics and social scientists alike, are just the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, for more than a decade now, the community of law and society scholars has acknowledged the "active role" courts are playing "in ensuring the supremacy of constitutional principles" (Henckaerts & Van der Jeught 1998) and in democratization efforts throughout the world, but especially in Eastern Europe. This expansion of judicial power-or what some term the "judicialization of politics" (Tate & Vallinder 1995a) raises whole sets of intriguing questions, and unanswered questions at that.1 For, despite an acknowledgment of their importance, we "know precious little," as Gibson et al. (1998) recently lamented, "about the judicial and legal systems in countries outside the United States. We understand little or nothing about the degree to which various judiciaries are politicized; how judges make decisions; how, whether, and to what extent those decisions are implemented; how ordinary citizens influence courts, if at all; or what effect courts have on institutions and cultures" (p. 343). Certainly no single research endeavor can fill all the voids Gibson and his colleagues identify. What we do instead is tackle one question, albeit one that is of core concern to the Gibson team, as well as to many others laboring in this field: What role do constitutional courts play in the establishment and maintenance of democracies? For judicial specialists, this question is of obvious significance, having served as a focal point for studies on the U.S. Supreme Court for over four decades (Casper 1976; Dahl 1957; Gates 1992; Rosenberg 1991). But there are at least two other groups for which our question might resonate. …

Legislatures and statutory control of bureaucracy

Abstract: Existing theories of legislative delegation to bureaucracies typically focus on a single legislature, often the U.S. Congress. We argue that this parochial focus has important limitations. If one contends that politicians respond rationally to their political environment when adopting strategies for controlling bureaucrats, then theories of control should be able to explain how differences in the political environment-and in particular in the democratic institutional arrangements that shape this environment-influence strategies for controlling bureaucrats. We offer such a theory about the conditions under which legislatures should rely on statutory control (i.e., detailed legislation) in order to limit the discretion of agencies. The theory focuses on the interactions of four factors: conflict between legislators and bureaucrats, the bargaining costs associated with choosing the institutions for controlling bureaucrats, the professional capacity of legislators to create institutions for control, and the impact of political institutions on the relative costs and benefits of statutory and nonstatutory strategies of control. We test our argument using legislation from 1995 and 1996 that affects Medicaid programs. The results show that legislatures are more likely to make use of statutory controls when control of government is divided between the two parties, the two chambers of the legislature are unified in their opposition to the executive, the legislature is more professionalized, and the legislature does not have easily available options for nonstatutory control. ureaucratic involvement in policymaking is a pervasive condition of modern political life. Bureaucracies implement policies that legislatures have enacted, and they create policies where legislatures have avoided doing so. They can act to regulate industries, to distribute benefits and costs, and to redistribute wealth. They tackle policy areas as disparate as telecommunications, the environment, transportation, and public health. Given the pervasiveness of bureaucratic activity, it is not surprising that political scientists long have sought to understand the relationship between legislatures and agencies. Understanding this relationship is essential to democratic theory, as it focuses attention on the legitimacy of the role played by unelected policymakers in a representative democracy. Furthermore, it sheds light on the actions, abilities, and motivations of legislators. Thus, scholars have attempted to ascertain whether, to what extent, and under what conditions legislators influence the actions of agencies. Much of the focus of this research has been on the U.S. Congress, and much of the debate has centered on the question of whether in fact Congress controls the bureaucracy. This is a difficult question to answer, as it requires fairly precise information on legislator preferences and agency outputs. But while settling the empirical issue has been difficult, in addressing this question scholars have clarified several strategies for control, including the use of budget processes (e.g., Banks 1989; Bendor, Taylor, and Van Gaalen 1987), ongoing oversight (e.g., Aberbach 1990), and statutory control, whereby legislators use legislation to influence agency decisions.

A Conversation with Secretary Tommy Thompson: In February, Tommy G. Thompson Stepped Down as Governor of Wisconsin to Serve as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

Abstract: "I took this job because there is no other job in America where you have a greater opportunity to help people--to actually make a difference in people's lives and improve the quality of life they lead," Thompson told HHS employees after his swearing-in. Secretary Thompson has dedicated his professional life to public service, most recently serving as governor of Wisconsin since 1987. He made state history when he was reelected to office for a third term in 1994 and a fourth term in 1998. During his 14 years as governor, Thompson focused on revitalizing Wisconsin's economy. He also gained national attention for his leadership in education and expanded access to health care for low-income residents. Most notably, in 1996 Thompson enacted Wisconsin Works, the state's landmark welfare-to-work legislation, which served as a national model for welfare reform. The program required participants to work and, at the same time, provided services and support to participants to enable them to make the transition to work. As secretary of HHS, Thompson leads the federal government's largest department. With a fiscal year 2001 budget of $429 billion, HHS has the largest budget among cabinet-level departments, representing 23 percent of federal outlays. HHS provides a wide array of services to Americans, including medical and social science research, food and drug safety, Medicaid and Medicare, financial assistance for low-income families, prevention of child abuse and domestic violence, and comprehensive health services for Native Americans. POLICY & PRACTICE recently talked with Secretary Thompson about his views on the public human services. PP * strengthen and modernize Medicare, and include a prescription drug benefit; * reauthorize welfare reform legislation to bring even more people into the job market, while strengthening family structures; * improve foster care and adoption programs to ensure every child has the opportunity to succeed; * enhance the groundbreaking research being done at the National Institutes of Health; * place a new emphasis on preventive care to improve people's lives and save billions in health care dollars; and * create an aggressive program to encourage organ donation and transplants. P&P: Some observers believe you'll be a powerful voice in the Bush Administration for further loosening the reins on states. They offer as evidence the way in which you've approved state Medicaid waivers at warp speed. Can you share your views on that assumption? Thompson: President Bush and I both served as governors, and he is a strong advocate of letting states try new approaches toward providing services to their citizens. It is with the president's full support that Health and Human Services has approved state waivers and amendments for Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). We recently cleared up a backlog of more than 400 such requests and, with the states, extended expanded eligibility to more than 1.4 million people and enhanced benefits for about 3.5 million people. P&P: In July, HCFA (the Health Care Financing Administration) was revamped and is now known as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, with three new business centers to better serve people's health care needs. …

Information and Judicial Review: A Signaling Game of Legislative-Judicial Interaction

Abstract: This article develops a simple signaling game in which a Legislature and a Court interact in seeking their own policy goals. The Legislature faces two sources of uncertainty when legislating. First, it knows only probabilistically whether the Court's preferences converge or diverge from its own on the proposed law. Second, its knows only probabilistically the true state of the world and, hence, does not know with certainty whether the law will reasonably achieve its intended outcome if enacted. For institutional and sequential reasons, the Court has more information regarding the actual consequences of an enacted law than the Legislature did when initially considering it. As a result, the Court's exercise of the judicial veto may (but not necessarily will) be informationally productive. The possibility of informative judicial review affects the quantity and informational quality of legislation enacted by the Legislature relative to legislation that would be enacted in the absence of judicial review. Further, an informational component to judicial review alters the incentive that the Court has to act strategically relative to incentives for strategic behavior in purely distributive models of legislative-judicial interaction. Finally, because of the possibility of informative judicial review, the model accounts endogenously for the creation and maintenance of an independent judiciary by a Legislature that solelyvalues achieving its preferred policy outcomes. a A Then considering a proposed bill, legislators face uncertainty regarding the outcome they want the bill to achieve and the outcome that the law actually will have when implemented and enforced (Krehbiel 1991, 62). Legislative decision making thus requires prediction as legislators look forward to anticipate the impact a proposal might have if enacted. In contrast, judicial policy-makers tend to be more backward looking. They review laws in light of their realized consequences. This difference critically distinguishes the informational context of legislative decisions from the informational context of judicial decisions. As Felix Frankfurter noted, "In the availability of facts which underlie litigation, there is a wide gulf between opinions in advance of legislation ... and decisions in litigation after such proposals are embodied into law or carried into execution" (1930, 478). As a result, in "the crucial cases," differing judgments of legislature and court over policy "resolve ... not really to a difference about law, but to differences in knowledge of relevant facts and inferences drawn from such facts" (Frankfurter 1924, 1004). Yet the judiciary's distinctive informational role in the policy process and how it influences judicial and legislative behavior has attracted little systematic attention from political scholars.' This article builds upon earlier preference-based models of legislative-judicial interaction by recognizing the informational component of judicial review and incorporating it in a game-theoretic model along with the assumption that the Court is a policy-motivated actor.2 Adding an infor-

Communities and the environment : ethnicity, gender, and the state in community-based conservation

Abstract: For years environmentalists thought natural resources could be best protected by national legislation. But the poor outcomes of this top-down policy have led conservation professionals today to regard local communities as the agents of conservation efforts. According to a recent survey, more than fifty countries report that they pursue partnerships with local communities in an effort to protect their forests. Despite the recent popularity of a community-based approach, the concept of community rarely receives the attention it should get from those concerned with resource management. This balanced volume redresses the situation, demonstrating both the promise and the potential dangers of community action. Although the contributors advocate community-based conservation, they examine the record with a critical eye. They pay attention to the concrete political contexts in which communities emerge and operate. Understanding the nature of community requires understanding the internal politics of local regions and their relationship to external forces and actors. Especially critical are issues related to ethnicity, gender, and the state."

Corporate governance in New Zealand: The effect of the 1993 Companies Act on the relation between board composition and firm performance

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to explore the efficacy of monitoring by the board of directors, and especially independent outside directors, in New Zealand. The Companies and Financial Reporting Acts of 1993 provide a unique opportunity to examine if legislation directly designed to increase the fiduciary responsibility of the board had a discernible impact on the relationship between independent outside board representation and firm performance. We find that the effects of the Companies Act and related legislation are relatively benign in so far as influencing the relationship between firm performance and outside board representation is concerned. The legislation did not seem to enhance or weaken the positive relationship between outside board representation and firm performance.

Issue Unbundling via Citizens' initiatives

Abstract: The role of citizens' intitiatives figures prominantly in contemporary debates on constitutional change. A basic question is why are initiatives necessary in a representative democracy where candidates must already compete for the right to control policy? This Paper offers one answer to this question. In a representative democracy, the bundling of issues, together with the fact that citizens have only one vote, means that policy outcomes on specific issues may diverge far from what the majority of citizens want. In such circumstances, allowing citizens to put legislation directly on the ballot permits the 'unbundling' of these issues, which forces a closer relationship between policy outcomes and popular preferences. To the extent that it is condsidered socially undesirable for outcomes on specific issues to stray too far from what the majority wants, this creates a role for citizens initiatives.

International coordination of trade and domestic policies

Abstract: The past half century has seen a dramatic multilateral reduction in tariff barriers under General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations. However, as tariff barriers have fallen, attention has shifted to the use of domestic policies as secondary trade barriers. A primary concern is that, as countries sign trade agreements that constrain their ability to pursue trade goals through trade policy, there will be unilateral incentives for governments to distort their domestic policies as a secondary means of protection.1 Increasingly, international trade disputes revolve around a country's use of internal regulations as a means of restricting trade. The United States has successfully challenged the system of liquor taxes in both Japan and Korea as discriminating against imported liquor, while Venezuela and Brazil have challenged American standards for reformulated and conventional gasoline as trade protection masquerading as environmentalism. GATT contains several articles concerning the international regulation of domestic policies, but the question of how to fully incorporate domestic policies within GATT negotiations (and other international trade agreements) remains contentious. Indeed, at both the Ministerial Meeting in 1994 (at the close of the Uruguay round) and the recent unsuccessful Ministerial Conference in Seattle, many GATT delegates renewed demands for the relationship between trade and various domestic policies (e.g., environmental policy, labor standards, or competition policy) to be examined. Despite the importance that has recently been placed on international cooperation over domestic policies, no theoretical basis exists for considering how to cooperate over both trade and domestic policies within an international agreement. Previous papers on negotiation over two instruments of protection (e.g., Copeland, 1989, 1990; Thomas L. Hungerford, 1991) have assumed asymmetric limitations on cooperation (i.e., they assume that one of the two instruments is either nonobservable or nonnegotiable). This paper extends such work by investigating cooperation over two negotiable instruments of protection under symmetric limitations on cooperation, and provides insight into the design of international trade agreements that incorporate cooperation over domestic policies. I adopt the view that enforcement issues are central to the understanding of international cooperation. One of the challenges of international cooperation is the absence of a central authority to enforce the terms of an agreement. Without access to an external enforcement mechanism, international agreements are viable only as long as member countries view continued cooperation to be in their own self-interest (i.e., the benefits from cooperating outweigh the potential gains from cheating).2 While the GATT/ * Department of Economics, University of Miami, P.O. Box 248126, Coral Gables, FL 33124 (e-mail: ederington@miami.edu). I would like to thank Bob Staiger, Bob Baldwin, Wolfgang Keller, Phillip McCalman, Jenny Minier, seminar participants at the NBER Conference on Trade, the Environment and Natural Resources, and two anonymous referees for comments on earlier versions of this paper. Any remaining errors are, of course, my own. ' For example, Brian R. Copeland (1990) examined negotiation over one trade barrier, leaving a secondary trade barrier (e.g., nontariff barriers, domestic legislation, etc.) to be set noncooperatively. He shows that trade liberalization will induce substitution toward the less efficient, nonnegotiable instrument of protection due to the unilateral incentives to maintain trade protection facing countries. Thus, within a cooperative framework, the two types of barriers serve as imperfect substitutes for each other. 2 As stated by Kenneth W. Dam in his review of the GATT institution: "The best guarantee that a commitment of any kind will be kept (particularly in an international setting where courts are of limited importance and, even more important, marshals and jails are nonexistent) is that the parties continue to view adherence to their agreement in their mutual interest ... Thus, the GATT system, unlike most legal systems ... , is not designed to exclude self-help in the form of retaliation. Rather, retaliation, subjected to established procedures and kept within prescribed bounds, is made the heart of the GATT system" (Dam, 1970 pp. 80-81).

Internal Improvement: National Public Works and the Promise of Popular Government in the Early United States

Abstract: Internal Improvement: National Public Works and the Promise of Popular Government in the Early United States. By John Lauritz Larson. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Illustrations, maps. Pp. xv, 324. Cloth, $55.00; paper, $19.95.) This engaging, gracefully written, and provocative study of internal improvement in antebellum America begins with George Washington and ends, oddly enough, with Jay Gould. These starkly contrasting individuals serve, in effect, as John Lauritz Larson's alpha and omega in a public works story that reads much like a morality play. Washington is, of course, the quintessential representative of American republicanism of the late eighteenth century and a proponent of the positive use of government power for internal improvement. Railroad tycoon Gould, on the other hand, is the "most notorious Wall Street scoundrel" (261) of the late nineteenth century. He represents, in Larson's view, a sinister figure-namely, the entrepreneurial revolutionary-who disturbed Eden. Gould, and others who preceded him, epitomize the triumph of laissez faire. They were the "agents of industrial capitalism" who captured "the promise of American republicanism" (7). In so doing, these men adversely altered the ideological and economic environment of America while enhancing its physical landscape. Larson begins his appealing narrative with the 1790s, a time when the "monied gentry" (chap. 1) promoted various plans for public works. Led by George Washington, most of these men focused upon navigational improvements, but few of them shared the president's grander vision. The failures and disappointments that marked many of these early projects fostered a jaded popular view, causing some citizens to denounce internal improvements "as the games of visionary gentlemen, thieves, and selfappointed engineers" (36). Despite such attitudes, Congress eagerly embraced coastal navigation projects-without any apparent constitutional scruples. Congress also launched and resolved a debate about its role regarding postal routes and roads. During Jefferson's presidency there was renewed interest at the national level in internal improvements. Indeed, the president realized that some of his followers were much more willing than he to support federally-funded projects. Yet as the nation's finances improved, Jefferson himself became more enthusiastic about such proposals. Not surprisingly, however, he favored the enactment of a constitutional amendment that would clarify the proper role of the central government. In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, there were, according to Larson, two highlights in the improvements story. One occurred in 1817, in the waning days of the Madison administration, with the passage of the Bonus Bill, thought to be the entering wedge for a vigorous national program. But the president, who disliked aspects of the bill, threw extremely cold water on any hopeful aspirations by vetoing it. The second breakthrough came seven years later, in 1824, during the Monroe presidency, when Congress adopted the General Survey Bill. Monroe's administration had been marked by a thorough debate about national public works but had been marred by the Panic of 1819. The president, an advocate of internal improvement, favored a constitutional amendment but nonetheless signed the Survey Bill. With some exaggeration, Larson labels the bill "the central piece of legislation in the national campaign for a system of internal improvements" (139). According to Larson, one of the consequences of the Bonus Bill veto was to shift the burden of internal improvements to the states and private enterprises. …

Contextualizing Sex Offender Management Legislation and Policy: Evaluating the Problem of Latent Consequences in Community Notification Laws:

Abstract: Sexual victimization has become one of the most publicized and researched social problems in society. However, potential linkages between the intended and unintended effects of sex offender management legislation have gone largely unaddressed in social science literature. This article addresses these linkages by applying a social-systems model to help better understand the problems of managing sex offenders. Additionally, latent consequences of current and proposed sex offender legislation, including community notification laws, are examined. It is argued that sex offenders (and the community at large) may face a considerable variety of problems not intended by such legislation. In addition, we examine the “one-dimensional monster” stereotype of a sex offender and how this ostracism may discourage offenders from reporting their behavior and seeking counseling. Finally, we provide proposals for addressing these issues with the use of the therapeutic jurisprudence model.

European Union Law

Abstract: The European Union is the result of a unique attempt at international integration. While other integration movements have always relied on a continuous political affirmation of integration by the participating states, the European Union is characterized by a transfer of sovereign rights of legislation, execution, and adjudication to central institutions. At the same time, the Treaty of Rome has introduced the legal framework of a common market, providing for individual rights and obligations of citizens in the whole Union. This article sets out the basic legal structures of the Union and the Common Market, the types of legal instruments and their essential effects, and the efforts undertaken to harmonize national legal systems.

Divided Government, Interest Representation, and Policy Differences: Competing Explanations of Gridlock in the Fifty States

Abstract: Recent research has focused on divided government and interest representation as sources of legislative gridlock. We hypothesize that these two factors will differentially affect the legislative process in eight different policy areas even if they do not affect the overall output of legislation. Using data from the 50 states, we found that when a governor faced a legislature controlled by the opposition party, divided government did make passage of conflictual policy more difficult, When the control of the legislature itself was split, divided government had a positive (or insignificant) effect in less conflictual policy areas. Previous scholars have failed to detect the negative effects of divided government because the effects differed across policy areas. Interest group proliferation also decreased the odds of bill passage in some policy areas but increased the odds in other arenas. It is important to examine interest groups and divided government in tandem to understand their relative impacts upon the...

Lessons for the Future of Affirmative Action from the Past of the Religion Clauses

Abstract: For both educational affirmative action and the use of race in districting, this essay pursues parallels with the Supreme Court's religion clause jurisprudence in aid of the argument that the approach mapped out by the Powell opinion in Bakke, the Michigan District Court in Gratz, and the Supreme Court dissenters in the Shaw v. Reno line of voting rights cases makes more sense as a part of our constitutional law than the sort of categorical opposition to the use of race in anything other than a strictly remedial context that is rapidly becoming its chief competition. My contention is that the Supreme Court's attitude toward race, at least in the two contexts of educational affirmative action and voting rights, should follow the same trajectory as its attitude toward religion already has. The trajectory I have in mind is the following: For a period of time, on Establishment Clause grounds, the exclusion of religion and the religious from otherwise generally available opportunities was endorsed, indeed was seen as constitutionally required. Then the Court came to realize that it worked a discrimination against those whose central organizing characteristic or salient trait was their religion to allow other such characteristics, but not religion, to form the basis for inclusion. Similarly, to allow every other basis for commonality or salience to count and not race may be seen to disadvantage those for whom race is a defining characteristic in a way that itself implicates the Equal Protection Clause. To put the argument in extremely compressed and referential form, if colorblindness is analogous to aggressive enforcement of the Establishment Clause, then, while the University of California's use of race in the plan struck down in Bakke may resemble the New York legislature's use of religion in the districting legislation struck down in Kiryas Joel, the inclusion of race in the Harvard admissions plan praised by Justice Powell more closely resembles the inclusion of religion mandated by the Supreme Court for the University of Virginia's funding scheme in Rosenberger. And, if the affirmative action claims of racial minorities are like the accommodation claims of religious minorities, then, while some voluntary pursuit of racial diversity by public educational institutions is like permissible accommodation, some majority minority districting under the Voting Rights Act is like required accommodation.

Delegating Powers in the European Community

Abstract: The theory of delegation developed by Epstein and O'Halloran for the US federal system is used here to generate original hypotheses on the politics of delegation in the European Community (EC). It is argued that two institutional features of the Community, namely the decision rules of the Council of Ministers and the possibility of relying on both the Commission and the member states for policy implementation are at the core of the choices of delegation of EC legislators. Using an original dataset of 158 major EC legislative acts, it is demonstrated that the Council delegates greater policy authority to national institutions if legislation is adopted unanimously or in issue areas that require specialized and technical knowledge, while it relies to a greater extent on the Commission when acts are adopted by qualified majority voting or require general managerial skills at the supranational level.Results also show that national administrators are the main providers of policy expertise, while the informational role of the Commission appears to be secondary, though not negligible. Finally, these findings qualify propositions on the relation between veto players and bureaucratic autonomy and on that between conflict within the legislature and delegation outcomes.

Assessing the value of law in transition economies

Abstract: Does law play a role in the economies that are moving from Soviet-style socialism to market capitalism? The essays in this book examine that question, providing a vivid picture of how the new institutions of capitalism affect the lives of business people, legal practitioners, investors, and bureaucrats They analyze the determinants of successful institutional reform, suggesting that law can influence economic behavior even in inhospitable environmentsContributors--including economists, political scientists, and legal and business scholars--examine the pathways through which legal and institutional reforms affect behavior and identify the circumstances under which such reforms add value They ask: What are the microeconomic mechanisms by which law contributes to the activities of economic agents? How do the characteristics of economic agents affect their ability to use the law? Which spheres of the economy are most affected by institutional reforms and where does law fail? What are the preconditions for effective legal and institutional reforms? Which types of political processes produce a workable system of economic legislation? The focus throughout is on the analysis of the individual economic agent who is subject to the new institutions, and thus the decisions of the individual actor, the shopkeeper, the lawyer, the court, the legislator-politician, the enterprise, the bureaucrat, the regulatory authority, and the outside investorThere are lessons on research methodology, on the economic role of institutions, and on the practice of institutional development The focus is on the transition economies, but the conclusions and methodologies are pertinent when understanding the role of law in any context The book will be important reading for scholars and practitioners with a wide range of interests and in a wide range of disciplines and of interest to all those concerned with economic, legal, and institutional development, economists, political scientists, lawyers, and development specialists alikePeter Murrell is Professor of Economics, University of Maryland, College Park

The Enactment of State-Level Hate Crime Law in the United States: Intrastate and Interstate Factors:

Abstract: We examine the processes by which states pass hate crime laws. We argue that states' decisions to enact such legislation are influenced by both state characteristics and the monitoring of the actio...

Up In Smoke: From Legislation To Litigation In Tobacco Politics

Abstract: In a landmark report by the U.S. Surgeon General in 1964, the government warned its citizens of the adverse effects of smoking on their health and took a series of steps to discourage smoking. These steps stemmed from ordinary politic that is, actions taken or authorized by legislatures. 1994 heralded a new era in tobacco politics: of adversarial legalism, wherein state attorneys general sued leading cigarette manufacturers for the harm they had done to public health. These law-suits culminated in the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) that directed an estimated $250 billion to state governments over the next 25 years and imposed new marketing and advertising restrictions. In her second edition, Martha Derthick introduces new evidence from 5 years of experience under the MSA to show that the states were more interested in raising revenue than in improving tobacco control, that the enrichment of wealthy tort lawyers violated the legal profession's ethics, and that the agreement, ironically, spawned the rise of small, upstart cigarette manufacturers able to undersell the major companies. In this clearly written, fast-paced case study, Derthick concludes that the tobacco lawsuits not only produced flawed public policy that flouted the American system of checks and balances, but has done little to improve or better safeguard public health.

Turning the Legislative Thumbscrew: Minority Rights and Procedural Change in Legislative Politics

Abstract: The use of filibusters in the U.S. Senate by small numbers of members to prevent legislative action apparently desired by a majority of the members--as evidenced by the battles over civil rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s--is legendary. Similar situations have existed in other legislative bodies over time. The fear that they will at some time be in the minority has inhibited actions by the majority groups to control the right of minority groups to block legislative action. And yet from time to time the majority in a legislative body has forced a change in the rules to control the rights of the minority. When does the majority seek to limit minority rights to obstruct legislation? Douglas Dion, in a unique study, develops a formal model to set out the conditions under which majorities will limit minority rights. He finds that when majorities are small, they will be more cohesive. This majority cohesion leads to minority obstruction, which in turn leads to majority efforts to force procedural change to control the ability of the minority to obstruct legislation. Dion then tests his findings in a rich consideration of historical cases from the nineteenth-century U.S. House of Representatives, the nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. Senate, the British House of Commons, and an account of the Austro-Hungarian Parliament written by Mark Twain."Turning the Legislative Thumbscrew" is a work that combines formal analysis with extensive historical evidence to address an important problem in democratic theory. Specialists in legislative politics and American political development, as well as those more broadly interested in the relationship between democratic theory and institutional structure, will find the work of great interest.Douglas Dion is Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan.

College Students' Credit Card Debt and the Role of Parental Involvement: Implications for Public Policy

Abstract: Federal legislation has been proposed that would require parents/guardians to act as co-obligors on college students’ credit card applications. This study supports the assumptions underlying the proposed legislation, suggesting that students whose parents are involved in their acquisition of credit cards have significantly lower credit card balances than do students with no parental involvement.

Natural Hazard Mitigation: Recasting Disaster Policy and Planning

Abstract: Natural Hazard Mitigation: Recasting Disaster Policy and Planning, D. R. Godschalk, T. Beatley, P. Berke, D. J. Brower, E. J. Kaiser, C. C. Bohl and R. M. Goebel, Washington, DC, Island Press, 1999, xvi + 575 pp., US$45.00Some of the most vociferous critics of proactive measures to tackle global warming are based in the United States of America. Interestingly, the east coast of America is one of the areas most susceptible to the combined impact of post ice age coastal submergence, and the effects of global warming: rising sea levels and greater volatility of weather systems. When this is compounded by moral hazard from legislation guaranteeing flood damage insurance to purchasers of developments in coastal flood zones, it falls to planners to rescue some form of sensible strategic purpose in addressing such threats.Godschalk et al., planners from the universities of North Carolina and Virginia, demonstrate the important contribution the profession can make to a subject area which has traditionally been driven by pre-event civil engineering and post-event emergency relief considerations. They focus in Natural Hazard Mitigation on the 1988 Stafford Act which sets the basis for providing federal assistance following a presidential declaration of disaster. This Act attempts to tie a greater part of the federal aid disbursed through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) into state and municipal preevent natural hazard mitigation, rewarding the communities which show foresight in anticipating and taking steps to ameliorate such risks.Between the enactment of this legislation and May 1996, when their research was completed, 295 presidential declarations of disaster were made resulting in disaster relief expenditures of more than $12.6 billion. Over 80 per cent of this funding was directed towards natural events: hurricanes, coastal storms, riverine flooding and earthquakes. Federal funding often provides the bulk of assistance following a disaster, so making grants conditional on prior plans for hazard mitigation should help enforce congressional desires for anticipatory action in this field to lessen the rising burden of property losses. However, the research reporter here suggests that progress in this respect has been slow.The current expert consensus with regard to natural hazards has moved a long way from the belief that these are simply acts of God. Human actions are important in determining the vulnerability of social groups to natural hazards and anticipatory mitigation strategies can be both costeffective and provide the optimal long-term pathway for sustainable development. Two types of mitigation are advocated: structural, which involves hardening of facilities; and non-structural, which uses land use planning and regulatory controls to direct new development away from known hazardous locations. The latter embraces the maintenance of the natural environment by protecting features such as sand dimes, wetlands and forested and vegetated areas along with other ecological elements that absorb and reduce the impact of natural hazards on a community. …

Citizen Participation in Planning: Climbing a Ladder?

Abstract: Certain levels of public access in the process of the statutory land-use planning have been part of Czech planning legislation since the 1970s, but actual citizen participation has become an issue in practice only during the last decade. Currently citizens have a say but their involvement seldom exceeds mere opposition towards active involvement. Their attempts to be heard in the decision-making process is perceived as a nuisance by developers and some local governments as well. Except for the opponents of specific project proposals, most people feel that involvement in the planning process is futile, having little comprehension of how urban and regional planning may actually influence their lives, their property and their local environment. The paper analyses the effects of the pre-1989 powerlessness on the recent changes in the planning process and it reviews the research and opinions of several scholars in this field. The formal planning process, which deals mostly with land use, is often felt to be to...

The Socio-spatial Construction of (In)accessible Public Toilets

Abstract: Summary. This paper examines the rights of disabled people to access public spaces in Western societies through an analysis of the provision of accessible public toilets in Ireland. Providing a critical analysis around the themes of social justice and citizenship, the investigation is based on an examination of present-day planning legislation, interviews conducted with 35 disabled people—19 in the Republic of Ireland and 16 in Northern Ireland—and a case study of one particular town, Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland. These data reveal that in Ireland and the UK, planning legislation is weak and often not enforced. Accessible public toilets are few and far between; those that do exist are often poorly designed; and, this lack of provision severely delimits the daily spatial behaviour of disabled people. This lack of provision, it is argued, is expressive of a wider set of ableist power geometries and signiees that disabled people do not, as yet, have the same civil rights as non-disabled people.

Prostitution Policy in Europe: A Time of Change?:

Abstract: There has been considerable recent debate about prostitution in Europe that reflects concerns about health, employment and human rights Legal changes are being introduced in many countries We focus on two examples in order to discuss the likely implications A new law in The Netherlands is normalizing aspects of the sex industry through decriminalizing both workers and businesses In Sweden, on the other hand, prostitution is considered to be a social problem, and a new law criminalizes the purchasers of sexual services in an attempt to reduce demand Both reforms appear to have had their desired effect at one level; in The Netherlands, health and safety regulations will be introduced as in any other job, and EU sex workers gain full social, legal and employment rights; in Sweden there was initially a tenfold decrease in the numbers of women working visibly on the streets, and some workers have left the industry However, in both countries, the new legislation has also driven some sex work underground Many sex workers are excluded by the Dutch system and move underground to become effectively invisible to the authorities In Sweden sex workers and their clients also become less visible in order that the latter can avoid sanction Social and economic changes, such as increased migration and the growing use of the Internet will also render the sex industry less visible both to state regulation and to health care workers The major problems of prostitution for the workers remain exploitation, stigma, abuse and criminalization These are not unique to the industry, and can only be tackled effectively by the self-organization of sex workers into unions and rights groups, along with full decriminalization An alternative vision is promised through self-organization and anti-racist actions by sex workers in Germany; normalization and workers’ rights are tackled alongside training programmes for those seeking alternatives Policy makers throughout Europe would do well to look at their experience and not simply at the clash of legal reforms

Referendum democracy : citizens, elites and deliberation in referendum campaigns

Abstract: Dedication List of Tables List of Figures Acknowledgements Preface Notes on the Contributors PART I: THE RISING USE OF REFERENDUMS Introduction: Referendum Democracy M.Mendelsohn & A.Parkin Public Opinion and Support for Direct Democracy: A Grassroots Perspective S.C.Craig, A.Kreppel & J.G.Kane The Rise of Government-Initiated Referendums in Consolidated Democracies L.Morel PART II: THE IMPACT OF REFERENDUMS ON LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS Political Parties in Direct Democracy I.Budge Legislative Response to Direct Legislation E.R.Gerber Amending Constitutions Through the Referendum Device B.Galligan Popular Control of Referendum Agendas: Implications for Democratic Outcomes and Minority Rights S.Bowler & T.Donovan The Medium is the Message: How Referendums Lead Us to Understand Equality A.Eisenberg PART III: THE IMPACT OF REFERENDUMS ON DELIBERATION AND DECISION-MAKING Voters' Decisions in the Nordic EU Referendums of 1994: The Importance of Party Cues A.T.Jenssen & O.Listhaug Are Voters to Blame? Voter Competence and Elite Manoeuvers in Referendums A.Lupia & R.Johnston The News Media and Referendums R.Jenkins & M.Mendelsohn Constitutional Referendums and Democratic Deliberation S.Chambers Bibliography Index