Showing papers on "Legislature published in 1999"

Delegating Powers: A Transaction Cost Politics Approach to Policy Making under Separate Powers

Abstract: In this path-breaking book, David Epstein and Sharyn O'Halloran produce the first unified theory of policy making between the legislative and executive branches. Examining major US policy initiatives from 1947 to 1992, the authors describe the conditions under which the legislature narrowly constrains executive discretion, and when it delegates authority to the bureaucracy.

Veto Players and Law Production in Parliamentary Democracies: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract: This article investigates hypotheses generated by the veto players' theory. The fundamental insight of this theory is that an increase in the number of veto players (for all practical purposes, in parliamentary systems the number of parties in government) and their ideological distance from one another will reduce the ability of both government and parliament to produce significant laws. In addition, the number of significant laws increases with the duration of a government and with an increase in the ideological difference between current and previous government. These propositions are tested with legislative data (both laws and government decrees) on working time and working conditions identified in two legislative sources: the NATLEX computerized database in Geneva (produced by the International Labour organization) and Blanpain's International Encyclopedia for Labour Law and Industrial Relations. The data cover fifteen West European countries for the period 1981–91. The evidence corroborates the proposed hypotheses.

Women's representation in parliament: The role of political parties

Abstract: Parties vary substantially in the proportion of women they send to parliament. I examine how party characteristics affect women's representation in the parliamentary parties of 12 advanced industrial nations over time. Four party-level factors have some explanatory power: organizational structure, ideology, women party activists and gender-related candidate rules. A temporal sequence is proposed in which these factors and electoral rules directly and indirectly affect women's representation. Women party activists and gender-related rules are the more direct mechanisms affecting women's legislative representation. Further, New Left values and high levels of women activists within the party both enhance the likelihood that gender-related candidate rules will be implemented.

Women in the Legislatures and Executives of the World: Knocking at the Highest Glass Ceiling

Abstract: This article reports the results of a survey of women in legislatures and executives around the world as they were constituted in 1998 (N = 180). The chief hypotheses regarding the factors hindering or facilitating women's access to political representation were tested by multivariate regression models. The regression models juxtaposed a cocktail of institutional, political, cultural, and socioeconomic variables with the following dependent variables: (1) the percentage of MPs who are women and (2) the percentage of cabinet ministers who are women. A number, although not all, of the cited hypotheses were statistically confirmed and more finely quantified. The socioeconomic development of women in society has an effect on the number of women in parliament but not in the cabinet. A country's length of experience with multipartyism and women's enfranchisement correlates with both the legislative and the executive percentage. Certain electoral systems are more women friendly than others. The ideological nature of the party system affects the number of women elected and chosen for cabinet posts. And last, the state's dominant religion, taken as a proxy for culture, also statistically relates to the number of women who will make it to high political office. However, other long-held hypotheses were not proved. The degree of democracy is not a good indicator of the percentage of women who will make it into the legislature or the cabinet, nor is the dichotomy between a presidential or parliamentary system.

New tools and new tests in comparative political economy - the database of political institutions

Abstract: This paper introduces a large new cross-country database on political institutions: the Database on Political Institutions (DPI). The authors summarize key variables (many of them new), compare this data set with others, and explore the range of issues for which the data should prove invaluable. Among the novel variables they introduce: 1) Several measures of tenure, stability, and checks and balances. 2) Identification of parties with the government coalition or the opposition. 3) Fragmentation of opposition and government parties in legislatures. The authors illustrate the application of DPI variables to several problems in political economy. Stepan and Skach, for example, find that democracy is more likely to survive under parliamentary governments than presidential systems. But this result is not robust to the use of different variables from the DPI, which raises puzzles for future research. Similarly, Roubini and Sachs, find that divided governments in the OECD run higher budget deficits after fiscal shocks. Replication of their work using DPI indicators of divided government indicates otherwise, again suggesting issues for future research. Among questions in political science and economics, that this database may illuminate: the determinants of democratic consolidation, the political conditions for economic reform, the political and institutional roots of corruption, and the elements of appropriate and institutionally sensitive design of economic policy.

Social capital and the quality of Government : evidence from the U.S. States

Abstract: Social capital - in the form of general trust and strong civi norms that call for cooperation when large-scale collective action is needed - can improve government performance in three ways: 1) It can broaden government accountability, making government responsive to citizens at large, rather than to narrow interests. 2) It can facilitate agreement where political preferences are polarized. 3) It is associated with greater innovation when policymakers face new challenges. Consistent with these arguments, Putnam (1993) has shown that regional governments in the more trusting, more civic-minded northern, and central parts of Italy provide public services more effectively than do those in the less trusting, less civic-minded southern regions. Using cross-country data, La Porta and others (1997), and Knack and Keefer (1997), obtained findings consistent with Putnam's evidence. For samples of about thirty nations (represented in the World Value Surveys), they found that societies with greater trust tended to have governments that performed significantly better. The authors used survey measures of citizen confidence in government as well as subjective indicators of bureaucratic inefficiency. The author further analyzes links between social capital and government performance, using data for the United States. In states with more social capital (as measured by an index of trust, volunteering, and census response), government performance is rated higher, based on ratings constructed by the Government Performance Project. This result is highly robust to including a variety of control variables, considering the possibility of influential outlying values, treating the performance ratings as ordinal, rather than cardinal, and correcting for possible endogeneity.

Democratic Institutions and Exchange-rate Commitments

Abstract: Since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, countries have been able to choose from a variety of exchange-rate arrangements. We argue that politicians' incentives condition the choice of an exchange-rate arrangement. These incentives reflect the configuration of domestic political institutions, particularly electoral and legislative institutions. In systems where the cost of electoral defeat is high and electoral timing is exogenous, politicians will be less willing to forgo their discretion over monetary policy with a fixed exchange rate. In systems where the costs of electoral defeat are low and electoral timing is endogenous, politicians are more likely to adopt a fixed exchange-rate regime. Consequently, differences in domestic political systems can help account for variations in the choice of exchange-rate arrangements. We test this argument using constrained multinomial logit and binomial logit on a sample of twenty democracies over the period 1974–95. Domestic political institutions have a significant effect on exchange-rate regime choice, even after controlling for systemic, macroeconomic, and other political variables.

Unified Government, Divided Government, and Party Responsiveness

Abstract: Revisionist accounts conclude that divided and unified government do not differ significantly in the production of “important” public policy. I argue instead that when one theoretically reclaims the concerns about party responsiveness and institutional features of American politics that have animated party government scholars, unified government is significantly more productive than divided government. Employing a range of measures of important legislative enactments in the postwar period, I find that unified government produces greater quantities of significant enactments and is more responsive to the public mood than is divided government. The evidence suggests that parties do, as party government theorists maintain, generate incentives to cooperation that help transcend some of the policymaking gaps created by the Constitution.

Bicameralism and Its Consequences for the Internal Organization of Legislatures

Abstract: Theories of organization of legislatures have mainly focused on the U.S. Congress, explaining why committee systems emerge there, but not explaining variance in organization across legislatures of different countries. To analyze the effects of different constitutional features on the internal organization of legislatures, we adopt a vote-buying model and consider the incentives to delegate decision rights in a game among legislative chambers. We show how presidential veto power and bicameral separation can encourage a legislative chamber to create internal veto players or supermajority rules, while a unicameral structure can encourage legislators to delegate power to a leader.

Roots of reform : farmers, workers, and the American state, 1877-1917

Abstract: Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers, and the American State, 1877-1917. By Elizabeth Sanders. American Politics and Political Economy. (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, c. 1999. Pp. x, 532. Paper, $16.00, ISBN 0-226-73477-3; cloth, $48.00, JSBN 0-226-73476-5.) This book should have a powerful impact on the content delivered by textbooks and lecturers in survey courses, injecting far more continuity between the Populist and Progressive periods than historians have allowed. The conventional narrative recognizes some linkage between the People's Party's Omaha platform of 1892 and post-1900 reform, but that convention stresses that the social bases and leadership of reform shifted from farms and rural America and third party activists to cities and urban middle classes and Progressive presidents. Elizabeth Sanders powerfully revises this narrative, arguing that "the dynamic stimulus for Populist and Progressive Era state expansion was the periphery agrarians' drive to establish public control over a rampaging capitalism. The periphery generated the bulk of the reform agenda and furnished the foot soldiers that saw reform through the legislature" (pp. 3-4). The first 147 pages of this book cover the period up to 1896 and offer nothing new in a general way, but this reader's impatience with that situation was allayed by Sanders's bold arguments on many particulars. Regarding the Populists' inability to appeal to workers, Sanders dismisses the notion that the Populists bore full responsibility for that failure. Rather, from the Greenbackers on, Sanders asserts, agrarian reformers, including Bryan in particular, issued strong and consistent appeals to "labor" and "workers," but the latter simply did not respond. Although the book's first section is necessary, it is not an easy read. It is rewarding but might have been briefer given the book's density. Sanders rejects the "capitalist-dominance" thesis that views Progressive Era reform as managed by business and political elites. The capitalist response to new regulation was rather "reactive and largely negative" (p. 4), expressing itself mainly through the executive and the Supreme Court. Whereas earlier interpretations also have centered on presidential leadership, intellectuals, or new professionals, Sanders sharply shifts the focus to the regional political economies of the South and West and, especially, to the congressional representatives of these regions. She also argues that the post-1896 Democratic Party constituted the major vehicle responsible for the federal government's regulatory response to the imbalances of the new industrial-financial economy. William Jennings Bryan emerges in this story as a failing presidential candidate--in 1896, 1900, and 1908--but one who exerted great influence over the Democratic platforms, congressional agenda, and Wilson's New Freedom. Building on the agrarian protests from the 1870s on, and stimulated by renewed rural organization after 1900, Sanders argues that periphery agrarians brought significant government action to "the redefinition of trade policy; the creation of an income tax; a new, publicly controlled banking and currency system; antitrust policy; the regulation of agricultural marketing networks; a nationally financed road system; federal control of railroads, ocean shipping, and early telecommunications; and agricultural and vocational education" (pp. 7-8). The evidential heart of this book is analysis of roll-call voting in Congress from the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 through the Taft and Wilson administrations. Dividing the country into economic regions and subregions, Sanders establishes her argument via three categories of Congressional districts, based primarily on per capita value added in manufacturing: core, diverse, and periphery. Time and again, legislators' votes tended to be polarized between manufacturing-business core and peripheral agrarian districts, with legislators from diverse areas divided or siding with the agrarians. …

Politicians and Poachers: The Political Economy of Wildlife Policy in Africa

Abstract: Although wildlife fascinates citizens of industrialized countries, little is known about the politics of wildlife policy in Africa. In this innovative book, Clark Gibson challenges the rhetoric of television documentaries and conservation organizations to explore the politics behind the creation and change of wildlife policy in Africa. This book examines what Clark views as a central puzzle in the debate: Why do African governments create policies that apparently fail to protect wildlife? Moving beyond explanations of bureaucratic inefficiency and corrupt dictatorships, Gibson argues that biologically disastrous policies are retained because they meet the distributive goals of politicians and bureaucrats. Using evidence from Zambia, Kenya, and Zimbabwe, Gibson shows how institutions encourage politicians and bureaucrats to construct wildlife policies that further their own interests. Different configurations of electoral laws, legislatures, party structures, interest groups, and traditional authorities in each country shape the choices of policymakers - many of which are not consonant with conservation. This book will appeal to students of institutions, comparative politics, natural resource policymaking, African politics, and wildlife conservationists.

Political Economics and Public Finance

Abstract: Observed fiscal policy varies greatly across time and countries. How can we explain this variation? This paper surveys the recent literature that has tried to answer this question. We adopt a unified approach in portraying public policy as the equilibrium outcome of an explicitly specified political process. We divide the material into three parts. In Part I, we focus on median-voter equilibria that apply to policy issues where disagreement between voters is likely to be one-dimensional. We thus study the general redistributive programs, which are typical of the modern welfare state: redistribution between rich and poor, young and old, employed and unemployed, resident of different regions, and labour and capital. In Part II we study special interest politics. Here the policy problem is multidimensional and we focus on specific political mechanisms: we study legislative bargaining, lobbying, and electoral competition, as well as the possible interactions between these different forms of political activity. Finally, Part III deals with a set of questions that can be brought under the label of comparative politics, as we deal with policy choice under alternative political constitutions: we model some stylized features of congressional and parliamentary political systems, focusing on their implications for rent extraction by politicians, redistribution and public goods provision.

Judicial Reform and Economic Development: A Survey of the Issues

Abstract: Acknowledging the importance of sound judicial systems to good governance and economic growth, the World Bank and several other donor organizations have funded judicial reform projects in more than two dozen developing countries and transition economies during the past few years. Yet little is known about the actual effect of judicial reform on economic performance or even about what elements constitute a sound reform project. This article surveys a wide range of current studies on judicial reform and finds some surprising results. Judicial reform is part of a larger effort to make the legal systems in developing countries and transition economies more market friendly. This broader legal reform movement encompasses everything from writing or revising commercial codes, bankruptcy statutes, and company laws through overhauling regulatory agencies and teaching justice ministry officials how to draft legislation that fosters private investment.

Gender and Local Government: A Comparison of Women and Men City Managers.

Abstract: Do women city managers view their role differently than their male counterparts? Do women offer a style of city management different from men? Does the inclusion of women in the highest positions of administrative power alter the nature of representation in city government? These questions have been largely overlooked in explorations of the local government landscape. In this article we address these questions by presenting the results of a national survey of over 500 men and women city managers in the United States. Our central finding in this investigation is that women managers are more likely than their male counterparts to embrace a style of management that relies on citizen input. This finding may have broad implications for the development of local public policy and for the type of representation that exists in city-level bureaucracies. Gender and Political Leadership In an effort to better frame the significance of gender influences on the behavior of city managers it is important to first take cues from two broad bodies of literature--the literature showing influences of gender on the behavior of public officials and the literature focusing on the importance of the city management position to local government. There is an expanding body of socio-psychological and political science literature that suggests women have political attitudes and societal orientations that differ in meaningful ways from those of men. Further, there is a body of scholarship that argues convincingly that public administration broadly conceived is a highly gendered environment (Stivers, 1993; 1990; Ferguson, 1984). While it is also important not to overstate gender differences, it is increasingly evident that men and women often bring different leadership qualities, agendas, priorities, and methods of conceptualizing policy issues to their professional roles. Many investigators have relied upon Carol Gilligan's (1982) path-breaking but controversial book, In a Different Voice, as the basis for establishing potential differences between the leadership, management, and political behaviors of women and men. Gilligan's central assertion is that men and women "construe social reality differently," leading to the creation of distinctively male and female voices (171). According to Gilligan, the female voice embraces the ideals of responsibility, caring, and interconnectedness, while the male voice embraces adherence to rules and individualism (172-3). Other socio-psychological investigations, including some conducted by Gilligan herself, have further refined her initial arguments (Gilligan, Lyons, and Hanmer, 1990; Gilligan, et al., 1988; Belenky, et al., 1986;). Based, in part, on these conceptions of gender differences, a growing number of studies of elected officials, public administrators, and private managers have explored the professional behavior of men and women and found important differences. For example, in studies of elected officials, Thomas (1994) found that women state legislators placed high priorities on policies that concern women, family, and children, while male legislators focused on business and economic legislation. At the national level, Clark (1998) studied the voting records of women and men in the U.S. House of Representatives and concluded that on certain issues, such as abortion and the environment, gender is an important determinant of how a member of Congress votes. In a study of leadership style, Rosenthal (1998) found that women committee chairs in state legislatures were much more task oriented than their male counterparts (176) (see also Carey, Niemi, and Powell, 1998; Kathlene, 1998; Berkman and O'Connor, 1993; Reingold, 1992; Dodson and Carroll, 1991; Tolleson Rinehart, 1991; Saint-Germain, 1989). In terms of the management style of appointed or merit employees, the research on gender influences in the public sector seems less well developed than the literature on elected officials. …

Sizing Up the Senate: The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation

Abstract: We take it for granted that every state has two representatives in the United States Senate. Apply the "one person, one vote" standard, however, and the Senate is the most malapportioned legislature in the democratic world. But does it matter that California's 32 million people have the same number of Senate votes as Wyoming's 480,000? Frances Lee and Bruce Oppenheimer systematically show that the Senate's unique apportionment scheme profoundly shapes legislation and representation. The size of a state's population affects the senator-constituent relationship, fund-raising and elections, strategic behaviour within the Senate, and, ultimately, policy decisions. They also show that less populous states consistently receive more federal funding than states with more people. In sum, Lee and Oppenheimer reveal that Senate apportionment leaves no aspect of the institution untouched. This book raises questions about one of the key institutions of American government and should be of interest to anyone concerned with issues of representation.

The Who and How of Organizations' Lobbying Strategies in Committee

Abstract: We examine the forces affecting organized interests' decisions to use particular lobbying tactics to target different legislators in committee, using the group-legislator dyad as our unit of analysis. Two basic assumptions underlie our conceptual model of lobbying strategies in committee. First, organizations have legislative goals of expanding the size of their supportive coalitions and shaping the content of legislative proposals, and an ongoing interest in maintaining themselves. Second, different lobbying tactics are better suited to the achievement of each of these goals. Given these assumptions, the tactics organizations use to lobby individual legislators are expected to depend on (1) groups' perceptions of how legislators may help them to achieve their goals; (2) their policy positions and other characteristics of the issue debate; and (3) groups' resources. Our multinomial logit analysis lends suport to our expectations about the forces that shape the lobbying strategies organizations employ.

Legislative careers: Why and how we should study them

Abstract: Legislative careers can provide extremely useful information on political institutions, but only if used wisely. For example, we cannot assume that the amount of membership turnover in a legislature is an indication of the degree to which it is institutionalized. The real variable of interest is the (unfortunately much more difficult to quantify) consequences of that turnover. And even if we can determine that the consequences of legislative turnover are minimal, we cannot conclude that the legislature is institutionalized since what appears to be legislative institutionalization may actually be the institutionalization of political parties. More accurate indications of institutionalization would be the tendency of members to want to stay in the body (regardless of whether or not they do), and the length of service in the body required before leadership positions become a real possibility.

The Politics of Executive Orders: Legislative Constraints on Presidential Power:

Abstract: Conventional wisdom suggests that Presidents use executive orders, sometimes characterized as presidential legislation, when legislation is too difficult to pass (in the face of an opposition Congress, for example) or when executive departments or agencies tend to embrace their congressional patrons, rather than the White House. According to this model, executive orders are strategic instruments used by a President to circumvent the constitutionally prescribed policymaking process. Recently studies have found little systematic evidence that executive orders are used to circumvent a hostile Congress. We argue that strategic Presidents do use executive orders to circumvent a hostile Congress, but not if they are likely to be overtumed by Congress. In other words, the use of executive orders reflects both their ability to achieve and to maintain preferred changes to the policy status quo. We test this portrait of presidential decision-making by examining determinants of the annual variation in the number of ...

Centralized Versus Decentralized Provision of Local Public Goods: a Political Economy Analysis

Abstract: This paper takes a fresh look at the trade-off between centralized and decentralized provision of local public goods. The point of departure is to model a centralized system as one in which public spending is financed by general taxation, but districts can receive different levels of local public goods. In a world of benevolent governments, the disadvantages of centralization stressed in the existing literature disappear, suggesting that the case for decentralization must be driven by political economy considerations. Our political economy analysis assumes that under decentralization public goods are selected by locally elected representatives, while under a centralized system policy choices are determined by a legislature consisting of elected representatives from each district. We then study the role of taste heterogeneity, spillovers and legislative behavior in determining the case for centralization.

Interest Groups, Lobbying, and Participation in America

Abstract: Understanding why individuals participate in politics demands attention to more than just individual attributes and attitudes. Similarly, understanding how interest groups influence policy-making demands attention to more than just the financial donations and direct activities of Washington-based lobbyists. To answer fundamental questions about what determines when and why people participate in politics and how organized interests go about trying to influence legislative decision-making we must understand how and why political leaders recruit which members of the public into the political arena. Looking from the bottom up with survey data and from the top down with data from interest group interviews, Kenneth Goldstein develops and tests a theory of how tactical choices in a grass-roots campaign are made. In doing so, he demonstrates that outside lobbying activities deserve a place in any correctly-specified model of interest group influence, political participation, or legislative decision-making.

Making Money Matter: Financing America's Schools

Abstract: The United States annually spends over $300 billion on public elementary and secondary education. As the nation enters the 21st century, it faces a major challenge: how best to tie this financial investment to the goal of high levels of achievement for all students. In addition, policymakers want assurance that education dollars are being raised and used in the most efficient and effective possible ways. The book covers such topics as: * Legal and legislative efforts to reduce spending and achievement gaps. * The shift from "equity" to "adequacy" as a new standard for determining fairness in education spending. * The debate and the evidence over the productivity of American schools. * Strategies for using school finance in support of broader reforms aimed at raising student achievement. This book contains a comprehensive review of the theory and practice of financing public schools by federal, state, and local governments in the United States. It distills the best available knowledge about the fairness and productivity of expenditures on education and assesses options for changing the finance system.

Always One Step Behind? National Legislatures and the European Union

Abstract: NATIONAL PARLIAMENTS ARE CENTRAL ACTORS IN THE SCRUTINY AND implementation of European Union (EU) legislation. Member state legislatures provide a channel for incorporating public opinion into the governance of the Union. Their importance has become more evident during the 1990s as debate has focused on the democratic deficit and deparliamentarization of European governance. National parliaments are involved in EU decision-making in three ways: they 1) participate in national policy formulation on Union legislation; 2) monitor the behaviour of member state representatives in the Council of Ministers and the European Council; and 3) have functions specifically regulated in the treaties, such as ratification of treaty amendments and implementation of directives. The third function differs from the first two as the treaties impose rights and duties on the national parliaments, whereas there is no EU law on national policy formulation on Union legislation or on the scrutiny of ministers. During the 1996-97 Intergovernmental Conference (ICC) the member states saw no need for such European-level regulation. Thus it is up to each national parliament – within the limits set by member state constitutions and other constraints – to decide how it deals with the challenges brought by EU membership.

Political parties and party systems in Africa's illiberal democracies

Abstract: The article attempts to capture some of the recent trends in Africa since the introduction of multiparty politics. It describes some key features of Africa's fledgling democracies and examines critically the notion of a growing trend of ‘illiberal’ or pseudo‐democracy in Africa. The article goes on to analyse central characteristics of the political parties in these countries, and discuss the types of political parties currently contesting elections in Africa. It examines the emergence of several distinct party systems in the region by analysing the number of parties represented in the legislature, the degree of polarisation, and the patterns of party competition. The article concludes by speculating on the prospects for democratic consolidation in these African countries given the functions that their political parties perform.

Politics, Transaction Costs, and the Design of Regulatory Institutions

Abstract: Providing a realistic framework for assessing the efficiency of government intervention requires viewing the government not as a monolithic entity but as a number of different government bodies, each with its own constituencies and regulatory tools. Providing a more complete framework for assessing the efficiency of government intervention requires moving away from the idealistic perspective typically found in the normative approach to traditional public economics, contend Estache and Martimort. Such a move requires viewing the government not as a monolithic entity but as many different government bodies, each with its own constituency and regulatory tools. Not only is the multitiered government limited in its ability to commit, but interest groups influence the regulatory process and impose significant transaction costs on government interventions and on their outcome. Estache and Martimort discuss the nature of those transaction costs and argue that the overall design of the government is the result of their minimization. Among the points they make in their conclusions: Safeguards built into regulatory contracts sometimes reflect and sometimes imply transactions costs which influence, or should influence, the optimal tradeoff between rent and efficient in ways practitioners sometimes ignore. Most of the literature on transaction costs arising from government failures would agree that to be sustainable, regulatory institutions should be independent, autonomous, and accountable. How these criteria are met is determined by the way transaction costs are minimized, which in turn drives the design of the regulatory framework. In practice, for example, if there are commitment problems, short-term institutional contracts between players are more likely to ensure autonomy and independence. This affects the duration of the nomination of the regulators. Short-term contracts may be best, but contracts for regulators typically last four to eight years and are often renewable. The empirical debate about the design of regulators' jobs is a possible source of tension. Practitioners typically recommend choosing regulators based on professional rather than political criteria, but that may not be the best way to minimize regulatory capture. Professional experts are likely to come from the sector they are supposed to regulate and are likely to return to it sooner or later (as typically happens in developing countries). On the other hand, elected regulators are unlikely to be much more independent than professional regulators; they will simply represent different interests. Practitioners and theorists alike emphasize different sources of capture and agree that one way to deal with its risk is to make sure the selection process involves both executive and legislative branches. This paper - a product of the Regulatory Reform and Private Enterprise Division, Economic Development Institute - is part of a larger effort in the institute to increase understanding of infrastructure regulation.

Uncovering the Hidden Effect of Party

Abstract: Some recent scholarship affords political parties little role in explaining patterns of legislative outcomes. Policy preferences, rather than partisanship, are said to provide the superior account of legislative behavior. In this paper, we challenge one recent such account of legislative outcomes. We show that the likelihood of finding a party effect depends on where we look for it and with what measures we use to test for it. Party effects, we find, are amply visible in the 1994 "A to Z" discharge petition campaign in the U.S. House of Representatives, a case where party has been termed inconsequential.

Presidential Agenda Control and Spending Policy: Lessons from General Pinochet's Constitution

Abstract: Formal institutions put in place upon the establishment of a new democracy can have profound effects on political bargaining. We demonstrate how the budgetary procedure bequeathed by the outgoing Chilean military regime affects policy choices available to elected officials. Chilean budget procedure should discourage deficits, allow for a reduction in the relative size of the defense budget, and facilitate cuts in executive proposals when the institutional interests of the legislature are at stake but not under conditions of coalitional conflict. We present a simple spatial model of bargaining over spending decisions between the executive and Congress that facilitates comparisons between the Chilean budget procedure and that of other presidential systems. The model suggests that, relative to other regimes, Chile's budget process should constrain spending and favor the president's preferences over the legislature's. Comparative fiscal data from twelve other presidential democracies and from the first eight Chilean budgets since the transition to democracy, as well as interviews with key legislators and executive officials, all support our hypotheses.

The keys to togetherness: Coalition agreements in parliamentary democracies

Abstract: (1999). The keys to togetherness: Coalition agreements in parliamentary democracies. The Journal of Legislative Studies: Vol. 5, The Uneasy Relationships Between Parliamentary Members and Leaders, pp. 255-282.

“Life Is Not Fair”: Governors' Job Performance Ratings and State Economies:

Abstract: Presidential popularity has been shown to respond to economic trends. This article uses survey data from California and seven other states, 196797, to test whether goverors are likewise vulnerable to trends in state economies. Multiple regression is used to test the impact of the state's unemployment and rate of per capita income growth on disapproval of the governor's job performance. Even with controls for national economic trends and other factors affecting the goveror's popularity (taxation, tenure in office, party control of the legislature, state income growth), state unemployment has a significant negative impact that has increased over time. The impact is not symmetric; lower unemployment does not lead to more positive ratings. Governors must therefore devise policies and rhetoric to counterbalance their lack of influence over state unemployment. Studies of trends in presidential popularity over time have found considerable evidence of linkage between the economy and the public's assessment of the president (Mueller 1973; Monroe 1984; Markus 988; Erikson 1989; Edward 1991). As Brody (1991: 91) states, "Because the president is the nation's chief policymaker, it would be reasonable and just if the state of the economy figured prominently in the public's evaluation of presidential job performance; indeed, it would be perverse and puzzling if it did not." As Brody's comprehensive review of this literature shows, duration ofunemployment, inflation, elite policy views, the party of the president, and media coverage all mediate the impact of economic downturns on presidential popularity Few would

Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, and the Provision of Collective Goods in Less-Developed Countries

Abstract: Parliamentary systems are more likely, ceteris paribus, than presidential systems to give politicians the incentive to provide policies aimed at broad national constituencies rather than at particularistic sectoral or regional constituencies, because a parlimentary constitutional design encourages legislators to subordinate their pursuits to their parties' broader interests. However, less-developed countries often lack the conditions for the nationally oriented parties that parliamentarism requires in order to thrive, due to such factors as sharp disparities in development across regions and income groups. Thus the provision of collective goods in such countries may be facilitated by the establishment of presidential executives, which can be delegated independent constitutional authority to structure the national policy process. Policy-making in these cases thus can be stylized as a presidency elected nationally and granted strong powers over legislation that partially counteract the particularistic tendencies of a fragmented legislature whose members remain close to their regional constituencies.