Showing papers on "Legislature published in 2017"
TL;DR: In economics, the commonly prevailing view of the firm ignores all these elements of politics and power as discussed by the authors, and we must recognize that large firms have considerable power to influence the rules of the...
Abstract: The revenues of large companies often rival those of national governments, and some companies have annual revenues higher than many national governments. Among the largest corporations in 2015, some had private security forces that rivaled the best secret services, public relations offices that dwarfed a US presidential campaign headquarters, more lawyers than the US Justice Department, and enough money to capture (through campaign donations, lobbying, and even explicit bribes) a majority of the elected representatives. The only powers these large corporations missed were the power to wage war and the legal power of detaining people, although their political influence was sufficiently large that many would argue that, at least in certain settings, large corporations can exercise those powers by proxy. Yet in economics, the commonly prevailing view of the firm ignores all these elements of politics and power. We must recognize that large firms have considerable power to influence the rules of the ...
169 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors study the fulfillment of 18,743 pledges made in 54 election campaigns in 12 countries and find high levels of pledge fulfillment for most parties that entered the government executive, and substantially lower levels for parties that do not.
Abstract: Why are some parties more likely than others to keep the promises they made during previous election campaigns? This study provides the first comparative analysis that addresses this question with common definitions of pledges and fulfillment. We study the fulfillment of 18,743 pledges made in 54 election campaigns in 12 countries. We find high levels of pledge fulfillment for most parties that enter the government executive, and substantially lower levels for parties that do not. The findings challenge the common view of parties as promise breakers. The degree to which governing parties share power affects pledge fulfillment, with parties in single-party executives, both with and without legislative majorities, having the highest fulfillment rates. Within coalition governments, the likelihood of pledge fulfillment depends on whether the party receives the chief executive post and whether another governing party made a similar pledge, but not on the ideological range of the coalition.
155 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors develop and test a political theory based on the views of legislators about the proper role of the federal government in regulating business, that seeks to explain patterns of support and opposition to legislative reforms, and conclude that the dominant factor explaining these patterns is support for New Deal regulatory policy.
Abstract: For a decade after the passage of the Second New Deal, political leaders and many important interest groups fiercely debated what procedural requirements, if any, should be imposed on the new regulatory agencies. This debate led eventually to the passage of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) of 1946. The purpose of this article is to explain the significance of the various procedural requirements that were considered, and to develop and test a political theory of why some proposals were passed while others were rejected, and why a decade passed before legislation could succeed. Although the APA typically is seen as a codification of individual rights in a system or procedural due process, we argue that to answer these questions requires understanding the policy consequences of alternative procedural reforms. Thus we develop and test a political theory, based on the views of legislators about the proper role of the federal government in regulating business, that seeks to explain patterns of support and opposition to legislative reforms. We conclude that the dominant factor explaining these patterns is support for New Deal regulatory policy, and that the primary explanation for the failure of administrative reform proposals before World War II but their success later was the desire of New Deal Democrats to `hard wire` the policies of the New Deal against an expected Republican, anti-New Deal political tide in the late 1940s.
109 citations
TL;DR: Theories of electoral accountability predict that legislators will receive fewer votes if they fail to represent their districts as discussed by the authors, and the extent to which voters sanction legislators who cast unpopular roll-call votes or provide poor ideological representation.
Abstract: Theories of electoral accountability predict that legislators will receive fewer votes if they fail to represent their districts. To determine whether this prediction applies to state legislators, I conduct two analyses that evaluate the extent to which voters sanction legislators who cast unpopular roll-call votes or provide poor ideological representation. Neither analysis, however, produces compelling evidence that elections hold most state legislators accountable. I discover that legislators do not face meaningful electoral consequences for their ideological representation, particularly in areas where legislators receive less media attention, have larger staffs, and represent more partisan districts. In a study of individual roll-call votes across 11 states, I furthermore find a weak relationship between legislators’ roll-call positions and election outcomes with voters rewarding or punishing legislators for only 4 of 30 examined roll calls. Thus, while state legislators wield considerable policymaking power, elections do not appear to hold many legislators accountable for their lawmaking.
90 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors highlight the role of party-political contestation structuring parliamentary debates and votes in this increasingly politicised issue area, indicating that even though parliaments have arguably become more involved in foreign and security policy over time, any notions of parliamentarisation need to be treated with caution.
Abstract: It is customary to argue that foreign policy is very much dominated by the executive, with parliaments wielding limited influence. However, with the exception of the US Congress, legislative‒executive relations in the realm of foreign and security policy have attracted remarkably little scholarly attention. Drawing on a principal‒agent framework, this collection scrutinises the conventional wisdom of ‘executive autonomy’ in foreign affairs, indicating that even though parliaments have arguably become more involved in foreign and security policy over time, any notions of parliamentarisation need to be treated with caution. While expectations of consensus in the name of the national interest continue to play an important role in foreign policy decision-making, the papers highlight the role of party-political contestation structuring parliamentary debates and votes in this increasingly politicised issue area. This introductory paper introduces the analytical framework and hypotheses guiding the contr...
84 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined the extent to which both the substance and the procedure of military interventions are contested among political parties and found that political parties on the left tend to favour strong parliamentary control whereas those on the right tend to prefer an unconstrained executive.
Abstract: The move from territorial defence to ‘wars of choice’ has influenced the domestic politics of military interventions. This paper examines the extent to which both the substance and the procedure of military interventions are contested among political parties. Regarding the substance, our analysis of Chapel Hill Expert Survey data demonstrates that across European states political parties on the right are more supportive of military missions than those on the left. On the decision-making procedures, our case studies of Germany, France, Spain and the United Kingdom show that political parties on the left tend to favour strong parliamentary control whereas those on the right tend to prefer an unconstrained executive, although with differences across countries. These findings challenge the view that ‘politics stops at the water’s edge’ and contribute to a better understanding of how political parties and parliaments influence military interventions.
72 citations
Book•
02 Mar 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, the DA¶ring book of 1995 concludes by considering what effects the rules had on legislative output during the same period and the importance of agenda setting and agenda control for the prevention of cycling across issues and the distribution of particular benefits of shifting and transient majorities.
Abstract: This volume begins where the first DA¶ring book of 1995 finished by considering what effects the rules had on legislative output during the same period. It addresses four distinct yet complementary research topics: - the connection between a number of veto players and law production in West European parliamentary democracies - the impact of closed versus open rules - the effects of committee structure and organization on the degree of conflict or consensus on the procedure of passing legislation - the importance of agenda setting and agenda control for the prevention of cycling across issues and the distribution of particular benefits of shifting and transient majorities. Fundamental to this volume is the ability of the project group to fashion an original data set. As a consequence, this volume is able to ascertain the extent to which parliamentary procedures contributed to shaping policy output in this field during the 1980s.
71 citations
TL;DR: The authors analyzes the increasing use of state preemption law by conservative state leaders as a tool to rein in progressive local governments and concludes that rising conservative dominance of state legislatures has provided the opportunity to thwart progressive local policies, and these efforts have been aided by various industry and conservative organized groups.
Abstract: This article analyzes the increasing use of state preemption law by conservative state leaders as a tool to rein in progressive local governments. The scope and special qualities of recent state preemption laws are explored by examining legislation preempting local fracking bans, preventing minimum wage ordinances, targeting sanctuary city policies, overturning LGBT rights ordinances, and enacting blanket preemption measures. Reasons for the recent surge of state preemption laws are suggested, and the overall effectiveness of these laws is discussed. I conclude that rising conservative dominance of state legislatures has provided the opportunity to thwart progressive local policies, and these efforts have been aided by various industry and conservative organized groups. State preemption laws are not always successful in their aims. In some cases, state supreme courts have sided with local officials’ claims of state overreach. In others, local officials have simply refused to comply. In any case, the threat of preemption may have a chilling effect on local policy innovation.
66 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that legislatures are correlated with lower expropriation risk in non-personalist dictatorships, but a higher risk of nationalization in personalist regimes, showing a consistent pattern between authoritarian institutions and property protections.
Abstract: An important question for international investors concerns the relationship between political institutions and property rights. Yet a debate remains over whether authoritarian institutions promote favorable investment climates. Using data on oil nationalization in a sample of autocracies, this study finds that legislatures are correlated with lower expropriation risk in non-personalist dictatorships, but a higher risk of nationalization in personalist regimes. The results show a consistent pattern between authoritarian institutions and property protections, for which context matters.
63 citations
Book•
03 May 2017TL;DR: Hoppit as mentioned in this paper provides the first comprehensive account of these acts, revealing how government affected economic life in this critical period prior to the Industrial Revolution, and how economic interests across Britain used legislative authority for their own benefit.
Abstract: The Glorious Revolution of 1688–9 transformed the role of parliament in Britain and its empire. Large numbers of statutes resulted, with most concerning economic activity. Julian Hoppit here provides the first comprehensive account of these acts, revealing how government affected economic life in this critical period prior to the Industrial Revolution, and how economic interests across Britain used legislative authority for their own benefit. Through a series of case studies, he shows how ideas, interests, and information influenced statutory action in practice. Existing frameworks such as 'mercantilism' and the 'fiscal-military state' fail to capture the full richness and structural limitations of how political power influenced Britain's precocious economic development in the period. Instead, finely grained statutory action was the norm, guided more by present needs than any grand plan, with regulatory ambitions constrained by administrative limitations, and some parts of Britain benefiting much more than others.
59 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors studied how the risk of governments to be replaced in office affects the probability and timing of fiscal consolidation policies and found that governments associate significant electoral risk with consolidation because electorally vulnerable governments strategically avoid consolidations towards the end of the legislative term in order to minimize electoral punishment.
Abstract: The European debt crisis has uncovered a serious tension between democratic politics and market pressure in contemporary democracies. This tension arises when governments implement unpopular fiscal consolidation packages in order to raise their macroeconomic credibility among financial investors. Nonetheless, the dominant view in current research is that governments should not find it difficult to balance demands from voters and investors because the economic and political costs of fiscal consolidations are low. This would leave governments with sufficient room to promote fiscal consolidation according to their ideological agenda. We reexamine this proposition by studying how the risk of governments to be replaced in office affects the probability and timing of fiscal consolidation policies. The results show that governments associate significant electoral risk with consolidations because electorally vulnerable governments strategically avoid consolidations towards the end of the legislative term in order to minimize electoral punishment. Specifically, the predicted probability of consolidation decreases from 40% after an election to 13% towards the end of the term when the government's margin of victory is small. When the electoral margin is large, the probability of consolidation is roughly stable at around 35%. Electoral concerns are the most important political determinant of consolidations, leaving only a minor role to ideological concerns. Governments, hence, find it more difficult to reconcile political and economic pressures on fiscal policy than previous, influential research implies. The results suggest that existing studies underestimate the electoral risk associated with consolidations because they ignore the strategic behavior that our analysis establishes.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used event history analysis to examine why states adopted a range of identification laws over the past several decades, finding that the propensity to adopt is greatest when control of the governor's office and legislature switches to Republicans (relationships not previously identified).
Abstract: Recently, many states have reversed the decades-long trend of facilitating ballot access by enacting a wave of laws requesting or requiring identification from registrants before they vote. Identification laws, however, are not an entirely new phenomenon. We offer new theoretical insights regarding how changes in political power influence the adoption of identification laws. In the most extensive analysis to date, we use event history analysis to examine why states adopted a range of identification laws over the past several decades. We consistently find that the propensity to adopt is greatest when control of the governor’s office and legislature switches to Republicans (relationships not previously identified), and that this likelihood increases further as the size of Black and Latino populations in the state expands. We also find that federal legislation in the form of the Help America Vote Act seems to enhance the effects of switches in partisan control.
TL;DR: The authors analyzes social policy reforms enacted by two recent right-leaning governments: that of Sebastian Pinera in Chile (2010-14) and Mauricio Macri in Argentina (2015-).
Abstract: Latin America's “left turn” expanded cash transfers and public services, contributing to lower poverty and inequality. Recently, right-leaning candidates and parties have begun to win back seats in the legislature, and in some cases have captured the executive branch. This shift has sparked debate about the future of Latin America's welfare states. This article analyzes social policy reforms enacted by two recent right-leaning governments: that of Sebastian Pinera in Chile (2010–14) and Mauricio Macri in Argentina (2015–). It finds that contrary to neoliberal adjustment policies of the past, neither Macri nor Pinera engaged in privatization or deep spending cuts. Instead, both administrations facilitated a process of policy drift in some sectors and marginal expansion in others. Policy legacies and the strength of the opposition help to explain these outcomes, suggesting that Latin America's political context has been transformed by the consolidation of democracy and the experience of left party rule.
TL;DR: In the past 25 years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of subnational administrative units within developing countries as discussed by the authors, and existing literature argues that presidents create new units.
Abstract: Over the past 25 years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of subnational administrative units within developing countries. Existing literature argues that presidents create new units...
12 May 2017
TL;DR: Men continue to be underrepresented in U.S. politics as mentioned in this paper, and women make up less than 20% of Congress, and only about one-quarter of state legislatures.
Abstract: Women continue to be underrepresented in U.S. politics. Today, women make up less than 20% of Congress, and only about one-quarter of state legislatures (CAWP, 2017). What can explain this? Past sc...
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The contemporary anti-administration movement as discussed by the authors is a resurgence of the antiregulatory and antigovernment forces that lost the battle of the New Deal, and it has been characterized by a strong rhetorical condemnation of administrative government.
Abstract: INTRODUCTION I. THE CONTEMPORARY ATTACK ON THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE A. The Political Attack B. The Judicial and Academic Attack 1. Separation of Powers 2. Subconstitutional Doctrines and the Separation of Powers 3. Other Constitutional Claims 4. Academic Attacks C. Contemporary Anti-Administrativism's Core Themes 1. Rhetorical Anti-Administrativism 2. The Judicial Turn 3. Constitutionalism and Originalism D. Does Contemporary Anti-Administrativism Matter? II. 1930s Redux I: Twentieth-Century Conservative Resistance to Administrative Government A. The Liberty League and the ABA Special Committee 1. The Liberty League 2. The Special Committee 3. The Entrenchment of the National Administrative State B. The Contemporary Relevance of the League and the Special Committee III. 1930s Redux II: The Administrative State and Executive Power A. The Brownlow Committee and Presidential Administration B. The Administrative State's Constitutional Functions 1. Bureaucratic Supervision and Internal Constraints 2. Effective Governance C. The Administrative State as Constitutionally Obligatory 1. Delegation and Its Implications 2. Delegation and Current Anti-Administrative Challenges CONCLUSION INTRODUCTION Eighty years on, we are seeing a resurgence of the antiregulatory and antigovernment forces that lost the battle of the New Deal. President Trump's administration has proclaimed the "deconstruction of the administrative state" to be one of its main objectives. Early Trump executive actions quickly delivered on this pledge, with a wide array of antiregulatory actions and a budget proposing to slash many agencies' funding. Invoking the long-dormant Congressional Review Act (CRA), the Republican-controlled Congress has eagerly repealed numerous regulations promulgated late in the Obama Administration. Other major legislative and regulatory repeals are pending, and bills that would impose the most significant restrictions on administrative governance since the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) was adopted in 1946--like the proposed Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA)--now stand a chance of enactment. This resistance to administrative government reflects antigovernment themes that have been a consistent presence in national politics since President Reagan's election in 1980. But the immediate trigger for the current resurgence of attacks on the administrative state is the national regulatory and administrative expansion that took place under President Obama. Of particular relevance here, an attack on the national administrative state is also evident at the Supreme Court. The anti-administrative voices are fewer on the Court than in the political sphere and often speak in separate opinions, but they are increasingly prominent. (1) Led by Justice Thomas, with Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, and now Justice Gorsuch sounding similar complaints, they have attacked the modern administrative state as a threat to liberty and democracy and suggested that its central features may be unconstitutional. (2) Conservative legal scholars have joined the fray, issuing a number of academic attacks on the constitutionality of the administrative state that conservative jurists then feature prominently in their opinions. (3) These judicial attacks on administrative governance share several key characteristics: they are strong on rhetorical criticism of administrative government out of proportion to their bottom-line results; they oppose administration and bureaucracy, but not greater presidential power; they advocate a greater role for the courts to defend individual liberty against the ever-expanding national state; and they regularly condemn contemporary national government for being at odds with the constitutional structure the Framers created, though rarely--with the marked exception of Justice Thomas--do they develop this originalist argument with any rigor. (4) These features, particularly the strong rhetorical condemnation of administrative government, typify what I call here contemporary anti- administrativism. …
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the proportion of female representatives in a national legislature prolongs peace following a negotiated settlement and highlight two mechanisms through which greater female representation reduces the risk of conflict recurrence: prioritizing social welfare spending over military spending and improving public perceptions of good governance and the credibility of political elites.
Abstract: Previous studies suggest that women’s access to political power often increases following the termination of civil conflicts, particularly those ending in negotiated settlement. However, the effect of these changes has received limited attention. We argue that the proportion of female representatives in a national legislature prolongs peace following a negotiated settlement. Moreover, we highlight two mechanisms through which greater female representation reduces the risk of conflict recurrence: (1) by prioritizing social welfare spending over military spending and (2) by improving public perceptions of good governance and the credibility of political elites. We further argue that legislative independence and authority conditions this relationship, implying that greater female representation is more likely to promote peace in states with nominally democratic political institutions. Our empirical analyses of peace duration following negotiated settlements between 1946 and 2011 provide robust support for ou...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore how electoral rules and cultural traits (namely, the degree of civicness) interact in shaping elected officials' behaviour and find that politicians elected in first-past-the-post districts have a higher propensity to sponsor locally oriented bills and to put effort into legislative activity than those elected with a closed-list proportional system.
Abstract: We explore how electoral rules and cultural traits (namely, the degree of civicness) interact in shaping elected officials' behaviour. We use a dataset that includes the expenditure proposals sponsored by members of the Italian Senate from 1993 to 2012 (as well as other individual and district characteristics) and exploit the 2005 electoral reform that transformed a mainly majoritarian system into a proportional one. As a first step, we can confirm previous empirical findings: legislators elected in first-past-the-post districts show a higher propensity to sponsor locally oriented bills and to put effort into legislative activity than those elected with a closed-list proportional system. More importantly, however, we find that the effects of the change in the electoral rules are muted in areas with a high degree of civicness. We also propose a simple probabilistic voting model with altruistic preferences that is able to rationalize this finding.
TL;DR: This article found that people are more willing to overlook unwillingness to compromise when party, gender, and issue ownership align than when they are at odds, and that the extent to which lawmakers are punished for not compromising is conditional on the intersection of the three factors in this study.
Abstract: In American politics, legislative compromise is often seen as a necessary and desirable aspect of policymaking, yet people also value politicians who stick to their positions. In this article, we consider these conflicting expectations of legislators and ask two intertwined questions: what conditions lead people to punish legislators for not compromising (when legislative action is at stake) and, conversely, what conditions leave people more willing to overlook a legislator’s unwillingness to engage in compromise? Relying on previous research, we suggest that legislator gender, legislator partisanship, and issue area may all affect which legislators are punished for not compromising. Relying on two national experiments, we demonstrate that the extent to which lawmakers are punished for not compromising is conditional on the intersection of the three factors in this study. In general, our results suggest that people may be most willing to overlook unwillingness to engage in compromise when party, gender and issue ownership align than when party, gender, and issue ownership are at odds.
TL;DR: Danish Council for Independent Research (FSE), project 11-104384, "The parliamentarization of EU politics: what implications for European democracy" as discussed by the authors, 2011.
Abstract: Danish Council for Independent Research (FSE), project 11-104384, "The parliamentarization of EU politics: what implications for European democracy?"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine how formal interlocking political ties between business leaders and political actors affect sell-off strategy of firms in emerging markets and propose that political ties substitute for underdeveloped institutions and provide firms with market intermediation, influence over political actors, and access to resources.
TL;DR: A wide range of activities aimed at the reduction of the environmental impact of the emissions of pollutants from individual heat sources—the so-called low emission are presented.
Abstract: The protection of the air against pollutants from individual boiler plants is a big challenge in Poland It results mainly from the preference for coal, the national energy carrier, the use of old low-efficiency boilers and the location of Poland in a temperate climate where the heating period lasts at least 5 months This article presents a wide range of activities aimed at the reduction of the environmental impact of the emissions of pollutants from individual heat sources—the so-called low emission The article presents the extent of the national legislation resulting from the European Union regulations It discusses the assumptions of the air protection programmes (APPs) and the low emission reduction programmes (LERPs) The assumptions mentioned above are analysed as part of a life cycle assessment (LCA) analysis and a multi-criterion analysis An important result of these analyses (in the Polish conditions) is the conclusion that a boiler fired with large pieces of wood is an optimal solution from the economic and ecological points of view The article proposes systemic, organisational and legislative solutions whose implementation could contribute to raising the effectiveness of the protection of the atmosphere
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine case examples from the U.S. Carolinas and Alabama that illustrate some of the flaws of four federal programs of the last 50 years (National Flood Insurance Program, U. S. Coastal Barrier Resources Act, Coastal Area Management Act, Stafford Disaster Relief Act), as well as general reasons for state and local regulation failures.
TL;DR: This article found that voters discount the policy accomplishments and policy promises of compromising parties, and that this tendency is more pronounced among previous incumbent cabinet supporters and the politically disinterested in coalition policy making.
Abstract: Coalition governance requires parties to come to collective policy decisions while simultaneously competing for votes. This reality has inspired a vibrant literature on coalition policy making, which is focused on legislative organization and behavior, though it is not clear how it affects the electorate. This article addresses this gap in the literature by examining how voters’ perceptions of compromise in coalition policy making affect their vote choices. Analyzing data from six parliamentary democracies where multiparty governance is the norm, it finds that voters punish parties they view as compromising. More specifically, voters are found to discount the policy accomplishments and policy promises of compromising parties, and that this tendency is more pronounced among previous incumbent cabinet supporters and the politically disinterested. These findings have important implications for the study of voting as well as coalition policy making.
TL;DR: The authors examined the impact of organized interests on the passage of legislation in the German Bundestag through an empirical analysis of the position papers presented in the public hearings of its standing committees in 2011.
Abstract: The article examines the impact of organised interests on the passage of legislation in the German Bundestag through an empirical analysis of the position papers presented in the public hearings of its standing committees in 2011. These committees are the most important forums to revise legislative proposals. Drawing on resource dependency theory, we employ GLM regression analyses to study if interest groups act as change agents that bring legislation closer to their own policy preferences. Controlling for institutional and bill characteristics, we discuss two major findings that shed light on the role of interest groups in legislation. First, business groups' opposition to government bills triggers legislative changes because their members control the means of production and make investment decisions. In contrast, fundamental opposition of non-business groups has no impact. Second, bills debated and opposed by a greater number of interest groups undergo more changes pointing to the importance of the dens...
TL;DR: This paper used a series of heteroskedastic Bayesian spatial autoregressive models to estimate the effects of congressional staff on legislative behavior and found that members of Congress who exchange important staff members across congresses are more similar in their legislative effectiveness and voting patterns than we would otherwise expect.
Abstract: Standard accounts of legislative behavior typically neglect the activities of professional staff, who are treated as extensions of the elected officials they serve. However, staff appear to have substantial independent effects on observed levels of legislator productivity and policy preferences. In this article, we use a novel data set of comprehensive longitudinal employment records from the US House of Representatives to estimate the effects of congressional staff on legislative behavior. Specifically, results from a series of heteroskedastic Bayesian spatial autoregressive models indicate that members of Congress who exchange important staff members across congresses are more similar in their legislative effectiveness and voting patterns than we would otherwise expect. These findings suggest that scholars should reconsider the role of staff in the legislative process.
TL;DR: The scope and contents of this convention remain contested as mentioned in this paper and there is disagreement about the kind of operations that should be exempt from the rule, questions of parliamentary procedure that favour the executive and the proper timing of substantive votes.
Abstract: To what extent does political practice under the British Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition (2010–2015) reflect a ‘parliamentary prerogative’? From a formal-institutional point of view one should not expect substantial parliamentary influence in Britain. Yet recent developments suggest the emergence of a new convention. Examining parliamentary debates during the run-up to the votes on Libya and Syria, this contribution shows that the scope and contents of this convention remain contested. Specifically, there is disagreement about the kind of operations that ought to be exempt from the rule, questions of parliamentary procedure that favour the executive and, crucially, the proper timing of substantive votes. Nonetheless, parliament has emerged from the vote on Syria as an informal veto player on decisions regarding war involvement. However, whether MPs will exercise their veto power in prospective cases will depend on the preference distribution in the legislature and the nature of the propose...
TL;DR: In this article, an econometric analysis on the Italian regions for the 1996-2013 period is performed, comparing the period before (1996-2006) and after (2006-2013) the date of entry into force of the new law.
Abstract: The aim of this paper was twofold: on the one hand, we analyse the results achieved in terms of percentages of separate collection in Italy by testing the effectiveness of Legislative Decree 152/2006 in improving the separate collection process; and on the other hand, we investigate on some of the factors, related to the sociocultural local context, that could explain the different impacts of the law in the three macro-areas considered (North, Central and South Italy). To this purpose, an econometric analysis on the Italian regions for the 1996–2013 period is performed, comparing the period before (1996–2006) and after (2006–2013) the date of entry into force of the new law. The results show the effectiveness of Legislative Decree 152/2006 in promoting separate collection, although a regional difference in terms of separate collection rate is observed. Northern regions proved to be more dynamic and reactive to the above-mentioned legislation, while Central and especially Southern regions achieved poorer results in moving to higher separate waste collection rates. Finally, our work provides evidence on some local factors that may have hampered an effective policy implementation in Southern regions, among them, the presence of criminal activities and the lack of citizen participation in politics.
Dissertation•
01 May 2017
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze the NAACP's efforts to push anti-lynching bills through Congress and its efforts to secure presidential endorsement for those bills, and find that the NAACP learned how to work with the executive branch and how to write stronger legislation.
Abstract: Why the NAACP pursued anti-lynching legislation with such vigour despite a decade of defeat in the Senate is the key research question this thesis considers. In doing so it analyses two aspects of the NAACP’s lobbying efforts during the 1930s: its attempts to push anti-lynching bills through Congress and its efforts to secure presidential endorsement for those bills.
New insights on how the NAACP learned to lobby can be gleaned by considering the NAACP, Congress, and the President, as key influences on the anti-lynching campaign. This thesis analyses previously neglected primary source material to shed light on President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s influence on the anti-lynching campaign. Additionally, it interprets the anti-lynching campaign through a theoretical lens. It considers theories of lobbying in Congress, presidential power, and congressional obstruction to contextualise the institutions, politics, and politicians at play in the anti-lynching campaign.
Despite no anti-lynching legislation ever being passed, both Congress and the executive branch had a profound effect upon the NAACP’s political education. In response to Congressional conservatism towards the anti-lynching campaign, and in order to push anti-lynching legislation through the legislative branch, the NAACP learned to overcome legislative obstruction and conform to norms and procedures dictated by Congress. By working with FDR—who, contrary to popular belief, had a liberal reformist attitude towards anti-lynching—the NAACP learned how to work with the executive branch and how to write stronger legislation. FDR helped NAACP activists to rhetorically frame anti-lynching in terms of the function of government and proposed strategies to give the federal government the power to prosecute lynchings. NAACP activists gained confidence in their tactics and optimism about achieving their objective from their political education. In contrast to the undertone of failure running through existing literature, the events of the anti-lynching movement instead highlight a theme of opportunity and hope for the NAACP.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the Indonesian Law on Social Conflict 2012, which allows a state of social conflict to be declared at the national, regional or local level in response to social conflict, such as conflict between religious or ethnic communities.
Abstract: The exercise of emergency powers is always controversial. This article identifies the expansion of the type and scope of emergency powers through legislative reform. It does so by examining the Indonesian Law on Social Conflict 2012, which allows a state of social conflict to be declared at the national, regional or local level in response to social conflict, such as conflict between religious or ethnic communities. The deliberate choice of the term “state of social conflict”, rather than “state of emergency”, is an attempt to obscure the nature of these powers. Analysis of these powers and the debate that has ensued suggests that the law expands the types of situation in which powers usually only reserved for an emergency are used, and by delegating this power to local authorities, the law in effect amounts to the expansion of emergency powers. I suggest that this should lead to renewed focus on meaningful limits and checks on the exercise of power during times of emergency.