scholarly journals Agenda Control and Timing of Bill Initiation: A Temporal Perspective on Coalition Governance in Parliamentary Democracies

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
THOMAS KÖNIG ◽  
NICK LIN ◽  
XIAO LU ◽  
THIAGO N. SILVA ◽  
NIKOLETA YORDANOVA ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Temporal Constraints ◽  
Agenda Control ◽  
Temporal Perspective ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Circular Regression ◽  
Using Data

Although democratic governance imposes temporal constraints, the timing of government policy making activities such as bill initiation is still poorly understood. This holds especially under coalition governments, in which government bills need to find approval by a partner party in parliament. We propose a dynamic temporal perspective in which ministers do not know whether they face a cooperative or competitive partner at the beginning of a term, but they learn this over time and use their agenda control to time further bill initiation in response. A circular regression analysis using data on more than 25,000 government bills from 11 parliamentary democracies over 30 years supports this temporal perspective, showing that ministers initiate bills later in the term when their previous bills have experienced greater scrutiny. Ministers further delay bill initiation when coalition parties’ incentives to deviate from compromise increase and when they have less power to constrain their bills’ scrutiny.

scholarly journals Professional activists? Party activism among political staffers in parliamentary democracies

2021 ◽  
pp. 135406882110273
Author(s):  
Pieter Moens
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
High Intensity ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Strong Commitment ◽  
Staff Recruitment

Although the position of the party on the ground has been weakened by cartelization, grassroots activists remain an important recruitment pool for political professionals. Based on unique survey data collected among the staff of 14 Belgian and Dutch parties (N = 1009), this article offers an in-depth analysis of party activism among this under-researched population. Introducing a new supply and demand framework, I argue that staff recruitment is shaped by candidate preferences (supply) and party preferences (demand). The findings demonstrate that most political staffers are high-intensity activists with a strong commitment to their party. Moreover, the theoretical model accurately predicts that non-activists are more common among policy and communication experts, ministerial staff, and those working for ideologically moderate parties. These findings show that paid staffers do not necessarily widen the gap between parties and activists. They also raise normative questions about internal congruence within parties in coalition governments.

scholarly journals Campaign Finance Regulations and Public Policy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
MARTIN GILENS ◽  
SHAWN PATTERSON ◽  
PAVIELLE HAINES
Keyword(s):  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Synthetic Control Method ◽  
Citizens United ◽  
Independent Expenditures ◽  
American Elections ◽  
The U.S

Abstract Despite a century of efforts to constrain money in American elections, there is little consensus on whether campaign finance regulations make any appreciable difference. Here we take advantage of a change in the campaign finance regulations of half of the U.S. states mandated by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. This exogenously imposed change in the regulation of independent expenditures provides an advance over the identification strategies used in most previous studies. Using a generalized synthetic control method, we find that after Citizens United, states that had previously banned independent corporate expenditures (and thus were “treated” by the decision) adopted more “corporate-friendly” policies on issues with broad effects on corporations’ welfare; we find no evidence of shifts on policies with little or no effect on corporate welfare. We conclude that even relatively narrow changes in campaign finance regulations can have a substantively meaningful influence on government policy making.

A Note on “Public Policy”

1973 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 661-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Vaison
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Studies ◽  
Policy Analysts ◽  
Government Body

Normally in political studies the term public policy is construed to encompass the societally binding directives issued by a society's legitimate government. We usually consider government, and only government, as being able to “authoritatively allocate values.” This common conception pervades the literature on government policy-making, so much so that it is hardly questioned by students and practitioners of political science. As this note attempts to demonstrate, some re-thinking seems to be in order. For purposes of analysis in the social sciences, this conceptualization of public policy tends to obscure important realities of modern corporate society and to restrict unnecessarily the study of policy-making. Public policy is held to be public simply and solely because it originates from a duly legitimated government, which in turn is held to have the authority (within specified limits) of formulating and implementing such policy. Public policy is public then, our usual thinking goes, because it is made by a body defined somewhat arbitrarily as “public”: a government or some branch of government. All other policy-making is seen as private; it is not public (and hence to lie essentially beyond the scope of the disciplines of poliitcal science and public administration) because it is duly arrived at by non-governmental bodies. Thus policy analysts lead us to believe that public policy is made only when a government body acts to consider some subject of concern, and that other organizations are not relevant to the study of public policy.

Environmental Policies for Emergency Management and Public Safety

2019 ◽  
pp. 903-922
Author(s):  
Amidu Owolabi Ayeni
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Emergency Management ◽  
Community Participation ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Green Policy ◽  
Or Organization

Policy refers to the commitment of people or organization to the laws, regulations, and other green mechanisms concerning environmental issues. Community participation has become important in government, policy makers, and environmentalists over last few decades, and as a result, it is now an established principle as it is widely used not only in academic literature but in policy-making documents, international discussions, as well as in local debates when considering issues dealing with decision-making to achieve sustainable development. Implementation of green policy and community participation programs through representatives—organization, groups of individuals—enhances the benefits of polices and program and adds value to policy as well as making the policy's results and responses more effective and stronger.

Facing the Future

2020 ◽  
pp. 187-216
Author(s):  
Lise Butler
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Research Council ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Social Science Journal ◽  
The Social ◽  
Intellectual Networks ◽  
Negative Income Tax

This chapter examines Young’s work as founding chair of the Social Science Research Council between 1965 and 1968 in the Labour government led by Harold Wilson. It describes how Young responded to increasing anxieties about the nature of planning and expertise in the British civil service by arguing that the social sciences should play a more prominent role in government policy making. The chapter focuses mainly on Young’s Committee on the Next Thirty Years, and his proposals for an Institute of Forecasting Studies, which he unsuccessfully sought to develop as part of a transnational forecasting movement with the support of foreign intellectuals such as the American sociologist Daniel Bell and the French futurologist Bertrand de Jouvenel. The chapter also discusses the intellectual networks associated with the popular social science journal New Society, showing that this group promoted libertarian and state-critical perspectives on urban planning, and radical economic ideas like negative income tax. While the Next Thirty Years Committee was short-lived, it reflected Young’s career-long conviction that public policy should be guided by interdisciplinary social science.

ICTs as Participatory Vehicles

2005 ◽  
pp. 1372-1378
Author(s):  
Marc Holzer ◽  
Richard Schwester
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Civic Participation ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Information And Communications Technologies ◽  
Communications Technologies ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
Elected Representatives

While citizen participation is central to democratic governance, there is a noticeable disconnect between elected representatives and the citizenry, as evidenced by voter apathy, decreased levels of civic participation, and widespread cynicism toward political institutions (Hudson, 2001; Putnam, 2000; Berman, 1997). Citizen participation advocates, however, are optimistic that information and communications technologies (ICTs) will facilitate direct interactions between citizens and government, thereby altering the dynamics of the policy-making process by affording the citizenry a stronger voice. This article examines the integration of ICTs and digital democratic applications in the context of citizen participation in government.

The policy capacity of political parties in Canada

2018 ◽  
pp. 257-274
Author(s):  
Greg Flynn ◽  
Marguerite Marlin
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Significant Influence ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Limited Impact ◽  
Policy Capacity ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Party Members

Political parties and their members are often viewed as having limited impact on government policy choices. However, prior research shows that both sets of actors devote considerably more time and resources to policy-related activities than this view would suggest. We examine the policy capacity of parties and their members to influence policy-making in Canada over the course of the last decade. We focus on the ability of party members to have their policy wishes included in election campaign manifestos and the extent to which the 2008 and 2011 federal Conservative governments were able to fulfill their campaign commitments in a highly challenging policy capacity environment. Consistent with prior studies on previous Conservative and Liberal governments, this examination demonstrates that while governments face a number of influences on their policy choices, the policy wishes of party members and the election campaign policy commitments of parties have a significant influence.

Stakeholder Interests and the Evolution of Uk Ccs Policy

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 425-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Littlecott
Keyword(s):  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Carbon Capture ◽  
Carbon Capture And Storage ◽  
Practical Experience ◽  
Stakeholder Interests ◽  
The Uk ◽  
And Storage

It is often recognised that the UK benefits from positive technical advantages that could assist in the development and deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, yet policy efforts to secure demonstration projects have faltered over recent years. This commentary article draws on practical experience of cross-sectoral cooperation to explore how different stakeholder interests have aligned in support of CCS, strengthening the case for UK action. A framework for considering stakeholder interests is set out, and informs an analysis of successive waves of government policy making. Implications for forthcoming policy developments are thereby identified.

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