Conclusion: Maintaining Legislative Democracy

2018 ◽  
pp. 233-248
Author(s):  
Michael Koß
Keyword(s):  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Agenda Control ◽  
Critical Juncture ◽  
Multiple Causation ◽  
Legislative Committees ◽  
Western European ◽  
Procedural Reform ◽  
Presidential Systems

This chapter provides the causal mechanism explaining the emergence of talking, working, and hybrid legislatures. Apart from anti-system obstruction, in order to be established, talking legislatures depend on two additional necessary conditions jointly sufficient for a centralization of agenda control: a critical juncture and followers’ surrender of inherited procedural privileges. Alternatively, followers’ demand for mega-seats on legislative committees triggers a development towards working legislatures. This chapter also emphasizes that legislative obstruction is subject to equifinality and argues that the procedural development of congresses in presidential systems is most likely susceptible to more multiple causation than that of parliaments. In conclusion, it appears that procedural reform in Western European legislatures over the last 150 years was primarily aimed at maintaining legislative democracy. The chapter closes with a discussion of the alleged decline of legislatures and addresses options for countering the dual threats to legislative democracy posed by autocrats and populists.

A Dynamic Partisan Perspective on Procedural Reform

2018 ◽  
pp. 40-67
Author(s):  
Michael Koß
Keyword(s):  
European Countries ◽  
Agenda Control ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Procedural Change ◽  
Bargaining Position ◽  
Leaders And Followers ◽  
Change Leaders ◽  
Legislative Committees ◽  
Western European ◽  
Procedural Reform

This chapter introduces the dynamic partisan perspective on procedural change. Leaders are expected to prefer creating mega-seats in the cabinet (and centralize agenda control), whereas followers prefer (powerful) legislative committees under decentralized agenda control. Leaders’ and followers’ procedural preferences are operationalized by means of the framing of their respective reform proposals. Leaders are expected to emphasize a majoritarian vision of legislative democracy, while followers espouse a proportional vision. All else being equal, followers enjoy a better bargaining position because the proportional vision is more in line with the legislative state of nature. Therefore, the procedural path chosen hypothetically depends on the occurrence of anti-system obstruction which alters followers’ preferences. The chapter closes by discussing the temporal, substantial, and spatial boundaries of the cases selected here. Accordingly, failed and successful procedural reforms in four Western European countries (Britian, France, Sweden, and Germany) will be analysed over the 1866–2015 period.

Adaptations, 1991–2015

2018 ◽  
pp. 208-232
Author(s):  
Michael Koß
Keyword(s):  
Path Dependence ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Similar Increase ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Agenda Control ◽  
Sharp Rise ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Populist Radical Right ◽  
Procedural Reform

The 1991–2015 period saw both the diminished importance of the traditional anti-system parties of the left (due to the end of Communist rule in Europe) as well as the rise of new populist radical right-wing parties. As a response to the sharp rise of tactical obstruction by loyal opposition parties, the French National Assembly became a hybrid legislature when committees were empowered under centralized agenda control in 2008. With no similar increase of obstruction in the British House of Commons, no substantial procedural reform occurred. In the two working legislatures (the Riksdag and the Bundestag), legislators maintained their preference for work. This explains the procedural path dependence in both legislatures despite the appearance of a potential anti-system party (the Sweden Democrats) in the Riksdag. Given the absence of sustained obstruction by the Sweden Democrats, followers successfully reversed an attempt to informally centralize agenda control in the Riksdag.

scholarly journals Karlovac chant between tradition and innovation

2021 ◽  
pp. 207-223
Author(s):  
Dragan Askovic
Keyword(s):  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Liturgical Music ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Music Transcription ◽  
Musical Tradition ◽  
The Great Migration ◽  
Western European ◽  
Musical Achievement ◽  
Basic Characteristics ◽  
Musical Heritage

Church singing, which was created due to the circumstances that arose after the Great Migration, is better known as the Karlovac chant. It was named after the place where it was transcribed and represents our national way of interpreting liturgical music, characterized by accepted influences of Western European musical practice, manifested first in music transcription, notation, metrics, and Western European tonality. Those were necessary conditions for its further artistic transposition into a complex polyphonic choral facture, intended primarily for church music elite. Permeated with the standard authoritative Western European musical tradition, it succumbed to the influence of superior musical achievements. However, when exposed to Western European creative practices, it did not prove to be a harmonized expression of artistic subordination, but an example of an unpredictable musical achievement based on the synthesis of our rich musical heritage imbued with a unique confessional and national self-determination. Its basic characteristics go back to the traditional musical heritage of the Balkans and Byzantium, enriched by Western European influences.

Parliaments in Time

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Koß
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
Process Tracing ◽  
Agenda Control ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
Legislative Procedures ◽  
Legislative Agenda ◽  
Western European ◽  
System Threat ◽  
Distributive Bargaining

This book sheds light on the institutional development of four (emerging) Western European parliaments. Parliaments in Western Europe are noteworthy for several reasons. Their institutional designs differ remarkably, with distinct consequences for their policy output. Scholars have diagnosed the decline of legislatures for over a century now. Based on a model of distributive bargaining over legislative procedures, this book engages in a comparative process-tracing analysis of ninety reforms, which restructured control over the plenary agenda and committee power in Britain, France, Sweden, and Germany between 1866 and 2015. The analysis presented suggests that legislators in Western Europe rationalize procedures as a response to growing levels of legislative workload. As a consequence, legislatures evolve towards one of two procedural ideal types: talking or working legislatures. In talking legislatures, governments enjoy privileges in legislative agenda-setting (resulting in centralized agenda control) and committees are weak. In contrast, working legislatures combine decentralized agenda control with powerful committees. Which path legislators chose is determined by the appearance of anti-system obstruction. If anti-system parties obstruct legislative business, legislators surrender ancient procedural privileges and agree to a centralization of agenda control. Otherwise, their demand for legislative mega-seats on committees triggers the evolution of working legislatures. If legislators fail to respond to an anti-system threat, legislative procedures break down. For this reason, the central aim of procedural reforms in Western European parliaments is to maintain legislative democracy. Rather than a decline of legislatures, for talking legislatures to successfully overcome an anti-system threat indicates the resilience of legislative democracy.

The Analysis of Talking and Working Legislatures

2018 ◽  
pp. 16-39
Author(s):  
Michael Koß
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Negative Control ◽  
Process Tracing ◽  
Agenda Control ◽  
Procedural Change ◽  
Legislative Committees ◽  
Path Dependent

This chapter discusses agenda control and committee power as the most important features of talking and working legislatures. Agenda control is regarded as centralized if governments possess privileges in two or more of its defining dimensions (timetable, positive, and negative control). Correspondingly, legislative committees are regarded as powerful if at least permanence and rewrite authority are present. This chapter also discusses existing explanations for the distribution of agenda control and committee power. From this discussion follows the methodological decision to first develop a theoretical model of procedural change whose hypotheses are examined in a qualitative process-tracing analysis focusing on controlled cross-case comparisons of four types of procedural reforms (path changes plus path-dependent, incremental, and failed reforms).

Parliamentary Procedure under Theresa May: Nothing Has Changed?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas G Fleming
Keyword(s):  
House Of Commons ◽  
Agenda Control ◽  
Proxy Voting ◽  
Rule Changes ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Parliamentary Procedure ◽  
Procedural Reform ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Parliamentary Politics ◽  
Theresa May

Abstract During the premiership of Theresa May, parliamentary procedure in the UK was scrutinised, criticised and challenged to an extent unprecedented in recent years. This put intense pressure on the ‘rules of the game’ governing parliamentary politics. This article thus aims to answer three questions. First, what were the pressures on parliamentary procedure in this period? Secondly, what were their consequences? Thirdly, how can these consequences be explained? The article addresses these questions by describing challenges to the House of Commons’ rules regarding agenda control, proxy voting and private members’ bills. It also describes the procedural changes resulting from these challenges and evaluates their significance. Finally, it considers how far these changes support the expectations of existing literature on parliamentary rule changes. Overall, the article shows that procedural reform during Theresa May’s premiership was minimal. Despite some temporary informal innovations, the formal rules of the Commons remained almost entirely unchanged. During this period, therefore, Britain’s parliamentary rules were challenged extensively but changed very little.

Symptoms of Alcohol Dependence Predict Suicide Ideation Among Alaskan Undergraduates

Crisis ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 232-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher R. DeCou ◽  
Monica C. Skewes
Keyword(s):  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Alcohol Consumption ◽  
Alcohol Dependence ◽  
Suicide Ideation ◽  
Alcohol Problems ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Students At Risk ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Alcohol Related Problems

Abstract. Background: Previous research has demonstrated an association between alcohol-related problems and suicidal ideation (SI). Aims: The present study evaluated, simultaneously, alcohol consequences and symptoms of alcohol dependence as predictors of SI after adjusting for depressive symptoms and alcohol consumption. Method: A sample of 298 Alaskan undergraduates completed survey measures, including the Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire, the Short Alcohol Dependence Data Questionnaire, and the Beck Depression Inventory – II. The association between alcohol problems and SI status was evaluated using sequential logistic regression. Results: Symptoms of alcohol dependence (OR = 1.88, p < .05), but not alcohol-related consequences (OR = 1.01, p = .95), emerged as an independent predictor of SI status above and beyond depressive symptoms (OR = 2.39, p < .001) and alcohol consumption (OR = 1.08, p = .39). Conclusion: Alcohol dependence symptoms represented a unique risk for SI relative to alcohol-related consequences and alcohol consumption. Future research should examine the causal mechanism behind the relationship between alcohol dependence and suicidality among university students. Assessing the presence of dependence symptoms may improve the accuracy of identifying students at risk of SI.

Fathers in Western/European Cultural Context

PsycCRITIQUES ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 58 (22) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Connor
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Western European

Społeczeństwo holenderskie i los Żydów: skomplikowana historia

2016 ◽  
pp. 425-434
Author(s):  
Dan Michman
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Dutch Society ◽  
Nazi Occupation ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Western European ◽  
Post War ◽  
Of Greece

The percentage of victimization of Dutch Jewry during the Shoah is the highest of Western, Central and Southern Europe (except, perhaps of Greece), and close to the Polish one: 75%, more than 104.000 souls. The question of disproportion between the apparent favorable status of the Jews in society – they had acquired emancipation in 1796 - and the disastrous outcome of the Nazi occupation as compared to other countries in general and Western European in particular has haunted Dutch historiography of the Shoah. Who should be blamed for that outcome: the perpetrators, i.e. the Germans, the bystanders, i.e. the Dutch or the victims, i.e. the Dutch Jews? The article first surveys the answers given to this question since the beginnings of Dutch Holocaust historiography in the immediate post-war period until the debates of today and the factors that influenced the shaping of some basic perceptions on “Dutch society and the Jews”. It then proceeds to detailing several facts from the Holocaust period that are essential for an evaluation of gentile attitudes. The article concludes with the observation that – in spite of ongoing debates – the overall picture which has accumulated after decades of research will not essentially being altered. Although the Holocaust was initiated, planned and carried out from Berlin, and although a considerable number of Dutchmen helped and hid Jews and the majority definitely despised the Germans, considerable parts of Dutch society contributed to the disastrous outcome of the Jewish lot in the Netherlands – through a high amount of servility towards the German authorities, through indifference when Jewish fellow-citizens were persecuted, through economically benefiting from the persecution and from the disappearance of Jewish neighbors, and through actual collaboration (stemming from a variety of reasons). Consequently, the picture of the Holocaust in the Netherlands is multi-dimensional, but altogether puzzling and not favorable.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document