More than a ritual dance. The Dutch practice of parliamentary oversight and control of the intelligence community

2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 227-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constant Hijzen
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Security Services ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Ritual Dance ◽  
Parliamentary Committee ◽  
And Control ◽  
Parliamentary Oversight

Parliamentary oversight and control of intelligence and security services is complex, in theory as well as in practice. Because of the secrecy that surrounds their work, parliamentary control is essentially difficult. In this article the Dutch experiences in institutionalizing and practising oversight are explored. It will become clear that factors such as the structural makeup of the parliamentary committee for oversight, political culture, and the personal views of the Members of Parliament involved, decide to a large degree how often the committee convenes, what the atmosphere of the meetings is like, and what issues are on the table.

Federal Constitutional Court Defines the Power of Parliamentary Minorities in the Constitutionally Established, Parliamentary Investigative Committees

2002 ◽  
Vol 3 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Volker Röben
Keyword(s):  
Max Weber ◽  
Specific Aspect ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Central Function ◽  
German State ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Basic Law ◽  
Parliamentary Committee ◽  
Federal Constitutional ◽  
The Right

The Untersuchungsausschuss-Fall (Parliamentary Committee Case) 2 BvE 2/01, decided by the Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG – Federal Constitutional Court) on 8 April 2002, concerns the so-called right of enquête, a central function of Parliament under the parliamentary system designed by the German Basic Law. The right of enquête, the investigation by Parliament by taking evidence complete with the subpoena powers normally reserved to criminal investigations, has been an integral part of both the Weimar and the Bonn Constitutions. Max Weber, in the era of the Bismarck-Constitution for the German state founded in 1871, made a forceful pitch for the equality of the Parliament and Executive. He argued that members of Parliament needed to be professionals and to have full access to the information that, traditionally, was the source of power of the executive. Instituting committees of investigation with the power to take evidence was the means to do so. In fact, Weber went further, arguing that the right to call for an investigative parliamentary committee needed to be vested in a (qualified) minority of the members of Parliament. There is no equivalent of this specific aspect in the other European parliamentary systems. Article 34 of the Weimar Constitution provided that one fifth of the members of Parliament could ask for the institution of a committee of investigation. The same quorum had the right to move for the hearing of specific evidence by the committee.

The Window of Vulnerability That Wasn't: Soviet Military Buildup in the 1970s—A Research Note

2008 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavel Podvig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
The United States ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Military Buildup ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Exchange ◽  
The U.S

The Soviet strategic modernization program of the 1970s was one of the most consequential developments of the Cold War. Deployment of new intercontinental ballistic missiles and the dramatic increase in the number of strategic warheads in the Soviet arsenal created a sense of vulnerability in the United States that was, to a large degree, responsible for the U.S. military buildup of the late 1970s and early 1980s and the escalation of Cold War tensions during that period. U.S. assessments concluded that the Soviet Union was seeking to achieve a capability to fight and win a nuclear war. Estimates of missile accuracy and silo hardness provided by the U.S. intelligence community led many in the United States to conclude that the Soviet Union was building a strategic missile force capable of destroying most U.S. missiles in a counterforce strike and of surviving a subsequent nuclear exchange. Soviet archival documents that have recently become available demonstrate that this conclusion was wrong. The U.S. estimates substantially overestimated the accuracy of the Soviet Union's missiles and the degree of silo reinforcement. As the data demonstrate, the Soviet missile force did not have the capability to launch a successful first strike. Moreover, the data strongly suggest that the Soviet Union never attempted to acquire a first-strike capability, concentrating instead on strategies based on retaliation.

Opposition and Control in Turkey

1966 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Şerif Mardin
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Developing Nations ◽  
The State ◽  
Usual Sense ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Traditions ◽  
Arab States ◽  
And Control

Turkey is not in the usual sense a developing country. It is a state, the fabric of which has endured for a number of centuries. Consequently, its political culture embodies elements which go far back into history. It has both an ethos and eidos of service to the state and a bureaucratic apparatus which for centuries has been entrusted with the application of the values embodied in its political culture. The structure of the state has been somewhat looser in Iran, but there too, the situation is appreciably different from what it is in the Arab states or Pakistan where the structure of the state is recent, its mark on the ethos of the people slight and its political traditions embryonic. In the case of Turkey and to a less extent in Iran, some of the crucial problems of developing nations – problems which are acute in many Arab states – such as those of building up an identity as a nation, overcoming particularistic allegiances, launching oneself into the take-off stages of industrialization are well on the way to solution. We are faced then, under the rubric of ‘Middle East’ with a number of countries which are at different stages on the scale of modernization. By itself, this would suffice to make the subsuming of all Middle Eastern countries under a single heading extremely unwise.

The Concept of Political Culture

2001 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald P. Formisano
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
And Control ◽  
Comparative Logic

Although historians have frequently employed political culture in their writings, they often seem unaware of the long-standing controversy that has engaged social scientists regarding its theoretical grounding, its methods, and its substantive findings. Moreover, cultural historians who have pioneered new ways of looking at symbolic and expressive forms of power have tended to slight the more traditional dimensions of power—such as persisting elite hegemony and control of material resources—that ought not be excluded from the concept's domain. Historians would do well to attend more fully to the implications of political culture, especially its inherently comparative logic.

scholarly journals La doppia preferenza di genere: i suoi effetti nelle elezioni comunali del 2013 a Siena, Pisa e Massa

2013 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-54
Author(s):  
Cristina Agostinelli
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
The Political ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Equal Opportunities ◽  
Anal Ysis ◽  
The Government ◽  
And Control ◽  
Empirical Demonstration ◽  
Electoral Law ◽  
Selection Of

The ltalian law n. 215 of 2012 introduces important changes to the TUEL, «Law on local government», with the objective of strengthening the existing promotion of equal opportunities, supporting the local authorities and ensuring the presence of both genders within elected assemblies. The research proposes a method of comparative anal ysis to observe and control the effects produced by the new electoral instruments adopted for the election of municipal councils with at least 5000 inhabitants. The local elections of May 2013 is the first empirical demonstration of the effects of this law, which introduces the institution of dual gender preference for the selection of represen tatives and a minimum electoral rate for both genders needed to form the list of the parties. The comparative analysis is carried out considering the Tuscany Region, referring to the three towns of Siena, Pisa and Massa where the population had to renew their represen tative council adopting the new electoral law. The data analysis is performed in each mu nicipality about the election of 2013 and the previous one. The aim of the study is to check empirically the effects produced by the new law, based on three aspects closely linked to the evolution of parity democracy: the increase of women in the elective councils, the in fiuence on the characteristics of the offer of each political party and the infiuence on the voters' choices, as well as on the political culture of the government system.

scholarly journals SOCIAL NETWORKS AS A FACTOR OF CHANGES IN POLITICAL CULTURE AND POLITICAL PRACTICES IN UKRAINE: RISKS AND PERSPECTIVES

2019 ◽  
pp. 93-99
Author(s):  
Olha Mykhailova
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Internet Communication ◽  
Security Services ◽  
Safety Risks ◽  
The Social ◽  
Promising Area ◽  
Information And Communication

The article analyzes changes in the political culture and political practices of Ukrainian citizens related to the spread of the new Internet communication format – social networks. The characteristics of network communication, such as radical democracy, access to the global information market, rapid implementation of technological innovations, etc, are outlined. The social networks are shown as an important decisive factor of public opinion shaping, political agenda and political culture in Ukraine. This gives rise to specific humanitarian safety risks. It is fixed the threat of information and communication influence by the Russian security services on the consciousness of Ukrainians through social networks. Appropriately it is proposed the measures to minimize this threat, as well as to introduce a more active, offensive strategy in the information and communication field. There are also outlined the risks to national consolidation cased by the low level of communicative culture, excessive emotionality and politicization of Ukrainian network users. Complicating communication strategies has been identified as a promising area for humanitarian policy, as it enables national security to be strengthened without the offensive on free speech or repressive measures. At present, the Ukrainian state is not using this new communication format effectively enough. In this regard, it is proposed to carry out a series of educational activities and initiatives of various levels aimed at promoting the level of communication culture of Ukrainians. Implementation of these measures would help launch the deliberation processes, consolidation of Ukrainian citizens, search for consensus and innovative solutions of the problems that are currently polarizing society. It is shown that such a direction of humanitarian policy is in line with the democratic traditions of Ukrainian political culture and the constitutional foundations of the Ukrainian state.

scholarly journals Developing a Deeper Understanding of Learning Processing During Unguided Complex Learning Tasks: Implications for Language Advising

2012 ◽  
pp. 6-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke Carson
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Independent Learning ◽  
Monitoring And Control ◽  
Classroom Learning ◽  
Complex Learning ◽  
Teacher Guidance ◽  
Upper Level ◽  
And Control

This paper outlines a research project that is mapping cognitive, metacognitive and other processing types and their interactions in complex learning situations, specifically in learning situations without teacher guidance. It presents some examples from the findings of this project and the implications for learning advisors working with adult (tertiary level) advisees who are engaged, to a large degree, with independent forms of learning. When we look at learning occurring without instruction, we see very dynamic thinking processes that involve continuous movement between the upper and lower levels of cognitive processing. The manner of this processing differs from learning processing during classroom learning, which is highly structured and directed. As the main difference between independent learning and classroom learning is the absence of a teacher, this paper focuses on the type of processing that takes on the cognitive functions created by this absence – metacognitive processing. The data shows that, for the population in this study, all learners involved in independent learning necessarily engaged in frequent metacognitive processes, though with greater and lesser levels of success or effectiveness. This research indicates that it is not possible to complete any form of complex independent learning task without engaging in frequent upper level processing. The paper then discusses what this means for learning advisors, and how we discuss learning concepts and learning control with advisees, through ideas such as using existing knowledge, and the planning, monitoring and control of learning.

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