Congressional oversight and electoral accountability

2022 ◽  
pp. 095162982110615
Author(s):  
Austin Bussing ◽  
Michael Pomirchy
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Corrective Action ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Congressional Oversight ◽  
Legislative Oversight

Legislative oversight allows Congress to investigate potential wrongdoing by executive branch actors. We present a model in which an incumbent exercises oversight and chooses to take corrective action against the executive before going up for reelection. We show that partisan types who prefer to take corrective action regardless of the probability of wrongdoing will always conduct oversight, but sincere types who only want to correct legitimate wrongdoing will exercise restraint to avoid appearing too partisan and losing reelection. The model also shows that oversight is increasing in the probability that the incumbent is partisan and the probability that the challenger is sincere. Finally, we present two case studies, the Elián González custody case and the attack on the Benghazi embassy, to illustrate our theory.

Maintaining the Internal Tension Model

2021 ◽  
pp. 59-98
Author(s):  
Margit Cohn
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Soft Law ◽  
Fuzzy Measures ◽  
Formal Status

This chapter is dedicated to an overview of the ways the internal tension model operates to empower the executive branch, simultaneously under law and beyond its confines; the maintenance of the internal tension between the need to grant power and the need to retain a façade of legality, is achieved through practices under which an authorizing rule may present a façade of legality that derives from its binding formal status, while its content or application offer broad options for action (and possible abuse) which conceals a reality of a-legality. Beyond general and philosophical studies of the indeterminacy of law, the scholarship in this context has been conducted under the parallel paths discussed in this chapter (delegation and discretion; ‘soft law’; ‘fuzzy law’; and ‘grey holes’. The second part of the chapter is dedicated to an analysis of thirteen types of such fuzzy/grey legal constructs, organized according to the identity of their generators—the constitution, the legislature, and the executive. The resulting taxonomy of thirteen different forms of fuzziness offers a basis for the next part of this book, dedicated to case-studies of several such fuzzy measures.

Electoral Transparency, Accountability, and Integrity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pippa Norris
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
General Election ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Ideal Model ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Key Policy

This concluding chapter looks at the links connecting transparency, accountability, and compliance. In particular, it considers an ideal model of electoral accountability. Yet it is unclear whether dissatisfaction with the conduct of elections translates into voting preferences at the ballot box, and there are many conditions under which this ideal model fails, even in democratic states. To illuminate, the chapter compares some selected case studies, including Watergate in the United States, the Fujimori scandal and the Peruvian general election in 2000, and the Recruit scandal and Japanese elections in 1993. Finally, it assesses the more general lessons arising from contributions to this book, considers the broader consequences of the transparency-accountability-compliance nexus for understanding processes of electoral integrity and malpractice, and identifies some of the key policy implications that follow from the analysis.

scholarly journals Bringing the boys back home: Campaign promises and US decision-making in Iraq and Vietnam

Politics ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 026339572093720
Author(s):  
Andrew Payne
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Powerful Factor ◽  
Important Constraint ◽  
Conflict Initiation ◽  
Push And Pull ◽  
Electoral Calendar

This article argues that electoral politics acts as an important constraint on presidential decision-making in war. Going beyond the existing literature’s focus on cases of conflict initiation, it outlines how electoral pressures push and pull presidents away from courses of action which may otherwise be deemed strategically optimal. Importantly, however, these electoral constraints will not just apply on the immediate eve of an election but will vary in strength across the electoral calendar. Together, this conceptual framework helps explain why presidential fulfilment of rhetorical pledges made on the previous campaign trail may be belated and often inconsistent. To probe the plausibility of these arguments, case studies of the closing stages of the wars in Vietnam and Iraq are outlined, drawing on archival and elite interview material. These episodes demonstrate that electoral accountability can be a powerful factor affecting wartime decision-making, but its effect is non-linear, and not easily observed through a narrow focus on particular timeframes.

“Talking about Capturing bin Laden”: The Clinton Administration and the Legal Architecture of Lethal Force in Counterterrorism, 1993–2000

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Fuller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Clinton Administration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Covert Action ◽  
Congressional Oversight ◽  
Lethal Force ◽  
The Creation

This chapter addresses the notion that the CIA's drone campaign lacks appropriate congressional oversight and domestic legal authorization, instead revealing that the agency sought extensive legal cover from both the executive branch and Congress before undertaking its role as aerial executioner. Introducing the concept of the covert action pendulum, the chapter argues that a historic cycle of agency excess followed by a backlash of congressional investigation and subsequently increased oversight became established. It also examines how the hard-learned lessons from these pendulum swings prompted Langley's cautious managers to insist upon the creation of the complex legal architecture that now underwrites the United States' drone campaign.

The Executive

2021 ◽  
pp. 151-175
Author(s):  
Berihun Adugna Gebeye
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Constitutional Theory ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Constitutional Design ◽  
Comparative Case Studies ◽  
Design And Practice

This chapter focuses on the executive branch in order to explain how legal syncretism influences African constitutional design and practice, using Nigeria, Ethiopia, and South Africa as comparative case studies. The chapter first develops a conceptual framework for the design of the executive and the practice of executive power drawing from liberal constitutional theory. The chapter then explores and examines the design of the executive and the practice of executive power in Nigeria, Ethiopia, and South Africa. The aim is to demonstrate how legal syncretism shapes the executive branches in these countries and how different configurations of legal syncretism have produced imperial executives in Nigeria and Ethiopia, but not in South Africa. By disentangling the discursive practices that bring about and sustain the imperial executives, and by showing the pathologies of constitutional design and practice related to the executive, the chapter defends the idea of a limited executive if constitutionalism is to prosper in Africa.

The Province of Delegated Legislation

2020 ◽  
pp. 145-172
Author(s):  
Jeff King
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
European Union ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Perceived Need ◽  
Track Record ◽  
Legislative Oversight ◽  
Legal Challenges

Delegated legislation is produced by the executive branch of government, usually under powers conferred by legislatures. Such powers have provoked controversy in most contemporary democracies. There is a widely perceived need to bolster the democratic legitimacy of law produced in this way, either through greater legislative oversight or enhanced participation, or both. This chapter explores how the organically evolved UK constitution has struggled to meet this challenge since the outset of the twentieth century. It examines how the powers to adopt delegated legislation arose, the constitutional tensions it produced, and how that prehistory relates to the dramatic resort to such powers in recent legislation adopted to facilitate the UK’s departure from the European Union. More specifically, it surveys the experience of making and laying delegated legislation before Parliament, and the track record of parliamentary scrutiny, before considering how that background may play an important role in how Brexit-related delegated legislation may fare in legal challenges in the coming years.

scholarly journals The National People's Congress Oversight Power and the Role of the CCP

2003 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 6-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chao Chien-Min
Keyword(s):  
Central Government ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Political Reforms ◽  
Legislative Oversight ◽  
Local Officials ◽  
People's Congress ◽  
Political Scene

The urbanization and the structural and institutional changes that have taken place in China in the past two decades have resulted in the collapse of the old system and the germination of a tremendous number of irregularities. To redress the malfeasance brought about by the new decentralization of economic resources, the People's Congresses (PCs) are taking the lead in another round of incremental political reforms. The combination of specialization and centralization of leadership has led to an augmentation of legislative oversight. Measures developed by the legislative institutions, such as pingyi (evaluation) and zhifa jiancha (inspection of implementation of laws), have enlivened a lethargic local political scene and given rise to the committee autonomy. These political reforms have transformed local politics forever, forcing the central government to follow suit. The urgent need for institutional mechanisms to counter the vices associated with socialist market reform has prompted the Party to turn its attention to the People's Congresses. Consequently, a Leninist party-state system has been transformed into a new system in which the Party is allied simultaneously with the executive and the legislative branches. A preliminary and limited balance of power is now emerging in which the Party is not totally immune. The newly accrued legislative powers have not only redefined the tenets of Party leadership, but also rewritten its relations with the executive branch. Although the PCs are still often barred from vital decision-making, new devices such as pingyi and zhifa jiancha are forcing some local officials to have second thoughts before straying too far from legal boundaries.

Corporate Sustainability: Challenge to Managerial Orthodoxies

2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dexter Dunphy
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Corporate Sustainability ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Marked Contrast ◽  
Sustainability Management

ABSTRACTThis paper addresses the issue of corporate sustainability. It examines why achieving sustainability is becoming an increasingly vital issue for society and organisations, defines sustainability and then outlines a set of phases through which organisations can move to achieve increasing levels of sustainability. Case studies are presented of organisations at various phases indicating the benefits, for the organisation and its stakeholders, which can be made at each phase. Finally the paper argues that there is a marked contrast between the two competing philosophies of neo-conservatism (economic rationalism) and the emerging philosophy of sustainability. Management schools have been strongly influenced by economic rationalism, which underpins the traditional orthodoxies presented in such schools. Sustainability represents an urgent challenge for management schools to rethink these traditional orthodoxies and give sustainability a central place in the curriculum.

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