Homeward Bound?: Micro-Level Legislative Responsiveness to Ballot Initiatives

2001 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel A. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Indirect Effects ◽  
State Legislature ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Ballot Initiatives ◽  
Ballot Initiative ◽  
American States ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Direct Legislation

Recent macro-level studies examining the indirect effects of direct legislation on public policy in the American states are decidedly mixed. This study tests whether the macro-level logic of legislative behavior in response to ballot initiatives holds true at the micro-level for individual legislators. I examined the determinants of legislative votes on “counter-majoritarian” legislation—bills that directly challenge the outcomes of earlier statewide ballot initiatives. In 1999, the Colorado state legislature tried to overturn the outcomes of three previous ballot contests. I find that in two of the three cases, a legislator's vote on these bills was related to the vote in his or her district on the respective ballot initiative. This helps explain why many legislators will vote contrary to the outcome of a statewide initiative vote.

Institutions and Policy Representation in the States

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 373-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry C. Burden
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
State Legislature ◽  
Ballot Initiatives ◽  
Ballot Initiative ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Policy Representation ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Democratic Control ◽  
The One ◽  
Specific Influence

Can government institutions strengthen the influence of public opinion on policy-making? While institutions often limit representation, I identify two institutional features of state lawmaking that may enhance democratic control, but in somewhat different way. I hypothesize the one institution external to the state legislature—the ballot initiative—improves representation on specific issues, while one institution internal to the legislature—the committee discharge procedure—enhances responsiveness to mass preferences generally. This difference emerges because legislators engage in repeated interactions and logrolling across a wide range of issues while advocates of ballot initiatives do not. My analyses largely, although not entirely, support these hypotheses, with the initiative making abortion policy more responsive and committee discharge making policy generally more respnsive. These results suggest a domain-specific influence of institutions that were previously thought to have similar effects on policy representation.

Varieties of non-obvious meaning in CL and CADS: from ‘hindsight post-dictability’ to sweet serendipity

Corpora ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Partington
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Special Relevance

In this paper, I want to examine the special relevance of (non)obviousness in corpus linguistics through drawing on case studies. The research discussion is divided into two parts. The first is an examination of (non)obviousness at the micro-level, that is, in lexico-grammatical analyses, whilst the second looks at the more macro-level of (non)obviousness on the plane of discourse. In the final sections, I will examine various types of non-obvious meaning one can come across in Corpus-assisted Discourse Studies (CADS), which range from: ‘I knew that all along (now)’ to ‘that's interesting’ to ‘I sensed that but didn't know why’ (intuitive impressions and corpus-assisted explanations) to ‘I never even knew I never knew that’ (serendipity or ‘non-obvious non-obviousness’, analogous to ‘unknown unknowns’).

Panpsychism versus Panprotopsychism and the Subject-Summing Problem

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Goff
Keyword(s):  
Macro Level ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Combination Problem ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Russellian Monism ◽  
Nature Of Matter

This is the first of two chapters discussing the most notorious problem facing Russellian monism: the combination problem. This is actually a family of difficulties, each reflecting the challenge of how to make sense of everyday human and animal experience intelligibly arising from more fundamental conscious or protoconscious features of reality. Key challenges facing panpsychist and panpsychist forms of Russellian monism are considered. With respect to panprotopsychism, there is the worry that it collapses into noumenalism: the view that human beings, by their very nature, are unable to understand the concrete, categorical nature of matter. With respect to panpsychism, there is the subject-summing problem: the difficulty making sense of how micro-level conscious subjects combine to produce macro-level conscious subjects. A solution to the subject-summing problem is proposed, and it is ultimately argued that panpsychist forms of the Russellian monism are to be preferred on grounds of simplicity and elegance.

Direct Democracy and Public Policy

2019 ◽  
pp. 362-379
Author(s):  
John Matsusaka
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Median Voter ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Fiscal Policies ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
American States ◽  
Conservative Policy ◽  
Initiative Process ◽  
Swiss Cantons

An extensive literature seeks to measure the effect of the initiative and referendum on public policies. Several conclusions emerge: The initiative and referendum have different effects on policy. Requiring popular approval of fiscal policies (mandatory referendums) results in lower expenditure, taxes, and debt. The initiative process gives voters more power and results in policies closer to the median voter preference; this often has reduced spending (American states, Swiss cantons), but sometimes has increased spending (cities). The initiative is associated with more socially conservative policy choices. Spurious correlation is a concern in many studies, and more research on causality is needed.

scholarly journals Young Children’s Belonging in Finnish Educational Settings: an Intersectional Analysis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna-Maija Puroila ◽  
Jaana Juutinen ◽  
Elina Viljamaa ◽  
Riikka Sirkko ◽  
Taina Kyrönlampi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Educational Policy ◽  
Educational Programs ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Educational Settings ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
Meso Level ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Positional Power ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Similarities And Differences

AbstractThe study draws on a relational and intersectional approach to young children’s belonging in Finnish educational settings. Belonging is conceptualized as a multilevel, dynamic, and relationally constructed phenomenon. The aim of the study is to explore how children’s belonging is shaped in the intersections between macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of young children’s education in Finland. The data consist of educational policy documents and ethnographic material generated in educational programs for children aged birth to 8 years. A situational mapping framework is used to analyze and interpret the data across and within systems levels (macro-level; meso-level; and micro-level). The findings show that the landscape in which children’s belonging is shaped and the intersections across and within the levels are characterized by the tensions between similarities and differences, majority and minorities, continuity and change, authority and agency. Language used, practices enacted, and positional power emerge as the (re)sources through which children’s (un)belonging is actively produced.

The prospects for pluralism in contract theory

Legal Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Zhong Xing Tan
Keyword(s):  
Contract Theory ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Contract Law ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Meso Level ◽  
Specific Performance ◽  
Micro Level

Abstract This paper explores the promise of pluralism in the realm of contract law. I begin by identifying and rejecting conceptual strategies adopted by monistic and dualistic approaches. Turning towards pluralism, I evaluate three versions in contemporary literature: pluralism across contracting spheres and types, pluralism through consensus and convergence, and pluralism through localised values-balancing and practical reasoning. I suggest embracing some pluralism about contract pluralism, by using these models to construct a framework of ‘meta-pluralism’, where at the macro-level, we are concerned with plural spheres of contracting activity; at the meso-level, a variety of trans-substantive interpretive concepts that receive some measure of juristic consensus; and at the micro-level, practical reasoning through particularistic analysis of case-specific considerations. I illustrate the meta-pluralistic framework through a case study on the varieties of specific performance, and explain how the proposed pluralistic framework enriches our understanding of the nature of contract.

Building Meaning

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 262-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Bargenda
Keyword(s):  
Banking Sector ◽  
Corporate Identity ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Systems Architecture ◽  
Built Form ◽  
Dialectical Perspective ◽  
Marketing Systems ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Corporate Architecture

This conceptual article seeks to demonstrate the pertinence of corporate architecture as an integrative tool in spatial marketing systems. Architecture is explored in a dialectical perspective, both as a functional built form and a symbolic vector of ideologies. Architecture intersects with micro-level and macro-level marketing systems, as it inherently projects corporate identity while referring to broader artistic, social and historical parameters. It is argued that these macromarketing dimensions and their meaning-generating potential add significant value to market exchanges. A special focus on corporate architecture in the banking sector shows the value of architectural narratives in changing marketing environments. The article makes two contributions to macromarketing research. It (1) firmly establishes corporate architecture within marketing systems and (2) shows how symbolic meaning can be derived from the macro-level environmental, historical and cultural properties of buildings.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document