scholarly journals Icelandic politics in light of normative models of democracy

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vilhjálmur Árnason
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Nationalist Discourse ◽  
Classical Liberal ◽  
Working Practices ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Normative Models ◽  
Extensive Involvement ◽  
Liberal Perspective ◽  
Models Of Democracy

Icelandic politics are analysed from the perspectives of three normative models of democracy: the liberal, republican and deliberative democratic theories. While the Icelandic constitution is rooted in classical liberal ideas, Icelandic politics can be harshly criticized from a liberal perspective, primarily because of the unclear separation of powers of government and for the extensive involvement of politics in other social sectors. Despite strong nationalist discourse which reflects republican characteristics, rooted in the struggle for independence from Denmark, republicanism has been marginal in Icelandic politics. In the years before the financial collapse, Icelandic society underwent a process of liberalization in which power shifted to the financial sector without disentangling the close ties that had prevailed between business and politics. The special commission set up by the Icelandic Parliament to investigate the causes of the financial collapse criticized Icelandic politics and governance for its flawed working practices and lack of professionalism. The appropriate lessons to draw from this criticism are to strengthen democratic practices and institutions. In the spirit of republicanism, however, the dominant discourse about Icelandic democracy after the financial collapse has been on increasing direct, vote-centric participation in opposition to the system of formal politics. While this development is understandable in light of the loss of trust in political institutions in the wake of the financial collapse, it has not contributed to trustworthy practices. In order to improve Icelandic politics, the analysis in this paper shows, it is important to work more in the spirit of deliberative democratic theory.

Military Power and Constitutional Development in China

1921 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-252
Author(s):  
Harold M. Vinacké
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Military Government ◽  
Representative Government ◽  
Constitutional Development ◽  
Revolutionary Movement ◽  
Chinese Revolution ◽  
Parliamentary Government ◽  
The Past ◽  
Popular Government ◽  
Set Up

It is now nine years since the outbreak of the Chinese revolution. It is fifteen years since the Manchus attempted to maintain their control by introducing representative institutions into China. The development toward constitutional and representative government under the Manchus was checked in 1911 by the revolutionary movement. When the Chinese Republic was established as the successor to the alien Manchu Empire it was felt that the problem of modernizing China bade fair to be solved, and that in an orderly way her political institutions would be brought into harmony with western standards. Unfortunately that orderly progress has not come. Parliamentary government under the Nanking (provisional) Constitution was replaced by the dictatorship of Yuan Shih-kai under the arrangements of the so-called constitutional compact, which in turn was followed by the attempt to reëstablish the monarchy. The failure of the monarchy movement brought back parliamentary government, but before a permanent constitution could be adopted Parliament was again dissolved, and a government controlled by a military clique set up in its place. Since this military government was unacceptable to the southern provinces, the country became divided. So far it has not been possible for the country to reconcile its differences. Instead of an ordered constitutional progress, has come apparent failure in the effort to establish representative government. The name of a republic has been maintained, it is true, and the forms of constitutional government have been retained, but a permanent national government has not been set up, nor has popular government replaced the paternal despotism of the past.

3. Governmental Structure

2021 ◽  
pp. 73-112
Author(s):  
Robert Schütze
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
Governmental Function ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Council Of Ministers ◽  
Internal Procedures

This chapter examines the internal composition, internal powers, and internal procedures of the European Parliament, the European Council, and the Council of Ministers. It begins by looking at the role of the separation-of-powers principle in the European Union. Unlike the US Constitution, the EU Treaties do not discuss each institution within the context of one governmental function. Instead, each institution has ‘its’ article in the Treaty on European Union, whose first section then describes the combination of governmental functions in which it partakes. The European Treaties have thus ‘set up a system for distributing powers among different [Union] institutions’. And it is this conception of the separation-of-powers principle that informs Article 13(2) TEU. The provision is thus known as the principle of interinstitutional balance.

scholarly journals The Principle of Proportionality in Comparative Perspective

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 835-869 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margherita Poto
Keyword(s):  
Member State ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Administrative Law ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
European Identity ◽  
Law System ◽  
Principle Of Proportionality ◽  
The Eu

This contribution will contain an analysis of important European dynamics, particularly at this moment when it seems to be necessary to restart the process of a unified European identity, which was, in a way, compromised after the failure of the EU Constitution and the difficulty of giving effectiveness to democracy:the EC professes democracy without being democratic. Thus the fragility of its political institutions, inherently perilous, necessarily reflects on the legitimacy of its legal order, while the constitutional balance intrinsic to the separation of powers ideal is dangerously absent. In other words, while in every Member State, the administrative law system forms part of a working system, this is not the case in the Community.

Part Three The Separation of Powers, 9 The President: Problems of Executive Overreach

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Espinosa Manuel José Cepeda ◽  
Landau David
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
National Security ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Presidential Power ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
Executive Discretion ◽  
Historical Role

As in much of Latin America, the Colombian president has historically been extremely powerful. The 1991 constitutional designers sought to achieve greater balance in the separation of powers, in part by weakening presidential power. This chapter considers the Court’s attempts to limit executive discretion and protect against excessive amalgamations of executive power. Even in areas where presidents have historically enjoyed almost plenary power, such as national security, the Court has attempted to place limits on presidential power. Most significant in this regard is the Court’s aggressive and successful jurisprudence limiting presidential use of states of exception. The Court has imposed jurisprudential criteria limiting states of exception to true and unexpected social and political crises, thus greatly reducing its historical role in day-to-day Colombian life and forcing political institutions to confront most problems under a situation of normality.

scholarly journals Rethinking political distrust

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eri Bertsou
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Unethical Conduct ◽  
Classical Liberal ◽  
Political Distrust ◽  
Established Democracies ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractIncreasing political distrust has become a commonplace observational remark across many established democracies, and it is often used to explain current political phenomena. In contrast to most scholarship that focuses solely on the concept of trust and leaves distrust untheorized, this article makes a contribution by analysing political distrust. It argues that citizen distrust of government and political institutions poses a threat for democratic politics and clarifies the relationship between the distrust observed in established democracies and classical ‘liberal distrust’, which is considered beneficial for democracy. Further, it addresses the relationship between trust and distrust, identifying a series of functional asymmetries between the two concepts, with important implications for theoretical and empirical work in political science. The article suggests that a conceptualization of political distrust based on evaluations of incompetence, unethical conduct and incongruent interests can provide a fruitful ground for future research that aims to understand the causes, consequences, and potential remedies for political distrust.

Mandates and Policy Outputs: U.S. Party Platforms and Federal Expenditures

1990 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Budge ◽  
Richard I. Hofferbert
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Regression Models ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Special Interests ◽  
Subject Categories ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Federal Expenditure ◽  
The U.S

Political parties in the United States are usually regarded as too weak and decentralized, too much the prey of office-seeking politicians and special interests, to function effectively as programmatic., policy-effecting agents within the separation of powers. This has been taken as a serious flaw in the U.S. version of representative democracy, prompting cycles of proposed reform; criticisms of the existing set-up as a capitalistic sham; or alternative justifications of the system as pluralist rather than strictly party democracy. Our research challenges these assumptions by demonstrating the existence of strong links between postwar (1948–1985) election platforms and governmental outputs. Platforms' sentences, coded into one of 54 subject categories, are used as indicators of programmatic emphases and are related to corresponding federal expenditure shares. Resulting regression models demonstrate the full applicability of party mandate theory to the United States, and they operationalize its U.S. variants concretely.

scholarly journals Understanding Legislator Experiences of Family-Friendly Working Practices in Political Institutions

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (03) ◽  
pp. 549-572 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Allen ◽  
David Cutts ◽  
Madelaine Winn
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Gender And Politics ◽  
Family Friendly ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
Working Practices ◽  
Caring Relationship ◽  
First Time

Family-friendly (FF) working practices in political institutions have attracted scant attention from scholars, arguably reflecting the scarcity of their implementation. Using a survey of legislators and qualitative interviews, we examine for the first time how satisfied elected members of two new legislatures (the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament) are with FF working practices. We offer four possible explanations—parenthood, age of the legislator, sex, and the distance between the legislator's constituency and the legislature—for the variation in satisfaction. Our findings suggest that being a woman and having a greater distance between legislature and constituency exerted significant negative effects on legislators' satisfaction with FF working practices. In contrast, legislators over age 60 were significantly more likely to be satisfied with FF working practices in the new legislatures. We conclude by outlining future research avenues for comparative scholars of gender and politics interested in the effectiveness and resilience of FF working practices, in particular highlighting the importance of looking beyond the parent–child caring relationship to other caring and domestic obligations.

scholarly journals JUSTIFYING LIBERAL RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE: PUNISHMENT, CRIMINALIZATION, AND HOLISTIC RETRIBUTIVISM

2015 ◽  
Vol 56 (132) ◽  
pp. 495-520
Author(s):  
Alfonso Donoso
Keyword(s):  
Retributive Justice ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Normative Models ◽  
Models Of Democracy ◽  
The Ideal

ABSTRACT In this article I explore whether liberal retributive justice should be conceived of either individualistically or holistically. I critically examine the individualistic account of retributive justice and suggest that the question of retribution – i.e., whether and when punishment of an individual is compatible with just treatment of that individual – must be answered holistically. By resorting to the ideal of sensitive reasons, a model of legitimacy at the basis of our best normative models of democracy, the article argues that in modern liberal democracies, punishment of an offender A for f is compatible with just treatment of A only if punishment of an individual for f can be legitimate in A's and A's fellow citizens' eyes. Only once retributive justice is understood in this holistic fashion the imposition of punishment can be made compatible with just treatment of individuals.

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