The Cooperative Resolution of Policy Conflict

1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (3) ◽  
pp. 905-921 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul J. Quirk
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Policy Conflict ◽  
Policy Conflicts ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Process Issue ◽  
Issue Content

I develop an approach for analyzing the conditions for cooperative resolution of policy conflict. I analyze certain policy conflicts as bargaining situations, with opportunity for cooperation, among opposing issue factions. As a framework for analysis, I present an informal game-theoretic interpretation of nonzero-sum policy conflict. With that foundation, I derive implications about the conditions for cooperative outcomes with respect to several aspects of the policy process: issue content, the structure of conflict, leadership, party politics, and political institutions.

The Costs of Coalition: Coalition Theories and Italian Governments

1996 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 534-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Mershon
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Policy Space ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Christian Democratic Party ◽  
Break Up

Governments in Italy both change and remain the same. From 1946 to 1992 the Christian Democratic Party always held governing power. But almost no cabinet stayed in office more than a few years, and many governments collapsed after only a few months. How can instability coexist with stability in this way? How can governments break up at such low cost and with so little effect on alternation? These questions are rooted in—but not resolved by—the available game-theoretic literature on coalitional behavior. My answer is that politicians' purposive actions can reduce the costs of coalition. I argue that the costs of making, breaking, and maintaining coalitions depend on political institutions and on the array of parties and voters in policy space. Institutional and spatial conditions structure politicians' opportunities and attempts to lower costs. Under some conditions, as I show, coalitions are cheap, and politicians can easily make coalitions even cheaper. The inference is that this framework comprehends both Italy's extremes and the degrees of stability found in other parliamentary democracies.

The “Law” and Economics of Judicial Decision-Making

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emerson H. Tiller
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Law And Economics ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Judicial Decision ◽  
Judicial Decision Making ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Executive Action ◽  
The Law ◽  
Context Specific

Over the last three decades, the economics of judicial behaviour has revealed itself most prominently in the field now known as Law and Positive Political Theory (Law and PPT). Instead of the traditional focus of ‘law and economics’ on the normative efficiency of legal rules, Law and PPT identifies the role of competition among legal and political institutions for policy outcomes, with these outcomes usually taking the form of legislative enactments, executive action, judicial opinions, or administrative agency pronouncements (regulations). This article illustrates the ‘law’ features of Law and PPT, while keeping the economics of judicial decision-making — especially the efficiency-driven, game-theoretic, utility maximization features — at the forefront of the analysis. It begins by summarizing basic elements of Law and PPT as relevant to judicial decision-making. It then discusses context-specific applications of Law and PPT where the craft of law is revealed as strategy.

scholarly journals Culture(s) of control: Political dynamics in cannabis policy in England & Wales and the Netherlands

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 566-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Brewster
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
Cannabis Policy ◽  
Relations Of Power

This paper draws upon an empirical comparative study of policy-making in England & Wales and the Netherlands. Recent changes in cannabis policy prima facie indicate some convergence towards a toughening of approaches, thereby suggesting commonalities in control cultures. However, analysis of findings illuminate significant differences in the policy process between these jurisdictions which contribute towards continued divergence towards small-scale supply and consumption of cannabis. It is argued that this can be understood and explained through an understanding of differences in both political institutions and cultures, and in organizational responsibilities and relations of power. Consequentially, this further supports the notion that comparative research and theorizing needs to take account of mechanisms and features which lead to variegated control cultures.

Political Institutions and the Policy Process in Ghana: The Case of the Value-Added Tax (VAT).

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 134
Author(s):  
Peter Sekyere
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Transition To Democracy ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Value Added Tax ◽  
Time Changes ◽  
Institutional Actors ◽  
Over Time

This paper seeks to explain differences in policy outcomes even when political institutions remain unchanged over time. It studies the making of Ghana’s most important fiscal policy after its transition to democracy in 1993. This study focuses on the making of the Value Added Tax (VAT) policy at two different time periods. In spite of unchanging political institutions, each episode, in 1995 and 1998, had a different outcome. This paper explores the extent to which the preferences of institutional actors can account for policy changes under the constraints and opportunities created by those same political institutions within the policymaking process. The paper employs George Tsebelis’ veto player theory, which emanates from the rational choice institutionalist school and argues that, when political institutions remain unchanged over time, changes in veto players’ preferences can account for changes in the policy outcome of the VAT. 

scholarly journals Socialities of Indignation: Denouncing Party Politics in Karachi

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 411-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Shared Experience ◽  
At Home

In May 2007, in the aftermath of city-wide urban unrest mediated by live news television, Karachi residents clamored noisily, using rumors, blogs, and SMS texting to overtly denounce the violence and intimidation ploys of political parties. Their discourse took a particular form: it described the violent tactics of organized politics as repulsive, suggested the moral respectability of avoiding such party politics, and, most important, articulated the impetus to domestic confinement—being compelled to stay at home—as a shared experience. Rather than conflate the discursive content of non-participation with depoliticization, it is important to acknowledge the contingent sociality of recognizing and articulating domestic confinement as a shared experience through the indignant denunciation of political institutions. Such tactics invoke an emergent public that recuperates and politicizes the ordinary in an explicitly moral register.

Public Policy

1987 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 10-13
Author(s):  
Charles O. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
National Level ◽  
Policy Networks ◽  
The Political ◽  
Budget Process ◽  
List Type ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Specific Policy ◽  
Formal Procedures

Purpose: The following syllabus is designed to introduce students to public policymaking at the national level of government. As designed, this course has the following goals associated with the process, issues, and institutions of national policymaking:1.Acquaint students with the political dynamics of the policy process— with particular focus on policy networks: those persons from the departments or agencies, members of Congress and their staff, and interest groups who interact on specific policy issues.2.Introduce the complexities of the specific policy issues that form the national agenda (e.g., trade, agriculture, welfare, taxes).3.Emphasize the importance of political institutions and their formal procedures—with particular stress on the budget process and presidential agenda setting.

How Policy Institutions Filter Conflict: The (De)Escalation of Policy Conflict through Closing Down or Opening Up the Space for Contestation

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-74
Author(s):  
Eva Wolf
Keyword(s):  
Policy Conflict ◽  
Policy Conflicts ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
Scope Of Conflict

This article argues that in situations of policy conflict, policymaking institutions that act as de facto conflict arbiters may escalate the conflict they are trying to settle. The role of institutions in policy conflicts is studied in the lengthy and highly contested policymaking process of the multibillion-euro 'Oosterweelconnection' highway in Antwerp (Belgium). The article concludes that while narrowing the scope of conflict through standardized institutional procedures initially disciplined the Oosterweel conflict, it ultimately drove further escalation, as residual topics of conflict remained and sought new institutional outlets. At the same time, more flexible institutions, while being able to finally settle the Oosterweel conflict, produced an agreement that remained institutionally unembedded and therefore more vulnerable to exploitation because it was not formally enforceable.

Bottom-Up or Top-Down?

2019 ◽  
pp. 10-23
Author(s):  
Christoffer Green-Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Strategic Competition ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Strategic Approach ◽  
Issue Content ◽  
West European

This chapter presents an overview of the literature that deals with the issue content of West European party politics. As argued by de Vries and Marks (2012), there are basically two theoretical approaches to the struggle for the content of party politics. First, a bottom-up approach that sees the issue content of party politics as a reflection of social conflicts. Second, a top-down or strategic approach in which the issue content of party politics reflects the strategic competition among political parties. The presentation of the bottom-up approach focuses on presenting the most recent, prominent examples of such an approach, namely the works by Kriesi et al. (2008, 2012) and Hooghe and Marks (2018). The presentation of the top-down approach is more fragmented as the literature within this approach mainly consists of journal articles in which different elements of this approach have been developed.

What Has Happened to Party Politics in Western Europe?

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Christoffer Green-Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Incentive Model ◽  
The Times ◽  
Core Idea ◽  
Issue Content ◽  
West European

Party politics in Western Europe has changed profoundly over the last decades. Long gone are the times when class-based political parties with extensive membership dominated politics. Instead, party politics has become issue-based. Surprisingly few studies have focused on how the issue content of West European party politics has developed over the past decades. This book therefore offers a comprehensive analysis of the issue content of West European party politics. To do so, the book develops a new theoretical model labelled the ‘issue incentive model’ of party system attention. The aim of the model is to explain how much attention issues get throughout the party system, which is labelled ‘the party system agenda’. To explain the development of the party system agenda, one needs to focus on the incentives that individual policy issues offer to large, mainstream parties, i.e. the typical Social Democratic, Christian Democratic, or Conservative/Liberal parties that have dominated West European governments for decades. The core idea of the model is that the incentives that individual policy issues offer to these vote- and office-seeking parties depend on three factors, namely issue characteristics, issue ownership, and coalition considerations. The issue incentive model builds on and develops a top-down perspective according to which the issue content of party politics is determined by the strategic considerations of political parties and their competition with each other.

Globalization and Capital Taxation in Consensus and Majoritarian Democracies

2003 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jude C. Hays
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Economic Globalization ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Capital Taxation ◽  
Qualitative Evidence ◽  
Capital Tax ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Game Theoretic Model ◽  
The Relationship

This article contributes to the growing literature on the role that domestic political institutions play in mediating globalization pressures by arguing that the capital tax constraints arising from international economic integration are the most severe for countries with majoritarian political institutions. In doing so, the author solves a tax puzzle that challenges conventional thinking about how institutions condition the relationship between economic globalization and domestic politics. He presents a formal, game-theoretic model to sharpen the basic logic of his argument and then tests some of the model's predictions empirically using both quantitative and qualitative evidence.

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