State Legislative Process

This chapter explores the history and operation of state legislatures. The urban-rural divide characterizes stark political and social differences that fuel legislative behavior. The content of public policies across the United States is influenced by these divisions and contributes to either the support of or opposition to social change. State legislators are on the front lines of these geographic ideological divides. These variations by region contribute to the increase in single-party control and have generated pronounced policy differences.

A systems framework for remedying dysfunction in US democracy

Democracy often fails to meet its ideals, and these failures may be made worse by electoral institutions. Unwanted outcomes include elite polarization, unresponsive representatives, and the ability of a faction of voters to gain power at the expense of the majority. Various reforms have been proposed to address these problems, but their effectiveness is difficult to predict against a backdrop of complex interactions. Here we outline a path for systems-level modeling to help understand and optimize repairs to US democracy. Following the tradition of engineering and biology, models of systems include mechanisms with dynamical properties that include nonlinearities and amplification (voting rules), positive feedback mechanisms (single-party control, gerrymandering), negative feedback (checks and balances), integration over time (lifetime judicial appointments), and low dimensionality (polarization). To illustrate a systems-level approach, we analyze three emergent phenomena: low dimensionality, elite polarization, and antimajoritarianism in legislatures. In each case, long-standing rules now contribute to undesirable outcomes as a consequence of changes in the political environment. Theoretical understanding at a general level will also help evaluate whether a proposed reform’s benefits will materialize and be lasting, especially as conditions change again. In this way, rigorous modeling may not only shape new lines of research but aid in the design of effective and lasting reform.

Austria

In the Austrian parliament a strict time regime keeps the length of debates at bay. While the government sets most of the agenda, opposition parties can get some proposals debated, and new instruments provide room for debate of topics independent of government legislation and reports. Debates are under tight party control with regard to the speakers’ nomination and the speakers sticking to the party line. Individual MPs do have electoral incentives to seek speaking assignments, but for most this results in low-level satisficing rather than maximizing speaking assignments. Party-size is a crucial factor determining the floor presence: MPs belonging to a small party have better chances to speak. Within parties, individual talent of MPs as speakers and their occupation of key party functions such as parliamentary party leader, or party spokesperson in a specific policy area are crucial for nominations.

Finland

This chapter analyzes plenary debates in the Eduskunta, the unicameral legislature of Finland. Recent constitutional reforms have strengthened the role of the Eduskunta, which the findings also reflect. Access to the floor is relatively unconstrained in Finland, but there is also a strong element of party control involved. The chapter shows that opposition MPs, small parties, and party leaders make active use of plenary speeches. The constitutional reform increased the likelihood of frontbenchers and experienced MPs to deliver speeches. Gender and partially seniority have little effect on who gets to speak in the plenary, but there is also quite a significant variation between political parties. Overall, our results indicate that the plenary has become a more important arena in Finnish politics, both for the cabinet and the opposition.

The personalization of party politics in Western Europe (1985–2016): evidence from an expert survey

The personalization of politics has been extensively studied from different angles and in different national contexts. Nonetheless, an easily comparable and longitudinal study of the personalization of politics at both the country and the party levels is still missing. In this article, we fill this gap by presenting data from an expert survey on the personalization of politics for around 110 parties and a series of Western European countries from the mid-1980s to the mid-2010s. The dimensions analyzed concern the impact of the personalization of politics in general elections, and also party leaders' room for maneuver in candidate selection, the definition of the party's policy-making agenda, and party leaders’ intra-party control. Different reliability tests confirm the goodness of the data collected. At the same time, first descriptive analyses show that there has not been a homogenous diffusion of this phenomenon in Western Europe, and diverging personalization trends are present for different groups of countries or different dimensions of this phenomenon.

Crossing Over: Majority Party Control Affects Legislator Behavior and the Agenda

Does majority party control cause changes in legislative policy making? We argue that majority party floor control affects legislator behavior and agenda control. Leveraging a natural experiment where nearly one tenth of a legislature’s members died within the same legislative session, we are able to identify the effect of majority party floor control on the legislative agenda and on legislator choices. Previous correlational work has found mixed evidence of party effects, especially in the mid-twentieth century. In contrast, we find that majority party control leads to (1) changes in the agenda and (2) changes in legislators’ revealed preferences. These effects are driven by changes in numerical party majorities on the legislative floor. The effects are strongest with Republican and nonsouthern Democratic legislators. The effects are also more pronounced on the first (economic) than the second (racial) dimension. Additional correlational evidence across 74 years adds external validity to our exogenous evidence.

Behind Closed Doors?

This article explores the relationship between men, spousal violence, and politics in Romania in the 1950s and aims to analyze how the Romanian Communist Party (RCP), as an institution, dealt with spousal violence perpetrated by its officials. The RCP was a significant player within state socialist regime. Thus, the way the Party managed the discussed cases of spousal violence gives an idea about how gender relations functioned in reality, beyond the official discourse and the letter of the law. This article argues that spousal violence was the result of inequality within the family and a manifestation of patriarchy and male dominance. This analysis draws on files from the archive of the Committee of Party Control of the Central Committee of the RCP, which contains cases of Party members with a history of spousal violence.

HUKUM DAN POLITIK DI CHINA (KAJIAN RELASI KEKUASAAN PARTAI TERHADAP PROFESI HUKUM)

This article discusses the legal and political issues in the People's Republic of China by examining interactions between the legal profession which have a profound but undisputed impact on daily law enforcement and broader state-community relations. This doctrinal research uses conceptual approach. The results shows that since the late 1970s, China has experienced significant political, economic, social and cultural changes. The legal system had restoration but retained the character of state hostility towards this entity. Courts, prosecutors and the police are government apparatus controlled by the party as the highest authority in formulating and control policy. The lawyer's profession has been privatized, but with the lack in the legal education system, issues of attorney's capacity have surfaced. Lawyers are permitted to join professional associations, but party control remains strong. Critical and active lawyers are likely to have a wide-ranging impact in the future on the existence of judges, prosecutors and police, even including the party's authoritarians themselves.

Game Theory-Based Analysis of Local Governments’ Behavioral Dissimilation in the Third-Party Soil Pollution Control under Chinese-Style Fiscal Decentralization

The participation of a third party of the environmental service enterprise theoretically increases the level and efficiency of soil pollution control in China. However, Chinese-style fiscal decentralization may have a negative impact on the behaviors of participants, especially the local government. First, this paper conducts a positioning analysis on participants of the third-party soil pollution control in China and discusses the behavioral dissimilation of the local government under fiscal decentralization. Second, taking the government’s third-party soil pollution control as a case, a two-party game model of the central government and the local government is established around the principal-agent relationship, and a tripartite game model of the central government, the local government, and the third-party enterprise is designed around the collusion between the local government and the third-party enterprise. The results show that Chinese-style fiscal decentralization may lead to the behavioral dissimilation of local governments, that is, they may choose not to implement or passively implement the third-party control, and choose to conspire with third-party enterprises. Improving the benefits from implementing the third-party control of local governments and third-party enterprises, enhancing the central government’s supervision probability and capacity, and strengthening the central government’s punishment for behavioral dissimilation are conducive to the implementation of the third-party soil pollution control. Finally, this study puts forward policy suggestions on dividing the administrative powers between the central and local government in third-party control, building appraisal systems for the local government’s environmental protection performance, constructing environmental regulation mechanisms involving the government, market and society, and formulating the incentive and restraint policies for the participants in the third-party soil pollution control.