Who and What Holds Back Reforms in Croatia? – The Political Economy Perspective

The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors affecting reform patterns in Croatia in order to identify the main reasons for the (missing) reform success so far. The focus is on the analysis of the political system, especially on government fragmentation as one of the main features of proportional electoral rule and clientelism. In addition to political variables, economic factors are analysed as well. The obtained results show that reforms in Croatia were implemented during crises, that coalition governments are not conducive to reforms and that clientelism and corruption present significant obstacles for reform implementation in Croatia. Moreover, the results show that political cycles also have a significant effect, with reform activity slowing down as elections approach. This article contributes to the burgeoning debate on reform implementation (in the post-socialist societies) from the political economy perspective.

Rethinking Electoral Reform Processes after the Report of the Electoral Commission on the Review of the MMP Voting System

<p>The 2012 Report of the Electoral Commission on the Review of the MMP system recommended that several changes be made to the way in which future parliaments are elected in New Zealand. The lack of legislative response to the recommendations highlighted an issue inherent in New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements - that changes to electoral rules are designed and enacted by politicians, and there is no mechanism through which citizens can initiate or meaningfully engage with electoral reform processes. This paper looks at whether there is a better way that such proposals for electoral rule changes could be managed, proposing the use of ‘citizen initiated’ Citizens’ Assemblies on Electoral Reform.</p>

Rethinking Electoral Reform Processes after the Report of the Electoral Commission on the Review of the MMP Voting System

<p>The 2012 Report of the Electoral Commission on the Review of the MMP system recommended that several changes be made to the way in which future parliaments are elected in New Zealand. The lack of legislative response to the recommendations highlighted an issue inherent in New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements - that changes to electoral rules are designed and enacted by politicians, and there is no mechanism through which citizens can initiate or meaningfully engage with electoral reform processes. This paper looks at whether there is a better way that such proposals for electoral rule changes could be managed, proposing the use of ‘citizen initiated’ Citizens’ Assemblies on Electoral Reform.</p>

En valgordning til besvær? U30-regelens innvirkning på deltagelsen ved sametingsvalg

A particular electoral rule (U30) in Sámi parliamentary elections in Norway requires that registered Sámi voters in municipalities with fewer than thirty eligible voters cast their votes in advance. In this chapter, I explore the questions of whether, how and why this rule has a negative effect on voter turnout. In order to answer these questions, I conduct an analysis of quantitative data from the official tally sheets of the 2017 Sámi parliamentary election in Norway and aggregate data from the official electoral rolls. In addition, I analyse qualitative data from interviews I conducted with registered Sámi voters in Southern Norway from a rational choice theory viewpoint. These analyses suggest that even after three Sámi parliamentary elections across a span of eight years, the U30 rule still has significant negative effects on voter turnout in the municipalities where it applies. Furthermore, while voter turnout in Sámi parliamentary elections in Norway tends to decline the further away from the Sámi heartlands one comes, an opposite pattern seems to apply among the municipalities subject to the U30 rule. Based on my analyses, I discuss the roles that logistics, a lack of information, political cleavages, demographic variations among the registered voters, and the municipal authorities themselves may play in enabling this decline in voter turnout, and the regional variations therein.

A comprehensive approach to intergovernmental grants’ tactical allocation. Theory and estimation guidelines

Political economy literature highlights the tactical use of intergovernmental grants for electoral purposes; however, it provides different mechanisms and explanations behind these patterns. In this paper, we propose a model that includes 3 branches of the literature in order to provide a comprehensive explanation behind the tactical allocation by central governments. We identify 3 key parameters that shape the tactical allocation of grants: the electoral rule, the relative importance of the objective of the central government with respect to the local government, and the extent to which citizens attribute local expenditure to the direct action of the local government vs the central government (local political appropriability). In addition, our model also provides a guideline for designing and interpreting empirical results on the tactical allocation of grants distribution.

Choosing an Electoral Rule

Citizens are increasingly involved in the design of democratic institutions, for instance via referendums. If they support the institution that best serves their self-interest, the outcome inevitably advantages the largest group and disadvantages minorities. In this paper, we challenge this pessimistic view with an original lab experiment in France and Great Britain. In the first phase, experimental subjects experience elections under plurality and approval voting. In the second phase, they decide which rule they want to use for extra elections. The treatment is whether they do or do not have information to determine where their self-interest lies before deciding. We find that self-interest shapes people’s decisions, but so do intrinsic egalitarian values that subjects have outside of the lab. The implications are: (1) people have consistent ‘value-driven preferences’ for electoral rules, and (2) putting them in a situation of uncertainty leads to an outcome that reflects these values.

EXCHANGE: EXPLAINING THE PASSAGE OF UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE IN THAILAND

What explains the passage of Thailand's landmark universal healthcare (UHC) policy? In separate contributions, Selway and Harris emphasized the role of electoral rules and political parties, on one hand, and “professional movements” of developmentally minded state bureaucrats on the other. Which is correct? In this article, Selway and Harris respond to each other's work. While Selway agrees that the actions of the professional movement constitute an underappreciated necessary condition for universal healthcare in Thailand, he argues that Harris overstates the role of the movement in implementation. Harris defends his position and maintains that an institution-focused account is insufficient, arguing that the actions of Thailand's Rural Doctors’ Movement not only explain universal healthcare but also gave rise to the very electoral rule changes that Selway argues were so critical to facilitating universal coverage. Selway responds to these criticisms, and the two researchers jointly consider implications for causation, qualitative research, and policymaking theory.

The Myth of the Bipartisan National Popular Vote Plan

Advocates of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) promise that it can deliver plurality electoral rule (“first past the post”) for presidential elections, at the national level, without amending the Constitution or abolishing the Electoral College. They also contend that the plan has seen bipartisan support and will pass on the strength of such cross-party attraction. In fact, the NPVIC remains a polarizing scheme, strongly appealing to most Democrats and strongly repellant to most Republicans. In turn, it is extremely unlikely that sufficiently many states will join the Compact for it to reach the next stage of legal testing.

The Limits of Federation-wide Political Parties in Ensuring Federal Stability: Nigeria under the Peoples Democratic Party

Since Nigeria’s return to electoral rule in 1999, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) ruled the country as the majority party at both levels of its federal system until 2015. However, despite this dominance, the relationship between presidents and governors was often so divisive that the instability within the party threatened the stability of not only the ruling governments, but also the federation as a whole and undermined its productivity. This article examines this anomaly against the background of scholarship emphasizing the crucial role of federation-wide parties in fostering smooth intergovernmental bargains and in facilitating federal stability. It argues that Nigeria’s recent experience provides counterevidence of this theory and discusses the mutually reinforcing contextual factors that might have influenced this development, focusing on the PDP’s norms and the country’s intergovernmental fiscal structure.