The concept of types of popular representation

Democracy has many appearances. The principle of democracy is implemented in republics as well as monarchies, unitary states and federations. This article proposes a new dimension of democracy – the type of popular representation – which depends on the electoral system used in national parliamentary elections. The ownership of power in the state by the people is ensured by the functioning of a representative body elected by citizens and having exclusive authority to pass laws that are binding on all. In addition, the parliament participates in the formation of bodies of other branches of power and approves the budget. Thus, research into the manifestations of the institution of popular representation is important not only for countries with a parliamentary government, but also for all other states. The direct dependence of the composition of the legislature on the will of the people guarantees that the actions of the state are subordinated to the interests of this entity. An electoral system is used to identify this will of the people. However, the significance of this legal mechanism is not limited to the role of a guide between votes and parliamentary mandates alone. The electoral system is a “double-edged” instrument that can influence the exercise of power by the people. The purpose of this article is to analyse this influence and demonstrate the existence of three types of popular representation formed by different categories of electoral systems. Types of people’s representation arise as a result of the repeated application of a certain mechanism and the following establishment of the party composition of the parliament and party structure of the government. The established type of people’s representation is characterised by the varying degree of effectiveness of political parties in expressing and realising the interests of the people. In addition, the implementation of the principle of alternation of power and the functioning of the checks and balances are also dependent on the electoral system used. This article formulates a concept that makes it possible to differentiate the way democracy is developed in the state and to consider transparently the constitutional and legal consequences of the choice of the electoral system.

This time was different: the budgetary responses to the pandemic-induced crisis in Estonia

PurposeSince regaining its independence, the Estonian government has followed policies of fiscal consolidation when responding to economic crises. Its response to the COVID-19-crisis has been quite different – it has authorized additional expenditures, cut taxes and incurred considerable debt. This paper gives an overview of the budgetary measures adopted and explores the question: why was it different this time?Design/methodology/approachThe authors draw upon policy documents to zoom in on the main political, institutional and economic factors that help to explain Estonia's departure from extreme fiscal conservatism in the midst of the global pandemic.FindingsThe authors found the key political factors to be the party composition of the government, policy diffusion and policy learning. Key economic factors included Estonia's very low level of debt prior to the crisis and credit market advantages gained from Eurozone membership.Originality/valueEstonia presents an interesting case because in all previous crises it responded with fiscal consolidation, whereas it is now responding with extensive fiscal stimulus.

The Supreme Federal Court as Queen of Chess: Partisan Fragmentation and Judicial Empowerment in Brazil

ABSTRACT Introduction: This article deals with the Supreme Federal Court’s empowerment trajectory, exploring exogenous variables in order to explain what made the Supreme Court so institutionally powerful, and how it happened. After the classic studies on the global expansion of the judicial power, that pointed to a myriad of causes as a result of the phenomenon, several recent researches have indicated the political-party fragmentation as the main cause of judicial empowerment. Seeking to corroborate these analyses, the present work analyzes the institutional empowerment of the Brazilian Judiciary from 1945 to 2015, testing the hypothesis the greater the party fragmentation, more institutional power the STF holds. Materials and Methods: As a dependent variable, a synthetic indicator was created to measure the institutional power of the Federal Supreme Court year by year. The independent variables measure the party composition of the Chamber of Deputies annually for the same period. In addition to these variables, other measures were imported from the V-Dem database. For this analysis, simple linear, generalized linear and multinomial models were used. Results: We identified significant impact of party fragmentation on institutional empowerment of the Supreme Court. In all tests, party fragmentation increased the chances of institutional empowerment of the Brazilian judiciary. Discussion: The exogenous reforms that generated this empowerment took place with the support of the Executive and the leniency of the Legislative, transforming the Brazilian Supreme Court into the Queen of the Chess.

Elections to regional parliaments of Russia on the example of the State Assembly (Il Tumen) of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)

The article analyzes the tendencies of elections to the regional parliaments of Russia on the example of the State Assembly (Il Tumen) of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Local parliaments are called upon to fulfill the function of separating the legislative and executive branches of government. However, in the modern Russian political system, the institution of parliamentarism is poorly developed at the federal and local levels. Regional parliaments have little influence on decisions on financial aspects, often continuing the all-Russian legislative process. The electoral process associated with elections to local legislative assemblies developed based on the logic of the development of the federal electoral system and the development of federal relations. In the 1990s during the period of decentralized federalism, various types of regional regimes with developed party systems took shape. In the 2000s during the period of centralization, the powers of the regions were reduced, which led to the abolition of direct elections of heads of subjects, and the reform of party and electoral systems. By now, a mixed electoral system has been formed according to party lists and the majority system. The party composition of regional parliaments also does not differ from the federal list of Duma factions. The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) is a national republic, which influences the formation of the local regional elite. There are noticeable tendencies in the interdependence of representatives of the elite of the executive and legislative branches of government, as well as signs of community, family ties. According to the party lists of the party of power “United Russia”, the Head of the Republic and representatives of the upper echelons of the republican government are usually represented. In the elections of 2013 and 2018 four parties, representatives of the small parties “Civic Platform” and “For Women of Russia”, are steadily receiving deputy mandates to the local parliament

Towards Structuring and Updating the Typology of Semi-Presidentialism Based on the Peculiarities of Dualism, Party Affiliation and Responsibility of the Executives and the Composition of Legislatures

The article clarifies that the typology of semi-presidentialism, which outlines the real powers of political institutions and the peculiarities of relations among them in the triangle “president–prime minister/cabinet–parliament”, was initiated to place the institutions of president and prime minister in the environment of the distribution of powers and responsibilities in the executive and party composition of legislatures. Thus, it was recorded that semi-presidentialism can be represented in the form of the systems of both unified and divided government, as well as their variational derivatives. Accordingly, it was found that the functionality and dynamics of semi-presidentialism are dependent both on constitutional norms and political factors. Simultaneously, the study primarily focuses on the updated and expanded theorization of the typology of semi-presidentialism based on the peculiarities of dualism, party affiliation and responsibility of the executives and the composition of legislatures. As a result, it argues that semi-presidentialism (based on presidential party positioning against the types of cabinets and the parameters of inter-party and intra-party relations) should be typified on the fully or partly unified majority systems, fully or partly unified minority systems, divided majority systems and divided minority systems, which provide various political implications. In addition, the study shows that such a logic and construction of different types of semi-presidentialism is of utmost importance, since it allows to recognize the various effects and consequences of the analyzed system of government, including its prevalence and statistics, stability and conflicts, as well as correlations with different types of political regimes. Keywords: semi-presidentialism, system of government, dualism, party affiliation and responsibility of the executives, composition of legislature, unified and divided systems.

The Political Dynamics of Portfolio Design in European Democracies

The design of government portfolios – that is, the distribution of competencies among government ministries and office holders – has been largely ignored in the study of executive and coalition politics. This article argues that portfolio design is a substantively and theoretically relevant phenomenon that has major implications for the study of institutional design and coalition politics. The authors use comparative data on portfolio design reforms in nine Western European countries since the 1970s to demonstrate how the design of government portfolios changes over time. Specifically, they show that portfolios are changed frequently (on average about once a year) and that such shifts are more likely after changes in the prime ministership or the party composition of the government. These findings suggest a political logic behind these reforms based on the preferences and power of political parties and politicians. They have major implications for the study of institutional design and coalition politics.

COMPARISON OF RESULTS OF PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS 2012-2019 IN UKRAINE

The results of 2012, 2014, 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary elections which were conducted under the same parallel electoral system, are analyzed. The composition of the Verkhovna Rada of the 7th, 8th and 9th convocation by gender is compared, the possibility of participating in electoral races and being elected by both men and women is analyzed. The number of women and men who were selected by the proportional and majoritarian component of the electoral system is compared. The party composition of each convocation is examined. According to the 2012 elections, 450 people's deputies were elected, while only 423 people were elected during 2014 and 2019 elections. This is due to Russian aggression in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, which makes it impossible to hold elections in majoritarian constituencies of the indicated regions. With regard to the gender composition of the Parliament, the smallest number of women were represented in the 7th convocation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, while the largest number was represented in the 9th convocation. This tendency is explained by raising public awareness and greater involvement of women in politics every year, because even with the constancy of the electoral system, the number of women in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has doubled. The majoritarian component of the parallel electoral system remains inaccessible to women, because twice as many women deputies get their seats by proportional component. The political composition of the Ukrainian Parliament changes during each election campaign. Only one political party has been able to overcome the 5 percent electoral barrier in all three of its last campaigns - the All-Ukrainian Motherland Association. Another party has been able to go to parliament twice - the Petro Poroshenko bloc / European Solidarity. All other 11 parties are represented in parliament with only one cadence. A characteristic feature of all three campaigns is the support for a large part of the population of the presidential parties, both in a proportional system and in a majority one, which testifies, however, to the significant influence of the political preferences of the population rather than the influence of the electoral system. The fact that parliament is renewed by more than two-thirds during each of the three election campaigns refutes the argument that MPs or parties do not change and that a new electoral system is required to update parliament.

Legislative Party Turnover and Electoral Volatility: What Explains the Difference?

This article explores the structural determinants of aggregate change in the party composition of legislative assemblies, i.e. legislative party turnover. To a large extent a product of electoral volatility, it has its own causal dynamics due to the differentiated impact exerted by electoral rules, party system properties, and institutional design upon the two phenomena. The empirical test on elections held in 111 electoral democracies of the world (1992-2014) demonstrates that the impact of institutional factors (including electoral rules, federalism, and presidentialism) and party system nationalization upon legislative party turnover tends to be mitigated in comparison with their effects upon electoral volatility, even though the direction of the impact is almost invariably the same.

The complex method for definition of effective decisions on data set composition and shedule for their processing in conveyor systems

Построение комплексных расписаний обработки партий данных предполагает формирование взаимосвязанных решений по составам партий и расписаниям их обработки. В результате выполненной декомпозиции обобщенной задачи построения расписаний обработки партий ее решение представляется в виде решений двух подзадач — определения составов партий и непосредственно расписаний. В рассмотрение введена модель двухуровневого программирования для определения эффективных решений по составам партий и расписаниям их обработки. Для нахождения эффективных решений выполнено обоснование методов определения составов партий и расписаний. Проведены исследования особенностей обработки партий в конвейерных системах с точки зрения входных параметров, характеризующих обрабатываемые данные и конвейерную систему. The task of controlling the pipelined processing for various types of remote sensing data of the Earth is important. The task of managing the data processing process is complex and represents a set of two interrelated subtasks — the definition of the composition of batches and the schedules of their processing. The complex task of managing the processing of data lots is represented in the form of hierarchy of the required subtasks. The realization of effective decisions on the composition of parties is realized at the top level, schedules and their processing — on the lower level. A hierarchical game model (two-level programming) for determining solutions at the appropriate levels is accordingly designed. The final time for processing all data entering the system is considered as a criterion at the upper level (to determine the composition of data lots). The total downtiming of the pipeline segments when processing batches of data is the criterion at the lower level. Local optimization methods are proposed at each level of the hierarchy to determine effective solutions. The method for determining solutions by party composition provides for the search for a better solution in the vicinity of different types of the current locally optimal solution. The approaches of making decisions on the composition of parties in the vicinity of the respective species are formulated. The proof of both theorems determining the conditions for the end of the change in the composition of a given number of batches and that eliminates duplication of solutions in a certain neighborhood is accomplished. A generalized algorithm for determining locally optimal solutions by party composition, acting on the upper level of the hierarchy, is formulated based on these methods.The algorithm for determining effective schedules is based on “greedy” strategies and involves adding each new batch to the processing sequences optimized in the previous steps and determining an effective position for them in this order. Software implementation of the developed methods of local optimization of solutions at each level of the hierarchy is completed. Studies for the dependence of the effectiveness of the proposed methods (in particular, the method of forming batches of batches) on the parameters of the system and the data processed are carried out. The obtained results have shown that use of the offered method of the definition of batches allows considerable reducing for the time of processing of batches of the data in the conveyor system. The efficiency of the treatment is then increased by 10% to 80 %.