Presidential Support in the Russian State Duma

Recent comparative research on presidential systems has analyzed the ways in which presidents build majorities for their legislative agendas. Through an analysis of roll‐call votes from the 2000‐03 Russian State Duma on a set of issues reflecting President Putin's legislative agenda, I examine the impact of parliamentary party affiliation, policy preferences, issue type, and electoral mandate type on structuring floor support for the president. I also assess the implications of a mixed electoral system for building legislative coalitions in multiparty legislatures. Further, my findings shed light on Putin's recent reforms of the Duma's rules and procedures and the country's electoral system.     

Redistricting,Responsiveness, and Issue Attention

We explored the extent to which legislators respond to redistricting‐induced demographic shifts in their constituencies. Our analyses focused on the behavior of members of the House of Representatives who served in the terms preceding and following the redistricting that took place in the early 2000s (namely, the 107th and 108th Congresses). We investigated how demographic shifts relate to the content of legislators' subsequent agendas (the legislation that members introduce and cosponsor) and the nature of members' voting patterns (their interest group voting scores). Our results indicate that responsiveness is widespread, but important variation exists in the patterns for agenda activities and roll‐call voting.     

Presidential influence on parliamentary election timing and the electoral fate of prime ministers

Most presidential heads of state in parliamentary and semi-presidential democracies have constitutional powers to influence early election calling, which enable them to influence the conditions under which prime ministers are held accountable by the electorate. We examine whether presidents use theses powers to shape the timing of early elections for partisan advantage and to influence the electoral performance of prime ministers. Drawing on data from 193 elections in 18 European democracies (1945–2013), we find that presidents with significant dissolution powers enable incumbents in governments that include the president’s party to realise a significant electoral bonus compared with governments that exclude the party of the president.     

The Politics of Appointment and the Federal Courts'Role in Regulating America: U.S. Courts of Appeals Judgeships from T.R. to F.D.R.

Historians and political scientists have noted that appointments of judges to the U.S. Courts of Appeals are not determined by senatorial courtesy alone. What has not been adequately explained is why and when a president defers to a senator's choice rather than seek to control the selection. This article attempts to understand the politics of federal appellate court appointments. The author first identifies a major change in the work of the courts of appeals during the years 1900-1945—the growth in review of the actions of newly created federal regulatory agencies. Then, by examining Justice Department files and presidential correspondence, he discoveres three patterns of appointment emerging in the same period. The patterns vary with presidential perceptions of the role of the federal government and of the courts of appeals' ability to affect accomplishment of administration goals. Appointments during the first years of the presidencies of Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt and during the Harding and Coolidge administrations were dominated by patronage concerns. Those administrations yielded to the recommendations of senators and demonstrated no interest in the policy-making potential of these courts. In the two other patterns the White House played a more active role, with senators more often deferring to the president's selection. Concerns about professionalism dominated selections in Taft's and Hoover's administrations: because they recognized the policy importance of those judgeships but saw the role of government as limited, they sought judicial craftsmen who would make policy only incrementally. Policy concerns dominated selections during Wilson's administration and the latter years of both the Roosevelts' administrations: Justice Department officials screened nominees to determine their policy orientation, because federal appellate court judgeships were perceived as crucial policy positions that could affect the president's ability to implement his reform programs.     

Presidential Campaigning in the 2002 Congressional Elections

Theories involving coattails, surge and decline, presidential popularity, and the economy ascribe little importance to presidential efforts to influence congressional elections. Since such efforts do occur, we ask: What happens when a president campaigns for fellow partisans? We examined President George W. Bush's decisions to campaign for certain House candidates in 2002, and we assessed the effect of his visits on Republicans' electoral successes. Both the competitiveness of a race and the president's electoral self‐interest increased the likelihood of a visit on behalf of a candidate. Neither party loyalty nor presidential support in Congress had an effect. We conclude that presidential campaign visits significantly enhance candidates' electoral prospects.     

The Fiscal Imperative and the Role of Public Prosecutors in Brazilian Environmental Policy

The main characteristic of the general policy-making process in Brazil is the dominance of a fiscal imperative that leads the president to use his/her substantial powers to pursue monetary stability and fiscal responsibility. The fiscal imperative means that environmental policy is only attended to if the macroeconomic constraint permits. However, Brazilian public prosecutors exert a significant countervailing constraint that impedes the president from simply pushing environmental policy to the sidelines. This article describes the role of the public prosecutors in the environmental policy process and provides statistical analysis supporting the claim that their involvement exerts a positive effect on environmental policy outcomes.     

All the President's Senators: Presidential Copartisans and the Allocation of Federal Grants

Previous scholarship argues that House members' partisan relationship to the president is among the most important determinants of the share of federal dollars they bring home to their constituents. Do presidential politics also shape distributive outcomes in the Senate? Analyzing the allocation of more than $8.5 trillion of federal grants across the states from 1984 to 2008, we show that presidential copartisan senators are more successful than opposition party members in securing federal dollars for their home states. Moreover, presidents appear to target grants ex post to states that gain presidential copartisans in recent elections.     

Legislating Crime Policy from the White House: Presidential Success with Congress in the Passage of Federal Crime Control Policy

Previous research has found that presidents, in general, have the power to influence congress in the passage of federal crime control policy. What has not been fully explored is whether presidential supported bills are more likely to influence congress to pass federal crime control bills. Therefore, this study draws upon the theory that presidents influence congress to test the hypothesis that president supported legislation on crime will achieve greater success in congress than non-supported bills. Analysis of legislative, presidential and congressional data from 1946 through 1996 suggests support for the theory that presidential supported bills are 2.8 times more likely (or 185% more likely) to become law.     

The Impact of Presidential Campaigning for Congress on Presidential Support in the U.S. House of Representatives

Presidential influence is partly a function of the partisan, economic, and international context within which the president governs. Presidents are, however, more than bystanders relying on the political milieu for policy opportunities. Recent scholarship demonstrates that presidents consciously influence this milieu and build political capital by campaigning for congressional candidates. We contribute to this literature by assessing the effects of presidential campaigning on legislative support for two presidents who governed under extremely dissimilar circumstances: Bill Clinton in the 106th Congress and George W. Bush in the 108th Congress. We find evidence of campaign effects on congressional policymaking during both administrations.     

Bill Passage Speed in the US House: A Test of a Vote Buying Model of the Legislative Process

This article constitutes a test of central tenets of vote buying theories using data on the number of days it takes to pass important bills in the US House. Survival analyses of a model of bill passage length provide confirmatory evidence of vote buying by presidents and the congressional leadership. Bills that attract buyers of votes to maintain the status quo are shown to pass more quickly than those that do not. Bills on the president's agenda and those that are relatively close to members' ideal points also pass quickly. The analyses furnish some interesting insights into possible efforts to make the legislative process quicker.     

Presidential rhetoric on cybercrime: links to terrorism?

Abstract

Presidents often give speeches about crime issues as a way to convince the public that there are significant problems for which an easy solution can be found. Studies have shown that presidential rhetoric on crime not only influences the public’s perception of the problem, but also the perception of the best solution. More recent research has demonstrated that presidents sometimes draw on the public’s fear of crime as a way to further affect the public’s perception of crime. In other words, presidents link crime with the public’s anxiety about other fearful events as a way to further impact the public’s perception of a problem (and thus further their agenda). This study examines presidential rhetoric on cybercrime to determine if executives link cybercrime with other issues such as national security. The findings provide credibility to both Cavelty’s threat frames approach as well as assertions made regarding the politics of fear.     

Changes in the Rules of the Lawmaking Process and the Success of Presidential Bills: Chile, 1990–2018

This article assesses the effect of changes in the lawmaking process on the success of the president’s legislative agenda, distinguishing between within-term success (bills that passed during the term) and overall success (including bills that passed after the president left office). With the 2064 presidential bills introduced in seven terms (1990–2018) in Chile’s presidential system, we assess the impact of changes in lawmaking rules on within-term (59.9%) and overall success (70.6%). Changes that decrease attributions of the president and create more opportunities for executive-legislative bargaining—including concurrent elections—increase the chances of success of presidential bills. The use of presidential urgency motions, an agenda-setting tool, makes bills more likely to pass, but the issuance of many urgency motions undermines the bill’s chances to succeed. Presidential bills introduced early in the term and those on issues where there is more policy convergence are more likely to pass.     

The Limits of Senatorial Courtesy

Because of senatorial courtesy, scholars typically assume that presidents defer to home state senators from their party when selecting judges for the federal courts. We challenge this view, arguing that presidents face structural incentives that encourage them to consult broadly with senators across the partisan and ideological spectrums in choosing nominees. Using new data on the fate of judicial vacancies on the federal district courts between 1947 and 1998, we show how institutional and political forces increase interested senators' leverage in choosing federal judges. Senatorial courtesy, we conclude, has its limits, given presidents' incentives to consult with institutionally empowered senators in selecting nominees.     

Agenda Power,Executive Decree Authority,and the Mixed Results of Reform in the Brazilian Congress

This article examines how institutional change in the use of extraordinary legislation affects delegation of power and unilateral action in new democracies. From 1988 to 2001, Brazilian presidents were able to reissue decrees indefinitely and thus had substantial legislative power. In 2001, Congress amended the constitution so as to restrict the president to a single reissue of each lapsed decree. This reform has had mixed results: although it ended the practice of infinite reissues, it induced Presidents Cardoso and Lula to use more decrees than previous executives had. Presidential agenda power, rather than being reduced, has been sharpened. By analyzing patterns of presidential initiatives from 1995 to 2005, we demonstrate the mixed results of this constitutional reform.     

Scientizing Food Safety: Resistance,Acquiescence, and Localization in India

Since the mid‐1990s, formal scientific risk management has been codified at all levels of food safety governance in affluent states: firm‐level standards, national regulation, and international law. Developing countries' access to affluent importers and power in international standard‐setting fora now hinges on their scientific capacity. This article explores the consequences of these developments in India, which moved quickly from resistance to acquiescence, and then later to mobilization around narratives of scientific risk management's local benefits. The case suggests a two‐stage model of scientization among developing countries: (1) coercive and competitive mechanisms drive adoption of science‐based governance models, and (2) as local actors mobilize to meet foreign demands, they attach their own interests and agendas to science‐based reforms. The outcome is a set of rational myths about the benefits of scientization. The article draws on content analysis of organizational, policy, and news documents and a small set of interviews with highly placed pubic officials and industry representatives.     

Divided Government and Congressional Investigations

This article explores the political determinants of congressional investigatory activity. Using Mayhew's list of high‐profile probes updated through 2006, we developed five measures of the frequency and intensity of investigative oversight. Contra Mayhew, we found that divided government spurs congressional investigatory activity. A shift from unified to divided government yields a five‐fold increase in the number of hearings held and quadruples their duration. Conditional party government models also offer explanatory leverage because homogeneous majorities are more likely to investigate the president in divided government and less likely to do so in unified government. This dynamic is strongest in the House, but analyses of the Senate also afford consistent, if muted, evidence of partisan agenda control.     

Assessing the President's Role as Party Agent in Congressional Elections: The Case of Bill Clinton in 2000

Presidents have become their parties' chief fund‐raisers and thus have the capacity to further their parties' collective fortunes by imposing a more efficient distribution of campaign resources than might otherwise prevail. In order to succeed, presidents must, first, accurately target their efforts where they will best improve candidates' prospects for winning seats, and second, either directly or indirectly (through signaling to other donors) generate sufficient new resources to affect the election outcome. Analyses of Bill Clinton's extensive fund‐raising efforts during the 1999–2000 election cycle confirm that presidents can indeed use their unmatched fund‐raising ability to help their parties win congressional contests they might otherwise lose. But analysis of the Clinton record also shows that presidential fund‐raising activities may be shaped by other purposes that lead to a distribution of effort that is suboptimal for the party.     

Executive orders: Symbolic politics, criminal justice policy, and the American presidency

The theory of symbolic politics is used to examine presidential executive orders related to criminal justice policy. It is hypothesized that presidents use executive orders to make more of a symbolic, rather than a substantive, statement. Data were collected from the National Archives and Records Administration on all presidential executive orders from the first Eisenhower administration (1953) through the last Clinton administration (2001). A content analysis of presidential executive orders related to crime and justice offers partial support for the claim that presidents use these executive orders primarily for evoking symbols. The author would like to thank Dr. Matthew J, Franck for his review of an earlier draft of this paper and the anonymous reviewers for sharing their helpful comments.     

Economic crisis and lawmaking. The impact of crisis on legislative agenda in Italy

Major economic crises are focal events that often drive changes in various aspects of political systems. Although extensive work has been done to investigate the effect of exogenous shocks on political phenomena such as government termination, public opinion and policy outcomes, the impact of major crises on the process of policymaking has so far received scarce attention. Building on existing literature on policy agendas and legislative organization, this paper explores how the Eurozone crisis has affected the legislative agenda of the Italian parliament. The data used include information on the 1,110 bills submitted to parliament during Legislature XVI (2008–2013). Our analysis shows that, with the worsening of the crisis, bill proposals related to macroeconomic issues become increasingly more likely to enter the legislative agenda, displacing legislation dealing with other topics. Our argument is corroborated by a comparison between Legislature XVI and a pre-crisis legislature (2001–2006), as in the latter term the legislative agenda follows different patterns.     

Death penalty politics and symbolic law in Russia

In contemporary Russia there is widespread support for the death penalty. Recent Russian presidents have endorsed the nation’s entry into the European Community (EC). The dilemma is that the price of membership into the EC is total abolition of capital punishment. The Russian Duma is much less popular than the president, even though it sides with public opinion in supporting capital punishment. Since 1997, these conflicting political positions have been temporarily neutralized by leaving capital punishment legislation in place but allowing the Russian president to offer clemency to all sentenced to death. In 1999, the Constitutional Court of Russia placed a moratorium on all death sentences until jury trials are re-introduced throughout the nation.