Coalition Erosion and Presidential Instability in Ecuador

This article advances the idea that coalition formation and maintenance in highly fragmented presidential regimes is not only crucial to overcoming policy deadlock, but in some cases, critical to ensuring government survival. To advance this argument, the article looks at the formation and demise of legislative coalitions in Ecuador between 1979 and 2006. The empirical data suggest that paradoxically, government coalitions became more difficult to sustain after the adoption of institutional reforms intended to strengthen the president's legislative powers. The adoption of those reforms, it is argued, undermined the legislative incentives to cooperate with the government and helped to accelerate coalition erosion. Not only did the reforms fail significantly to avoid policy deadlock, but in some cases they contributed to the early termination of presidential mandates. This article contributes to the study of coalition survival and how it is linked to policymaking.     

Expanding Accountability Through Participatory Institutions: Mayors, Citizens, and Budgeting in Three Brazilian Municipalities

As new political institutions provide Brazilians with unprecedented access to policymaking and decisionmaking venues, politicians and activists have undertaken reform efforts to promote institutional arrangements partly designed to expand accountability. The expansion of participatory decisionmaking venues may grant citizens greater authority, but these institutions could also undermine municipal councils' ability to curb the prerogatives of mayors. This article analyzes participatory budgeting in São Paulo, Recife, and Porto Alegre to illustrate that mayors have differing capacities to implement their policy preferences, and this greatly affects how accountability may be extended.     

The Ambiguity of Veto Power in Coalitions: German Liberals' Role as a Watchdog in Justice and Home Affairs and their Failure to Sell Stalemate as Success in the Federal Elections of 2013

The article demonstrates that the rigid use of veto capacity in coalitions causes risks for re-election. Justice was a high-salience domain of the German Liberal Democratic Party (FDP), which occupied this portfolio in its coalition with the Conservative majority in the federal legislative period from 2009 to 2013. By analysing several legislative projects the article shows that their contents or non-adoption were an effect of liberals' vetoes. This policy-seeking strategy provoked conflicts within the coalition and stalemate making it impossible to realise popular measures that would have enhanced the Liberals' reputation and the importance of the domain for the voters who were mainly interested in economic and social policy. Moreover, the Liberals' vetoes led to a loss of support from its major coalition partner in the pre-election campaign. Thus governmental parties have to trade off policy and vote-seeking goals in order to get re-elected.     

Religion and inter-ethnic violence in Indonesia

Commentators have long struggled to understand state-society relations in Asia within the framework of the dominant liberal-democratic conceptualisation of civil society. This article examines the relevance of Antonio Gramsci's theory of civil society for understanding contemporary Cambodia and Vietnam, with reference to both legal and social frameworks. Such an analysis illuminates important aspects of state-society relations in Southeast Asia that tend to be overlooked by dominant liberal and Marxist perspectives. This article argues, however, that the utility of Gramsci's conception of civil society for understanding state-society relations in Cambodia and Vietnam, by retaining the notion of civil society as a realm associatively separate from the state, is limited.     

Ideological Conflict and Refugee Aid Policy Development in Munich

In an era when managing the impact of unregulated migration is of growing worldwide concern, I ask why the city of Munich expanded social aid to enhance refugee living conditions and integration opportunities despite broader trends to do the opposite. I find that city policymakers were driven by a locally dominant humanitarian paradigm, which was opposed by a security paradigm favoured by the Bavarian government. Research on ideas and policy often focuses on how taken-for-granted ideas limit policy development. An analysis of city-level refugee policy suggests that ideological conflict strengthens the clarity and salience of ideas, which can increase their impact on policymaking. Ideological conflict between paradigms made it harder for city policymakers to support policies that were not consistent with the humanitarian paradigm.     

Swiss Environmental Foreign Policy and Sustainable Development

This paper provides a narrative account of the Swiss environmental foreign policymaking process by former Swiss government officials and links their observations to relevant foreign policy and international relations theories. It provides background information on the broader context for sustainable development contained in the new Swiss Federal Constitution and suggests how realigning government, economy and society on the new Federal Constitution can help to promote sustainable development domestically and through multi­lateral channels.     

Eroding Germany’s Commitment to Data Protection: Policy Entrepreneurs and Coalition Politics in EU Passenger Name Records

A history of totalitarian governments and state surveillance appear to have made Germans sensitive towards the uses of personal data. Because of such concerns, Germany often acted as an obstacle to security measures requiring personal data at the EU level. However, there has been a recent sea-change in Germany over EU Passenger Name Records (EU-PNR), a measure that requires the personal data of airline passengers for security purposes. Many in Berlin have moved from lukewarm at the time of the first EU-PNR proposal in 2007 to advocating it in 2014. The article draws on Kingdon's Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) to examine this change in position, comparing two government coalitions – the CDU/CSU–FDP (2009–13) with the CDU/CSU–SPD (2013–) – to show how actors within the CDU/CSU have acted as policy entrepreneurs to ensure agreement on EU-PNR. It is argued that the composition of governmental coalitions can act as a central condition that facilitates or hinders the success of policy entrepreneurs. While the position of the FDP blocked any progress on EU-PNR in the former coalition, policy entrepreneurs used the willingness of the SPD to show voters their support for tougher security measures, thereby ensuring Germany’s support for EU-PNR.     

Contested policymaking in Russia: industry,environment, and the “best available technology” debate

The centralized nature of the Russian political system and the dominance of the executive can obscure the role played by other actors in the policymaking process. This article aims to further our understanding of the Russian policy process by examining the ability of industry to determine policy outcomes. An example from the environmental policy process concerning the introduction of the “best available technology” will be presented. This highly contested policy led to significant opposition from industry groups and disputes between government actors. The case demonstrates that industrial interests in Russia are able to exert considerable influence on the policy process; however, this influence is not absolute and requires closer scrutiny. Political leadership was found to be an important factor in achieving policy outcomes. However, for the most part, the policy process was found to be heavily bureaucratized, and dominated by a range of competing interests.     

政策网络与欧盟对外决策分析

欧盟多层治理体系下的对外决策具有独特性和局限性,需要发挥网络组织的灵活机制和资源配置能力,帮助克服欧盟正规决策程序中的复杂性和等级制,提高欧盟对外决策的利益协调能力和问题解决能力。政策网络理论在分析利益协调、理解网络结构、推动合作过程以及发展决策体系内公、私行为体协调等方面具有明显的理论优势。本文将欧盟对外政策研究与政策网络方法相结合,目的在于检验政策网络方法在分析政策网络结构影响欧洲对外决策方面的作用。     

Sovereign risk: Gulf sovereign wealth funds as engines of growth and political resource

ABSTRACT

The economic reform agenda moving across the Gulf Cooperation Council states precipitated by the end of a decade-long run of high oil prices, high population growth rates, and costly demands on the provision of generous state services and subsidies has had some unexpected consequences. The reformulation of state-society relations, especially with regard to ideas of how to create economic growth and how to model a future social contract, challenges the accepted literature and construct of rentierism. This essay focuses on one distinctive site of these shifting relations between rentier states and their citizens: the sovereign wealth fund (SWF). SWFs are based upon the shared rents from oil production, but as they have evolved they are also becoming transformative in new national development strategies. Some SWFs now veer from traditional practices of safeguarding wealth to more experimental and high-risk strategies that claim to be able to diversify national economies from oil dependency, while also promising high returns. The current moment of late rentierism heightens questions of ownership and of the state’s role as guardian or steward of society’s wealth. Using SWFs to examine state-society relations and rentierism across the Gulf, this article focuses on the Saudi case.     

The Effect of Unions and Organized Civil Society on Social Policy: Pension and Health Reforms in Argentina and Brazil, 1988–2008

This article shows how modified European power resources theories can be applied to Latin America to explain differences in the depth of policy reforms. It innovates on previous work on Latin American social policy by particularly examining the effect of unions and other civil society groups on the process of structural reforms (or lack thereof) in the health and pension sectors in Argentina and Brazil. Through a most similar system design, this analysis shows that the strength and support (or opposition) of organized civil society groups is a crucial condition to account for the enactment (or failure) of a given broad policy reform.     

L'Etat social suisse face aux nouveaux risques sociaux: Genèse et déterminants de l'adoption du programme d'impulsion pour les structures de garde pour enfants bas age

In this article we highlight the factors and the mechanisms that influence decision making processes in the adoption of new social policies in Switzerland, on the basis of a recent example: the introduction in 2002 of a federal subsidy for new child care facilities. The article begins with a discussion of various hypotheses, inspired from the social policy literature. It then reviews the policymaking process that lead to the adoption of the new programme. In the final discussion, several factors are identified as co‐responsible for the success of the initiative: the convergence of interest of employers and the libertarian left, the favourable economic situation in the 2000 and early 2001 which facilitated the opening of a “window of opportunity”. The fact that the success of this initiative is related to a fairly large number of favourable factors, suggests that the adoption of this kind of measures will remain a politically difficult exercise.     

Moving Beyond the Policy of No Policy: Emigration from Mexico and Central America

Do Caribbean Basin states influence U.S. immigration policy? Although the terrorist attacks of September 2001 eventually derailed migration talks, before that time Mexico and the United States appeared poised to negotiate a major bilateral agreement, largely on Mexico's terms. Drawing on 88 detailed interviews conducted with Mexican and other Caribbean Basin elites, this article examines sending‐state preferences for emigration and their capacity to influence policy outcomes. The informants considered migration to be the most problematic issue on the bilateral agenda, but also saw migration policy as relatively open to source‐state influence. A case study of Mexican emigration policymaking details the national and transnational changes that make migration increasingly an inter‐mestic policy issue.     

Theory, Practice and'External Actors'in the Making of New Urban Social Movements in Brazil

Abstract – Spontaneity and authenticity have often been key words in the analysis of the'new urban social movements'that emerged in Brazil in the course of the 1970s. The movement discourse was often taken at face value and the involvement of other than'popular'institutional and social actors tended to be concealed. Though in some analyses attention has been directed to the role of the Catholic Church and other institutional actors, very little has been said about the personnel involved and their class position. This article focuses on the latter aspect and in this manner draws attention to the role of segments of the emerging new middle classes in the social construction of the movements. It is argued that processes of professional affirmation in the context of the political conjuncture of the democratisation process contributed to a radical politicisation of segments of the emerging new middle classes. Such processes were related to the theoretical reflection on the new movements and the emergence of a'militant perspective in research'which imbricated with the development of grassroots activism, amplified its impact, and furthered expectations over its role in the democratisation process. It thus contributed to the shaping of the movements. With the return to civilian rule and the changing configuration of state-society relations the relations between middle class and popular grassroots activism changed and this initially reflected in disenchanted accounts of the new movements and their failure to live up to expectations. Analysis of such processes provides an insight into the epistemo-politics of research and theory production on social movements.     

Gender, Parties, and Support for Equal Rights in the Brazilian Congress

This article analyzes a dataset of policy views of members of the Brazilian Congress to assess the nature of support for genderrelated policy issues. It makes three core claims. First, liberal and progressive opinions on gender correspond to party membership more than to sex. Left parties have consistent and programmatic policy positions on controversial gender issues. Women and men are more divided, as are parties of the center and the right. Second, coalitions supporting change differ across policy issues. Support for gender quotas, for example, does not translate into support for more liberal abortion laws. Third, there is a large gap between legislators' attitudes toward gender-related policy and actual policy outcomes. Institutional deadlock and executive priorities explain this discrepancy. This article concludes that although women may share some interests by virtue of their position in a gender-structured society, these interests may be trumped by partisan, class, regional, and other cleavages.     

Russia's “turn to the east”: a study in policy making

Russia's recent reorientation “to the East” has gained increased urgency given events in Ukraine. Here the policymaking process surrounding the “turn to the East” is examined. The focus is on the economic dimension – the economic development of the Russian Far East and engagement with the Asia-Pacific region – rather than geostrategic and security issues. Policymaking is evaluated in terms of general approach and process, with the implications of the evaluation for Russian policymaking more generally then being explored. “Turn to the East” policymaking exhibits a strong commitment to strategic planning that is characteristic of Putin, and which in this case struggles not only with process issues but also with contradictions within the strategy and the challenging realities of the region. Regarding process, a far more institutionalized policy process than the currently dominant personalist view would lead us to expect is found, with relevant bureaucratic and non-state actors well represented in an elaborate and relatively formal process. However a considerable weakening of sign-off procedures is noted, which has lead to policy inconsistency and indeed “policy irresponsibility” among participants. The author attributes the weakening of sign-off procedures to Putin's frustration with the gridlock tendencies of strict sign-off regimes, rather than a desire to create a personalist regime of hands-on management. This suggests that improvement of the Russian policy process requires structural and procedural change, rather than simply leadership change.     

Putin and the Public Chamber

In 2004, Putin created a Public Chamber to enhance state-society dialogue and civilian oversight of the state system. Drawing on interviews with individuals active in Russian civil society or the foreign donor community, this article investigates the Public Chamber's role in legitimating Putin's regime. It examines the vision of state and civil society in the doctrine of "sovereign democracy"; Kremlin strategies for enforcing the narrow parameters this vision gives the public sphere; the model of civil society the Chamber provides, and its actual workings. The Public Chamber's ability to legitimate the regime is considered in the context of civil society's status in Russia.     

Reviews

In recent years, urban community studies in China have been taking a closer look at neighbourhood space. Many researchers have examined neighbourhood using a state-society approach. This article argues that the fragmented state structure and the diversified society have led to calls for a different view of state and society. Based on the empirical studies in Shanghai, this article attempts to uncover the limitations of the state-society paradigm in exploring the transformation of urban grassroots, and suggests understanding the increasingly fragmented grassroots from examining different actors who are embedded in a specific neighbourhood space and vary in their interests and goals.     

German Parliamentary Party Groups in Europeanised Policymaking: Awakening from the Sleep? Institutions and Heuristics as MPs’ Resources

As a contribution to the ‘de-parliamentarisation’ debate, this article discusses the Europeanisation of the Bundestag by focusing on parliamentary party groups and their policy experts. In the German ‘working parliament’, these units are focal points for coordinating policymaking. By adding the explanatory power of ‘belief systems’ and, more generally, of ‘heuristics’ to theories of new institutionalism, this explanatory study reveals that although new institutionalism frameworks have served as rather good guidelines for explaining why German MPs have backed off scrutinising the government and co-governing in EU policymaking, they can be further improved by explicitly integrating elements of cognitive theory. The study empirically draws on elite interviews with MPs and their staff. These interviews offer insights into heuristics which serve to diminish information overload and which help MPs to cope with trade-offs and conflicts between EU issues and programmatic positions that point back to national party affiliations.     

Political Entrepreneurs and Neoliberal Reform in Mexico: The Salinas Requisa of the Port of Veracruz

This essay extends the discussion on the politics of reform by identifying specific political strategies that allow policymakers to implement difficult economic reforms in the context of an increasingly democratic and contentious policymaking environment. Analyzing the policymaking strategy of Mexican president Carlos Salinas (1988-94) in his efforts to reorganize the Port of Veracruz, it identifies the element of political entrepreneurship as essential to the long-term success of Salinas's port policy. When compared with the mixed record of many of Salinas's other reforms and the authoritarian manner in which they were implemented, the port policy stands out both for its successful outcome and for Salinas's concerted political efforts to implement it. Even in the context of an authoritarian policymaking regime, an effective political strategy is an important element in achieving the long-term goals of market-based reforms.