Democratic Incongruities: Representative Democracy in Britain

This essay discusses the rationale guiding legislation dealing exclusively with political parties. The analysis is based on examination of party laws in Austria, Finland, Germany, Israel, Poland, Spain and Venezuela. The manner by which a particular legislature applies the general features of party law‐ legislation (general declaration regarding the role of parties in democracies, definition of parties, registration requirements, the democratic character of association in parties, regulation of party finance, legal sanctions) is demonstrated in reference to the Israeli party law, the most recent case of an established democracy whose legislature passed a parties law in 1992.

Throughout the analysis, the study addresses a question of principle: should a legislature comprised of representatives of political parties undertake to legislate laws regulating the activities of political parties in a democratic parliamentary system? It is suggested that a partial response to this question is found in the fact that, with the exception of Finland and Israel, democratic polities that have chosen to legislate party laws had previously experienced a collapse of their democratic systems. In the process of reforming their democratic structures, the legislatures in these polities enacted parties laws that would ensure that political parties perform functions commensurate With the goals and practices of modern democracies.     

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.     

Making Quotas Work: The Effect of Gender Quota Laws On the Election of Women

Gender quota laws are intended to increase the number of women elected to legislatures, but initial evidence suggests that many laws have had little effect. I present a cross‐national, statistical test that analyzes how three key dimensions of candidate quota laws affect women's representation. My results show that quotas that require more women to be on party ballots lead to the election of more women, independent of placement mandates and enforcement mechanisms, but rules governing where female candidates are listed on the ballot and sanctions for noncompliance amplify that effect. Candidate quotas can increase women's representation, but the quotas' effectiveness depends on their design.     

Sequential trials and the English rule

The allocation of trial costs and the way a trial progresses are two important issues in civil procedure. The combination of these two elements has received relatively little attention in the law and economics literature. The prior literature has only compared unitary litigation (e.g. liability and damage issues are litigated, after which the court decides on both issues) under the American rule with sequential litigation (e.g. the parties first litigate the liability issue after which the court makes a decision, and then if still necessary the parties litigate the damages issue) under the American rule. In this article, I examine the influence of sequential litigation when the loser at trial pays all the litigation costs and compare the results with (a) the situation in which litigation is unitary and the loser pays all the litigation costs and (b) the situation in which litigation is sequential and each party bears her own costs. I focus on the incentive to sue, the incentive to settle (or to litigate) and on the settlement amount. Some interesting differences with the previous literature are discussed in detail.     

Electoral Reform and Changes in Legislative Behavior: Adoption of the Secret Ballot in Congressional Elections

There is widespread agreement that the Australian ballot fundamentally altered the American electoral system. One common approach to test the effects of ballot reform is to examine legislators elected under the party and secret ballot. An alternative research design, which we adopt here, compares changes in the behavior of legislators who were elected under both ballot types. We use this approach to investigate whether ballot reform directly influenced legislators' decisions to seek renomination and their behavior within the institution. Our results raise a number of important implications for understanding the effects of electoral reform on political behavior.     

第三人利益合同的变更和解除

建立第三人利益合同制度是完善我国合同法的迫切需要.其中一个重要的问题就是当事人是否可以像在两人合同中一样协议变更或解除第三人利益合同.在没有第三人同意的情况下,当事人行使变更权和解除权虽不应当完全否认,但是必须受到限制.具体标准取决于建立第三人利益合同制度的宗旨和该合同的特征.作为一般法规范的第三人利益合同的变更和解除制度将与我国现行合同法律法规共存,形成完整的体系.并在实践中按照特别法优于一般法的原则予以适用.     

论党法关系的规范性原理

党法关系(政党和法治的关系)是现代政党政治下各国法治建设面临的普遍性议题.习近平法治思想是考量党法关系的最佳理论框架,深刻揭示了党法关系的基本原理.从当代中国和世界的情况看,党法关系可分解为政党和国家机关、政党政策和国家法律、政党规章和国家法律三组关系.政党和国家机关关系的规范性原理包括外部领导、内部执政、党政机构融合...     

论冲突规范的任意性适用——以民事诉讼程序为视角

冲突规范的任意性适用,是指在涉外民商事案件的审理中,只有在至少一方当事人提出请求时,法院才会适用冲突规范及其可能指向的外国法。以民事诉讼程序为观察视角,当事人对诉讼资料的控制权和法律适用的参与权,成为冲突规范任意性适用的重要法律依据。在个人可以自由处分权利的法律关系领域,当事人有权在适用冲突规范及其指向的外国法可能带来的实体利益与遭受的程序不利益之间进行衡量,自行作出是否适用冲突规范的决定。     

Differences and Changes in Danish Party Organisations: Central Party Organisation versus Parliamentary Party Group Power

The subject of this article is the relationship between the central party organisation and the parliamentary party group. The article investigates whether Danish political parties are changing into parties dominated by their parliamentary party groups, as has been hypothesised. In contrast to most of the literature on party change, which is based on ideas of convergence caused by external changes, this article argues that party organisation is basically a party decision and therefore influenced by party preferences and characteristics. The analyses are based on data from the statutes of 16 Danish parties in over 50 years. One noteworthy finding is that Danish parties do not converge. Party ideology proves to be very important for the power structure of a party. Even though political parties are exposed to changing political circumstances they still organise according to their basic ideas about democracy and representation.     

Intra-party delegation in the Portuguese legislature: assigning committee chairs and party coordination positions

In European parliamentary democracies political parties control candidate selection, maintain cohesion in the legislature and support governments. In addition to these classic functions, parties also organise the legislature delegating power to legislators, specifically as committee chairs and party coordinators. Delegation is inherently dangerous, involving potential agency loss. Parties, however, have ex-ante and ex-post institutional mechanisms to deal with agency problems. In this paper, a case study is made of the Portuguese legislature, arguing that parties make use of their pivotal role in selecting legislators as committee chairs and party coordinators to keep tabs on legislators to thwart shirking from the party line. This paper finds that political parties use incumbency as an ex-ante screening mechanism of committee chairs and party coordinators in looking for reliable signals of past behaviour to decrease uncertainty. Additionally, evidence suggests that extra-parliamentary party structure is used as an institutional arena for ex-post control of party coordinators.     

The impact of coalition parties on policy output – evidence from Germany

This paper examines two crucial questions related to coalition politics and representative democracies. How do parties’ ideological positions translate into cabinet policy positions? And how does the relative impact of parties vary over the legislative term. Using an original dataset of 74 social and budgetary laws from nine German coalition governments, the paper shows that, on average, government parties influence cabinet policy position according to their relative strength. However, the relative impact of coalition parties varies significantly during the term. At the beginning of the term in office, the policy positions of the cabinet are representative of the overall cabinet ideology, but the policy positions strongly move towards the position of the party representing the median when the next election approaches.     

The Electoral Consequences of Party Switching by Incumbent Members of Congress, 1947–2000

What are the electoral consequences of switching parties for incumbent members of Congress? Do incumbents who switch fare better or worse after their switch? Aldrich (1995) and Aldrich and Bianco (1992) present a model of party affiliation for all candidates. We empirically extend this model for incumbent legislators who have switched parties. Specifically, we look at the universe of incumbent representatives who have run for Congress under more than one party label since World War II. We find that the primary and general election vote shares for party switchers are not as high after the switch as before. Additionally, we learn that party switching causes the primaries in the switcher's party and in the the opposing party (the switcher's “old” party) to become more competitive in the short run. Over the long run, however, primaries in the switcher's new party are less competitive than those in the old party before the switch.     

Political parties and corruption: Ten hypotheses on five vicious circles

Strong political parties and genuine competition among them feature in many anti-corruption strategies, but in practice the relationships between corruption and political parties are much more complex than is generally recognized. This article explores and illustrates ten hypotheses about those connections, drawing in detail upon Italian, Japanese, and other cases for evidence. These connections extend well beyond amounts and trends of corruption to include the motivations of party members and supporters, internal problems of party organizations, and links between parties and state institutions. Major concerns included party bureaucratization, membership, and resources; electoral volatility; party fragmentation; collusion among parties; and party influence in public administration. These hypotheses will be best understood, and tested, comparatively, but in so doing we need to look not only at basic causes of corruption but also at ways in which parties and other institutions reproduce the conditions that sustain it.     

Presidents, Political Regimes, and Contentious Supreme Court Nominations: A Historical Institutional Model

Before the nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito, scholars consistently pointed to the presence of divided government as an underlying reason for conflict in the confirmation process for U.S. Supreme Court nominees. However, the importance of party unity and coalition-building appointments—each of which highlights the role of the president in the process—should not be underestimated in these confirmation battles. Moreover, an examination of the sixty twentieth-century nominations reveals that a presidency-focused political regimes model provides significant explanatory force for understanding when and what types of nominees are likely to face the most resistance in the Senate. It does so by incorporating Stephen Skowronek's analytical framework for understanding presidential authority to explain how and why different periods of political time affect presidential attempts to shape the U.S. Supreme Court through appointments. In turn, the model places recent conflict in the confirmation process in historical context.     

Invisible Politics: Institutional Incentives and Legislative Alignments in the Russian Duma, 1996–99

Previous analysis of legislative voting has focused on the behavior of nominal legislative parties, regardless of whether the country under examination was an established democracy or a newly democratized country. This approach is inadequate for countries with young party systems. To establish the extent to which legislative coalitions are party based, scholars must allow for the possibility that institutional incentives predominate over party influence. For this study, I applied a Bayesian discrete latent variable method to identify the legislative coalitions in the 1996‐99 Duma. I found that legislative alignments cut across party lines: electoral incentives and support for the president contribute to divides within parties that lack coherent platforms. Here I present a novel methodological approach to the identification of intraparty divisions and the major determinants of legislative coalitions in many legislative settings. This approach allows a comparison of the importance of party influence relative to other institutional incentives. It is especially useful for analyzing legislative voting in young party systems and where constitutional frameworks and electoral systems subject legislators to competing pressures.     

How Strong Should Our Party Be? Party Member Preferences Over Party Cohesion

In this article, we seek to explain when and why political parties pressure their members to vote with the party. We model party cohesion as an endogenous choice of preference alignment by party members. Couched in Krehbiel's (1996, 1998) pivotal politics model, the formal theory advanced here shows party cohesion to be related to the initial preference alignment of party members, the divergence in preferences between parties, the cohesion of the opposing party, the party's size, and the party's majority or minority status. We solved the model analytically for generalized‐partial equilibrium results and further analyzed it through computer simulations. We tested the model's predictions in the U.S. Senate using Rice party cohesion scores from the 46th through 104th Congresses. The data analyses show strong support for this theory of endogenous choice of party pressure.     

“No Hints,No Forecasts,No Previews”: An Empirical Analysis of Supreme Court Nominee Candor from Harlan to Kagan

Criticism of Supreme Court confirmation hearings has intensified considerably over the past two decades. In particular, there is a growing sense that nominees are now less forthcoming and that the hearings have suffered as a result. In this article, we challenge that conventional wisdom. Based on a comprehensive content analysis of every question and answer in all of the modern confirmation hearings—nearly 11,000 in total—we find only a mild decline in the candor of recent nominees. Moreover, we find that senators ask more probing questions than in the past, and that nominees are now more explicit about their reasons when they choose not to respond—two factors that may be fueling the perception that evasiveness has increased in recent years. We close with a discussion of the normative implications of our findings as well as an outline for future research into this issue.     

Wasting or saving time? How government and opposition parties use time during legislative debates. Evidence from the Italian case

The use of plenary time during legislative debates has consequences for the enhancement of party goals. Hence, parties have different preferences on how legislative time should be managed: while some parties would like time not to be ‘wasted’ on the floor, other parties may instead try to ‘consume’ as much time as possible. Speeches delivered in the plenary signal these preferences. Focusing on plenary debates on legislation, this paper proposes a theory for explaining party speech-making behaviour that takes into consideration parties’ preferences on the use of time and their incentives related to the divide between government and opposition. The theoretical argument also emphasises the role of issue salience and party cohesion, which interact with the incentives faced by government and opposition parties. Hypotheses are tested against data from over 21,000 speeches delivered in the Italian parliament. Results highlight the importance of considering the different incentives faced by government and opposition parties when analysing speech making in parliamentary settings, and suggest some interesting avenues for future enquiry.     

Limiting Party Representation: Evidence from a Small Parliamentary Chamber

Parties are seen as vital for the maintenance of parliamentary government and as necessary intermediaries between voters and legislators; an elected parliamentary chamber not controlled by parties is highly anomalous. This study contrasts the party‐controlled Tasmanian lower house with its Independent‐dominated elected upper house and finds that the major source of constraints on party representation is not a clientelistic style of politics but the persistence of a distinctive institutional design and electoral rules based on fixed terms and annual staggered elections. The consequences of these rules are explored for their effects on voter choice and legislative behaviour.     

我国刑法规定国际犯罪的立法模式探讨

国际犯罪分为"国际核心罪行"与"一般国际犯罪",它们源于习惯国际法或者条约国际法,但都被国际公约明确规定.我国缔结、加入了大量规定有国际犯罪的国际公约,而这些公约都要求缔约国通过国内立法对国际犯罪加以规定.因此,在我国全面或者大部分地规定国际犯罪,既是作为条约缔约国的义务,也是防止、有效惩治国际犯罪所必需的措施.鉴于我国的刑事立法特点,我们宜在刑法典中统一规定国际犯罪.即在修改刑法第9条、增加其对国际公约适用灵活性的同时,我们可以将一般国际犯罪根据其侵犯的客体规定于现有各章中,并新增一章"危害人类和平与安全罪"来规定战争罪、种族灭绝和危害人类罪这些国际核心罪行.