Elected Second Chambers and Their Powers: An International Survey

In May 2011, Britain's Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government published proposals for reform of the House of Lords. In a White Paper and draft bill they set out detailed plans for a largely or wholly elected second chamber. These marked the latest stage in a long‐running debate on Lords reform. The government's proposals aim to change the composition of the second chamber, suggesting that there will be no change to its powers or the conventions governing relations with the House of Commons. But this expectation has been disputed. The House of Lords presently does not make full use of its powers, and many anticipate that it would if its members became elected. This paper reviews the composition of all second chambers internationally, showing that wholly directly elected chambers make up the minority, and that both mixed chambers and indirect election are common. It then reviews the formal powers of all largely and wholly elected chambers. This shows that amongst parliamentary systems the formal powers of the House of Lords are relatively great. But second chamber powers, as well as their composition, vary widely.     

Getting Their Way: Bias and Deference to Trial Courts

How much do trial judges influence the law in the United States? I analyze a model of adjudication by a trial judge who engages in fact finding before deciding a case, but whose decision may be reversed. The model makes three broad points. First, it provides an informational rationale for ex post deference to biased trial judges that does not require an ex ante commitment by an appellate court to a standard of review. Second, it shows how procedural discretion can bring biased trial judges' rulings closer to appellate doctrine despite enabling trial judges to “get their way” more often. Third, de facto law as represented by trial judges' case‐by‐case adjudication will differ substantially from de jure law. As long as there are not too many extremist trial judges, de facto law will reflect the predispositions of trial judges, not legal doctrine.     

测量治理：国外的研究及其对中国的启示

对治理的测量是构建经验性治理理论的基础。采用文献分析方法,首先简要介绍了国外,特别是世界银行、联合国人居署等国际组织的学者创建的测定治理的原则及指标体系,并对其获取资料和数据的调查研究方法进行了介绍。在此基础上,就中国地方治理测量指标体系的构建提出了原则性的意见,并初步设计了基层地方政府层次的治理水平测量指标体系,这为今后进一步深入研究乡镇基层地方治理发展变化奠定了基础。认为,治理理论打破了以往"政治-行政"二分法的研究取向,为政治和行政的研究与实践提供了一个更为综合的理论视野。国外学者对治理理论的价值定位和实证角度的获取资料和数据的方法也值得国内学术界借鉴。同时主张,作为一个从西方学术界引进的概念和理论,中国学者在利用这一理论来解释和分析中国的相关社会现象时要意识到其理论和测定概念指标的适用性问题。     

Identity as Dependent Variable: How Americans Shift Their Identities to Align with Their Politics

Political science generally treats identities such as ethnicity, religion, and sexuality as “unmoved movers” in the chain of causality. I hypothesize that the growing salience of partisanship and ideology as social identities in the United States, combined with the increasing demographic distinctiveness of the nation's two political coalitions, is leading some Americans to engage in a self-categorization and depersonalization process in which they shift their identities toward the demographic prototypes of their political groups. Analyses of a representative panel data set that tracks identities and political affiliations over a 4-year span confirm that small but significant shares of Americans engage in identity switching regarding ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and class that is predicted by partisanship and ideology in their pasts, bringing their identities into alignment with their politics. These findings enrich and complicate our understanding of the relationship between identity and politics and suggest caution in treating identities as unchanging phenomena.     

Social Movements and Their Influence

The major portion of this paper concentrates on social movements, how they operate and how they are changing both locally and at the global level. In addition, an attempt is made to frame — necessarily in an overly simplistic way — a view on differences in conception in world models, conceptions about how the world should be evolving and differences of perspective that are in particular represented by the social movements.