Affinity,arming, consequences,and perceptions: an introduction

Public Choice - This article provides an introduction to the special issue on Political violence: affinity, arming, consequences, and perceptions. The issue contains panel analyses, theoretical...     

The use of EU soft law by national courts and bureaucrats: how relation to hard law and policy maturity matter

Abstract

Soft law instruments account for a sizable share of EU legal acts, with growing importance over time. Yet, while the implementation of hard EU law has been widely studied, little is known about the use of EU soft law at the national level. In the article, it is firstly argued that the type of soft law instrument will affect national usage. Administrators and judges may welcome interpretative guidelines to complicated pieces of legislation, while more open-ended instruments may be ignored. It is further argued that the maturity of the policy field matters. National actors in mature policy fields will be routinely exposed to EU rules and they are socialized into responding to impulses from Brussels. The article probes the plausibility of these expectations in case studies on the use of EU soft law instruments by German administrations and courts in four policy fields: financial market regulation, competition, environmental protection and social policy.     

Power-sharing negotiation and commitment in monarchies

While military and civilian dictators tend to rule through fear, absolute monarchies do not depend exclusively on it and can also derive legitimacy from the historical, cultural and religious roles they play. That opportunity provides absolute monarchs with an option (constitutional monarchy) that is unavailable to other types of dictators. On the one hand, the institutional flexibility of that option might facilitate negotiations between an absolute monarch and the regime’s elites. On the other hand, it might complicate power-sharing, as the monarch may fail to commit to the principle of non-interference, while the regime’s elites may attempt to disempower the monarch. By formalizing a power-sharing game between a monarch and the regime’s elites, this paper argues that the threat of civil disobedience contributes to the resolution of commitment problems and also explains the reasons some constitutional monarchs hold and on occasion exercise substantive political powers despite the fact that their ability to survive presumably depends on their commitment to non-interference.

     

Workers, worries and welfare states: Social protection and job insecurity in 15 OECD countries

Abstract.  This article examines a model of the domestic political economy of subjective employment insecurity in advanced industrial societies. Based on data on people's attitudes toward their job as well as levels of and kinds of social protection collected in 15 OECD countries, it shows that there are distinct manifestations of job insecurity that are affected differently by distinct aspects of social protection programs. While the analysis shows that social protection measures reduce employment insecurity, it also reveals that overall levels welfare state generosity do not have any systematic effect on whether workers feel secure. The article's findings suggest the need to decompose the different components of employment insecurity as well as disaggregate national systems of social protection when examining the impact of welfare states on job insecurity.     

Citizenship and preemptive war: The lesson from Iraq

This paper argues that citizens should be wary of a policy of Reformed Preemption such as is found in the National Security Strategy of the United States. This policy is too permissive with regard to the use of force and it suffers from epistemological difficulties. The war in Iraq is examined in an effort to see how the new policy of Reformed Preemption will be employed in practice. This case shows us two risks of the new policy: it permits wars even when the threats are vague and merely potential; and it allows for disproportionate use of force.     

The war on poverty: between economics and politics

A wealth of solutions to poverty have been proposed, with little understanding of the forces required to turn a sound idea into an implementable program. A system approach is suggested to overcome this deficiency. This implies analyzing the effects of antipoverty measures on other elements of a society and a polity and the feedback effects of changes in these other elements on the new programs which are being introduced. Such an approach is seen overcoming the limitations of fragmented views of the issue—such as the purely economic one—as well as the lack of systematic analysis of a progam's costs, benefits, sources of funds, and nonfinancial resources. Consequently, a challenge is also offered to those who formulate programs without taking into account dominant values (e.g., questions of consensus) and other political considerations (e.g., which groups would benefit or suffer from the program). This is seen as leading to undemocratic action or, most frequently, to inaction due to resistance. The article concludes with a brief review of the recent Nixon-Moynihan proposal in terms of the societal-system approach here advocated, and adds a cautionary note on the limits of planning.In revising this article, I benefited from comments by Daniel Bell, Carolyn O. Atkinson, and Sarajane Heidt.     

The cost of belonging: exploring class and citizenship in Soweto's water war

More than a decade since the dawn of democracy, South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. Civil and political citizenship may have – rhetorically at least – reduced the stark racial inequality in the relationship between citizen and state evident under apartheid. Some authors suggest a positive correlation between social citizenship and social equality. However, in post-apartheid South Africa, deep socio-economic inequalities continue to mar the democratic content of society. Although rights to welfare and social services are nominally in place and are enshrined in the constitution, scores of poor, black South Africans are unable to claim social citizenship, precisely as a result of their class position. Using, as a lens, community struggles in Soweto against the commodification of water, this article seeks to explore the relationship between citizenship and class. It does this by addressing the relationship between the state and its citizens within the context of service delivery, paying particular attention to the impact of prepaid water meters and to the strategies that were employed by community movements in Soweto's ‘water war’. The key argument is that under the system of capitalism, class inequality will persist regardless of the extent of citizenship.     

做好党校、行政学院工作要重点把握的几个问题

当前,党校、行政学院工作面临着新形势。做好校院工作,要重点把握坚持党校姓“党”、以教学为中心、深化教学改革、扩大对外培训、加强科研工作、加强行政后勤工作、加强领导班子和干部队伍建设等问题。增强工作的主动性、自觉性和创造性,才能落实好“三新一和谐”思路,实现又好又快发展。     

Circumventing formal structure through commitment: Presidential influence and agenda control

Although the formal institutional structure that defines the temporal order of play in a policy game between the Congress and President ought to provide Congress with agenda power, the President is traditionally treated as the dominant player in this relationship. We show that if the President can make clear-cut commitments, presidential commitment can counter the dominance hierarchy and the complexion of equilibrium outcomes. Thus, the details of political interactions (in particular, the possibilities for commitment) may be as important as the formal specification of institutional structure.We thank Peter Aranson, David Austen-Smith, Ed Campos, Gerry Faulhaber, Art Frank, Ken Koford, William Riker, Janet Pack, the anonymous referees, and seminar participants at the University of Delaware, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Rochester for helpful comments, subject to the usual caveat. We also thank Joel Friedlander and Harold Dichter for research assistance.     

Colombia: the fraught end of a long war

The ceasefire announced last week between the Colombian government and the FARC, ending 50 years of destructive war, will be followed soon by a final accord and a plebiscite, which is likely to ratify the accord. While these developments are welcome, the Colombian people remain resentful of the FARC's legitimisation and sceptical about the accord's sustainability. Implementation will be a stiff and ongoing challenge.