The role of committee systems in post-communist legislatures: a case study of the Lithuanian Seimas

European parliamentary committee systems play an important role in organising the work of legislatures so as to assure the parliamentary leadership of its agenda. At the same time, the strategic positioning of committees in the legislative process provides opportunities for chairs to potentially undo the will of the leadership. We consider the degree to which committees in the Lithuanian legislature serve the private interests of legislators or those of the parliamentary leadership. We argue that while committees most often assist the leadership in obtaining preferred legislative outcomes, chairs on occasion have been able to change proposals or even frustrate the parliamentary leadership of governing coalitions.     

From nation to class: The changing social role of the Hungarian nobility

Presented at the Conference of Social Stratification and Mobility in Comparative Perspectives, Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, May 1986.     

The Geopolitics of Water in the Middle East: fantasies and realities

Most expert and public discourse on Middle Eastern water politics holds that water scarcities are of great, if often under-recognised, geopolitical importance. Pessimists and optimists alike tend to assume that water has, or soon will have, profound geopolitical implications. In this paper I argue to the contrary. Specifically, I contend that water problems should neither be understood in naturalistic nor in liberal?–?technical terms, but instead as questions of political economy; that water is structurally insignificant within the political economy of the modern Middle East; that in consequence water is generally unimportant as a source of inter-state conflict and co-operation; and that, notwithstanding this, water supplies are a crucial site and cause of local conflicts in many parts of the region. I submit also that given the worsening state of economic development within the Middle East, these local conflict dynamics are likely to further deteriorate.     

The evolution of policing in post-soviet Russia: Paternalism versus service in police. Officers' understanding of their role

This paper examines two interrelated issues: the role of police as an institution of Russian society and their role during the past 25 years. This research is based on a series of in-depth interviews conducted by the author in 2014–2016 with former and current police officers in three Russian cities. The paper traces changes in the perceived institutional roles of the Russian police by comparing police officers' views during three periods: early through mid-1990s, late-1990s through mid-2000s, and mid-2000s through 2010s. The study reports that, during the early period, Russian police were disfranchised from the state and this abandonment was a source of institutional identity crisis for law enforcement officers who remained on the job. This process was coupled with high levels of job dissatisfaction and the overall feeling of “abandonment” of police by the state.At the same time, it was during this post-Soviet period, when ideas of policing as a service to the society were introduced and sometimes entertained among the professional circles of police officers and other government officials. Furthermore, this period was marked by continuous, though often sporadic, institutional reforms and anti-corruption measures.In the second period, the Russian police were slowly engaging back into the state-building process, which caused increased job satisfaction and better retention rates. At the same time, the second period signified a decline of the “police as service” ideology and the comeback of paternalistic views on policing. During this time, the government's efforts to reform police and anti-corruption measures became systemic and better organized. Also, in the second period, members of the civil society became more active in demanding public accountability and transparency from the Russian police.Finally, the modern period of police development presents a case in which the institutional identity of the Russian police has been clearly connected to the state's capacity. This process is coupled with increased paternalistic views among police officers and a failure of “police as a service” doctrine. In such an environment, the efforts by a maturing civil society to demand public transparency and accountability of the police are often met with hostility and anger. The paper concludes that further development of the Russian police depends on the role that they will play within the modern Russian state.     

The Logic of Constitutional Engineering: Institutional Design and Counterterrorism from Aristotle to Arend Lijphart

ABSTRACT

Originally conceived by Aristotle and Thomas Hobbes, comparative constitutional engineering in its modern form is a relatively new field of political science. It is based on the premise that political behavior and policy outcomes can be affected and shaped by institutional design such as, above all, electoral systems. The article provides an overview of the empirical literature underlying this branch of institutional counterterrorism. The article presents the logic of constitutional engineering from its classical origins and especially through the work of Arend Lijphart. It is suggested that Lijphart provides a new paradigm in the sense employed by Thomas Kuhn. The article provides original research in support of this showing that the presence of consensus institutions has better explanatory value than most social factors.     

The contradictions of neo-extractivism and social policy: the role of raw material exports in the Brazilian political crisis

This article explores how contradictory development tendencies within Brazil’s primary sector have contributed to the country’s enduring political crisis. I show that President Rousseff, when dealing with declining royalty payments from natural resource exports and a decrease in tax revenue from imports, financed social policies in ways that her opponents branded as unconstitutional to remove her from power. After documenting the central players within the political crisis, namely those who have been under investigation in Operação Lava Jato (Operation Car Wash), I illustrate how the ongoing corruption scandals plaguing Brazil have their roots in the country’s raw material export industries.     

The politics of partnerships: a study of police and housing collaboration to tackle anti-social behaviour on Australian public housing estates

This paper draws on the findings from a research project on partnership arrangements between the police and housing departments on three Australian public housing estates to tackle problems associated with illicit drug activity and anti-social behaviour (ASB). The analysis focused on the setting up of the partnerships and the interactions that followed from these institutional arrangements. The assumption that informs the paper is that when studying partnerships there is a need for a more critically framed analysis. The temptation to posit "a successful model" of what partnership entails and then to judge practices in relation to this model is considerable, but it inevitably falls into the trap of constructing a narrative of partnership success or failure in terms of individual agency (that is, the degree of commitment from individuals). The analysis undertaken in this paper has therefore sought to fathom a more complex set of organizational processes. Rather than confine the discussion to issues of success and failure, the study foregrounds the subjective accounts of individuals who work within partnership and the constraints they encounter. The paper therefore makes explicit the cultural tensions within and across agencies, contestation as to the extent of the policy "problem," and the divergent perspectives on the appropriate modes of intervention.     

Constitutional Dynamics in the European Union: Success,Failure, and Stability of Institutional Treaty Revisions

ABSTRACT

Despite high institutional hurdles for constitutional change, one observes surprisingly many EU treaty revisions. This article takes up the questions of what determines whether a treaty provision is successfully changed and why provisions are renegotiated at subsequent Intergovernmental Conferences. The article presents an institutionalist theory explaining success and renegotiation and tests the theory using all core institutional provisions by means of Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The causal analysis shows that low conflict potential of an issue is sufficient for successfully changing the treaties. Furthermore, high conflict potential of an issue and its fundamental change are sufficient for it to be renegotiated.