Political Dynasties and the Selection of Cabinet Ministers

We investigate whether politicians whose family relatives previously served in parliament and cabinet enjoy a competitive “legacy advantage” in progressing from the backbenches to cabinet. This advantage may stem from two potential mechanisms: a direct effect attributable to the informational advantages of legacies or an indirect effect that operates through greater electoral strength. We evaluate the relative contribution of each mechanism using candidate‐level data from Irish parliamentary elections and cabinets from 1944 to 2016. Our results reveal that politicians with a family history in cabinet do enjoy an advantage in cabinet selection, and that this advantage cannot be attributed simply to greater electoral popularity. 1     

Breaking the Divide: Setting Environmental Precedent in the Chicago River

Here we argue that sociolegal processes can not only restructure social relationships through setting legal precedent but can also restructure socioenvironmental relationships through setting what we call “environmental precedent.” By environmental precedent we mean the environmental consequences of legal processes, environmental consequences that then become the new, dynamic material reality for future legal processes. We apply the concept of environmental precedent to a legal history of the Chicago River, using this case to illustrate how interactions between sociolegal and environmental processes can set environmental precedent in a way that reshuffles the social and material foundations of future legal processes.     

Legislative Behavior in Romania: The Effect of the 2008 Romanian Electoral Reform

This article analyzes the impact of electoral rules on legislators’ rate of vote defection from their party position in legislatures while accounting for how party‐leadership strength mediates this impact. To this end it looks at the effect of the 2008 Romanian electoral reform. The reform shifted the electoral system from a closed‐list proportional representation to one in which all candidates run in single‐member districts. The analysis finds that because party leaders have maintained their leverage intact, the impact of the reform was minimal, with legislators being more likely to defect in less important votes only, in which party leaders allow defection. Also, after the reform legislators are more likely to use other means to impress their voters, such as legislative initiation and cabinet questioning. These forms of behavior are more accepted by party leaders.     

How Parties Create Electoral Democracy,Chapter 2

Parties neither cease to exist nor cease to compete for office when the general election is over. Instead, a new round of competition begins, with legislators as voters and party leaders as candidates. The offices at stake are what we call “mega‐seats.” We consider the selection of three different types of mega‐seats—cabinet portfolios, seats on directing boards, and permanent committee chairs—in 57 democratic assemblies. If winning parties select the rules by which mega‐seats are chosen and those rules affect which parties can attain mega‐seats (one important payoff of “winning”), then parties and rules should coevolve in the long run. We find two main patterns relating to legislative party systems and a country's length of experience with democratic governance.     

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.     

Pathways to Power: The Role of Preparliamentary Careers and Political Human Capital in the Obtainment of Cabinet Positions

Understanding the rise to power is central to the study of politics. Yet, we still know little about the career paths of influential politicians like ministers. The literature assumes that dominant preparliamentary occupations (e.g., lawyer, local offices) predict promotion. We move beyond this potential ecological fallacy and suggest a perspective that emphasizes the role of gatekeepers and political human capital like national political experience and education. We leverage complete career data of all Dutch MPs (N = 1,263; 1945–2012) and study their (N = 4,966) opportunities to obtain a cabinet position. A sequence analysis with fuzzy clustering reveals eight career paths in both the professional and political domain. A logistic regression analysis that uses these career paths as predictors shows that prominent occupations and communicative experience do not constitute the pathway to ministerial power; a university education and preparliamentary national political experience do. Findings support the value of political human-capital theory to understand political promotion.     

Cabinet Government in the Twentieth Century

This paper examines the main features of the cabinet system as it had emerged during the twentieth century, and which Jennings did so much to crystallize in his pioneering study on Cabinet Government. It then assesses the main changes that have occurred over successive administrations since the late 1970s, and concludes that even if cabinet government seemed to return in 1990 and 2003, it was without the cabinet system that had underpinned and made it effective in the past.     

Bills from the Floor: Why Governing Party Groups Initiate their Own Legislation

In parliamentary systems, why do party groups of the government camp initiate their own bills instead of going through the cabinet? This article suggests that such governing party group bills occur for three reasons: (a) cabinets hand out bills to the parties on the floor; (b) party groups or MPs want to signal to constituencies; or (c) parties on the floor are dissatisfied with cabinet policy making. Arguing that the absolute and relative importance of these explanations varies with institutional context, country-specific hypotheses with regard to the number of governing party group bills in Germany are tested. As expected, mechanisms (a) and (c) are especially important in explaining the occurrence of governing party group legislation in Germany.     

《临时约法》“因人立法”说辩正

通行的中国法制史教科书关于《中华民国临时约法》特点在于“以法制袁”的论断 ,本来是对该约法的肯定 ,却为批评该约法因人立法提供了口实。这种批评虽然是在法律价值观上的拨乱反正 ,但通过史实考辩可以看出 ,该约法规定责任内阁制却并非针对袁世凯 ,而是临时参议院基于利益的考虑所采取的扩大自身权力的措置。该约法的缺点不在于规定了责任内阁制 ,而在于没有规定保障其正常运作的健全规则。     

Parties' Influence during Government Policy Negotiations: Parliamentary Dynamics and Spatial Advantages in the First Italian Republic

As long as parties are interested in policies, they will always have incentives for influencing the cabinet bargaining process, although they do not necessarily shape its outcome to the same extent. Being a member of the invested government, for example, should increase the leverage a party enjoys when bargaining over the cabinet programme. Nevertheless, depending on institutional and political conditions, non-cabinet parties may also play a role in affecting cabinet policy positions. Despite being widely recognised in the theoretical literature, this point has received considerably less attention in empirical studies. By focusing on cabinet bargaining outcomes during the First Italian Republic, the article shows that spatial advantages associated with parliamentary dynamics, including those possessed by non-cabinet parties, can be no less significant in capturing policy payoffs than government membership, even after controlling for other relevant institutional and behavioural factors.     

Regulating Law Firms from the Inside: The Role of Compliance Officers for Legal Practice in England and Wales

Following the Legal Services Act 2007, which permitted the delivery of legal services through Alternative Business Structures (ABS), the Solicitors Regulation Authority required all regulated legal service firms to appoint Compliance Officers for Legal Practice (COLPs). COLPs are charged with taking reasonable steps to ensure that firms comply with their obligations, which entails interpreting what outcomes‐focused regulation (OFR) requires of the firm. Yet despite their importance, little is known about how compliance roles operate within legal service firms. We addressed this gap through a series of qualitative interviews that explored COLPs’ views of their roles, their attitudes to regulation, in particular to OFR, and to achieving compliance. We found that COLPs are a key regulatory mechanism in the context of firm‐based regulation and OFR and have a critical role to play in protecting and promoting professional values in both ABS and non‐ABS entities.     

The Influence of Public Sentiment on Supreme Court Opinion Clarity

We examine whether public opinion leads Supreme Court justices to alter the content of their opinions. We argue that when justices anticipate public opposition to their decisions, they write clearer opinions. We develop a novel measure of opinion clarity based on multifaceted textual readability scores, which we validate using human raters. We examine an aggregate time series analysis of the influence of public mood on opinion clarity and an individual‐level sample of Supreme Court cases paired with issue‐specific public opinion polls. The empirical results from both models show that justices write clearer opinions when their rulings contradict popular sentiment. These results suggest public opinion influences the Court, and suggest that future scholarship should analyze how public opinion influences the written content of decision makers’ policies.     

Professional Minimalism? The Ethical Consciousness of Commercial Lawyers

This article investigates empirically, through semi‐structured interviews, what shapes the professional ethical consciousness of commercial lawyers. It considers in‐house and private practice lawyers side by side, interrogating the view that in‐house ethics are different and inferior to private practice to suggest as much similarity as difference. In both constituencies, and in very similar ways, professional ethical concepts are challenged by the pragmatic logics of business. We examine how their ethical logics are shaped by these pragmatic logics, suggesting how both groups of practitioners could sometimes be vulnerable to breaching the boundary between tenable zeal for the client and unethical or unlawful conduct. Although they conceive of themselves as ethical, the extent to which practitioners are well equipped, inclined and positively encouraged to work ethically within their own rules is open to question. As a result, we argue professional ethics exert minimal, superficial influence over a more self‐interested, commercially‐driven pragmatism.     

Tunisia's “Revolutionary” Lawyers: From Professional Autonomy to Political Mobilization

On January 14, 2011, after twenty‐three years in power and one month of popular protest demanding his resignation, President Ben Ali fled Tunisia. Lawyers, wearing their official robes, had marched frequently in the uprising's demonstrations. By engaging with and supporting the uprising, lawyers—both the profession in general and the bar's leadership—gained considerable symbolic influence over the post‐uprising government that replaced Ben Ali's regime. This article outlines the various forms of political lawyering undertaken by Tunisian lawyers and their professional associations from Tunisia's independence to post‐uprising transitions. We demonstrate that economic concerns, professional objectives, and civic professionalism contributed to the collective action of Tunisian lawyers before and after the uprising. Tunisian lawyers moved beyond the realm of their profession to adopt a role as overseers of the post‐uprising government.     

The alibi‐generation effect: Alibi‐generation experience influences alibi evaluation

Purpose. Post‐conviction DNA exonerations demonstrate a failure of alibis to protect innocent suspects. We contend one reason alibis are not believed is because evaluators underestimate how difficult it is for an innocent person to generate a convincing alibi. We hypothesized that asking evaluators to first generate an alibi of their own would lead evaluators to consider a suspect's alibi as more believable. Methods. Participants (N= 147) were randomly assigned to either evaluate a suspect's alibi before generating their own alibi (evaluate‐first) or generate their own alibi before evaluating the suspect's alibi (generate‐first). Participants provided alibis from either 3 days previous or 30 days previous. In Experiment 2, participants (N= 255) were randomly assigned to either generate‐first, evaluate‐first, or read‐experience (in which they read about alibi‐generation difficulty) conditions. Half the participants were primed to think empathetically with Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) subscales, and half were not. All participants evaluated the believability of the suspect's alibi as well as their own alibis. Results. Across both experiments, participants who generated their own alibi first rated the suspect's alibi as more believable. This alibi‐generation effect overshadowed alibi latency in Experiment 1 and the empathy manipulation in Experiment 2. Conclusions. Alibi‐generation experience seems to change the expectations evaluators have of alibis from criminal suspects. This effect likely emanates from increased awareness that alibis are difficult for innocent people to generate and from the emotional experience of having difficulty generating alibis.     

Corruption as an International Crime and Crime against Humanity: An Outline of Supplementary Criminal Justice Policies

Transnational corruption has in recent years been elevated toan international offence but in practical terms it is not consideredserious enough in order for heads of state or cabinet membersto be prosecuted in foreign jurisdictions. There is evidenceto suggest that, in certain cases, corruption may take the formof a crime against humanity. This possibility extends significantlythe jurisdictional ambit of national courts and empowers theInternational Criminal Court to consider a case. Moreover, therestorative component of such criminal prosecutions should aimat restoring, through civil mechanisms, the funds illegallyappropriated to their rightful recipients, the defrauded localpopulations, under the principle of self-determination.     

Children Exposed to Domestic Violence: Making Trauma‐Informed Custody and Visitation Decisions

This article explores the risks for young children and the challenges for courts that emerge when parents who are victims or perpetrators of intimate partner violence seek court decisions on child visitation or custody matters. We focus particularly on children age five and younger, a group that is disproportionately represented in families affected by intimate partner violence, and especially vulnerable to its traumatic impact. We examine the literature on children's response to violence between their parents and the literature on parental alienation, a counter‐charge that may arise when one parent alleges violence as a reason to limit the other parent's access to the children. We look at challenges faced by both mental health professionals and courts involved in custody determinations and make policy recommendations to help courts make trauma‐informed decisions that best serve children.     

Mother Abuse: A Matter of Youth Justice,Child Welfare or Domestic Violence?

International evidence suggests that in advanced welfare states the abuse of parents, most particularly mothers, by their (most frequently male) adolescent children is increasingly prevalent. In the United Kingdom, however, child‐to‐mother abuse remains one of the most under‐acknowledged and under‐researched forms of family violence. Although it is an issue shrouded in silence, stigma, and shame, the authors' work in the youth justice sphere, focusing on interventions to deal with anti‐social behaviour, suggests that adolescent violence toward mothers is a topical and prevalent issue. We identify different ways of conceptualizing it in the policy realms of youth justice, child welfare, and domestic violence. The behaviour of both child/young person and mother is constructed in ways which inform the assignment of blame and responsibility. The paper highlights the silence that surrounds the issue in both the policy and wider academic spheres, hiding the failure of service providers to respond to this very destructive form of intimate interpersonal violence.     

Legislative Dissent without Reprisal? An Alternative View of Speaker Selection

Very little research has been devoted to examining the nature of Speaker selection in legislatures. This article attempts to provide a new perspective in which future research could examine the election of Speakers. A collective action perspective is put forward, which sees three groups of actors execute separate strategies to reach their own ends: the backbench, the executive and the opposition. These factors are tested on the Speaker selection exercises in the Ontario legislature. In the case study, it was found that the executive rarely gets their choice of Speaker, and three factors identified in the legislative dissent literature are utilised to examine these private acts of dissent: party popularity, cabinet size and the percentage of new legislators entering the party at each legislative term. It was found that the Speaker selection process involves three groups, each with their own preference order in decision-making.     

MOVING BEYOND THE STEREOTYPES: WOMEN'S SUBJECTIVE ACCOUNTS OF THEIR VIOLENT CRIME*

This research builds on the recent scholarship that questions the anti‐agentic depictions of women's acts of violence. We inductively examine women's narratives of their violence to illuminate the diversity of motivations that appear to lie behind that violence. The narratives are drawn from a racially diverse sample of 205 women who were incarcerated in the Hennepin County Adult Detention Facility (Minneapolis, Minnesota). A life events calendar was used to assess women's involvement as both victims and offenders in violent crimes over the 36 months prior to their incarceration. We found that sixty‐six women provided information on 106 incidents of violence. Further, given the dominant theoretical framework in studying women's offending, we assess whether particular types of violent incidents are more likely to involve a partner as opposed to someone who is not a partner (friend, acquaintance, or stranger). Our contextualization of these events also includes an examination of the demographic and situational correlates of the incidents. Our findings reveal that women's reasons for engaging in violence are wide‐ranging and that we need not essentialize stereotypic views of gender in the study of violence.