Congress,the Supreme Court,and Judicial Review: Testing a Constitutional Separation of Powers Model

Recent scholarship suggests that the U.S. Supreme Court might be constrained by Congress in constitutional cases. We suggest two potential paths to Congressional influence on the Court's constitutional decisions: a rational‐anticipation model, in which the Court moves away from its preferences in order to avoid being overruled, and an institutional‐maintenance model, in which the Court protects itself against Congressional attacks to its institutional prerogatives by scaling back its striking of laws when the distance between the Court and Congress increases. We test these models by using Common Space scores and the original roll‐call votes to estimate support in the current Congress for the original legislation and the Court's preferences over that legislation. We find that the Court does not appear to consider the likelihood of override in constitutional cases, but it does back away from striking laws when it is ideologically distant from Congress.     

‘A Conquerable Yet Resilient Foe’: British Perceptions of the Imperial Japanese Army's Tactics on the India-Burma Front,September 1942 to Summer 1944

Britain's ability to discard its image of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) as an invincible enemy during the Burma campaign hinged upon two key factors. First, accurate assessments of the appropriate means to overcome the IJA not only hinged upon reliable intelligence, but of greater importance, the level of experience which the British-Indian army had in engaging its opponent. Second, the uncertainty was compounded by concerns arising from the IJA's ability to inflict considerable delays and casualties on its Allies counterparts, in spite of its shortage of modern weapons and lack of adequate training in their use. Apprehensions could not be lifted until Allied forces had proven themselves capable of conducting operations against the Japanese without incurring excessive losses. The Fourteenth Army's victories at Imphal and Kohima in June 1944 did not discredit the IJA's ability to pose a difficult challenge. The only reassurance which field commanders could draw was that their own forces had developed the skills necessary to undertake their quest to dislodge the IJA from its positions in Burma.     

The transformation of the Greek party system since 1951

This study is about party-system change in modern Greece and has two chief aims. First, it seeks to make sense of and explain the evolution of that country's party system from its early post-war years until today. Far from being ‘frozen’, the Greek party system has displayed continuous transformations from a system featuring significant party fragmentation into another characterised by the high concentration of its political forces. Second, the paper proposes a classification of the changes that took place during the development of the Greek party system. This classification will yield three distinct types of party system which developed in consecutive order, namely, a predominant-party system (from 1952 to 1963), a system of polarised pluralism (between 1963 and 1981), and a two-party system (since 1981).     

Clarifying multilevel governance

Despite its widespread use in European studies and beyond, the concept of multilevel governance (MLG) still suffers from a considerable degree of uncertainty as to its precise meaning, which in turn hinders the cumulative development of this research programme. In an attempt to stimulate a systematic methodological discussion of the idea of MLG, this article presents a critical reconstruction of the concept structured around three ‘axes of ambiguity’– the applicability of MLG beyond the European Union; the role of non‐state actors; the focus on policy‐making structures versus processes – followed by a conceptual assessment and clarification strategy based on John Gerring's criterial framework. Building particularly on Gerring's criterion of causal utility, the article argues that the MLG concept is best clarified along the (not necessarily exclusive) lines of two theoretical directions emerging from the literature: MLG as a theory of state transformation, and MLG as a theory of public policy. For each of the two models, the criterial framework also indicates a number of corresponding conceptual shortcomings which MLG scholars should try to reduce as much as possible in future refinements of this idea.     

Net Gains and GUD Reactions: Patterns of Prejudice in a Neo-fascist Groupuscule

Using the student organization Groupe d'union et de défense (GUD) as a case-study, Griffin argues that the radical-right groupuscule should not be treated as an embryonic or stunted form of the inter-war 'armed party' epitomized by the Italian Fascist and German Nazi parties. Rather it is to be seen as a genus of extra-parlia-mentary political formation in its own right, perfectly adapted to the inhospitable climate of relatively stable liberal democracy and capitalism in which revolutionary nationalism has had to survive since 1945. As such the groupuscule's true significance lies in its existence as one minute entity in a swarm of similar organisms which can be termed the 'groupuscular right'. This takes on a collective force greater than the sum of its parts by conserving and transmitting fascism's diagnosis of the status quo and its vision of a new order despite its acute marginalization from mainstream politics. Having surveyed GUD's history and activities over the years, Griffin focuses on its ideology, which he identifies as a form of Third Positionism theoretically allied to anti-western Arab nations and heavily influenced by the Nouvelle Droite notion of 'cultural war' against the homogenizing effects of globalization and on behalf of a reborn Europe. He then considers the extraordinary network of historical and contemporary radical-right associations emanating to and from this one formation, a process considerably facilitated by the Internet. He concludes by suggesting that the importance of the groupuscular right, apart from its formation of cadres who may be recruited by mainstream parties such as the Front national, lies in its function as a self-perpetuating, leaderless, centreless and supra-national 'energy field' of neo-fascist beliefs, which, like the Web, is unaffected by the weakness or loss of individual nodal points (organizations).     

Rent-seeking and the behavior of regulators: An empirical analysis

The main contribution of this paper is to describe empirically how the rent-seeking process takes place in a regulated industry through the consistency in Board decisions. Evidence provided by discrete-choice decision models of regulators confirms that the conventional rent-seeking view of regulation is correct, namely to distribute wealth between various groups differently from what market forces would do. First of all, the structure of the rent-seeking activities in the Quebec regulated trucking industry is well explained. There exist behavioral uniformities (Russell and Shelton, 1974) in decisions taken by the Quebec Transport Commission, given its wide range of choice provided by the absence of detailed regulatory standards by the Quebec legislature. Secondly, trucking firms and large shippers are the interest groups seeking to extract artificially contrived rents. The capture theory of regulation is not a dominant political strategy and therefore does not analytically explain various trades taking place among interest groups when a permit authority is requested. So logrolling by regulators is clearly essential to maintain their non-transferable investment of time and talent and protect their political afterlife. Thirdly, large firms are more successful, at the margin, than small firms in their expansion because of their political effectiveness. The regulatory agency gives more rents to those who offer relatively strong electoral support to its party. Finally, appointed regulators do not achieve other positive payoffs from the regulatory process than those which may result from the agency problem. So the regulatory agency does not promote its own policy agenda, but rather that of the elected politicians, given the organizational and control problem between these two.I am indebted to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for its financial support, to Gérard Bélanger, Jean-Luc Migué for helpful comments and to Sylvain Veillette, Pascal Migué, Marc Leduc for valuable research assistance. I benefitted from useful comments by the editor of this journal. All the remaining errors are mine.     

Towards a ‘Civic’ Narrative: British National Identity and the Transformation of the British National Party

This article examines the ways in which the BNP utilises the elements of British national identity in its discourse and argues that, during Griffin's leadership, the party has made a discursive choice to shift the emphasis from an ethnic to a civic narrative. We put forward two hypotheses, 1: the modernisation of the discourse of extreme right parties in the British context is likely to be related to the adoption of a predominantly civic narrative and 2: in the context of British party competition the BNP is likely to converge towards UKIP, drawing upon elements of its perceived winning formula, i.e. a predominantly civic rhetoric of national identity. We proceed to empirically test our hypotheses by conducting a twofold comparison. First, we compare the BNP's discourse pre‐ and post‐1999 showing the BNP's progressive adoption of a civic narrative; and second the BNP's post‐1999 discourse to that of UKIP in order to illustrate their similarities in terms of civic values.     

Global commodity chain analysis and the French filière approach: comparison and critique

This article reviews two approaches to the study of economic restructuring which focus on commodity-specific dynamics of change. The first is the global commodity chain (GCC) approach, which has been developed primarily for the analysis of industrial commodities.The second is the francophone filière tradition, which has been applied mostly to agricultural commodities originating from former French colonies. The article finds that the GCC approach has a more coherent framework than the filière approach, although it is still far from constituting a fully fledged 'theory'. The authors provide a number of suggestions for improving some of its key concepts. They also suggest that the GCC approach can be enriched by some of the insights gained in filière work, especially in terms of improving historical coverage and depth, enlarging the analysis to agricultural commodities, better handling of regulation issues, and including quality convention issues in analysing commodity chain structure and restructuring.     

Guilds,corporations and socialist theory

This book is reviewed as an example of the manner in which cultural critique approaches the question of the formation and regulation of personal capacities and conducts. Despite its sophistication and power, it is argued that the dialectical character of this critique leaves it incapable of interrogating its two central objects: subjectivity and government. As a results, Donald's critique retains the notion of subjectivity and its unconscious formation as the essential site of resistance to government. Against this oppositional cultural politics it is argued that human agency has no single general (subjective) form that might be captured by or freed from government. It is further argued that the heterogeneity of the instruments and objectives of government robs such a politics of both a general logic of power that might be resisted and any general reason for resistance.     

The hierarchy of military death

The Israeli government's hesitation during the Second Lebanon War (2006) and before the 2009 Gaza War to launch widespread ground operations that might result in the loss of the lives of hundreds of Israeli soldiers sparked criticism that the government had become overly sensitive to soldiers' lives. This criticism contended that the government considered the soldiers' lives more valuable than the lives of civilians. How can this inversion be explained? I argue that the political reality differs from the normative one, ranking soldiers rather than citizens higher on the hierarchy of risk. The hierarchy of risk on which the state positions its citizens and soldiers results from the encounter between two variables: the degree of choice available to those whom the state designates for possible death, and the political cost resulting from the choice, especially when the state fails to justify their death. The higher the group's rank in the hierarchy, the more protected it is because the state tries to minimize its exposure to risk. When the state cannot mitigate the tensions inherent between its duties toward groups placed on the highest rungs in the hierarchy, it may use excessive lethality that claims more civilian casualties from its enemy.     

Trust in elites and protest orientation: An integrative approach

The consensus based hypothesis that trust in political authorities is a major determinant of system stability has received less empirical support in the protest literature than its theoretical appeal once promised. We propose a major revision of the leadership-trust approach—one which integrates the conflict and consensus approaches by considering both public trust in established elites and public trust in challenging elites. Recognizing the importance of opposition leadership, we reason that thedifference between these two types of trust, which we conceptualize astrust differential, should explain protest orientation better than other trust-variable alternatives. The new trust differential variable suggests a distinctive typology of trust orientations which predict the degree of protest endorsement somewhat differently than the traditional authority-trust model. Using survey data collected in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1973, we test the integrative differential approach against and controlling for its classic competitors and find it to be a more powerful, independent predictor of protest orientation.This paper draws on findings and insights from papers that we presented at the American Sociological Association meeting, San Francisco, September 1978, and at the annual Western Social Science Association meeting, Denver, April 1978.     

From Stockholm to Leiden: the CIA's role in the formation of the International Student Conference

This study contributes to the growing knowledge of CIA covert operations among non-governmental organizations during the Cold War by examining the formation of the International Student Conference (1950) and the creation of its Coordinating Secretariat (COSEC). The ISC objectives were global in scope — to organize the world's national student unions into a network that could deny the pro-Soviet International Union of Students its claim to represent the world student population. The CIA's reach depended heavily on the US National Student Association, which provided both a rationale for funding flows from the United States, and a steady stream of personnel. The structure of the relationship was complex and cumbersome, since the CIA had to work secretly through two organizations (NSA and ISC) whose legitimacy rested on democratic processes. This complexity suggests that issues of power and control require a more nuanced formulation than is usually presented in much Cold War political research.     

Information disclosure policy: Do state data processing efforts help more than the information disclosure itself?

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) was expected to reduce health risks stemming from emissions of hazardous chemicals by increasing public pressure on polluters. However, raw TRI data fails to transmit accurate information fitted to the public's interest. TRI is a massive and complex data set that, in its raw form, provides information on the pounds of toxics released, rather than the risks these releases pose to human health, which is the true quantity of interest. Consequently, raw TRI data needs to be refined and interpreted in terms of health risks by its users, which requires analytical sophistication and substantial data processing. State governments have attempted to increase of the usefulness of the TRI to the general public via two types of policies: (1) selection and dissemination of raw TRI data for plants within the state, and (2) data processing activities producing more refined reports and further data analysis. This study assesses the effectiveness of those two policies, asking how much each contributes to the intended policy outcome of reducing health risks. Our results show that state‐level data dissemination efforts lowered the total number of pounds of chemicals released, but had little effect on health risks. State‐level data processing efforts, in contrast, did lead to significant reductions in health risks. We conclude that simple dissemination of the data was ineffective (and even counterproductive in some instances), and that the states' data processing efforts have played a critical role in achieving the TRI's intended policy goal by providing better information to end users. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

How to lose a majority: the competition in single–member districts

Few observers expected that the 1966 elections in Italy would yield a clear–cut outcome. Even fewer people expected that, after the disastrous results of the previous elections, the centre–left coalition would be able to gain a majority of seats in both branches of Parliament. Yet this is precisely what happened on 21 April 1996. This article tries to explain the comeback of the 1994 losers by focusing on three factors which have changed the electoral balance between the two major coalitions in the single–member districts. The first factor was the ability of the centre–left coalition (Ulivo–RC) to broaden its range while its major rival (the Polo) lost key allies. The result has been a more competitive stand of centre–left candidates, particularly in the North. The Polo lost the support of the Lega Nord and suffered the split of the Movimento Sociale on its right. These defections, along with others, led to the loss of a considerable number of seats. Finally, the Polo also suffered from the defection of a considerable number of its voters who voted for one of the parties of the centre–right coalition in the proportional arena, but refused to vote for the Polo candidate in the single–member districts. We conclude by suggesting a number of hypotheses that could explain this split–ticket phenomenon.     

Neutrality of what?

In what sense should a liberal state be neutral between the conceptions of the good held by its citizens? Traditionally, liberals have provided two different answers to this question. Some have adopted a conception of neutrality of justification, while others a conception of neutrality of effects. Recently, Alan Patten has defended an alternative, novel and sophisticated, conception of neutrality – neutrality of treatment. In this article I assess whether neutrality of treatment is, in fact, a superior conception of neutrality. I try to show that neutrality of treatment suffers from the very same weaknesses that Patten attributes to its alternatives and that, overall, neutrality of justification, properly construed, provides a more promising account of both the sense in which a state ought to be neutral and of the object of neutrality. Finally, I argue for a broader account of the normative bases of liberal neutrality than the one proposed by Patten. This account includes, beyond considerations of fairness, a relational principle of equal standing.     

How to lose a majority: the competition in single–member districts

Abstract Few observers expected that the 1966 elections in Italy would yield a clear–cut outcome. Even fewer people expected that, after the disastrous results of the previous elections, the centre–left coalition would be able to gain a majority of seats in both branches of Parliament. Yet this is precisely what happened on 21 April 1996. This article tries to explain the comeback of the 1994 losers by focusing on three factors which have changed the electoral balance between the two major coalitions in the single–member districts. The first factor was the ability of the centre–left coalition (Ulivo–RC) to broaden its range while its major rival (the Polo) lost key allies. The result has been a more competitive stand of centre–left candidates, particularly in the North. The Polo lost the support of the Lega Nord and suffered the split of the Movimento Sociale on its right. These defections, along with others, led to the loss of a considerable number of seats. Finally, the Polo also suffered from the defection of a considerable number of its voters who voted for one of the parties of the centre–right coalition in the proportional arena, but refused to vote for the Polo candidate in the single–member districts. We conclude by suggesting a number of hypotheses that could explain this split–ticket phenomenon.     

Progress,fascism and the Last Humans

This paper re-evaluates the notion of progress in light of the trauma represented by interwar European fascism. It critically examines the widespread assumption that interwar European fascism demonstrates the illusory, or even pernicious, nature of progress. Seeing fascists as enraged crusaders against the march of history, whose aim was to impede the further rise of what Nietzsche contemptuously referred to as ‘the Last Humans,’ affords a perspective from which progress, at least in its main current, no longer appears invalidated by fascism. The criterion of democratic mass empowerment, furthermore, can usefully distinguish between two mutually exclusive notions of progress: the first, of largely Hegelian provenance, was committed to mass empowerment; the second, while intractably opposing progress as a democratic enterprise, also appropriated it for radically anti-democratic purposes, transmuting its meaning so that the Last Humans are no longer conceived as its beneficiaries but, at most, as its tools.     

The Tasks of Keynesianism Today: Green New Deals As Transition Towards a Zero Growth Economy?

The world economy today is facing the juncture of two simultaneous crises: the deepest recession since the end of World War Two and an unprecedented world ecological crisis. Does Keynesianism offer viable ideas to face this combined crisis, alternative to the neoliberal policymaking that has prevailed during the last thirty years? Historically, if viewed from a longer-term perspective, the form of Keynesianism that has predominated, is military Keynesianism, defined as macro-economic policymaking by capitalist governments aimed at stimulating aggregate demand for goods. Thus deficit spending was already applied by the British government when it competed with other European states to gain world hegemony, in the late 17th and the 18th century. Again, whereas for a limited period of time after World War Two, a civilian type of Keynesianism has 'coexisted' with military Keynesianism, especially in Western Europe, – the military form of Keynesianism has clearly prevailed in the era of globalization, especially in the US. Keynesianism offers possibilities for a shift from current policymaking, but only if its mode of application is radically different from its historical modes. An ecological Keynesianism needs to fulfil both a social criterion – promotion of employment – and an ecological standard – countering capitalism's inherent tendency to destroy its natural surroundings. Three examples of an ecological Keynesianism initially come to mind: the state's use of transfer and investment measures so as to accelerate the shift from reliance on fossil fuels towards reliance on renewable energy; state intervention to discourage incineration of waste, and to enhance reliance on recycling; and conversion of military production facilities into units which produce for the sustenance of life on earth. The significance of these shifts can be illustrated by employing a model of social reproduction that diverges from Marx's and Keynes'. Yet while an ecological Keynesianism does offer ample possibilities to address today's combined crisis, the given policymaking needs to be understood as transitional. A solution to the world's ecological crisis is only possible via the transition towards a stationary state – a zero growth economy at the world level which protects the interests of the global South.     

From Critique to Reconstruction: On Axel Honneth's Theory of Recognition and its Critical Potential

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse Axel Honneth's theory of recognition by focusing on two distinct methodological approaches present in it, namely, critique and reconstruction. The critical moment in Honneth's theory of recognition is articulated around two concepts: world-disclosing critique, which is based on the attempt to suggest new and provocative points of view on social reality through the usage of rhetorical devices; and misrecognition, as the empirical starting-point for the theoretical model. These two notions, which can be traced back to Adorno and the so called "first generation" of the Frankfurt School, are interpreted as the mainlines of the diagnostic moment in Honneth's critical theory, as they provide an effective analytical insight into the reality of social suffering. Furthermore, they represent the basic fundament upon which the second level, reconstruction, is articulated. By bringing to light the core aspects of social interaction, they provide the initial clues for the development of the normative framework of recognition, the formal idea of a "good life". The final part of the paper argues that such an interpretation of Honneth's theory of recognition helps to overcome some of its most problematic aspects and thus to deepen its critical potential.