Choosing between the government and the regions: An empirical analysis of the Italian constitutional court decisions

In this article the extent to which political variables can explain the behaviour of constitutional judges in Italy when dealing with conflicts between the central government and regions is explored. Two competing hypotheses are tested. One hypothesis argues that one should expect some alignment between the political preferences of the judges and the success of the central government primarily due to the appointment mechanism. The other hypothesis suggests that there should be no systematic alignment between the political preferences of the judges and the success of the central government. Unlike previous literature, the empirical results presented in this article seem to confirm that when the Rapporteur and the court's majority are allegedly affiliated with the Prime Minister's coalition, the odds of success of the Prime Minister go up.     

The politics of neighbourhood institutions: The Italian case

This account is part of a larger research effort which is aimed at evaluating the significance for Italian society of the introduction of new government institutions at the neighbourhood level and of identifying the circumstances under which they are likely to be promoted and to succeed. The article looks at which types of neighbourhood government have been instituted and which cities in Italy have taken advantage of the provisions following the national legislation on neighbourhoods passed in 1976. An examination of conceptual models of neighbourhood government, secondary and interview data relating to the debate on the law, and neighbourhood electoral data are brought to bear on the two questions.     

宪政视角下的中国公共行政发展

由于现代国家制度建设尚有待完善,我国公共行政学界在追踪西方学术前沿,致力于进行管理主义和政策主义公共行政研究的同时,有必要继续重视并阐发宪政主义公共行政理论。如果我们立足于从宪政视角完善有限政府的制度框架,公共行政发展将会收到事半功倍的效果;如果一味地依赖于管理主义或政策主义公共行政理论,则会事倍功半、欲速则不达。就宪政视角的公共行政规范看,中国有必要加速推进有限政府、法治政府、分权政府、诚信政府和透明政府的制度建设。     

The centre no longer holds: The rise of regional leagues in Italian politics

The principal argument in this article is that the recent emergence of regional leagues in Italian politics is epiphenomenal to broader socio‐economic changes which have occurred in the country since the 1960s. The emergence of regional leagues are a reflection of the differentiation of Italian civil society from a centralised political authority ‐ mediated through parties ‐ and the development of regional and local units as centres of economic and political legitimacy and representation.     

The court of justice of the European community and the politics of institutional reform

Two prominent jurists recently proposed a reform of the European Court of Justice that aims at adapting it to the gradual fédéralisation of the Community (European political union) and particularly to the extension of majority voting in the Community council. Their judicial proposal would, however, generally reinforce the contemporary tendency of the Court to defend all legislative initiatives of the Community. This account presents several alternative reforms that could better respond to the political need for an impartial arbiter for conflicting interpretations of Community competences. Debate on the political role of the European Court of Justice and on its reform must be considerably broadened.     

论我国宪政建设的文化推动力

宪政建设的推动力有许多,政府和国民无疑是重要的因素,但我们不能忽视宪政建设的内在推动力———文化的重要作用。目前我国宪政建设应注重先进文化的推动力,进而树立健全的宪政意识,培养健全的宪政精神。     

Chess algorithms of supreme court decision making: A bioconstitutional politics analysis

This paper examines, from a biopolitical perspective, the methodologies by which Supreme Court justices have interpreted the Constitution, assessing their decisional algorithms against models owing an intellectual debt to evolutionary theory. The models themselves are drawn from the chess literature, itself the most viable game theoretic context for living constitutional play. A proper appreciation of chess mastery yields the salient conclusion that a functionalist algorithm of data characterization is optimally adaptive for these purposes, usually proving more robust than competing structuralist and heuristic algorithms in resolving complex constitutional issues.     

The politics of judicial discretion: Rethinking the interaction between national courts and the Eurpean court of justice

The recognition that courts play a significant role in the process of European integration has focused attention on the interaction between national judges and the European Court of Justice. The prevailing theoretical model of this interaction holds that a variety of incentives impel national judges to co‐operate with the ECJ by providing it with frequent preliminary references. This article tests the ability of the model to account for the behaviour of national courts during the period 1972–94. In assessing the utility of the model two central claims are made. First, that the model as currently constructed is incapable of explaining the patterns of references originating from various member states, particularly the consistent lack of references from British courts. Second, that the level of British references, and patterns of judicial co‐operation in general, can be better understood by questioning the model's core assumption ‐ that national judges face powerful incentives to refer to the ECJ. As a first step in this direction, the article examines how the discretion to make or withhold references bestows on national judges the power to hasten or retard the pace of integration as well as to influence specific policy outcomes.     

The future in comparative politics

This article is based upon a key speech that Professor Robert Bates gave at the 13^th Annual Conference of the Association of Chinese Political Studies (ACPS) held in Bethesda, Maryland between October 17–18, 1998. Professor Bates observes that there is a sense of crisis among comparative political scientists and central to their concerns is an apparent loss of diversity. Professor Bates believes that homogenization presents an opportunity for comparatists to redirect their comparative social inquiries. He argues that comparative politics is a field that is based upon method; that the presumed homogenization of politics, globally, and the existence of large-scale collections of data, highlight the utility of returning to large-N, cross-national research; and that the subfields of political economy and development are best positioned to secure rapid advances from their redirection. He also emphasizes that we need to blend cross-national statistical research with in-depth case studies, arguing that the two are not substitutes but rather complements, and should be pursued in tandem. Professor Bates further argues that there is an “over supply” of theory in comparative politics and debates over theory should be based on assessments of the theory’s capacity to account for outcomes. In this sense, questions of theory cannot and should not be separated from questions of method. A good theory, in practice, provides a powerful engine of empirical discovery.     

The constitutional political economy of Gordon Tullock

This paper surveys Gordon Tullock’s contributions to constitutional political economy. His first major contribution was his joint project with James Buchanan on liberal constitutional design. The explicitly constitutional analysis of The Calculus was followed by a series of papers and books that focused on the use of resources in conflict, including Tullock’s contributions to the anarchy and rent-seeking literatures. Tullock also pioneered the rational choice-based analysis of dictatorships and the relative merits of alternative legal systems, topics that has been neglected until fairly recently by most scholars working in the CPE tradition.     

法院遭遇暴力袭击和人犯逃脱事件透析

暴力袭击法院和人犯从法院逃脱事件的发生根源于歹徒和入犯欠缺法律意识、法院警备力量薄弱和运转过程中存在弊端、相关行为法律责任追究不力等三方面因素。笔者据此提出了解决上述问题的对策：第一，大力加强法制宣传教育工作；第二，进一步加强法院警备力量配置；第三，对暴力袭击法院和人犯从法庭脱逃所涉罪名设定较重的刑罚；第四，严格追究违法犯罪者的法律责任；第五，法院应严格依法办案，做到公平、公正、文明。     

The Brussels issue in Belgian politics

Belgium is one of the few countries that has been able effectively to accommodate major divisions along linguistic, cultural, ethnic and territorial lines within the fabric of a unitary government. However, one major issue which it has been unable to resolve is the status of its capital city, Brussels, within its devolution reforms. The status of Brussels encapsulates all aspects of the major community divisions in Belgium and has led to numerous unsuccessful legislative proposals, endless parliamentary debates, and the fall of several governments. It was not until 1980 that the Belgian government was able to deal ‘constructively’ with this issue. It did so by removing it from the national political agenda. It is likely that the status of Brussels as a non‐issue is the only resolution possible.