The Separation of Powers and Supreme Court Agenda Setting

This study employs the first systematic, empirical analysis that relies on archival data to examine whether the separation of powers influences justices' agenda votes. It spatially models how justices set the Court's agenda under a sincere approach as well as an SOP approach and compares the competing expectations derived therefrom. The results suggest that legislative and executive preferences fail to influence justices' votes. Across every model tested, the data show justices uninfluenced by the separation of powers. These results provide a strong rejoinder to SOP models, since the Court's agenda stage is the most likely stage of the decision‐making process to show signs of an SOP effect.     

以人为本:地方政府角色转换的使命

以人为本是人类得以发展的主流,以人为本是新时期我们党的政治宗旨在理念和体制上的回归,也是我们党对社会发展规律的深刻解读。地方政府角色转换必须以此为依托和出发点。中央适度集权下的地方政府自主空间确定与地方政府角色转换中的自律与他律,是实现体制改革由表及里转换的两大使命。     

Still the Politics of Compromise? Agenda Setting Strategy in Sweden

A host of literature describes Sweden as the epitome of a consensual policy style country founded on rational and anticipatory behavior. However, recent research holds that consensus has yielded to a more conflict-ridden climate. Earlier research saw a consensual atmosphere as logically connected to anticipatory behavior, whereas conflict was connected to reaction. This article questions these linkages and claims that the present usage of the concept of anticipation does not fully acknowledge the strategic implications of policy style. The point is that policy style may be studied by examining how politicians set the political agenda. Designing a typology for measuring agenda setting in the Swedish Parliament's standing committee system gives us a research tool for studying the development of Swedish policy style from 1973–1991. The results show that the trend towards less consensus and more reactive political behavior in the Swedish society does not automatically amount to a less anticipatory policy style. On the contrary, real and open political antagonisms about the agenda give the parties strong incentives to use strategic anticipation to set the future agenda. Seen in this light, anticipation is not necessarily opposed to reaction. Growing conflictual reaction has not eroded anticipation in Sweden. Instead, both trends exist alongside each other. The parties do indeed make vivid use of their anticipatory means which may even strengthen democratic legitimacy in Sweden.     

On Measuring Legislative Agenda‐Setting Power

We propose a typology for measuring agenda‐setting success and failure in a legislative context. Our typology goes beyond the most commonly used measure (“rolls”) and includes the full range of agenda‐setting outcomes—rolls (opposing a proposal that subsequently passes), as well as “blocks” (opposing a proposal that is subsequently defeated), “successes” (supporting a proposal that subsequently passes), and “disappointments” (supporting a proposal that is subsequently defeated)—and thus takes into account instances of both positive and negative agenda power. We discuss these measures, and the theoretical questions surrounding them, with the hope of providing some guidance to scholars of the U.S. House, as well as those analyzing agenda power in other legislatures. As a first step in this direction, we explore variation in agenda‐setting measures in 85 American state legislative chambers, the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, and the Canadian House of Commons.     

Parties and Policymaking in Multiparty Governments: The Legislative Median,Ministerial Autonomy,and the Coalition Compromise

In parliamentary democracies, governments are typically composed of multiple political parties working together in a coalition. Such governments must confront a fundamental challenge in policymaking—the preferences of coalition parties often diverge significantly, but the government can adopt only one common policy on any specific issue. This fact raises a critical question that has far‐reaching implications for the quality of democratic representation: Whose preferences are ultimately reflected in coalition policy choices? In this study, we explore three competing answers to this question derived from the theoretical literature on multiparty governance and parliamentary institutions. Our findings, based on an analysis of the legislative history of more than 1,000 government bills from three parliamentary democracies, strongly suggest that coalition policies reflect a compromise between government parties rather than the preferences of the ministers proposing them or the preferences of the median party in the legislature.     

Making Up the Government's Mind: Agenda Setting in a Parliamentary System

One of the most important aspects of policymaking in any political system is the pre-decision stage at which a potentially wide range of concerns and preferences are fashioned into some actionable list of proposals or a recognizable hierarchy of priorities. As well as indicating which concerns may dominate the thinking of officials who will later take formal decisions, it is at this early stage of policy development that non-government elites and other key actors may succeed or fail in their attempts to exercise significant power and influence (Schattschneider 1960; Downs 1972; Lukes 1974).     

立法机构在公共政策制定中的功能与作用——韩国国会与中国全国人大的比较

国会的立法决策是公共政策的最基本形式之一。在议会政治中,政党、国会议员代表选民输入利益需求,经过立法活动的整合、调整,最终形成能够代表或反映特定利益诉求的、以法律或其他特定权威形式表现出来的公共政策。本文以韩国国会在公共政策制定中所扮演的角色、发挥的功能为参照,对比中国全国人大在公共政策制定中的作用和影响,通过总结韩国国会的经验和教训,试图为全国人大的制度建设提供有益的借鉴和启发。     

信用建设 政府先行

社会主义市场经济是建立在稳定的信用关系之上的法制经济,稳定可靠的信用体系是市场经济的重要基础条件之一。但面对我国当前十分薄弱的社会信用制度和信用体系,我们又不得不进行反思,在反思中,我们发现构建社会信用体系必须由政府作起,既表现在政府要采取各种措施调整各类社会行为,构建社会信用体系,也表现在他必须率先建立自身信用。本文力图从政府的职能界定这个内因和WTO规则对政府的要求这个外因两方面分析得出这一结论的依据,阐明政府在信用建设中不可替代的重要地位和率先垂范的必要性。     

Winning Coalition Formation in the U.S. Senate: The Effects of Legislative Decision Rules and Agenda Change

Recent empirical work has brought a renewed attention to the effect congressional rules of procedure have on the size of winning coalitions. Specifically, scholars have posited that legislative success hinges on the support of legislators identified by institutionally defined decision rules. Under these theories, supermajority decision rules in the U.S. Senate lead to larger, more inclusive coalitions on final passage. In this article, I reevaluate these claims by controlling for changes in the legislative agenda and the roll‐call voting record. I find that the aggregate size of winning coalitions is highly responsive to the underlying legislative agenda, the size of the Senate's majority party, and the manner in which researchers treat unrecorded votes. Further, my findings suggest that any connection between changes in the Senate's voting rules and the size of winning coalitions is spurious. Eric Schickler and Gregory J. Wawro have authored a response to this article, and Anthony J. Madonna has authored a rejoinder to this response. Both are available as Supporting Information .     

微博设置大众议程及对公共领域建构的研究

主要立足于新的媒介生态环境,从微博在设置大众之议程方面所表现出的强大影响力这一事实出发,探讨微博对公共领域建构的可能性。由于传统媒体受制于单向传播的局限性,其议程设置功能相对于新媒体在逐渐减弱,而微博在设置大众议程上的功效则日益突出。议程设置作为舆论导向的第一个阶段,最终造就了公众舆论,而公共领域就是独立于政治权利之外的公共交往和公共舆论。所以说,微博所表现出的社会公器职能和权力制衡作用使得其具有重新建构哈贝马斯所言之公共领域的可能性。     

地方政府在推进都市圈发展进程中的角色定位

推进都市圈的发展是加快工业化和城市化步伐的战略性举措。地方政府在都市圈建设中发挥作用的成效取决于地方政府的行为方式。有竞争力的企业集群、统一开放的市场体系和功能完善的基础设施是都市圈形成和发展所必不可少的三要素。本文结合都市圈赖以形成的这三要素,具体分析了地方政府在都市圈建设中的角色定位。     

Setting the Regulatory Agenda: Statutory Deadlines,Delay, and Responsiveness

Congress imposes statutory deadlines in an attempt to influence agency regulatory agendas, but agencies regularly fail to meet them. What explains agency responsiveness to statutory deadlines? Taking a transaction cost politics approach, the authors develop a theory of responsiveness to deadlines centered on political feasibility to explain how agency managers map rulemaking onto calendar and political time. This theory is tested on all unique rules with statutory deadlines published in the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions between 1995 and 2012. The argument and findings about the timing and ultimate promulgation of rules have implications that reorient the study of the regulatory agenda from legal and political into more managerial terms.     

Political Attention and Public Policy: A Study of How Agenda Setting Matters

Political science research on agenda setting has been focused on how and why political agendas change over time. This article addresses the different but equally important question about how agenda setting actually matters to the policy outputs of national policy making. Do changes in the political agenda foreshadow changes in public policies? And does the effect of changes in the political agenda depend upon the policy preferences expressed by the mass public? Integrating research on policy agendas with well‐established ideas about re‐election‐oriented representation, this article offers a new approach to the study of such agenda effects. Furthermore, it demonstrates the empirical validity of this approach using a Danish dataset of public opinion, public policy and the national political agenda spanning a quarter of a century and covering several different issues.     

“针灸法”：环保NGO参与环境政策的制度安排

环保非政府组织在怒江建坝案中通过"针灸法"--游说关键部门使怒江建坝计划暂缓.目前,环保非政府组织在一些工程项目上可以对政府的环境政策产生重大影响,但它们同时也面临着巨大的压力.事实上,在怒江建坝案后环保非政府组织影响力的增强为政府调整和创新其环境政策决策与监督机制创造了一个良好契机.环保非政府组织参与政府环境政策的决策过程可以仿照联合国赋予非政府组织咨商地位的做法,对那些具有相当资质的环保非政府组织准许它们制度化地参加到国家环保部门、政府决策机构的决策过程中,享有从旁听、提问到发言不等的资格.     

新时代政策议程设置:场景、行动逻辑与未来趋向

科学决策是中国共产党百年奋斗的成功经验,作为科学决策的逻辑起点和首要环节,政策议程设置至关重要。新时代我国政策议程设置面临全新的现代场景,多重机遇开启了公共领域转型之窗,公共关怀、现代意识、知识型公民、政策行动技能提升加上网络抗争,催生了政策议程设置中“新个体”的力量。新时代场景中政策议程设置的行动逻辑,根植于政府治理结构与规则程序的变迁,也寓于被网络集体行动框架重塑的非正式过程。现代治理需要社会合作建构取向的政策生成,新时代中国的具体国情更强调中国共产党顶层设计下的协商合作、共同行动和自发推动,而开发更加成熟的政策问题环境扫描指标、加强社会分析,将是新时代政策议程设置的重要议题和趋向。     

Setting the Post War Australian Policy Agenda – Causes and Content

What are the origins of policy agendas and what determines agenda setting? The one robust theory in the literature associates different agendas with different moments in the evolution of the broader party system namely mass, catch‐all and most recently cartel patterns. This article explores Australian evidence for this thesis. It also argues the cartel moment has recently mutated. Agenda setting is now circumscribed by a mismatch between the needs of policy making and the political incentive structure. The media have become primary tissue connecting political elites to their publics. But this traps the system in short term, primarily populist stances. Systemic capacities to mediate agenda setting have thus been corrupted.     

The Government Agenda in Parliamentary Democracies

Lawmaking is a challenge for coalition governments because it inherently demands cooperation and compromise by parties with divergent policy goals. The jurisdictional system of cabinet government exacerbates the problem by providing parties the means to undermine the coalition bargain in the pursuit of their own policy interests. In this article, I explore whether arrangements that allow partners to police one another induce compromise on one of the most important decisions taken by a government—the organization of the policy agenda. In an analysis of original data on the timing and policy content of over 800 government bills from four European democracies, I show that coalition governments pursue a largely "accommodative" agenda. Policy initiatives dealing with issues that are more attractive to all partners in the coalition are likely to be given priority on the agenda, while those dealing with relatively unattractive issues are likely to be postponed .