Accountable or Untouchable? Electoral accountability in Romanian local elections

While retrospective models of voting posit that voters should “vote the rascals out”, a wave of recent research has found that this is rarely the case. We investigate this question in a context in which many sitting politicians have recently been indicted on corruption charges – the municipal level in Romania, a surprisingly under-researched case in this sub-field. Romania provides a good case for electoral accountability. Not only do Romanians deeply detest corruption, the party system also contains many parties that would make it easy for voters to switch from a corrupt to a cleaner alternative. We collected an original data register of electoral and socio-political data on roughly 3200 localities together with all cases of corruption charges published by the Romanian anti-corruption agency, the Direcţia Naţională Anticorupţie (DNA), accounting for magnitude and timing of the scandal as well as the judicial outcome for the indicted mayor. In all, we find that 81 sitting mayors elected in 2012 were charged with corruption prior to the 2016 election. We test the electoral impact of corruption on the incumbent mayors on four outcomes indicating electoral accountability commonly used in the literature – retirement, vote share compared to the previous election, voter turnout, and reelection using difference and difference and a pairwise matching designs, inter alia. The results show that Romanians do punish their corrupt incumbent mayors to a quite high extent compared to the clean mayors. However, due to the large vote margins, the punishment is not severe enough to make them lose more often than similar “clean‟ mayors, although they tend to not run for re-election at much higher rates. Turnout is unaffected by corruption at the municipal level. In line with previous results, we thus find a certain amount of electoral accountability, but not to the extent that the ‘rascals are thrown out’.     

Mandatory due diligence laws and climate change litigation: Bridging the corporate climate accountability gap?

The debate on corporate climate accountability has become increasingly prominent in recent years. Several countries, particularly in the Global North, have adopted mandatory human rights and/or environmental due diligence legislation. At the same time, judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings are helping to shape the contours of corporate climate accountability. This article considers how litigation against corporations and due diligence legislation interact, and thereby help develop and strengthen corporate climate accountability. While the practice in this area is still limited, there is scope to reflect on early developments and how they may influence both future climate litigation as well as ongoing and future law-making on due diligence. We first review recent developments in climate litigation against corporations, focusing on the extent to which they rely on climate due diligence obligations. We then survey existing and proposed due diligence legislation, examining the extent to which it addresses corporate climate accountability. Finally, we identify scenarios of how due diligence legislation and climate litigation may interact and possibly converge to strengthen corporate climate accountability. We furthermore identify knowledge gaps and areas for further research.     

Judicialization of politics or politicization of the judiciary? Considerations from recent events in Thailand

Abstract

Courts are becoming major players in the political landscape of Southeast Asia. This paper seeks to examine the causes and consequences of this new trend with particular reference to Thailand. Our study primarily analyzes the behavior of the Thai Constitutional Court during the political crisis in 2006–2008; the findings suggest that recent judicial activism and assertiveness in political matters, while partly explained by the interests of judges themselves and by the constitutional rules guiding their activities, is best understood as a direct consequence of the intervention of the monarchy, to which the judiciary has traditionally been closely aligned. Accordingly, the Thai case not only provides new evidence about what may be driving the new judicialization trend, it also draws attention to problematic aspects of this trend, namely the gradual politicization of the Thai judiciary and with it the erosion of the rule of law in Thailand and its replacement with rule by law. Our findings may also illuminate some larger issues at the intersection of politics and the courts throughout the region in ways that advance the theoretical understanding of both.     

The micro–macro link in deliberative polling: science or politics?

In this article, we critically examine the question of how to link the ‘micro’ of deliberative mini-publics with the ‘macro’ of the democratic system. To explore this puzzle, we relate to EuroPolis, a transnational deliberative experiment that took place one week ahead of the 2009 European Parliamentary elections. The main argument is that although the scientific design of deliberative polls is a necessary condition for the fulfilment of the criteria for equal participation and informed opinion-making of selected citizens (the micro-dimension), this does not necessarily translate into a democratically representative and legitimate proxy for the broader political constituency (the macro-dimension). This problem is potentially exacerbated in deliberative settings that cut across domestic political cultures and nationalized public spheres.     

Transparency and mistrust: Who or what should be made transparent?

It is increasingly recognized in public administration that the relationship between trust and transparency is not straightforward. Recently, right‐wing populists have risen to power, rejecting transparency requirements based on documents while claiming that they “hide nothing.” Clearly, existing scholarly conceptualizations are insufficient for understanding how transparency operates as a value in real‐world political contestation. An analysis of state‐ and national‐level politics in Nigeria reveals that, while always retaining a core informational component, there are multiple competing conceptions of transparency. Popular demands for transparency express a belief that not only should data be made transparent, but also the social networks in which politicians are embedded. “Transparency in people” can clash with more traditional, technocratic transparency practices centered on data. By rethinking who or what should be made transparent—data, things, or people—this article offers fresh theoretical insights on the complex politics of transparency and trust.     

Where to go from here? Revamping electoral politics in the Netherlands

The transformation from mass parties into catch‐all parties may not only have electoral consequences, but may also have an impact inside political parties, particularly in so far as the position of ordinary party members is concerned. On the basis of Dutch research data, the role of the ordinary party member in intra‐party decision‐making is assessed in this article. The data show that Dutch party members do feel marginalised where their influence on intra‐party policy‐making is concerned. However, this is not because they feel they do not have sufficient opportunities to participate in internal decision‐making, but rather because they do not actually use the opportunities which are available: party members appear to marginalise themselves.     

Inter-local-government partnership for urban management in decentralizing Indonesia: from below or above? Kartamantul (Greater Yogyakarta) and Jabodetabek (Greater Jakarta) compared

Under the new decentralization policy, local governments in Indonesia tend to be inward-looking in orientation. Many local governments have exploited the local resources even more intensively, and they are not concerned with the socio-economic conditions of the larger region of which they are part. Within the context of metropolitan areas, there has been almost no effective cooperation among the bordering districts and municipalities to promote the metropolitan development. Against this backdrop, the study examines and compares the institutional partnership and governance in two Indonesia's metropolitan areas, namely Kartamantul (Greater Yogyakarta) and Jabodetabek (Greater Jakarta).     

Accountability from the perspective of the forum: citizens’ attitudes towards accountability in Europe

The aim of this article is to analyse citizens’ attitudes towards governmental accountability in 24 European countries and to examine the influence of contextual and individual factors on perceptions of accountability. Using as a dataset the 2012 European Social Survey, the results show that citizens respond positively when the media provides reliable information on which to judge the government, when individuals perceive that governments perform well, when individuals live in more extensive and generous welfare states and when they live in countries where the rule of law is firmly established. In addition, the findings also provide evidence that compared to politically left-wing citizens, right-wing supporters have, on average, a higher perception of governmental accountability. In particular, the findings show strong positive evaluations of right-wing governments by right-wing voters in comparison with left-wing governments by left-wing voters.     

‘Event,politics, and space: Rancière or Badiou’?

This paper takes a critical view of Rancière’s ideas on politics, subjectivity, and space by building on the criticisms offered by Alain Badiou in a series of critical exchanges between the two authors. The first part of the paper reviews the main points of difference between them, which centre around their different interpretations of what constitutes a political event, subjectivity, and the nature of radical politics. Later sections then develop these differences with respect to further issues concerning the nature of political spaces, the pre-evental, and political organization.     

A tale of two policies: The politics of climate forecasting and drought relief in Ceará, Brazil

This paper evaluates the use of climate-based information in drought mitigation in Ceará, Northeast Brazil. It examines two policies – a seed-distribution program (Hora de Plantar) and the Emergency Drought-Relief Program – that use climate information produced by FUNCEME (Cearás Foundation for Meteorological and Hydrological Resources) to implement drought planning. It argues that, in politically charged policy-making environments, the use of climate forecast information may go beyond its problem-solving function to influence broader issues of accountability and democratization. In Cearás politically charged environment, technocrats rely on scientific information about climate to insulate policy-making from both political meddling and public accountability. However, insulation afforded by the use of climate information has played different roles in the policy areas examined in this study. While in drought emergency-relief planning the use of climate information critically contributed to the democratization of policy implementation, in agricultural planning, it worked towards further insulating decision-making from public accountability and client participation. Thus, the use of climate information is context-dependent, that is, the distribution of costs and benefits associated with information use in policymaking depends on the social, political, and cultural context in which information producers and users work. Moreover, climate information can be used in ways – positive or negative – significantly different from the use that information producers intended.     

Terrorist threats in Europe: hype or reality?

On 3 October, the American and British governments issued travel advisories on the threat of terrorist attacks in France and Germany. The United States government characterised the threat as ‘high’, while the United Kingdom raised the terrorist threat level for France and Germany from ‘general’ to ‘high’. Shortly afterwards, the French government issued a warning to its citizens about the risk of a terrorist attack in Britain. Within the UK itself, the threat level in respect of Islamist jihadist terrorism has been set since January 2010 at ‘severe’, the second highest level, indicating an attack is likely but not yet judged imminent. This has remained unchanged.     

Transition in Post-Communist States: Triple or Quadruple?

When the study of transitions moved from Latin America and southern Europe scholars initially assumed that transition in these two regions would be regime-based 'double transitions' of democratisation and marketisation. Gradually, it was accepted by scholars that many post-communist states inherited weak states and institutions, thereby adding a third factor to the transition process of stateness. This 'triple transition' has been largely accepted as sufficient to understand post-communist transitions and, in some cases, includes nationality questions. This article builds on the 'triple transition' by separating the national and stateness questions within its third aspect and argues that although both processes are interlinked they should be nevertheless separated into separate components (democratisation and marketisation are treated separately but are also closely related phenomena). This article argues two points. First, stateness and the nationality question were until recently ignored by scholars because these were not factors in earlier transitions. Secondly, they were ignored because the relationship of nationhood to the civic state is still under-theorised.     

Community in Public Policy: Fad or Foundation?

Both internationally and within Australia public policy is experiencing a rush back to the idea of community. After 15 years of discourse about the new public management and economic rationalism a much older discourse is slipping back into public policy. It is a normative discourse about changing relations between state democracy, market capitalism and civil society in which the idea of community is a central ‘new’ relation used to manage both state and market failures. Already new policy tools emerging from this discourse can be seen with innovations based on concepts such as partnerships, place management, and a raft of community consultation mechanisms. Much of the rhetoric about community as a new foundation for public policy, however, remains confused. The result is a muddle of ideas in which this potentially useful concept is in danger of becoming just another public policy reform fad. This article looks at what policy makers are saying about community, identifies problems in this current usage and offers ways of thinking about community with a view to establishing its policy utility.     

Administrative reform in Belgium: Maintenance or modernisation?

This article aims to analyse, classify and explain similarities and differences in administrative reform in four separate Belgian administrations along four internationally observed trends in administrative reform: organisation, personnel, strategy, and finance. Comparatively, Flanders can be classified as an early moderniser, followed by the federal government, which had been locked longer in a trajectory of maintenance. The French-speaking governments of the Walloon Region and French Community are late modernisers, and compared to both the Flemish and federal government their reform efforts are more fragmented and incremental. The main factors explaining variations in administrative reform in Belgium are differences in institutional continuity, policy entrepreneurship and policy diffusion, all three of which combined to support administrative reform efforts at the Flemish and, slightly less so, at the federal levels, and were markedly absent in the French-speaking governments. Aggregated indicators of differences in political culture do not convincingly explain differences in public sector reform, but the degree of partisan control over the administration, as a meso dimension of politico-administrative culture, impacts on the French-speaking governments' resistance against certain types of organisational and human resources management reforms.     

Recovery and Reinvestment Act spending at the state level: Keynesian stimulus or distributive politics?

We examine the US state-level pattern of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) spending. We relate spending to (1) Keynesian determinants of countercyclical policy, (2) congressional power and dominance, and (3) presidential electoral vote importance. We find that the ARRA is, in practice, poorly designed countercyclical stimulus. After controlling for political variables, coefficients on Keynesian variables are often statistically insignificant. When they are statistically significant they are often the “incorrect” sign. On the other hand, statistically significant effects are associated with majority party House of Representative appropriations subcommittee and authorization committee membership. One striking result is that the elasticity of ARRA spending with respect to the pre-ARRA ratio of federal grants and payments to federal taxes paid is estimated to be greater than unity in most specifications. States previously capturing large amounts of federal funds continue to do so under the ARRA stimulus.     

Do voters reward rebellion? The electoral accountability of MPs in Britain

To hold their Members of Parliament individually accountable for their legislative behaviour, British voters would need to base their decision to vote for an MP at least partially on the extent to which the MP's legislative voting behaviour deviated from that of the MP's party leadership. Voters should evaluate this deviation contingent on their views of the party leadership. MP rebellion can signal that voter–MP congruence is greater than that of the voter and the MP's party leadership. In this article it is found that only constituents with negative attitudes toward the Labour government reward rebellious Labour MPs, albeit to a limited extent. A similar conditional association is not observed on a single issue: Iraq. The policy accountability of MPs is relatively weak and general rather than issue‐specific.     

Social capital and labor politics in Japan: Cooperation or cooptation?

Policy Sciences - Social capital, derived from voluntary cooperative relationships and memberships, is thought to enhance a group's capacity to attain a common good. Japan enjoys plentiful...