Apportionment and the boundary commission for England

Political apportionment is the allocation of an integer number of seats to each of a number of subunits into which a legislature is divided. This paper introduces the theoretical issues, and then applies the theory to the apportionment of parliamentary seats in the United Kingdom. It shows that the outcome is defective by comparison with desirable and achievable standards, and that the defects lead to predictable biases of representation in favour of certain parts of the country. The defects have arisen partly through manipulation for party advantage, but largely because of a failure of all concerned to understand the theory of apportionment.     

The Doolittle commission of 1954

Many scholars and other writers have dismissed the 1954 Doolittle Commission as an Eisenhower administration tactic to protect CIA covert operations from congressional investigation. Evidence about the commission and its report, however, suggests that this view may be incomplete. Clarification of the commission's precise purpose may serve the wider study of US covert action policy in the 1950s and congressional oversight of the CIA. In particular, the report's recommendations for bold covert action abroad may reveal how administration covert action policy attracted congressional attention to the CIA.     

The advisory commission on regulatory barriers to affordable housing: Its behavior and accomplishments

Abstract

In March 1990, Secretary Jack Kemp of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) appointed a 22‐member commission to investigate the nature and extent of regulatory barriers to affordable housing, as well as what to do about them. Chaired by Thomas Keane, ex‐Republican governor of New Jersey, the Advisory Commission on Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing grappled with this issue for over a year, releasing its final report in early July 1991.¹ As a commission member, I had an unusual opportunity to observe just how the commission worked and what it accomplished. This paper tries to put those two subjects in perspective. It has been written from the viewpoint of a longtime specialist on housing, who also served on the very first urban commission—the Douglas commission—23 years ago.²     

The 1983 Federal Budget

Editors' Note: The following material is taken, with permission of the author, from the first chapter of The Brookings Institution's Setting National Priorities: The 1983 Budget.     

Antisocial Security: The Puzzle of Beggar-Thy-Children Policies

The U.S. Social Security program has irrevocably transferred substantial wealth from workers to their ostensibly altruistic parents. After some alternative explanations for this paradox are addressed, a formal model is developed to show that a majority of rational voters who care about their descendants can support the preservation of current benefits for themselves but accept the prospect of Social Security's future retrenchment. Incorporating elements of Tabellini's (2000) positive theory of Social Security and Bénabou and Ok's (2001) analysis of income mobility, the model identifies specific forces affecting this time-varying individual support for Social Security. These forces are embodied in three hypotheses related to income mobility, relative income level, and age. An ordered logit analysis of cumulative ANES data supports these hypotheses.     

Foreign policy by commission: Reforming the intelligence community

Can presidential commissions serve as a source of significant policy innovation in the area of intelligence analysis? This study shows that intelligence commission recommendations present a decidedly mixed bag. We cannot speak of a linear movement toward improving the quality or management of intelligence analysis in which one problem is solved and attention then is turned to the next. Yet presidential commissions looking into intelligence analysis cannot be mere symbolic window dressing. Many of their recommendations have been listened to. It would be more accurate to see them as having in each instance narrowed the range of policy choices receiving serious consideration as means of improving the intelligence product.     

The Europeanisation of Research and Higher Educational Policies: Some Reflections

This paper poses the following question: To what extent do European Union (EU) policies affect national policies? In essence this paper studies the Europeanisation of policy in the field of research and higher education (R&E). The field of R&E is largely neglected in the literature on European integration and Europeanisation. I argue that processes of Europeanisation of R&E mirror two interrelated processes: both the emergence of supranational policies at the EU level and national convergence towards these policies. The empirical scope of the paper is the relationship between the EU’s R&E policies and the corresponding Norwegian policies. Our empirical observations based on documentary data and existing bodies of literature reveal that the emergence of creeping supranational policies of R&E at the EU level has accompanied moderate convergence of Norwegian R&E policies. This moderate level of convergence, I argue, reflects a mix of moderate institutionalised linkages between Norwegian ministries and agencies and the EU, moderate adaptational pressures towards Norwegian R&E policies from the EU, and institutional path dependencies in Norwegian R&E policies.     

Governing at the frontier of the European commission: The case of seconded national officials

Political Integration and Disintegration in the British Isles. By A. H. Birch. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1977. Pp. 184. £6.50 hardback, £2.95 paperback.

Divided Loyalties. British Regional Assertion and European Integration Edited by M. Kolinsky. Manchester University Press, 1978. Pp. 224. £9.50

The Break up of Britain: Crises and Neo‐Nationalism. By Tom Nairn. London, New Left Books, 1977. Pp. 318. £750.

The British Right: Conservative and Right Wing Politics in Britain. Edited by Neill Nugent and Roger King, Westmead : Saxon House, 1977, Pp. vi + 230 £7.50     

The Social Policies Presidents Make: Pre-Emptive Leadership Under Nixon and Clinton

Grounded in Stephen Skowronek's typology of presidential leadership, this paper furthers our understanding of 'pre-emptive leadership' through a comparative analysis of the welfare and Social Security reforms pursued by US presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Although not identical, their experience in these areas provides valuable insight into the difficulty of wielding power in an inhospitable political environment. The paper starts with a brief presentation of Skowronek's typology before discussing the electoral strategies employed by both presidents as they attempted to frame political identities that would allow them to compete successfully in unfavourable ideological and political circumstances. The paper then specifically focuses on the politics of welfare and Social Security reform as the two presidents used these issues as part of their efforts to craft distinctive political images and attract wider electoral support. This comparative analysis reinforces the concept of 'pre-emption' as a valuable tool in understanding presidential behaviour. However, it also underlines the limits of pre-emptive leadership. Pre-emptive strategies can be effective at election time, but they are less likely to succeed in the legislative arena. This reality complicates the presidential search for genuine policy legacies.