Federal legislative activism in Australia: a new approach to testing Wagner’s law

This paper considers the relationship between government growth and real GDP per capita by developing models of federal legislative output in Australia since 1901. Growth in legislation is found to be negatively related to growth in real income per capita in the short-run, implying that legislation responds to temporary economic shocks, but without a robust long-run relationship with the level of income. The growth in the number of pages of legislation enacted and legislative complexity also show a negative short-run relationship with growth in real national income per capita and a positive long-run relationship with the level of income.     

Das Regieren jenseits des Nationalstaates und der Mythos einer 80-Prozent-Europäisierung in Deutschland

Governance beyond the nation state is intensively discussed with regard to the degree of Europeanization of the member states. For some scholars, the Europeanization degree of German legislation has already reached a share of 80 percent. This article applies a quantitative perspective and investigates, whether and to what extent German legislation has been stimulated by European impulses over the past 30 years. In contrast to previous studies, the analysis distinguishes between regular and important legislation and examines whether and to what extent European impulses are induced by EU legislation. The results reveal that previous estimates have dramatically overstated the influence of Europeanization on German legislation. According to our findings, a share of 80 percent has only once occurred in a single policy domain. Usually, this share is significantly lower, in particular for important legislation. Moreover, it is only possible to identify the reasons for half of the Europeanization impulses in the respective EU legislative database.     

THE PLURALITY OF FACTORS INFLUENCING POLICYMAKINC: SCHOOL REFORM LEGISLATION IN THE AMERICAN STATES, 1982–84

This paper attempts to explore recent efforts of American state legislatures to improve the quality of public schools. Which state legislatures have passed school reform legislation? At what aspects of public education is this reform legislation aimed? Are there significant variations across states in such reform legislation? What has contributed most to the passage of such legislation? Is it the socioeconomic characteristics of individual states or the structural and procedural characteristics of their legislative branch that better explain school reform legislation? Analysis of data from the 50 states reveals greater variation in legislative results that reform public schools. The regional locus of most reform was the south. Most importantly, school reform legislation was found to be influenced by the interaction of a multitude of divergent forces. This finding suggests that researchers interested in the determinants of legislative action must move beyond analysis of whether economic or political forces shape legislative outcomes to inquire how economic, political and other forces interact when a given reform effort reaches the legislative halls of the states.     

From capacity to sovereignty: Legislative politics and differentiated integration in the European Union

The literature suggests that legislative politics among European Union Member States is characterised by economic exchanges, and constrained by the social norms of a European community of legislators. Both views draw a clear line between the legislative process and the conflicts over sovereignty that have left their mark on treaty making and European public opinion since the 1990s. This article suggests revisiting this view, based on an analysis of why Member States have opted out of legislation from the 1970s to today. It argues that differentiation, while once a response to capacity problems of relatively poor countries, has recently become driven by sovereignty concerns of the Union's wealthy and nationally oriented Members that oppose the EU's intrusion into core state powers. The article presents evidence for the impact on legislative outcomes of factors so far thought not to matter. The results indicate greater European‐level legislative responsiveness towards national sovereignty demands than previously recognised. They underline that the nature of European politics has been changing with the EU's push into core state powers.     

Horses and hippos: Why Italian government bills change in the legislative arena, 1987–2006

Scholars interested in legislative processes pay relatively little attention to the changes made to bills in parliamentary democracies. On the one hand, comparative research has often described parliamentary institutions as ineffectual vis‐à‐vis cabinets throughout the lawmaking process; on the other hand, for a long time the rational choice literature has focused more on the formal rules regulating amendatory activity than on amendatory activity itself. Hence, very few studies have tried to explain how much government bills are altered in parliament and why. This article investigates the changes made to governmental legislation in Italy. Taking the modifications occurring during the legislative process as the dependent variable, a number of explanatory hypotheses derived from both existing scholarship and original arguments are discussed and tested. This also allows the identification of some usually unobserved aspects of the decision‐making process within the cabinet. The findings can also be relevant for comparative research since Italy has been characterised during the period under scrutiny (1987–2006) by two distinct electoral systems, two extremely different party systems (pivotal and alternational), governments with various ideological orientations and range, and both partisan and technical ministers.     

A Natural Experiment in Proposal Power and Electoral Success

Does lawmaker behavior influence electoral outcomes? Observational studies cannot elucidate the effect of legislative proposals on electoral outcomes, since effects are confounded by unobserved differences in legislative and political skill. We take advantage of a unique natural experiment in the Canadian House of Commons that allows us to estimate how proposing legislation affects election outcomes. The right of noncabinet members to propose legislation is assigned by lottery. Comparing outcomes between those who were granted the right to propose and those who were not, we show that incumbents of the governing party enjoy a 2.7 percentage point bonus in vote total in the election following their winning the right to introduce a single piece of legislation, which translates to a 7% increase in the probability of winning. The causal effect results from higher likeability among constituents. These results demonstrate experimentally that what politicians do as lawmakers has a causal effect on electoral outcomes.     

The Impact of the European Union on Coalition Formation in a Minority System: The Case of Denmark

Does European Union membership influence coalition patterns in national parliaments? For governments in the Scandinavian countries – with their relatively high share of minority governments requiring external parliamentary support to form parliamentary majorities – the question of ‘coalition management’ is highly relevant. This article provides an empirical test of three central arguments in the Europeanisation literature on the impact of EU membership on national parliaments when political parties pass legislation in the Danish Folketing. The effect of EU content in a law on coalition patterns is compared across policy areas and four electoral periods from 1998 to 2011 encompassing 2,894 laws. The data provide support for the argument that the loss of national agenda‐setting over the legislative process has an impact on coalition patterns in the Danish parliament. It is shown that the coalition patterns on Europeanised legislation are both broader and more stable compared to national, non‐EU‐related legislation. The focus on Europeanisation of legislative coalitions goes beyond previous analysis with an institutional focus, and demonstrates an example of how the EU systematically has an effect on legislative coalition formation in a national parliamentary system.     

If things can only get worse: Anticipation of enlargement in European Union legislative politics

Anticipation is a central feature of political behaviour. It has an impact on actors' choices and can change the timing of decisions. This article analyses anticipation in legislative politics. After delineating different objects as well as consequences of anticipation theoretically, a set of hypotheses about anticipatory behaviour in EU decision-making is derived. In particular, it is asked whether the EU Council anticipates the arrival of new Member States and how this affects legislative output. The theory is tested by estimating count models using a dataset that contains information on all binding EU legislation from 1976 to 2007. Covering five enlargement rounds, evidence is presented for anticipatory behaviour in EU legislative politics.     

An Analysis of Statutory Development: The Correlates of State Activity in Product Liability Legislation

In the last few years legal scholars and politicians have been concerned with what many have referred to as the "liability crisis". While there is certainly no consensus involving precisely how serious the problem indeed, some argue that there is no crisis -there is some evidence that the frequency and size of jury awards in some types of personal injury cases have changed since the 1970s. In response to this evidence virtually every state has considered legislation that would limit the frequency or size of such awards and would modify related judicial processes. Although the final status of many of these "tort reforms" is still uncertain, bills related to punitive damages and other dimensions of tort Iiability have been introduced in and passed by one or more houses in many state legislatures. This paper examines this legislative activity and focus on bills that have passed in one or more state legislative houses in the 1986–88 time period. Using standard multivariate statistical techniques, it examines the relationship between this legislative activity and dimensions of state politics and culture. The research indicates that state legislative activity in the area of tort reform results from a rather complex mix of factors. It is a function of political and social-economic attributes, as well as features of the states' legal and judicial systems.     

Effective Corporatisation Legislation: The Fundamental Issue in Port Management

It is now some seven years since the restructure of Australian ports and their transformation into corporatised entities. This strategy was adopted in an endeavour to improve efficiency by distancing government from day to day operations - that element that was perceived to be the cause of sub-optimal performance. While there is widespread agreement that port performance has improved significantly, dissatisfaction persists and the belief that continued political intervention is preventing ports' commercial potential from being realised. This paper investigates these issues but argues that political intervention per se should not be the focus of research as the fundamental cause of sub-optimal performance. Rather political intervention is an effect of a more fundamental problem — an inappropriate legislative framework — and the focus of research should be on the legislation and corporatisation model in which political intervention is mandatory.     

Policy Preference Formation in Legislative Politics: Structures, Actors, and Focal Points

This article introduces a model of policy preference formation in legislative politics. Emphasizing a dynamic relationship between structure, agent, and decision-making process, it ties the question of policy choice to the dimensionality of the normative and cognitive political space and the strategic actions of parliamentary agenda setters. The model proposes that structural factors, such as ideology, shape policy preferences to the extent that legislative actors successfully link them to specific policy proposals through the strategic provision of focal points. These ideas or images shift attention toward particular aspects of a legislative proposal, thus shaping the dominant interpretation of its content and consequences. This interpretation affects both individual-level policy preferences and policy outcomes. The propositions of the focal-point model are tested empirically in a detailed examination of European Union legislation on cross-border takeover bids, using both qualitative and quantitative methods.     

In the shadow of the constitutional council: The ‘juridicisation’ of the legislative process in France

This study examines, first, why and how the French Parliament was ‘juridicised’, that, is, gradually placed under the tutelage of the Constitutional Council, and, secondly, the influence of past Council jurisprudence and the threat of future censure on the legislation of the 1986 parliamentary sessions. This influence is greater than has been heretofore acknowledged ‐ indeed, one simply cannot assess the legislative process without understanding the role, direct and indirect, of the Council. Assessment of the legislative effects of Council control of legislation shows that the controversy surrounding the legitimacy of judicial review in France, and the extent to which the Council functions as a gouvernement des juges, is understandable and probably permanent.     

Evolutions and Limits of New Public Management—Inspired Budgeting Practices in Italian Local Governments

In Italy, New Public Management (NPM)‐inspired reforms have been mostly legislation‐driven. For Italian Local Governments (LGs), one of the most significant reforms was the introduction, in 1995, of an “Executive Management Plan” (EMP). The EMP has been interpreted and applied by Italian LGs differently across space and over time. Some LGs have introduced it only formally. Others have interpreted it as a tool to define individual managers's spending authorizations. Only some have viewed it as a building block of a wider management control system. Over time, LGs have since been making continuous changes to their budgeting systems, without yet reaching a new steady state.     

Deregulating Federalism? The Politics of Mandate Reform in the 104th Congress

This article examines the politics and substance of mandatereform in the 104th Congress. It briefly describes the evolutionof the mandate issue, examines the process by which the issuewas placed on the national agenda, and traces the formulationof a legislative response. It analyzes in detail the politicsof enacting mandate-reform legislation, paying particular attentionto patterns of support and opposition and to changes in thesepatterns over time. It concludes by examining the prospectsfor successful implementation of the legislation and its likelyconsequences for the intergovernmental system.     

The Referendum, the Courts and Representative Democracy in Ireland

This article examines the four referendums held in Ireland between 1983 and 1987. Special emphasis is placed on the constitutional framework. It is argued that the 1937 Irish Constitution created a tension between representative democracy and judicial review. as well as between parliamentary supremacy and sovereignty of the people. This is encapsulated in Article 6.which states that all executive, judicial and legislative authority is derived from the people under God. This article was used by the Supreme Court to strikedown legislation which precipitated the 1984and 1987 referendums and to refuse injunctions in the 1983 and 1986 referendums. Finally, the four referendums were called in response to interest group pressure and Supreme Court decisions, which indicates shifts in Ireland away from the traditional Westminister model that has operated in practice in Ireland since 1922.     

加强与完善党领导立法工作制度的若干思考

坚持党对立法工作的领导是国家立法活动中最具根本性的原则,加强与完善党领导立法工作制度,必须坚持正确的政治方向,认真贯彻落实党内法规和国家立法相关程序中的各项组织要求和程序规范。党领导立法工作制度可具体分解为党的立法主张形成程序、党的组织与立法机关互动程序和国家法律形成程序三个部分。党的立法主张形成程序,宜重点落实党的立法主张形成过程中党内法规的相关组织程序规定,提高立法主张的民主性和科学性;党的组织与立法机关互动程序,要重点理顺党领导立法与人大主导立法之间的关系,明晰党的组织与国家立法机构的职权界限;国家法律形成程序,应重点理清党员人大代表的双重身份,坚持党员代表的义务优先性原则,并确保其有效行使代表权利和职责。     

Veto Rhetoric and Legislative Riders

Riders to appropriations bills have long been a favorite congressional instrument for forcing presidents to accept unwanted policies. To resist unwanted riders, presidents have increasingly resorted to veto threats. Are such threats credible, and do they influence legislation? To answer these questions, we analyze the legislative histories of hundreds of threatened and unthreatened riders from 1985 through 2008. We find that threats are effective in bringing the final legislation closer to the president's preferences. Threats achieve their success, in large part, by interrupting the textbook legislative process in the Senate—spawning filibusters, prompting leaders to punt bills to conference, and encouraging the use of other “unorthodox” procedures. Unlike conventional models that regard veto threats as minimally effective, the findings presented here depict veto rhetoric as integral to identifying critical riders separating the legislative parties that must be resolved in order to avoid gridlock and pass annual appropriations legislation.     

Masters of their fate? Explaining MPs’ re-candidacy in the long run: The case of Italy (1987–2013)

Why are certain Members of Parliament (MPs) more likely to get re-candidacy for national legislative elections, therefore having the possibility to continue their career? This article answers this question by comparing political elites' long-debated explanations with more legislative behaviour-related factors. By focusing on more than 25 years of the Italian Lower House's history, we have built a novel dataset on the legislative behaviour and career patterns of more than 3500 Italian MPs. A multilevel logistic regression analysis shows that, with the exception of party switching, legislative behaviour does not seem to exert a significant impact on MPs' re-candidacy. On the contrary, the career status of parliamentarians, i.e., their parliamentary position or their ministerial historical record, strongly influences their chances of obtaining re-candidacy.     

设区的市地方立法权运行现状之考察

为加强地方法治建设，《立法法》赋予了设区的市地方立法权，并对其立法提出了相应要求。然而，现实运行中，设区的市地方立法存在着追求数量、抄袭同位法、超越立法权限范围并有侵害法治统一的情形。为此，需要对设区的市地方立法事项范围做出明确解释和限定，加强省级人大的批准程序和国家权力机关的备案审查力度，并建立定期评估制度。同时，设区的市也要在坚持立法节约原则的前提下，通过委托第三方起草立法文本、实施有效的公众参与立法等方式，真正提高立法质量。     

The Retention of State Level Concealed Handgun Laws: Empirical Evidence from Interest Group and Legislative Models

The present research extends the work of Lott and Mustard (1997) by offering the first categorical examination (using an ordered logit model) of various types of right-to-carry handgun legislation across the50 states for 1997. Such an examination is based on the “market for laws” construct built by Crain (1979) and Benson and Engin (1988), which points out that various interest group (demand side) and legislative (firm, supply side) considerations are important in modeling legislation activity at the state level. To that end, we include a number of property rights, demographic and legislative institutional variables as explanatory factors in ordered log it models and tests for nonnested hypotheses. In general, we find that the property-rights movement has significantly shaped these statewide laws as pointed out by variables which measure the amount of federal land present within each state, per-capita income, and death-row inmate executions. Population density, Republican representation, length of legislative sessions and female legislative representation have also had significant impacts on the retention of various forms of right-to-carry legislation.