Change, Continuity, and the Evolution of the Law

Congress regularly passes significant laws. Some of these laws continue in their initial form, with the original bargain struck by the enacting coalition untouched by any future laws; others are changed—strengthened or weakened—soon after passage. What accounts for this variation in the stability of laws, in the longevity of the original legislative agreement? We contend that political conditions at the time of enactment—in particular, the existence of divided government and the level of ideological disagreement between the House and Senate—influence the likelihood that a law will be amended. We demonstrate that laws originally crafted by diverse political coalitions are less durable than those crafted by strong, unified coalitions, which are in a position to entrench their preferred policies and protect them from future change. Furthermore, we show that the probability of a law being amended is affected by future political conditions, the actions of the judiciary, and factors specific to the law.     

Citizens, Representatives, and the Myth of the Decision-Making Divide

In this study, I use a computerized experiment to test whether elected officials differ from everyday citizens in how they use information to make political choices. Ninety state and local level elected officials took part in the study, as did 179 adults from the general population. I tracked participants’ information use as they attempted to solve two hypothetical public policy problems. The data show that while elected officials differ from everyday citizens in their demographics and in the consistency of their political views, these groups did not differ systematically in their depth of information search, their proclivity to compare choice alternatives, or their depth of information processing. These findings held across two different public policy scenarios, controlling for differences in political knowledge, education, and elective experience. In addition to opening a new methodological frontier for the study of political elites, these results accelerate an ongoing debate between Burkeian paternalists and advocates of a more populist democracy.     

Transnationalism,neo-liberalism,and the rise of the shadow state

This paper examines the processes through which a neo-liberal agenda is broadened and entrenched through time. The case study focuses on a federal immigration policy in Canada in the 1980s, which encouraged the rapid entry of wealthy entrepreneurs and investors from Hong Kong. One of the many impacts of the arrival of this Chinese business élite in British Columbia was the rapid growth of a key volunteer organization in Vancouver dedicated to social service provisioning for immigrants. With the donations and volunteerism of the new Chinese arrivals, this organization grew from a small, narrowly focused social service institution, to one of the largest and most extensive providers in the lower Mainland, supplying numerous goods and services formerly controlled primarily by the province and the federal government. As a result of the actions of this voluntary organization, a type of interstitial organization that some scholars have termed under the rubric, 'the shadow state', conservative politicians in the 1980s were able to roll back many welfare state programmes in British Columbia without a corresponding loss of legitimacy occurring from the immediate truncation of services. The Business Immigration Programme thus aided in the entrenchment of a neo-liberal agenda both through the increased circulation of capital and articulation with Asian networks, and also through the devolution of direct welfare-state governance. I argue that this immigration programme thus represents one good example of the multiple ways that seemingly simple policy shifts can have much broader effects, and can entrench neo-liberal policy socially,culturally and institutionally as well as economically.     

Max Weber, Religion, and the Disenchantment of the World

This article offers a re-evaluation of Max Weber’s analyses of both the disenchantment of the world and the origins of capitalism.     

Democracy,the Market,and the Logic of Social Choice

This article compares the types of knowledge democracy and the market require to rationally allocate resources. I argue that high levels of public ignorance and voters’ inability to compare the effects of different parties’ policies make it difficult for parties and elections to rationally allocate resources. Markets mitigate these problems because the simultaneous existence of multiple firms’ products facilitates comparisons that mimic the conditions of scientific experimentation. The economy of knowledge involved in such comparisons indicates there are epistemic advantages to using firms and markets, instead of political parties and elections, to allocate scarce resources. However, in contrast to arguments that markets merely provide better information than political decisions, I argue markets’ epistemic advantages are derived from the way they facilitate comparisons that minimize decision makers’ need for knowledge or understanding.     

Political Integration, the Limited State, and the Philosophy of Postmodernism

From the standpoint of its critics, postmodernism represents the disintegration of the modern philosophical and ethical tradition into relativism and corrosive scepticism. But it may also be seen in a more positive light. I do not mean the light shed by the uncritical optimism of defenders who identify it with openness and true toleration. I mean, rather, that it may be seen as a step towards a more modest conception of man and of politics than has characterized the past two centuries. This modesty as yet assumes only a precarious form in postmodern thought, but ways are suggested here by which it may be reinforced. In particular, so far as politics are concerned, the postmodern stress upon difference appears to point towards a rediscovery of the contemporary relevance of the classical ideal of civil association. It is this ideal which represents the most effective means of coming to terms with the 'new politics' which postmodernism represents the politics, that is, of 'inclusion', devoted to hitherto excluded sexual, racial, and ecological issues. In so far as this interpretation of postmodernism is a plausible one, it lends some support to the view of Agnes Heller and Ferenc Feher that we may be entering an era of 'settling in', following upon the era of ideology. To give their precise words: 'If modernity is the drama of permanent revolution, postmodernity may be characterized as the epic of settling-in.' (The Postmodern Political Condition, p.158.) Out of the disintegration of philosophy and the critique of liberal foundational doctrine, then, it may be that the way is being paved for a more viable framework for limited politics.     

Globalization, Europeanization, Complexity, and the Future of Scandinavian Exceptionalism

Throughout much of the twentieth century, the Scandinavian countries have been a problem for leftist and rightist visions of global order because, with various adaptations, they have continued to successfully develop on their exceptional path of market openness and social inclusiveness. How can this be explained? From a traditional social‐science perspective, it cannot. However, from a complexity perspective, where there are no rigid hegemonic fundamental human orders such as globalization and Europeanization, nation‐states evolve through complex adaptation with their global surroundings. From this perspective, diversity and exceptionalism—not order—are the norm.