Herrschaft des Gesetzes, Freiheit, Demokratie

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Capitalist models and social democracy: the case of New Labour

Some of the more critical readings of the adequacy and effectiveness of New Labour in power have been developed by scholars willing to link arguments about the trajectory of Labour politics to wider arguments about the character of the contemporary global economy and the space within it for the construction and development of distinctive capitalist models. Mark Wickham-Jones and Colin Hay in particular have made that linkage in a series of important writings on the contemporary Labour party. Their arguments are here subjected to critical review, and set against a third position on New Labour and global capitalism: one informed by the writings of Ralph Miliband on British Labour and by the arguments of Leo Panitch and Greg Albo on the limits of the 'progressive competitiveness' strategies associated with 'Third Way' social democratic governments.     

Could Japan become the 'Great Britain of the Far East?'

The United States' relationship with the United Kingdom was held up as the model for future US-Japan relations by the bipartisan writers of the so-called Armitage report published in October 2000 before the US election. The two new administrations in both Washington and Tokyo have signaled the potential for a revitalized US-Japan alliance. In this article, David Asher, associate director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), argues that it is high time the two countries work together to build a security and economic alliance between the US and Japan that is as committed and durable as that between the US and the UK. He concludes that although it will not be easy, if both countries combine forces there is no reason why this should not be possible.     

Money, Elections, and Democracy in Brazil

Brazis 1993 law requiring candidates to report their campaign contributions has generated a new source of data to explore the supposition that Brazilian elections are extraordinarily expensive. An examination of these data from Brazis 1994 and 1998 general elections reveals that most money for Brazilian electoral campaigns comes from business sources and that leftist candidates have extremely limited access to such financing. The effect on democracy is that Brazis largely unregulated campaign finance system tends to decrease the scope of interest representation.     

Examining Small Town Revenues: To What Extent Are They Diversified?

How diversified are small town revenues? Revenue diversification is analyzed among towns governed by town meetings. Using previously developed diversification measures, the findings confirm that these localities draw from less diverse revenue streams than other state and local governments. The reasons for these variations include differences in home rule status as well as tax and expenditure limitations imposed by states. The authors suggest that revenue allocation in these jurisdictions is substantively different from other forms of local government because these communities rely much less on sales taxation than states and municipalities. Their essay proposes possible options for improvement, along with other criteria by which small towns can assess their revenue diversification.     

Party Government and the "Cohesive Power of Public Plunder"

We argue that party government in the U.S. House of Representatives rests on two pillars: the pursuit of policy goals and the disbursement of particularistic benefits. Existing theories of party government argue that the majority party in the House is often successful in biasing policy outcomes in its favor. In the process, it creates "policy losers" among its own members who nevertheless support their party on procedural votes. We posit that the majority party creates an incentive for even the policy losers to support a procedural coalition through judicious distribution of particularistic benefits that compensates policy losers at a rate commensurate with the policy losses that they suffer. We evaluate our theory empirically using the concept of "roll rates" in conjunction with federal domestic outlays data for the period 1983–96. We find that, within the majority party, policy losers are favored in the distribution of "pork barrel" spending throughout this period.