Partisan dealignment and committee power in five Westminster parliaments

What explains the power of parliamentary committees? A large literature on the United States Congress sees strong legislative committees as a consequence of legislators’ incentives to cultivate a personal vote. These incentives are typically understood to be determined by formal electoral rules. How legislatures are elected thus shapes how they are organised. This article argues that explanations of legislative organisation should also consider a non-institutional source of personal vote-seeking incentives: voters’ partisanship. Where partisan dealignment is more extensive, legislators have stronger incentives to develop a personal vote. Where committee systems are more powerful, legislators have better opportunities to do so. Partisan dealignment should thus lead to stronger committee systems. This argument is supported by analysis of original data on the postwar evolution of committee systems in five ‘Westminster’ parliaments. Partisan dealignment is associated with larger committee systems, and with larger expansions of committee systems.     

Culture Change in Three Taxation Administrations: From Command-and-Control to Responsive Regulation

Law and policy is one thing, but their implementation and administration is affected by organizational cultures. Meidinger has argued that knowledge of regulatory and organizational cultures assists understanding of how law and policy work in practice. This article examines three revenue administrations that are moving from a command-and-control style of regulation to a more persuasive and responsive style of regulation. The central argument is that there is a determining step in the process of clarification, reconciliation, responsiveness, and design of a tax system. That step is the extent to which organizational culture can be changed to embrace inclusive discussion and creative solutions to the administration of tax law and policy.