The ‘Too Difficult Box’: Its Temptations and How to Avoid Them

Within our democratic political system too many of the pressing and serious political, economic and social challenges of our times are delayed or put off, deposited in the ‘Too Difficult Box’. This happens for a variety of reasons which include failure correctly to identify the best solution, failure to understand obstructions in implementing the proposed solution, difficulties in placating or overcoming a range of vested interests, glitches in circumnavigating a range of legal constraints, lack of appreciation of the international dimension of the issue, succumbing to the vicissitudes of the political process and evaporation of the necessary political creativity and energy. It is a responsibility of democratic politics to find ways of dealing with these problems, through more collaborative or consensual politics if necessary. Otherwise citizens will lose confidence in the ability of democracy to solve the problems which concern them.     

"Its not like that round here": Region, economic evaluations and voting at the 1992 British General Election

Abstract. Accounting for regional divides in British electoral behaviour during the 1980s has proved controversial. Critics have argued that, once individual characteristics are taken into account, regional context is unimportant. Supporters of the regional divide have pointed to the connection between economic conditions and voting, but have been unable to show direct links between local economies and voters' decisions. The paper employs new data to examine the controversy. Voters at the 1992 General Election are shown to judge their regional economies, and to act on those judgements, even when their personal positions are controlled for.     

The internal development of the Ukrainian parliament

At the time of independence, parliaments in Central and Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union were highly underdeveloped institutions. Since that time, many parliaments have begun the process of building legislative capacity in order to participate more fully in the process of governance. One aspect of building legislative capacity is the internal structure of the parliament. This article examines the internal development of one of these parliaments—the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine—focusing on the legislative process, the budget process, the committee system and faction organization. The article identifies where progress has been made in each of these areas, and points to key aspects that require critical attention in order to ensure future progress. Finally, it discusses how one development project—the Parliamentary Development Project—has used a ‘comparative action research’ approach to aid key decision makers in the Verkhovna Rada in building legislative capacity.     

SOCIOECONOMIC DISPARITIES UNDER DETERMINATE SENTENCING SYSTEMS: A COMPARISON OF PREGUIDELINE AND POSTGUIDELINE PRACTICES IN MINNESOTA*

After a brief review of determinate sentencing systems, this study examines the impact of Minnesota's determinate sentencing law on various presentence and sentencing outcomes. Using comparable pre- and postguideline measures, the results of this study suggest that Minnesota's reform effort was largely successful in reducing disparity within the scope of the new guidelines. However, although the direct impact of socioeconomic attributes of the offender diminished, these characteristics continued to influence sentencing decisions indirectly through various presentence decisions and case attributes not governed by the guidelines Different models of charge bargaining and sentence negotiations are also observed when pre- and postguideline models are compared. Yet, the determinants of these time-specific models are not consistent with the assumptions of a circumvention argument. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research evaluating the impact of determinate sentencing systems on achieving social neutrality in the application of criminal sanctions.     

In Search of Killer Amendments In the Modern U.S. House

Numerous studies have examined the incidence of killer amendments in Congress, but most of these studies have been either case specific, focusing on the legislative maneuverings around a single issue or bill, or temporally limited, focusing on strategic activity in only one or two Congresses. In this article, we present the beginning of a comprehensive research agenda for the systematic study of killer amendments. Using roll‐call data from the 83d through the 108th U.S. House (1953–2004), we identified those bills that (a) were successfully amended and (b) subsequently went down to defeat, a necessary condition for the existence of a killer amendment. We then examined these cases in greater detail, using both spatial analyses and case studies. Our analysis uncovered five cases, four of which are new, that appear to have the characteristics of true killer amendments, thus setting the stage for future analyses across time and legislative chambers and bodies.