On the (mis)measurement of legislator ideology and shirking

In this paper, we show that current statistical measures of legislator's shirking are implicitly based on the electoral concept of a unique majority rule equilibrium point in the policy space where elections are contested. We note that such equilibria do not exist generically and present statistical results showing that cross-sectional regressions where legislators' voting indices are predicted by district average demograhic and economic data are mis-specified. We also discuss a weaker equilibrium construct, the uncovered set, and present statistical evidence showing that differences in voting behavior between Senators from the same state are positively related to the heterogeneity of the electorate. We argue that current evidence alleged to show shirking by Senators is equally consistent with Senators who perfectly represent an idiosyncratic constituency that cannot be represented by district average data.     

Paradoxes of electoral authoritarianism: the 2015 Ethiopian elections as hegemonic performance

The 2015 elections in Ethiopia had a predictable outcome, showing an entrenched system of one-party dominance that self-referentially enacts the political order created by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) since 1991. EPRDF spokespersons continued to defend the party’s hegemony as inevitable, grounded in a logic of technocratic authority and with reference to ‘stability’ and ‘development’. This paper describes the electoral process not in the light of democracy theory but of hegemonic governance theory. Elections seem to have lost relevance in Ethiopia as a means of political expression and are only important as a performance of hegemonic governance and as ‘global impression management’ – showing state skills in securing a smooth electoral process as a major organisational feat in itself. Contradictions that the political process creates between the Ethiopian party-state and domestic constituencies, and between the attitudes/policies of certain donor countries, are downplayed or avoided, but problematic in the long run.     

Comprehending disclosure: must patients understand the risks they run?

It is well known that competent patients must be told about the risks of proposed medical procedures. This paper argues that recent professional guidelines and the law of negligence now take matters further by requiring doctors to take reasonable steps in an attempt to ensure that patients understand the risks they are being invited to run, so facilitating meaningful choices and the opportunity to give a properly informed consent.     

The Triumph of the Non‐Idealist Intellectuals? An Investigation of Fiji's 1999 Election Results

This paper examines the results of Fiji's 1999 elections. It looks at the reasons for the overwhelming victory of the Fiji Labour Party and the extent of voting across Fiji's racial divide. The paper argues that there was, in fact, very small indigenous Fijian support for the FLP. The victory of the Fiji Labour Party instead owed its origins to (i) the collapse in the vote for the major rival Indo-Fijian party, the National Federation Party, (ii) the rise of the newly-formed Christian Democratic Alliance and the associated fall in the vote for the former Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka's SVT and (iii) the introduction of the preferential voting system. The paper concludes with a critical examination of the new voting system, arguing that proportional representation might be better suited for Fiji's specific political situation.     

Governors-General during Pacific Island constitutional crises and the role of the Crown

Links with the Crown are often thought to play a largely ‘symbolic’ role in the contemporary politics of the Pacific Islands. Yet the Queen appoints Governors-General for three Pacific Island states, albeit acting on advice, and did so in Fiji until that country became a Republic in October 1987. All four countries have witnessed constitutional crises in which the Governor-General has played a critical role. This paper examines those crises, and other occasions that have tested the link with the Crown. It argues that the common minimalist defence of such institutions (influenced by one reading of Walter Bagehot's well-known views) – i.e. that such arrangements tend to work better than republican or presidential alternatives by elevating a relatively disinterested arbiter to broker political transitions – misses the fact that realm territories have tended to face similar and comparable difficulties to those Pacific nations that abandoned the link with the British Crown at independence, and that these issues have been no better or no worse handled by Governors-General than by locally selected Heads of State.