Constitutions for new democracies: Reflections of turmoil or agents of stability?

Despite the widely held view in newly emerging democracies that constitutions are mere words on paper or that parchment barriers cannot render a state stable or democratic, those who draft such documents commonly act as if words ARE of consequence. The difficulty, however, is that contemporaneous conflicts too easily intervene so as to corrupt the drafting process and to preclude optimal constitutional design. The specific principle of design most likely to be violated is the proposition that we treat all parts of the constitution as an interconnected whole and that we not try to assess the consequences of one part without appreciating the full meaning of all other parts. This essay illustrates this violation by looking at the new Russian constitution, ratified by direct popular vote in December 1993, with special attention paid to that document's treatment of federalism. We offer the additional argument, however, that even contemporary research in political institutional design pays insufficient heed to this principle.     

Federalism and the European Union: A constitutional perspective

Constitutional questions have resurfaced in the last few years with regard to the European Union. The Maastricht Treaty is a kind of constitutional reform. The rejection of this treaty by Denmark in its first referendum, and the subsequent debate of the treaty that has taken place, raise questions about both the nature of the European Union, and the process by which its rules (constitution) get revised and approved. Similar questions surround the entry of Austria and the three, additional Scandinavian countries into the Union. Perhaps, no event called the European Union's constitution, or lack thereof, into question more that way in which a new President of the Commission was chosen during the summer of 1994. This paper will reexamine the European Union's structure and procedures from a constitutional perspective. Drawing upon the author's recently completed book, Constitutional Democracy, the paper will review the purpose for the Union's existence, the implications of this purpose for the structure of the Union (federalism versus confederation), the rules for making collective decisions in the Union, citizenship, and in particular, the procedures by which the European Union's “Constitution” is written and revised. The constitutional perspective adopted is taken from public choice. The political institutions of the European Union are examined relative to those rational, self-interested individuals would choose to advance their interests.     

Gerrymandering and the Voting Rights Act of 1982: A public choice analysis of turnover in the U.S. House of Representatives

The present paper uses various data sets and statistical techniques to examine the outcome of gerrymandering under the Voting Rights Act of 1982 on turnover rates in the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as the competitiveness in Party primaries for House seats. Evidence presented here suggests that political redistricting at the federal level (namely for U.S. House seats) has tended to favor incumbents in both the Party primaries and general elections. In fact, some results suggest that turnover rates (for 1988) are between 8.9 and 10.3 percentage points lower within states that engaged in such redistricting efforts. Our findings generally support the main tenets of the public choice view of legislator behavior.     

Dimensions of self-esteem and psychological symptoms among chinese adolescents in Hong Kong

Self-esteem and psychological symptoms were assessed in a sample of 1082 Chinese adolescents who responded to the Chinese versions of Coopersmith's Self-Esteem Inventory and the General Health Questionnaire. Three dimensions of self-esteem, interpreted as Family Acceptance/Rejection, Self-Depreciation, and Peer Affirmation/Disaffirmation, were found to relate substantially to general psychological symptoms and particularly to specific symptoms of anxiety, social dysfunction, and depression as reported by these adolescents. The implications of the relative importance of appraisal from internal feedback as sources of self-esteem as opposed to the external feedback from family and peers were discussed in relation to self-esteem enhancement in adolescents.Received his Ph.D. from the University of Western Ontario in 1978. His research interests include self-esteem, stress, coping, health and psychopathology.Received her Ph.D. from the University of South Dakota in 1983. Her research interests include stress, coping and health, and geriatric psychology.     

Ideology and Political Alienation

A substantial literature over the years has focused on the relationship between political alienation and ideology. Much of this research contends that conservatives are more alienated than liberals because philosophically they believe that the best government is that which governs least. A close reading of the literature, however, reveals little consistency in the empirical findings. Survey data from Norway, Sweden, and the United States are used to provide a more extensive and consistent test of the hypothesis. Ideology is defined as both left/right self-identification and policy preference on economic and "new political" issues. The evidence reveals that in Scandinavia higher levels of alienation are found among conservatives, whereas in the US the left has been consistently more alienated, except on "new politics" issues. The discrepancy between the citizen's preferred ideological orientation and that which the public perceives the government to take, is used to explain the different findings for the three countries and the shifts in the relationship between ideology and alienation across time.     

Dealignment, spatial polarisation and economic voting

Abstract. Estimates of voting by occupational class are provided for each of 22 regions in the UK for every general election since 1964. These are analysed, using a log-linear modelling strategy, to identify the changing degree of class dealignment and spatial polarisation within the British electorate over the period. The growing regional variability is consistent with expectations regarding the increasing volume of economic voting and the pattern of uneven development in the country: the north-south and urban-rural divides have both widened.     

Popularity functions based on the partisan theory

This paper presents popularity function estimates for U.S. presidents which are based on a model in which voters' evaluations reflect an understanding of partisan reputations for differing policies.I am indebted to J.C. Siebrand, F.A.A.M. van Winden and an anonymous referee for many useful suggestions.