The Meaning of Federalism in The Federalist: A Critical Examiniation of the Diamond Theses

Language poses a serious problem in political discourse whenterms like federalism come to mean anything, everything, andnothing. An issue of some importance is how "confederation"was conceptualized in The Federalist, how that conceptualizationwas subject to critical analysis, especially in Federalist 15and 16, and how the resolution of that critique contributedto the conceptualization of a federal system of governance.This essay was written in response to a re-reading of MartinDiamon's essay on "The Federalist's View of Federalism." Theposition taken is that the theory of constitutional choice usedto articulate the arguments in The Federalist provides the appropriatelogic for construing the meaning of federalism despite the ambiguitiesof language contained in The Federalist.     

Heterogeneous Preferences and Collective Action

In recent years, scholarshave turned to alternative representationsof utility to capture motivationalheterogeneity across individuals. In theresearch reported here, we examine twomodels of heterogeneous utility –linear-altruism and inequity-aversion – inthe context of two-person, social dilemmagames. Empirical tests are conducteddrawing on data from experiments andsurveys. We find that the model ofinequity-aversion accounts for asubstantial proportion of the preferencetypes and behavior that are not explainedby the standard model of self-interestedpreferences. In contrast, the altruismmodel does not provide a significantincrease in explanatory power over theinequity-aversion model.     

AN ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVE ON DEMOCRATIC DILEMMAS

This is a comment stimulated by the article entitled "Scattered Thoughts on a Democratic Dilemma, by Nicholas Henry (PSR, August 1984). A reconstruction of part of the argument made by Henry is presented and an alternative view of the democratic process is sketched. The democratic process is viewed more as a problem solving process than a clout exercising process.     

A Tale of Two Laws: The U.S. Congress Confronts Habeas Corpus Petitions and Section 1983 Lawsuits

Actions by state prisoners have comprised a large and growing body of litigation in the U.S. federal courts over the past thirty years. State prisoners can challenge the validity of their state trial court convictions (habeas corpus petitions) and the constitutionality of the conditions of their confinement to state prisons and jails (Section 1983 lawsuits). Currently, one out of every five civil cases filed in the federal system is brought by a jail or prison inmate. When in the past did these cases begin to arise? What is the present trend? What does the future hold concerning the number of cases likely to be filed? These questions are at the heart of the current research. Care is needed in addressing these queries because it is neither easy nor obvious to know what propels the volume of litigation. Moreover, the future is especially difficult to predict in light of recent legislation adopted by the United States Congress to limit the number of habeas corpus petitions and the number of Section 1983 lawsuits filed each year. The unique contribution of the current research is threefold. First, an improved methodology is used to describe past patterns and to forecast future trends. Simply stated, prisoner litigation is hypothesized to be related to the number of prisoners. As the number of prisoners increases, the volume of litigation increases proportionately. What is not obvious about this relationship is that it has persisted over the past decades despite substantial changes in legal doctrines designed to affect the filing of the litigation. Second, the effects of two major congressional actions passed in 1996 to limit prisoner litigation are examined and assessed for their success in achieving their intended objectives. The first of these, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which sought to restrict habeas corpus petitions, is judged to have virtually no impact. The second piece of legislation, the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act, which sought to curtail lawsuits against correctional officials, appears to have lowered the volume of litigation in the short‐term, but has not disrupted the underlying link between the number of prisoners and the number of lawsuits. Finally, estimates are made of the future volume of litigation and the corresponding number of federal judges needed to resolve prisoner litigation. These estimates have the advantage of being based on significant statistical relationships and accounting for the effects of recent congressional action.     

漫长的多中心之旅

本文讨论了我的个人经历、我们之中与印第安纳大学政治理论与政策分析研究所相关的许多人的努力,即研究在不同背景下,制度是如何影响行动和后果的。首先,我回顾了我作为年轻学子的经历和我的早期职业生涯,旨在激励那些面对难题的人们。然后,我讨论了我们的制度分析和我们对于都市治理和公共池塘资源的研究,这些研究帮助我逐步发展了分析复杂制度的较为一般的框架。这一框架已经能够使我们发掘和分析制度结构、行为和后果,做出和检验内在一致的预测,并且建立更好的理论。最后,我就未来学术发展方向,与大家分享了一些看法。     

Reflections on Vincent Ostrom,Public Administration,and Polycentricity

Among Vincent Ostrom's many contributions to the study of public administration, policy, and political science, the concept of polycentricity remains his single most important legacy. This essay locates the origins of this concept in Ostrom's early research on resource management in the Western United States and demonstrates its continuing influence throughout The Intellectual Crisis in Public Administration, The Political Theory of a Compound Republic, and his other major publications. Although typically pigeonholed within the confines of the public choice tradition, Ostrom's body of work should be widely appreciated as an early statement of the critical importance of network forms of governance in democratic societies.     

Analyzing the dynamic complexity of development interventions: lessons from an irrigation experiment in Nepal

Improving irrigation systems in Asian countries has been a high priority for the allocation of international aid. Substantial funds have been allocated to adopt the “best practices” of hiring external water engineers to construct modern systems to replace those that farmers built. These expensive investments have infrequently led to long-term improvement in the operation of irrigation systems in Asia. In this article, we examine the process and impact of an innovative irrigation assistance project that was initially undertaken in Nepal in the mid-1980s. We analyze data obtained over three time periods related to changes in system structure and performance over time. We trace the unfolding patterns of improved engineering infrastructure across time depending on the way it interacts with other factors to affect long-term irrigation performance. We examine some of the key variables that are likely to affect the diverse and complex patterns of change. We also undertake analysis of the configural impact of core variables using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). We find that the initial and later investments in system infrastructure are only one factor that helps to generate short-term improvement. Unless farmers encourage local entrepreneurs and organize themselves, create their own rules or use sanctions, and augment their rules through collective action, infrastructure investment alone is not sufficient to achieve sustainable higher performance.