Plus ça change: Electoral law reform and the 2008 Romanian parliamentary elections

Romania reformed the law governing its parliamentary elections between 2004 and 2008, shifting from a complex proportional representation system based on county-level party lists to a complex uninominal system in which each district for the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate elects one representative. The change in law emerged after more than a year of heated political controversies, including partisan and personal animosity between President Basescu and Prime Minister Tariceanu, a failed attempt at impeachment, a deadlocked special electoral commission, a failed popular referendum, an unfavorable constitutional court ruling, and a confusing final accord brokered under deadline. Qualitative comparison of the 2004 and 2008 laws reveals that the heralded reform merely added an additional layer of calculation to the previous electoral system. Quantitative analysis using counterfactual estimation reveals that the new law had absolutely zero effect on the partisan outcome. In the conclusion, we explore the implications of these findings for Romanian politics and the politics of electoral reform more generally.     

The concept of the level playing field: Assessing fairness in electoral competition

In 2019, the High Court of Australia used the term ‘level playing field’ no less than 18 times when considering limits on electoral campaign expenditure. This article examines the usefulness of this metaphor when assessing the opportunity to compete in elections on an equal basis. It shows that the metaphor is often used in electoral jurisprudence and by electoral monitoring bodies, but rarely subject to analysis. One place where it has been analysed is in the democratisation literature, where it is defined in terms of access to state resources, media, and the law. However, it needs further elaboration to make it useful in analysing the fairness of electoral competition in established democracies. The assumption of only two teams, incumbents and opposition, needs to be modified through considering the hierarchy of incumbency benefits. A case study of the 2019 Australian federal election illustrates the differential access to state resources of electoral contenders as well as the need to add the role of private money to the attributes of the playing field. It finds that although there has been some levelling of the playing field at the State and Territory level, at the federal level there has been further tilting.     

Palliative sedation in the Netherlands: starting-points and contents of a national guideline

In December 2005 the first national guideline for palliative sedation in the Netherlands was published. This guideline was developed by a committee of the Royal Dutch Medical Association, at the request of the Dutch government. The guideline defines palliative sedation as 'the intentional lowering of consciousness of a patient in the last phase of his or her life'. According to the guideline the objective of palliative sedation is to relieve suffering, and lowering consciousness is a means to achieve this. It is very important that palliative sedation is given for the right indication, proportionally, and adequately. It is the degree of symptom control, not the level to which consciousness is lowered, which determines the dose and combinations of the sedatives used and duration of treatment. The assessment and decision-making processes must focus on adequate relief of the patient's suffering, so that a peaceful and acceptable situation is created. Palliative sedation is given in the last phase of life, in the imminently dying patient. Palliative sedation raises several legal questions. In this article we describe the structure and contents of the guideline, with special attention for the main legal issues involved, like the distinction between palliative sedation and euthanasia and the process of informed consent.     

“Forced Adoption” in the Australian Story of National Regret and Apology*

This essay places the long‐standing campaign for redress and apology of women separated from their children through adoption in an historical and political context, tracing the rise of the single mother as a political voice through the Council for the Single Mother and her Child and the emergence of birth mother advocacy groups. The political actions of these mothers must be seen alongside the two national apologies already delivered and the political activism which led to them. Activism for apologies for past wrongs ought be understood in terms of the contemporary Australian politics of apology in which, in the words of Hannah Arendt, “pity is elevated to the level of a political principle”. However, in the case of these mothers, the Australian story of national regret and apology is complicated by issues of gender and sexuality. The women, unlike the Stolen Generations, child migrants and institutionalised children, do not easily or readily fit within the terms of national apology as formulated in the apologies of 2008 and 2009 which were addressed primarily to wronged and innocent children. If and when an apology is addressed to these women, its terms will necessarily differ from the earlier apologies.     

Accountability in Australian Government: Towards the Year 2000

This symposium is based on a workshop held at the Australian National University on 27 March 1998, sponsored by the Australia Institute, the Centre for Australian Public Centre Management at Griffith University and the Institute of Public Administration, Australia. The Political Science Program, within the Research School of Social Sciences, at the ANU provided a congenial environment for the workshop. Marian Simms is grateful to Barry Hindess for his ongoing support for the 'Accountability in Australian Government' project. More particularly Christel Cools, Louise Sims and Wayne Naughton provided technical back-up. Peter McCarthy assisted with library research. Dhammika Dharmapala made useful comments on the final version.     

Expressing Conflict, Neutralizing Blame, and Making Concessions in Small‐Claims Mediation

This research examines the link between the way small‐claims mediation participants express their conflicts and their willingness to engage in concession‐making. Observations of seventy‐seven mediation participants suggest that a significant factor in this relationship is the way participants manage the issue of blame. The research identifies three categories of mediants: individuals named in a civil suit who represent themselves; agents, usually lawyers, who represent the interests of other parties in a civil suit; and business owners or managers who represent the interests of their establishments. The study depicts some of the differences in the way these participants describe their conflicts. In particular, the research suggests that the manner in which mediation participants handle the issue of blame – by either justifying, excusing, or denying it – constrains their willingness to engage in concession‐making, a fundamental aspect of the mediation process. I discuss implications for future research and for developing strategies that might improve the effectiveness of mediation for some participants.