Dueling Revenue Caps and Municipal Bond Yields: The Case of Houston,Texas

Two competing revenue cap proposals, one from a citizen's group and the other proposed by the mayor, were on the November 2004, election ballot of the City of Houston, Texas. Both propositions passed, yet the citizen's group had to sue to have their initiative enforced. This study examines the effect on Houston bond yields of the series of events (from June 2004 through March 2006) surrounding these dueling revenue cap propositions. The empirical findings suggest that the budget‐related events can have a significant effect on yields demanded by investors in the secondary market for outstanding uninsured tax‐exempt general obligation debt.     

The Aversion to Direct Cost Imposition: Selecting Climate Policy Tools in the United States

Numerous policy tools could be employed in attempting to mitigate climate change through reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Direct cost imposition through the taxation of carbon content of fossil fuels has long enjoyed support from diverse policy analysts but has proven highly difficult to advance politically in the United States and many other nations. This article considers the evolving American experience in climate policy tool selection, including extended engagement by many states over the past decade and growing federal involvement in recent Congresses. It demonstrates the enduring aversion to direct cost imposition as opposed to other policy options. This includes a brief period in late 2008 and early 2009 when prospects for direct cost imposition heightened markedly at the federal level but collapsed quickly in favor of a mélange of other approaches that are likely to be less efficient but also less direct in their imposition of costs. The article concludes with considerations of other methods to advance direct cost imposition in the American case.     

The Emotional Deficit in Political Communication

As a consequence of social changes which have weakened the boundaries between different spheres of life, politics is now interwoven with popular culture. This means that we now seek certain kinds of emotionalized experience from politics. The relationship of people to politics has changed, and has come more fully to resemble a mode of consumption. While this consumerization of politics has been much described (and criticized), its implications for the place of emotion in political communications have not been explored. From a base in the sociology of emotion, this article undertakes such an exploration. It notes how some analysts of political communication have already registered the influence of emotional states, and stresses how contemporary emotionality differs from traditional conceptions of the emotional as a domain separable from rationality and as an optional button for message strategists to press. The complexity and omnipresence of emotional states is emphasised. Political advertising is taken as one area where a sophistication of messages to match the complexity and power of audience emotions might have been expected to develop, but does not appear to have done so yet to a great extent. Making good this "emotional deficit" in political communications is not primarily a way for particular parties or candidates to gain electoral advantage (though it could be that), but is essential for the regeneration of the democratic process and the creation of a more viable settlement between reason and emotion in contemporary society.     

Representation in the English House of Commons: The New Boroughs, 1485–1640

SUMMARY

In this paper Norman Ball re-examines the well recognised process of enlarging the House of Commons in the Tudor and early Stuart periods by the creation of new, or the revival of old parliamentary boroughs. The usual explanation of the phenomenon has been that it met pressures from local gentry for wider access to parliamentary seats. The paper questions this interpretation, noting the new seats often appeared in areas that were already well provided with borough places. On the basis of a geographical analysis of the new boroughs it is shown that there was a preponderance of creations in the lands of the two royal duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster. It goes on to suggest that the main motive behind the creations was the need of the crown and its advisers to find places for reliable members who could assist the royal business managers in carrying through an expanding volume of parliamentary business.     

The Sacred Kingdom and the Royal Wedding of 2011

Despite secularisation and increased religious diversity the UK state and the monarchy are religiously legitimated institutions which have their origins in protestant/catholic divisions over three hundred years ago but which remain strong enough to survive in the current era. The Church of England acts not only as the established church of England but as a church for the UK with respect to events such as the coronation and the royal wedding of 2011. Ecumenical and interfaith initiatives have been attempted by the government and the monarchy and were evident in attendance at the wedding but it demonstrated the ritual supremacy of the state church and the inevitable difficulties of seeking to achieve formal representation for religious diversity in the state. Attempts at more formally inclusive religious involvement in state institutions conflict with other goals such as gender equity and suggest that secular state institutions might be fairer to all religions, denominations and those with no beliefs.     

Agenda Control in Congress: Evidence from Cutpoint Estimates and Ideal Point Uncertainty

This article develops two new tests of partisan and nonpartisan theories of lawmaking based on cutpoint estimates and measures of uncertainty about ideal point estimates. Theories of congressional organization make explicit predictions about the absence of cutpoints in certain intervals of the policy space. We test these theories with new cutpoint estimates and exploit the fact that the ideal points of members located far from the density of cutpoints are necessarily estimated with less precision. We validate our empirical approach through simulations, and we test three models of congressional organization using House roll call data from the 86th through the 110th Congresses (1959–2008). We find strong evidence of partisan agenda control. Our findings exhibit modest differences from the results predicted by Cox and McCubbins's party cartel theory: negative agenda control increases over time and is negatively correlated with the size of the blockout region.     

The 2006 Election and the American Future

President Bush decidedly lost the 2006 US congressional, senatorial and state gubernatorial and legislative elections, but did the Democrats win? They are somewhat revived and hopeful about the presidential contest of 2008. Their profound inner divisions, however, deprive them of capacity for sustained initiatives. Meanwhile, the imperial presidency thrives‐President Bush is defying both elite and public opinion. By escalating war in Iraq and preparing to attack Iran, we confront not just a new electoral cycle but a deepening crisis of US democracy.