The American Presidential Election 2012: Anybody's Guess

The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States in November 2008 was an electric moment for the whole world, a shock in the course of history. The world's most powerful democracy had chosen a black man from a humble background, grandson of a Kenyan peasant who had risen to be a cook in the British Army. It was a truly amazing reaffirmation of the equal opportunity for all that is the stuff of the American dream. Shirley Williams examines the upcoming election and the players.     

Legislative Self‐Restraint Under Divided Government In Germany, 1976–2002

Using the Vanberg (1998) model of legislative autolimitation from the judicial review literature, we investigated the impact of divided government on the strategic choices of government and opposition. The main prediction of the model is that a strong opposition dominance in the second chamber (Bundesrat) usually does not lead to open party‐political conflict, but rather to a government's legislative self‐restraint. We tested the hypotheses following from the model on a detailed dataset comprising all legislative bills in Germany between 1976 and 2002. The results show that the main effects of divided government are, in fact, indirect and anticipatory. We conclude that when majorities in the Bundestag and Bundesrat diverge, the impact on legislation is substantial.