Parties' Influence during Government Policy Negotiations: Parliamentary Dynamics and Spatial Advantages in the First Italian Republic

As long as parties are interested in policies, they will always have incentives for influencing the cabinet bargaining process, although they do not necessarily shape its outcome to the same extent. Being a member of the invested government, for example, should increase the leverage a party enjoys when bargaining over the cabinet programme. Nevertheless, depending on institutional and political conditions, non-cabinet parties may also play a role in affecting cabinet policy positions. Despite being widely recognised in the theoretical literature, this point has received considerably less attention in empirical studies. By focusing on cabinet bargaining outcomes during the First Italian Republic, the article shows that spatial advantages associated with parliamentary dynamics, including those possessed by non-cabinet parties, can be no less significant in capturing policy payoffs than government membership, even after controlling for other relevant institutional and behavioural factors.     

Improving the Relevance of Parliamentary Institutions: An Examination of Legislative Pre-budget Consultations in British Columbia

This study examines the influence of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services in the budgetary process in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The mandate of this committee is to conduct pre-budget consultations every year to seek the opinion of the population on the content of the next provincial budget. Many have recommended increasing use of legislative committees to bring back relevance to parliamentary institutions in Canada. It is believed that legislative committees provide an environment that is less conducive to partisan confrontations and can help in building the policy expertise of parliamentarians. Using interviews with committee members and a survey among participants in pre-budget consultations, this was found to be the case. The main finding points to the potential of legislative committees in performing a representative function because they can put forward the views of the public as part of the budgetary process.     

Free Vote Patterns in the New South Wales State Parliament

This research note examines patterns of MPs’ voting behaviour during ‘conscience’ or ‘free’ votes on three ‘morality politics’ issues in the lower house of the New South Wales state parliament in Australia: adoption rights for gay couples; scientists’ use of therapeutic cloning; and the status of the Sydney Medically Supervised Injection Centre. First, the research note reviews the literature on conscience voting and hypothesises that party will be the main predictor of voting patterns, but also establishes that previous studies have almost exclusively focused on national legislatures. Next the research note discusses methodological issues. Third, it presents the analysis of free vote patterns in the New South Wales parliament on the three ‘morality politics’ issues, along four key variables: party; sex; social ideology; and religion. The analysis of voting in the New South Wales parliament challenges existing explanations of free voting, where party is the key predictor of voting patterns. Intra-party unity figures show that party membership is a weaker predictor of voting behaviour in the two main political parties in New South Wales than in either the Australian parliament or in overseas parliaments. It is argued that at the subnational level other factors are more important in explanations of free vote patterns.     

Ideas,Economics and 'the Sociology of Supply': Explanations for Fertility Decline in Bangladesh

The persistence of high rates of fertility in Bangladesh, despite the poverty of its population, has been given alternative, and apparently competing, explanations, including the absence of effective forms of family planning, the resilience of pro-natalist values and norms and the existence of material constraints which led to the reliance on children as economic assets. The recent and dramatic declines in fertility rates, in the absence of any apparent major economic changes in the decades prior to the onset of fertility decline, appears to contradict materialist explanations for fertility behaviour and to support explanations which stressed ideas about the acceptability of birth control and the availability of the means for doing so. This article argues that such an interpretation is based on an historical analysis of events in Bangladesh. It offers an alternative explanation which stresses socio-economic change as the primary motor for change in family size preferences, but which recognises the role of modern forms of family planning in facilitating the pace of the resulting fertility decline.     

Coalitional presidentialism and legislative control in post-Soviet Ukraine

Two political scientists explore the significance of pro-presidential legislative coalitions in Ukrainian politics since 2000. They draw on an original survey of MPs and cabinet data to engage with the extant analysis of coalitional politics in Ukraine. Using the framework of “coalitional presidentialism,” which was first developed in the study of Latin American presidential systems, they find evidence to suggest that legislative coalitions are a meaningful feature of Ukrainian legislative life, and point to the tools that presidents use to maintain them.     

政策制定与公民参与

公民参与表明了一种全新的公民责任、权利以及治理的观念。从其意义上看 ,公民参与可使政策制定所需要的智慧、知识以及信息得到相辅相成的运用 ;公民参与能够确保政策的正当性 ;公民参与有利于发展组织的凝聚力 ;公民参与以全体组织成员的合意为前提 ,有助于政策执行。公民对政策制定的参与途径是多种多样的。从西方国家的成功经验看 ,立法听证会、行政听证会、政策研讨会、“赛博”(cyber)等 ,都为公民直接参与政策制定起到了积极作用 ,这些也对中国政策理论和实践研究有一定启迪。     

Domestic scrutiny of European Union politics: Between whistle blowing and opposition control

Some European law proposals are subject to scrutiny by national parliaments while others go unchecked. The analysis in this article indicates that the opposition scrutinises European Union law to gather information on the proceedings inside the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. Yet whereas strong opposition parties scrutinise highly politicised law proposals, weak opposition parties tend to scrutinise those proposals that are negotiated under the non‐transparent fast‐track procedure. In addition, there is ample evidence that the leading minister initiates scrutiny in order to strengthen his or her intergovernmental bargaining leverage. Yet, this Schelling Conjecture presumes that the party of the minister is located between the expected bargaining position in the Council and the coalition partner. Any other domestic interest constellation could lead to scrutiny motivated by whistle blowing. However, an issue's salience helps us to separate the whistle blowing from the Schelling Conjecture.     

论我国船舶所有权登记的属性

本文针对我国目前对船舶所有权登记的行政管理属性的认识 ,提出船舶所有权登记应包括实体和程序两方面 ,均具有私法性 ,而船舶所有权登记在不同的物权变动立法模式下具有不同的制度配置。论文在分析《海商法》和《船舶登记条例》现存问题的基础上 ,提出了相应修改建议     

探矿与采矿权权利流转立法刍议

探矿权采矿权具有物权性质。立法把探矿权采矿权认定为物权性质有利于探矿采矿权的自由流转,有利于促进国家矿产资源的充分开发,也有利于保障探矿采矿权人的合法权益。探矿权采矿权的自由流转对于促进探矿采矿事业健康发展具有积极意义,但我国原有立法对探矿权采矿权流转的限制性规定较多。建议立法开宗明义地规定探矿采矿权可以流转,并明确权利流转的具体形式;探矿采矿权流转过程要公开化;应取消和减少探矿采矿权流转的有关限制性规定。     

论我国最高人民法院的立法功能——从司法解释的角度

自20世纪80年代以来,我国最高人民法院的"司法解释"呈现出了准立法属性.这种司法立法现象发挥着弥补成文法缺陷、发展续造法律等独特的功能,因而有其存在的合理性和必要性,但是由于与传统宪政分权理论相悖、缺乏民主合法性等原因,它又受到人们的质疑.事实上,只要采用适当的措施和机制,我国最高人民法院完全可以趋利避害,在有效发挥司法立法的独特功能的同时,缓解乃至消除司法立法在正当性上的瑕疵.