Doubling Down: Inequality in Responsiveness and the Policy Preferences of Elected Officials

Is bias in responsiveness to constituents conditional on the policy preferences of elected officials? The scholarly conventional wisdom is that constituency groups who do not receive policy representation still obtain some level of responsiveness by legislators outside of the policy realm. In contrast, we present a theory of preference‐induced responsiveness bias where constituency responsiveness by legislators is associated with legislator policy preferences. Elected officials who favor laws that could disproportionately impact minority groups are also less likely to engage in nonpolicy responsiveness to minority groups. We conducted a field experiment in 28 US legislative chambers. Legislators were randomly assigned to receive messages from Latino and white constituents. If legislators supported voter identification laws, Latino constituents were less likely to receive constituency communications from their legislators. There are significant implications regarding fairness in the democratic process when elected officials fail to represent disadvantaged constituency groups in both policy and nonpolicy realms.     

当下中国能动司法的知识反思

当下中国的能动司法要充分发挥其积极作用并同时避免不利的实践与后果,就必须要恪守能动司法的限度;也即要处理好“能动”地司法与“依法”司法之间的关系,并在此基础之上型构起能动司法的边界。因而,这不仅意味着,当下中国司法场域里的能动司法,必须要认真对待法治的基本原则,甚至是“法条主义”;而且也意味着当下中国的司法改革,必须要摆脱长期以来西方二元对立的司法知识观对中国司法裁判与司法发展的宰制,以一种新的、当然也是适合于中国社会的司法知识观来引领中国的司法发展。     

Nothing personal: explaining the rise and decline of political machines in Ukraine

This article is the first to explore and compare the dynamics of party-building between the three main political forces that competed for power during the last decade in Ukraine – Viktor Yushchenko's Nasha Ukrayina (Our Ukraine), Yulia Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna (Fatherland), and Viktor Yanukovych's Partiya Rehioniv (Party of Regions). We show that their political trajectories can be explained by differences in their organizational structure and distribution of resources within the party's leadership. When a party depends on resources linked primarily to one individual, it will develop a personalized decision-making structure advantaging its leader, and the party's fortunes will be tied to the popularity (or lack of same) of the leader. By contrast, when a party relies equally on resources from several groups, a more consociational style of decision-making is likely to emerge. Using Ukraine as a case study, the article shows that personality-led parties will be more vulnerable to defections and less capable of absorbing potential competitors. On the other hand, coalition-led parties are better capable of surviving defeats, maintaining internal cohesion, and merging with like-minded parties.     

From the ruble zone to the euro zone: the political economy of Estonian macroeconomic policy

This article analyzes Estonian macroeconomic policy since the country regained independence in 1991. Estonia was the first post-communist country to introduce a currency board in 1992, and consecutive governments have systematically prioritized macroeconomic stability and fiscal prudence. Estonia implemented an internal devaluation in 2008–2009, which enabled it to become the first post-Soviet republic to adopt the euro in 2011. This article explores the origins of the currency board and shows how institutions, interests, and ideas have contributed to Estonian exceptionalism in macroeconomic policy and to euro adoption. It demonstrates that the Estonian experience can shed light on the political prerequisites of internal devaluations, which may be of great relevance both to current and future Central and Eastern European euro area members.     

Laissez-faire versus Strict Control of Political Finance: Hegemonic Parties and Developmental States in Malaysia and Singapore

ABSTRACT

This article compares the financing of political parties and candidates in two Southeast Asian countries. In Malaysia, some political finance regulations exist only on paper, and political financing is for the most part not restrained at all. In contrast, the financing of candidates and parties has always been tightly circumscribed in Singapore. These different strategies, “laissez-faire” versus “strict control,” are the consequence of various factors. In Malaysia, the New Economic Policy has effected a close, often economically unproductive linkage between the state, the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, and business. The rise of businesspeople has resulted in the commercialization of competition within (the United Malays National Organisation. Additionally, increasing competition between the ruling coalition and the opposition has resulted in growing expenditures for electioneering in the form of advertisements and electoral patronage. The laissez-faire style of regulation has been compounded by the difficult-to-control practices in East Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak), where vote buying, electoral patronage based on the largesse of oligarchs, and obvious nonobservance of the rules have been typical. In contrast to Malaysia as a whole, the costs for parties and candidates are still relatively low in Singapore. As a cadre party, the PAP (People's Action Party) is relatively autonomous from private business interests, and intraparty competition is not commercialized; the developmentalist state is highly productive, and the ties between the state, the PAP, and business are not characterized by cronyism. Moreover, electioneering is not very commercialized because the opposition is still relatively weak.     

Knowledge Management and Open Innovation in United Kingdom Local Authorities

The article examines the performance of UK local authorities in relation to knowledge management and open innovation. Data were acquired using a mail survey of non-metropolitan local authorities in England and Wales. The results indicate that certain factors influence the effectiveness of the knowledge management process. Authorities engaged in open innovation have developed more effective knowledge management processes. Hence, of instead of implementing a strategy solely based upon cutting services and reducing staffing levels, local authorities seeking to survive in the face of government spending cuts might also consider the benefit from optimizing the effectiveness of their knowledge management processes and participation in open innovation.     

Determinants of Government Effectiveness

The direct relationship between government effectiveness and the population's well-being has generated a growing interest about the explanatory factors of governance quality. Thus, the aim of this study is to determine the determinants of government effectiveness, in relation to the organizational environment and political and internal characteristics of public administrations. For this, we used a sample composed by 202 countries observed between 2002 and 2008. A World Bank governance indicator represents the government effectiveness. We estimated a panel data dependence model by the Generalized Method of Moments estimator to avoid heterogeneity and endogeneity problems. Furthermore, a CHAID algorithm provides a classification of governance quality according to the predicted determinants.

The results show that government effectiveness is initially explained by the organizational environment, related to economic development and educational status. Later, and according to countries’ income distribution, political constrains and some organizational characteristics, such as gender diversity and government size, may improve governance quality.     

City Management in the United States and Norway: A Comparative Analysis of Professional Orientations

This analysis examines the effects of political culture on the nature and practice of professional local government management by comparing the structures, responsibilities, and relationships of city administrative executives in the democratic countries of the United States and Norway. The findings suggest that, despite fundamental differences in societal institutions and settings, American and Norwegian city managers serve similar roles in their respective local government organizations. However, the notable variations in the processes of municipal management identified between the two nations appear to reflect the contextual influence of divergent political foundations on the operational environment of professional public administrators.     

Women’s Political Participation in Bangladesh: Role of Women’s Organizations

Reviewing the history of women’s movement, this article expects to find a large role of women’s organizations in the process of change that has helped to increase participation of women in local government political process of Bangladesh. While there is considerable support for the presence of the women’s movement, there is much ambivalence as to the specifics of such influence: its objects, means, and magnitude. The difficulty in assessing influence may stem from the reliance on informal channels, which makes tracing and tracking influence a great challenge, and calls for more grounded research to expose the intricate interactions between actors.     

政党适应性视角下的党内巡视制度

改革开放以来,面对不断变迁的社会结构和充满挑战的外部环境,我党一直在进行着适应性变革。党内巡视制度的建立符合政党适应性的要求,可以消解党适应性变革中社会基础扩大给党执政带来的影响,是提高党的建设科学化水平的重要一环。从政党适应性视角看,党内巡视制度面临一些挑战,包括存在陷入＂钱穆制度陷阱＂的可能,存在信息化时代的挑战,对巡视制度的理论研究尚显薄弱,等等。因此,应加强党内监督制度体系建设,坚持群众路线,通过改革的进一步深入完善党内巡视制度,从而提高政党适应性。