Agenda Control in the Israeli Knesset during Ariel Sharon's Second Government

How do multi-party coalition governments share agenda power? In principle, coalitions might allocate agenda power among their members by distributing special proposal rights, distributing special blocking rights, or both. The literature has prominent models embodying each polar possibility, with Laver and Shepsle's model envisaging that each party in a coalition has the ability to propose any bill(s) it wishes within the jurisdiction of a ministry it controls; and Cox and McCubbins' cartel theory envisaging that each party has the ability to block bills, thus necessitating collective bargaining over the overall agenda. This paper shows that agenda-setting in Israel is not consistent with the ‘ministerial dictatorship’ version of the Laver–Shepsle model but is consistent with the Cox–McCubbins model.     

非法言词证据之认定标准

我国2012年刑事诉讼法正式确立了非法证据排除规则,并设定了以手段为重要内容的“非法方法”判断标准。根据刑事诉讼法和相关的司法解释,非法证据排除设立之目的在于规范司法行为和办案程序,惩罚犯罪和保障人权。以“非法方法”作为非法言词证据的判断标准并不能够满足该制度之目的与要求,应当以程序合法为前提、自白规则为要素、人权保障为主线,综合进行。     

中国公共政策过程的研究:西方学者的视角及其启示

1950年后,西方开始兴起中国政策过程研究的热潮。从五六十年代到九十年代,以美国学者为主的西方学者的研究视角从精英、派系逐渐转向官僚组织,其政策过程的模式包括理性决策模型、权力斗争模型、讨价还价模型、各自为政模型、竞争性说服模型等。本文总结了中国政策过程的特点和影响因素,即政策议程设定与政治高度相关、政策目标追求“模糊共识”、政策决策过程“讨价还价”、政策执行呈现出显著的差异性和多样性、政策变动周期不稳定等。     

论民主与效率的协调兼顾——现代行政程序的双重价值辨析

行政管理活动中,效率与民主的冲突是确实存在的,但并非不可调和。一个理想的行政程序应是民主与效率的完美统一。正确理解民主和效率对行政程序的意义及它们之间的关系,必须建立在给定的民主、效率含义基础上。本文通过语义分析、价值分析等方法,深入挖掘行政程序尤其行政执法程序中民主价值与效率价值的内在一致性,两者的协调兼顾,是提高政府执政能力的基本路径。     

Media in the Policy Process: Using Framing and Narratives to Understand Policy Influences

Policy scholarship has long sought to understand the role of knowledge and information in the policy process. Of the actors, institutions, and resources involved in shaping policy processes and outcomes, media and narratives have been incorporated into empirical policy scholarship and theories with varying success. The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) is a framework through which scholars can bring analysis of narratives into studies of policy making. The NPF moves the field forward in understanding the role of narratives, communication, and stakeholder beliefs in the policy process, while at the same time striving for theoretical rigor. We embed the discussion of frames and narratives in the NPF to provide an empirical and theoretical cohesion to our understanding of media and public policy and then provide a brief empirical example of how such an integration may prove fruitful for policy scholars.     

Learning to Mediate? The Mediation Support Unit and the Production of Expertise by the UN

The UN Mediation Support Unit (MSU) was created to support peace processes and enable organizational learning. This article analyses the unit through a sociological lens with the aim to understand its present configuration, and what this reveals about the production of knowledge about mediation at the UN. It argues that, because of the constraints imposed by intrastate wars and the existing institutional setting within the Secretariat, the MSU emphasizes generic and depoliticized expertise, by contrast with mediation's traditional reliance on non-transferable skills. This approach, in spite of its pitfalls, enables the unit to justify its own existence and to claim a position of authority within the organization and beyond.     

Bring in the experts? Citizen preferences for independent experts in political decision-making processes

Do citizens welcome the involvement of independent experts in politics? Theoretical and empirical work so far provides conflicting answers to this question. On the one hand, citizens may demand expert involvement in political decision-making processes in order to ensure efficient and effective governance solutions. On the other hand, citizens can be distrustful of experts and reject the unaccountable and non-transparent nature of expert-based governance. This note investigates citizen preferences for the involvement of experts in different stages of political processes and across ‘hard’ and ‘easy’ political issues. Results show that, in the absence of explicit output information, respondents prefer independent experts over national elected representatives in the policy design and implementation stages, across political issues. For the crucial stage of decision making, respondents show no difference in their evaluation of processes that delegate decisions to experts or to elected representatives, with the exception of environmental policy, where expert decision making is preferred. These findings are relevant for ongoing discussions on how to incorporate independent experts in political decision making in a way that citizens find legitimate and on how to address increased citizen dissatisfaction with the representative democratic functions performed by political parties, governments and politicians.     

The advocacy coalition framework in Japan: Contributions to policy process studies and the challenges involved

The advocacy coalition framework (ACF), a unified framework for understanding the policy process, has been applied in various countries and regions; however, there are few contributions from Japan, despite seemingly favorable conditions for applying it. An exploration of what hinders ACF applications in Japan is worthwhile for developing the ACF as a framework for comparative policy process studies across various social and political settings. Therefore, this study aims to systematically review previous Japanese ACF studies. Our review found that Japanese ACF studies are fewer in number, have less coverage of policy fields, and have less methodological diversity and transparency than international trends. While most of the Japanese ACF studies supported the basic hypotheses of the ACF, we found a need to refine some hypotheses and research methods of the ACF studies. We also discuss the background factors in the inactivity of ACF studies in Japan and suggest solutions for it.     

规范性文件制定过程中的法律风险及其防范

规范性文件制定主体在制定规范性文件时面临因操作不规范、制定内容不合理或者有其他不符合法律规定情形的法律风险。因此。规范性文件制定过程中存在因法律风险而带来的责任承担问题。要防范规范性文件制定中的法律风险,必须具备制定主体适格、内容合法合理、程序正当等基本要件。     

Parliamentary Rule: The US Senate Parliamentarian and Institutional Constraints on Legislator Behaviour

This article analyses the extent to which institutional rules constrain member behaviour in the United States Senate by examining the evolution of its parliamentarian. Interestingly, the US Senate parliamentarian has received surprisingly little scholarly attention given the important role she performs in the legislative process. The subsequent analysis thus provides a new understanding of the parliamentarian's role in the legislative process and the interplay between institutional rules and member behaviour in the Senate. To this end, the following analysis is situated within the context of the two primary theoretical approaches to understanding how institutional rules constrain member behaviour: path dependency and majoritarianism. These contrasting approaches provide expectations about the extent to which members will defer to the parliamentarian's interpretation of Senate rules rather than exercising their own discretionary control over those rules. Examining the evolving relationship between the parliamentarian and individual members affirms the centrality of institutional rules as a constraint on member behaviour over the past several decades. Yet such an examination also yields two surprising, and potentially contradictory, observations. First, individual senators in both parties have increasingly deferred to the parliamentarian to interpret the Senate's rules. This is surprising given that the Senate has simultaneously become more individualistic, partisan, and ideological over the same period. Second, the majority party has recently disregarded the norm of parliamentary constraint reflected in past practice and demonstrated a willingness to ignore Senate rules when doing so was necessary to achieve legislative success. This could signify a potential shift in how majorities view the constraints imposed by Senate rules if current trends of legislative dysfunction continue.