Catalysts and barriers: Explaining electoral reform in Western Europe

Most accounts of electoral system change tend to consider it as being driven by purely partisan interests. Political parties are expected to change the electoral rules as a way to maximise gains or minimise losses. However, little work has been done on the question of why electoral reforms are so scarce in spite of these potential benefits. In this study, a wide range of both factors that may foster (‘catalysts’) and ones that may hinder (‘barriers’) the change of electoral institutions are investigated. A statistical analysis is performed of 16 West European countries from 1975 to 2005, covering 23 reforms of the proportionality of their electoral systems. It is found that procedural barriers are more effective for explaining the likelihood of electoral reforms than (most of) the catalysts. Additionally, there are indications that courts may play a more active role in triggering reform than previously thought.     

Jurisdictional integration: A framework for measuring and predicting the depth of international regulatory cooperation in competition policy

This article takes a new approach to international regulatory cooperation by developing a concept of the depth of cooperation, jurisdictional integration. A dataset of international competition policy agreements is compiled and ranked against an ordinal index of the depth of de jure cooperation in enforcing competition policies. There has been both a deepening and broadening of de jure cooperation over time. Statistical analysis finds that common membership of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development is a strong predictor of the depth of agreements to cooperate in enforcing competition policies; that we can be confident that the depth of agreements is low when signatories' substantive competition laws are dissimilar; and that the depth of de jure cooperation is a strong predictor of whether an agreement is “intergovernmental” or “transgovernmental.” The article puts forward a new way to map and measure international regulatory cooperation, and a new variable for use in research on its causes and consequences.     

Recasting Competition Concurrency under the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013

The concurrent enforcement power granted to certain sector economic regulators is one of the more remarkable features of UK competition law. In practice, regulators have tended to under‐enforce their competition powers, preferring to resolve market difficulties through regulatory interventions. Recent amendments to the concurrency framework, introduced by sections 51 to 53 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, seek both to strengthen the priority of competition enforcement and to provide plausible sanctions – including, ultimately, the removal of competition jurisdiction from regulators – for continued underuse. This article assesses these reforms in light of the history and (limited) application of the concurrent competition powers of regulators to date. It argues that the absence of an overarching policy rationale for this curious example of UK antitrust ‘exceptionalism’ complicates the determination of whether the reforms, which ostensibly seek to reinforce but potentially also undermine concurrency, are likely to have a positive market impact in practice.     

The electoral consequences of two great crises

Who benefits from deep economic crises: the left, the right or neither? On the basis of evidence from elections in 1929–1933 and 2008–2013 in all states that were democracies in both periods, it is argued in this article that the electoral consequences of the Great Depression and the Great Recession were surprisingly similar: in both periods, right‐wing parties were at first more successful than left‐wing parties, although this effect only lasted for a few years. The manner in which a crisis develops over time should be taken into account when examining the effects of deep economic downturns on the electoral fortunes of the left and the right.     

Contextual variation in interdependent policy making: The case of tax competition

Many studies show that policy makers react to the policy choices made in other jurisdictions, but we still know relatively little about the factors driving interdependent policy making, especially about how context shapes interdependence. Theoretical arguments suggest that contextual factors, such as stable institutions and geographic location, explain variation in interdependence. However, there is a lack of empirical research investigating contextual heterogeneity in interdependent policy making, mainly because it cannot be analysed with standard spatial econometric methods. This article introduces multilevel modeling that allows the study of contextual variation in interdependence and illustrates the method with the analysis of uneven tax competition in Switzerland. The findings of fine‐grained data show that cantonal governments compete more strongly with their competitors the closer a unit is located to a metropolis with comprehensive public good provision. The analysis demonstrates that we can better understand the mechanisms of interdependent policy making by studying its contextual drivers.     

How electoral vulnerability affects pension politics: Introducing a concept,measure and empirical application

Are electorally vulnerable politicians really less likely to support controversial legislation, such as pension reforms? While the literature on welfare state retrenchment has increasingly pointed to the role of electoral factors in the dynamics of social policy cutbacks, there are few studies that actually measure the magnitude of electoral pressure and its consequent impact on the politics of reform. To this end, the authors have developed a quantitative measure of the electoral vulnerability of politicians and tested its impact on pension reform outcomes using an original dataset comprising 16 Western European countries from 1980 to 2003. In line with expectations, the results show that the impact of electoral vulnerability on reform depends upon the system of interest intermediation. In corporatist systems, electoral vulnerability indeed impedes reform. But in pluralist systems, increased electoral vulnerability is associated with higher levels of reform. This is because unions in corporatist (but not in pluralist) systems can exploit electoral vulnerability in pre‐legislative bargaining, and thus pressure politicians. Consequently, this study has broader implications for the differential responsiveness of democracies to redistributive issues more generally.     

苏联时代特权现象的制度根源及其启示——基于利益机制的分析

苏联时代实行的"官职等级名录制",揭示了苏联时代特权现象的制度化特点。依据于权力道德化的干部作风建设,而不是着眼于建立权力客观化利益机制的政治制度,官僚特权现象不但不能得到有效遏制,反而会借助于道德化的利益机制而滋生和蔓延开来。因此,通过政治体制改革适度引入竞争机制,同时建立相对公平的利益机制,清除制度性和政策性特权,将成为遏制特权现象的重要制度化机制,这就是从苏联反特权教训中得到的重要启示。     

YouTube: A Political Advertising Tool? A Case Study of the Use of YouTube in the Campaign for the European Parliament Elections 2009

Political campaigns are made to attract the attention from citizens. The beginning of its adaption is linked to the appearance of the social media and user-generated content. Since the number of users of social network sites in Europe constantly grows, 2009 was the first time that these websites were used in political marketing purposes for the European Parliament elections. This is an exploratory study of the nature and extent of video-based social media, studied through the content analysis of YouTube videos created for the electoral campaign for the 2009 European Parliament . ( 2009 ). European elections . Retrieved from http://www.europarl.europa.eu/elections2009/default.htm?language=en  [Google Scholar] European Parliament elections by 13 political parties from four EU states. Results have shown the specificities of political advertising on the YouTube, a raising interest in social media among citizens in Europe, and the development of this way of campaigning.     

Portfolio Allocation and Policy Compromises: How and Why the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats Formed a Coalition Government

The question of ‘who gets what?’ is one of the most interesting issues in coalition politics. Research on portfolio allocation has thus far produced some clear‐cut empirical findings: coalition parties receive ministerial posts in close proportion to the number of parliamentary seats they win. This article poses two simple questions: Why did the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats agree to form a coalition government and, secondly, did the process of portfolio allocation in the United Kingdom in 2010 reflect standard patterns of cabinet composition in modern democracies? In order to answer these questions, a content analysis of election manifestos is applied in this article in order to estimate the policy positions of the parties represented in the House of Commons. The results show that a coalition between the Tories and Lib Dems was indeed the optimal solution in the British coalition game in 2010. When applying the portfolio allocation model, it turns out that the Conservatives fulfilled the criteria of a ‘strong party’, implying that the Tories occupied the key position in the coalition game. On account of this pivotal role, they were ultimately able to capture the most important ministries in the new coalition government.     

论国际反垄断法适用除外制度的价值取向

分别对竞争公平价值和社会公平价值进行全面分析,并对二者的关系也进行比较研究。社会公平价值是受高位阶法律规范或者宪法规范保护的高层级价值标准,竞争公平是受下位经济法保护的低层级价值标准,当二者发生实质冲突时,社会公平应当受到优先保护。社会公平价值标准高于竞争公平价值标准是反垄断法适用除外制度产生和存在的基础。二者的冲突并不是不可调和的,只有发生实质性冲突时,社会公平价值才优先适用,反之,竞争公平价值应当在经济法领域中得以顺利实现。