The study of Western European cabinets

Abstract. We are still relatively unfamiliar with the structures and modes of behaviour of Western European cabinets and we need first to identify the range of the differences which exist with respect to two major dimensions along which cabinet governments can be located (collective v. hierarchical decision-making and political representation v. administrative and/or specialist skills). A valuable test can be obtained by considering in detail the cases of a number of countries in which the traditions of cabinet government are known to be different from those of the British model, both because of the existence of coalitions and because of specific traditions of 'administrative' and even 'bureaucratic' government. Marked variations emerge with respect to four elements: ministerial expertise, the large autonomy of ministers, the authority of the prime minister or chancellor, and the relatively limited influence of the council of ministers as a deliberative body. Cabinet government is a flexible machinery which has given rise to a number of different models corresponding to different traditions and to different conditions in which the political system operates.     

The Fundamental Features of Legal Rationality

Abstract. The aim of this paper is to clarify the logical structure of a code connecting together some distinctions already introduced by different authors: a distinction between primary norms and secondary norms, the latter being implied by the provisions describing institutions in the indicative; a distinction between norms the content of which concerns a state and those the content of which concerns a behaviour which is itself function of several states; a distinction, among the primary norms, of the norms of competence by which a normative power can be delegated to an individual; lastly a distinction between regulative rules and constitutive rules.     

Party leadership selection in France

Abstract. The methods of selection used by French political parties can be grouped into two categories: election by a party conference with some thousands of delegates for the right wing parties or election by a party committee after the party conference with some hundreds of representatives for the left wing parties. Nevertheless, the existence of a presidential election has completely changed the meaning of these methods of selecting party leaders. Political parties have been transformed into presidential machines carrying out two types of successive duties; as a springboard for a candidate at the presidential elections, then as a relay of the President of the Republic (the 'president's party'). In these two types of situation the selection of leaders is not completely the same. First, in order to gain access to the presidential election, certain politicians have quickly understood that it was necessary to create new political parties or to transform weak political groups in altering the normal rules of selection of the leaders or in overthrowing the existing leadership. Then the leader of the President's party is directly chosen by the President of the Republic himself. The formal methods of selection only serve to ratify the President's choice.