Prior to its publication, Gary Cox's MakingVotesCount was widely and eagerly anticipated. (Indeed, some years ago, I received a referee report dismissing my submission as unnecessary because superior analysis would eventually appear in Cox's then forthcoming manuscript.) Upon its release in 1998, the book was instantly lauded: it collected multiple awards, including the prestigious Woodrow Wilson prize for best book published on government, politics, or international affairs. This acclaim was scarcely surprising – Cox has been one of the foremost scholars (...) of elections and legislatures for the whole of his professional career. He is responsible for an impressive body of work spanning multiple research topics, nations, and methods of analysis. This book is testimony to his breadth, as it catalogs the key electoral features of virtually the whole set of modern democracies (more than 70), and makes frequent forays into diverse nations in search of empirical support for novel theoretical findings. In brief, Cox's project is to bring together a large formal, deductive literature on voting rules and social choice with an equally voluminous empirical, inductive literature on elections and party systems in the world's democracies. The prizes it garnered are one measure of the book's success at this merger; a large boost in Cox's swelling citation count will doubtless follow, reiterating the judgement that this is the major work on electoral law and voting to date. (shrink)

Legislative gridlocks, driven by social partisan sorting, pose a significant threat to contemporary democracies. In this paper, I argue that this problem can be addressed by replacing _geographic_ electoral constituencies, which group voters by area of residence, with _heterogeneous_ electoral constituencies, which are based on random assignment and thus reflect the diversity of the entire electorate. I show that geographic electoral constituencies are likely to crystallise cleavages that _reinforce_ geographic divisions, whereas heterogeneous electoral constituencies are likely (...) to dilute deep social divisions. I argue that heterogeneous constituencies have this effect not because they _suppress_ intergroup difference, as is commonly held, but rather because they encourage political parties to _express cross-cutting_ social identities. The politicisation of cross-cutting social cleavages prevents social partisan sorting and moderates political conflict. Heterogeneous electoral constituencies should therefore be considered as part of an expressive institutional response to the democratic threat of legislative gridlock. (shrink)

The ongoing process of democratisation lead to the growing importance of the electoral systems that regulate the procedures of gaining and legitimizing power in democracy. Taking it into account it is worth asking about the relationship between these particular ‘game rules’ contained into electoral law and the respect of the rule of law, being one of the basic norms of a democratic system. A question then may be raised about the existence and the character of the relation between (...) electoral systems and the level of political corruption. It is worth noticing that besides the research conducted by political scientists and the representatives of various branches of social sciences the significant analysis of the issue have been presented by the economists. In this article a brief overview of the economic studies on the relationship between level of political corruption and the electoral systems is presented so as to assess to what degree this approach may be treated as fruitful. (shrink)

L a distribució n parlamentari a qu e ha n a r rojad o lo s resultado s d e la s pasada s elecciones generale s de l dí a 2 0 d e n o viembre , d e 2011 , h a ocasionado , sobr e tod o po r pa r t e d e la s fo r - macione s política s má s s e v erament e afectadas , tod a un a (...) cascad a d e crítica s a nuestr o sistema electoral , y pa r ticula r ment e sobr e l a fó r mul a idead a po r e l matemátic o belg a Vícto r D’Hont. Lo s distinto s pa r tido s tiende n a un a v aloració n sesgad a e n vi r tu d de l bene f ici o obtenido d e l a fó r mul a el e gid a po r e l L e gislado r e n un a etap a históric a dete r minada . ¿Cóm o afecta l a l e y D’Hon t a l a calida d d e l a democraci a española ? ¿E l pro b lem a resid e e n l a fó r mula D’Hont ? Co n l a f inalida d d e contribui r a l debat e abie r t o sobr e nuestr o sistem a electoral, m e centrar é e n alguna s modi f cacione s d e l a LORE G qu e todo s podría n acepta r , junt o a l a propuest a d e do s modelo s electorales , a cost e cero , d e do b l e pro r rate o y d e aplicación inmediata. (shrink)

People in Belgium want to simplify the electoral laws. The responsible department has a project which is presented as being neutral, having no political implications. The authors compare the results of the last elections computed according to several systems, including the new project. Their conclusion is that the new project is politically oriented : it favours the big parties.The authors propose a new system of ballot which is really neutral, and they show it by a simulation on the results (...) of the elections since 1954.Their system is simple and easily treated by computer. (shrink)

This paper challenges the conventional wisdom concerning the impact of the Citizens United v. FEC decision by examining the flow of corporate money into the 2012 election. The decision, which is consistent with most prior case law and was not a radical departure, promoted the use of super PACs and 501-c committees for political money that were not widely used by corporations, and the super PACs and c-4 committees were largely ineffective in the 2012 election. They also did not produce (...) a marked advantage for the Republican Party, especially in the presidential election. The Citizens United decision did, however, lead to other legal and regulatory developments in an effort to promote greater disclosure, though those developments have not been successful. Investors have been somewhat more successful in promoting limits on corporate political spending through shareholder proposals. Some state laws and upcoming court cases maylimit other restrictions on political contributions. (shrink)

Austin's theory of theory of law is simple: the law follows the pattern of power; the sovereign gives commands and obeys none; the subject obeys commands; the law consists in only those commands that directly or indirectly emanate from the sovereign. Nevertheless, Austin's theory of sovereignty is not simple at all. When we look at the relevant chapters closely, it becomes evident that Austin has two rival theories of sovereignty, one for a single person and one for a 'determinate body'. (...) It is only the latter that allows him to say that sovereignty lies, ultimately, with the electors, the strange conclusion of his book. But Austin's second theory of sovereignty is not consistent with his own theory of law. Austin's faces a dilemma. Is law - as most people take it to be - a public order of standards of conduct aiming to guide behaviour? If so, sovereignty ought to be public and intelligible. If not, sovereignty can remain a mystery to those living under it . For the latter reading, law and sovereignty are 'normatively inert,' as some of Austin's followers claim today. But Austin does not agree with his modern followers. Austin's second theory of sovereignty is aimed at satisfying a practical requirement of law and jurisprudence, i.e. to be in the position of publicly guiding conduct. (shrink)

Drawing on classic and contemporary scholarship and empirical analysis of elections and public expenditures in 80 countries, the author argues for the existence of primary and secondary laws of politics. Starting with how basic elements of politics-leadership, organization, ideology, resources, and force-coalesce in the formation of states, he proceeds to examine the operations of those laws in democracies and dictatorships. Primary laws constrain the support that incumbents draw from the electorate, limiting their time in office. They operate unimpeded in democracies. (...) Secondary laws describe the general tendency of the state to expand vis-à-vis economy and society. They exert their greatest force in one-party states imbued with a totalitarian ideology. The author establishes the primary laws in a rigorous analysis of 1,100 parliamentary and presidential elections in 80 countries, plus another 1,000 U.S. gubernatorial elections. Evidence for the secondary laws is drawn from public expenditure data series, with findings presented in easily grasped tables and graphs. Having established these laws quantitatively, the author uses Cuba as a case study, adding qualitative analysis and a practical application to propose a constitutional framework for a future Cuban democracy. Written in an engaging, jargon-free style, this enlightening book will be of great interest to students and scholars in political science, especially those specializing in comparative politics, as well as opinion leaders and engaged citizens. (shrink)

For Guizot, legal sovereignty is a divine, absolute prerogative precluded from mankind. The best possible form of government is that based upon a representative system, since such a system continuosly shifts the attibution of power from one subject to another. Guizot's analysis, which also denies the modern democratic principle of the sovereignty of the will of the people, examines certain aspects common to all representative systems, such as the relationship between the elected and the electorate and between the majority and (...) the minority, independently of the extension of suffrage. In particular, Guizot examines the relationship between public opinion and the common interest in an optic which is beyond his time and proves to be very appropriate today. He consideres the common interest to be a virtual and hypothetical component of the representative relationship, pre-eminent as regards the indications ascertained through the majority vote. (shrink)

As predicted by Duverger’s Law, the UK has two-party competition in each electoral district. However, there can be different patterns of two-party competition in different districts (currently there are five), so that there have usually been more than two effective parties in the Commons. Since 1874 it has always contained parties fighting seats in only one of the non-English parts of the Union. These parties wish to change the Union by strengthening, weakening, or dissolving it. By calculating the Penrose (...) power index for all parties in the House of Commons for all General Elections since 1874, we identify the occasions on which a party that wished to modify the Union was pivotal. We explain various acts (e.g, the Crofters Act 1886; the first three Irish Home Rule Bills; the Parliament Act 1911) and non-acts (e.g. the failure to enact female suffrage before 1914) by reference to the Penrose indices of the non-English parties. The indices also explain how and why policy towards Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland changed, and did not change, in the 1970s. (shrink)

In this article, we explore why solidarity has not worked according to expectation in EU migration and asylum law and why it is unlikely to work in the future. First, we consider discourses of burden-sharing and solidarity in EU law from the 1990s up to the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 to identify emergent path dependencies. This period saw the introduction of primary law provisions on solidarity, such as Article 80 TFEU, as French and Dutch electorates had rejected a European constitution. (...) Second, we perform an analysis of Article 80 through the conceptual history of solidarity, in particular, the dominant Roman law tradition of obligation in solidum and the French tradition of solidarism. We submit that the term ‘solidarity’ is actually a misnomer: already on structural grounds, Article 80 should be read as an alliance clause, countering a threat of irregular immigration. Third, we find that the practice under Article 80 as it develops during the period between 2015 and the 2020 European Commission Pact on Migration and Asylum corroborates this finding. Overall, we find that the concept of solidarity in EU asylum and migration law engenders outcome expectations that it cannot deliver as the defence alliance it is. (shrink)

The entry into force of the Rome Statute on 1 July 2002 establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC) has signified a shift in the goals pursued by international criminal law. Due to new types of warfare dynamics, international protection is in need of new orientations, particularly with regard to conflict deterrence aims. This urgency is widely documented by the normative action framework of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) and, more recently, by the UN Secretary-General 2012–2013 Reports for the RtoP’s implementation. (...) The scope of this study is twofold. On the one hand, it aims to explore theoretical overlapping between the jus post bellum and the RtoP with regard to deterrence effects of the ICC; on the other hand, it proposes to illustrate such dynamics by reference to Kenya’s post-electoral violence during the period 2007–2013. Kenya represents an instance of a post-conflict society whereby transitional justice actions have taken place under a de facto adoption of a RtoP framework. As a result, I defend a qualified correlation between ICC’s retribution and deterrence effects. I claim that the hypothesis of the ICC’s deterring effects accounts in Kenya is constructed upon a general condition of direct compliance by self-interested rational actors (such as high-ranking political candidates and their secretariat) as well as on unintended effects of ethnic stabilization. I further consider that this possibility is reinforced by systemic interdependencies with other national and international initiatives such as the Kenyan National Dialogue and Reconciliation (KNDR) mediation initiative, the Grand Coalition Government, the Panel of African Eminent Personalities led by Kofi Annan, and the findings of the Commission of Enquiry of Post-Election Violence (CIPEV). (shrink)

Belgian electoral law clearly and explicitly describes a procedure by which proportional representation is refined through grouping of lists from different districts of the same province. However, the actual practice of provincial electoral boards diverges from legal prescriptions to the extent that about 10 % of the seats at the House of Representatives are mis-occupied, though there is absolutely nothing that could impede a strict application of the law.

Punishment and democracy appear to exacerbate each other’s worst features. The institutions and moral intuitions used to punish those that break the law can hollow out civic participation, distort the electorate, and undermine core democratic values. Likewise, many have argued the decentralized character of democracy is a key, albeit indirect, cause of increasingly punitive public policies that are divorced from any reasonable penological purpose. Given the effects of electoral politics, many have called for the separation, or general insulation, of (...) state punishment from public influence. However, recent empirical work on punitive attitudes and institutional design has begun to chip away at this common sense. This article contextualizes and qualifies the various mechanisms of policy feedback and public opinion formation thought by political theorists to undermine democratic participation in penal institutions and makes a normative case that insulating the public from penal law actively sustains injustice. (shrink)

This paper examines the legal conception of political parties. It does so by unearthing the history and ontology of the common law relating to political parties in international perspective. The flexibility of the unincorporated association, in which parties are understood through the private law of contract as networks of internal rules or agreements, rather than as legal entities, has proven to be a mask. In the common laws imagination, the ideal party is a ground-up organization animated by its membership. But (...) the law mandates no such thing, and in its statutory and constitutional conception intra-party democracy may be sublimated as parties need be no more than an electoral persona or brand. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to consider some aspects of the question of how difficult it should be to amend or change constitutional laws through formal amendment procedures. The point of departure of my discussion is an amendment procedure that has recently been suggested by the prominent legal and political philosopher Bruce Ackerman. He defends a three-step amendment procedure – where a re-elected president is authorised to propose amendments that must thereafter be approved first by a two-thirds majority of (...) the legislature, and then by a simple majority of the citizens at the next two presidential elections. I propose and defend an alternative amendment procedure that can be termed the four-step procedure. According to this procedure, the right to propose amendments is granted both to legislators and voters via citizen initiatives. Thereafter, the proposed amendments should be placed before the legislature, where they must be approved by a simple majority in two successive parliaments, and there must be an interval of no less than one year between the two votes. If passed by the legislative assembly, the amendment(s) should be approved by a simple majority of the electorate in a referendum. However, a submajority of the legislators (i.e. a one-third minority) should be empowered to require an additional referendum on the proposed amendment(s), and this final referendum should be held two years after the first popular vote. In order to assess the outlined amendment procedures, I primarily focus on the following factors or criteria of evaluation, which I group under three headings: (1) Central ideas and ideals in deliberative democratic theory and the fact of persistent disagreement in modern pluralist societies (this includes considerations of how well alternative amendment procedures deal with disagreement among citizens); (2) rule of law values, stability and flexibility; and (3) the value of checks and balances that can guard against the abuse of power (or more precisely, whether the amendment procedures under consideration provide adequate checks and balances between courts, political actors and citizens). (shrink)

Proposals to lower the age of voting, to 15 for example, are regularly met with worries that people that age are not sufficiently ‘competent’. Notice however that we allow people that age to sign binding legal contracts, provided that those contracts are co-signed by their parents. Notice, further, that in a democracy voters are collectively ‘joint authors’ of the laws that they enact. Enfranchising some less competent voters is no worry, the Condorcet Jury Theorem assures us, so long as the (...) electorate's competence averaging across all voters remains better-than-random. (shrink)

Frente a la incapacidad de cumplir con las funciones delegadas al poder político, la necesidad de conservación del poder y de legitimación genera respuestas simbólicas a demandas ficticias generadas e impulsadas por actores globales o locales llamadas "campañas contra la inseguridad", "campañas contra el terrorismo", etc. En consecuencia los Estados usan las leyes penales como propaganda electoral. Sin embargo como ha señalado Hassemer "quien pone en relación al ordenamiento penal con elementos simbólicos, puede crear la sospecha de que no (...) toma en cuenta al dureza muy real y nada simbólica de las vivencias de quien se ve sometido a persecución penal, detenido, procesado, acusado, condenado, encerrado". (shrink)

This article captures and critiques a recurring and prominent political argument against animal welfare improvements in Switzerland which we term the “ranking argument”. This states that Swiss animal welfare law ranks among the strictest in the world, therefore no improvements are called for. This argument was advanced three times by Swiss government authorities in 2022 alone, but also in a case dating back to 1984, to advise the electorate on popular initiatives aiming at animal welfare improvements. We argue that, while (...) the argument commits a fallacy of relative privation and is ethically dubious, it can be deployed to great effect by agents opposed to norm change in animal welfare regulation. We conclude with some thoughts on how the ranking argument can and should be challenged in public discourse. (shrink)

The comment on Cristina Lafont’s book includes two main points. (1) Minipublics do not necessarily stand in opposition to political theories that justify electoral democracy and participatory conceptions of deliberative democracy. In contrast to such a view, I argue that minipublics should be combined with electoral and participatory forms of democracy. (2) A deliberative concept of accountability may overcome some of the shortcomings of the traditional, voluntaristic concepts of democratic accountability.

The parliamentary elections in Albania took place on 25th March 2021 and they were won by the Socialist Party. Even though elections took place during the pandemic, the pandemics itself had a minor impact on the process. With the exception of making compulsory a two-week quarantine for those entering the country and thus making it impossible for the Albanian emigrants to cast their vote, the election campaign was organized similarly with the preceding campaigns without concerns for social distancing. The real (...) change which eventually influenced the campaign was the change in the electoral law from closed to open list. For the first time, the party and the party candidates pursued different strategies. In addition to the official campaign, there was an underground campaign with vote buying and exercise of influence which aimed and achieved to transfer vote from the top of the top of the list to candidates in the middle or even lower part of the list. This made it possible to observe and understand the internal conflicts within the parties. (shrink)

Over the past 30 years, the world has experienced a profound transformation, becoming both more open and more prosperous. Whereas in 1985 more than half of the countries worldwide were under authoritarian rule, most countries today are considered electoral democracies. Since 1990, more than a billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty, while well-being indicators have improved dramatically on a global level, especially in terms of health and education.

Between 7 June and 10 June 1979, the first elections of the representatives of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage will be held in all the Member States of the European Community.Within that period, the elections shall be held on a date fixed by each Member State. The electoral procedure, except for the common provisions of the annexed Act to the Council Decision on directelections of 20 September 1976, shall be governed in each Member State by its national (...) procedures. There will be nine parallel national elections. The Council Decision and the annexed Act of 20 September 1976 are considered in retrospect and then analysed, as are the national electoral laws, which will be used for the European elections in the different Member States. Their mutual differences and contradictions are discussed.Changes from the electoral procedure in use for national elections are traced. Broadly speaking, one of the aims of the article is to show that the potential influence of an individual vote of a «European citizenl» on the composition of the European Parliament wilt differ considerably from one Member State to another.In the closing remarks, the European elections are put into the perspective of furthering the democratisation of the European Communities. (shrink)

Publication date: 22 December 2020 Source: International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences Vol. 89 Author: Dhikru Adewale Yagboyaju, Antonia Taiye Simbine Party system and the administration of political parties are critical factors in determining the direction of politics and democracy. Three political parties contested at the inception of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic in 1999, but the number increased to more than 91 as at 2019. This paper raises fundamental questions as to whose interest – public or private interest of promoters (...) and financiers - these parties serve, and whether the increase in the number of political parties has significantly entrenched democratic values in the country? These questions are compelling because of several events in political party operations in the 20 years of the Fourth Republic. These include controversial and vexatious party primaries preceding every major election, often leading to protracted and distractive litigations and rampant political defections. Unregulated use of money has, in particular, restrained ample participation by women and youths, while violence is almost becoming a norm and permanent characteristic of the electoral and political system. The paper draws data from secondary documentary sources for its conceptual and theoretical contents. Primary data are generated from events analyses by the authors as observers at party conventions and other meetings for the selection of candidates for political offices as well as during general elections. This is complimented by content analyses of relevant documents including electoral laws, court and law reports, and reports by special committees such as the Electoral Reform Committee. A combination of the ecological approach and conspiratorial theory is deployed for the paper’s analytic frame. (shrink)

At 18 May 2003, elections for both the Belgian House of Representatives and Senate were held within a new institutional framework: among others the constituencies were enlarged.The percentage of voters casting a preferential vote increased again, reaching the highest score ever with 66,5 %for the House and 68,0 %for the Senate. Voters can also cast a vote for several candidates figuring on the same party list, which was not done very frequently in the past. The number of preference votes on (...) one ballot increased enormously, with naw on average 2,23 for the House and 2,37 for the Senate. More candidates than ever succeeded in becoming elected out of the order of the party list, which was mostly decisive in the past.Thenew electoral laws are one reason for these changes, togethers with some political and social evolutions, such as individualism, anti-party feelings and mediatisation. (shrink)

Common Law Theory of Judicial Review: The Living Tree, Wil Waluchow neatly sidesteps the critique of judicial review based on the con- tention that constitutional rights are unacceptably indeterminate by arguing that it is this very indeterminacy that makes a common law method of legal interpretation appropriate. However, his contention that judges are able to ‘discover’ the underlying ‘authentic’ moral views of citizens is insufficiently grounded to meet the objection that common law reasoning utilising such unspecific material will result in (...) controversial decisions that reflect the val- ues and experience of an unrepresentative social and professional elite. He also ignores the important fact that electoral democracy is partly about the protection of vulnerable majorities against powerful minorities. However, Waluchow’s approach could be rendered more acceptable where there is the practical possibility of effective legislative on law style decision-making in the arena of human rights.Resumen:En su libro A Common Law Theory of Judicial Review: The Living Tree, Wil Waluchow de manera elegante y sutil evita la crítica al judicial review con el argumento de que los derechos constitucionales son irremediablemen te indeterminados y sostiene que precisamente por este aspecto de inde terminación un método basado en el common law es adecuado para la in terpretación de los derechos. Sin embargo, su postura de que los jueces son capaces de “descubrir” las perspectivas morales “auténticas” de los ciudadanos no está bien fundamentada como para hacer frente a la crítica de que el método del common law, al utilizar dicho material poco específico, da como resultado decisiones controvertidas que reflejan los valores y experiencia de una elite profesional y social no representativa. También el argumento de Waluchow ignora que la democracia electoral tiene como objetivo proteger a mayorías vulnerables de poderosas minorías. No obstante lo anterior, la tesis de Waluchow puede ser más viable donde exista la posibilidad práctica de una revisión efectiva de las leyes a través de las decisiones propias del método del common law en el ámbito de los derechos humanos. (shrink)

Individual questions of the institutional reforms of the representative-democratic parliamentary system, such as issues of electoral law, party law, and parliamentary law, are frequently discussed. But all these reflections - and this is the principal thesis of this article - must eventually remain without success, if they do not address the preceding basic problem concerning the democratically indispensable conditions of the mental constitution of the active citizen, the „civis“. There, a key role, consciously experienced like a paradox, falls upon (...) the renunciation of the claim to absolute truth of one’s own political convictions with regard to equally „relative-absolute“ claims for validity of others. On this base the psychological presuppositions of a modern pluralistic democracy are discussed, which thereupon are to be institutionalized: e. g. the capacity to compromise, the obligation of state neutrality in religious matters, the renunciation of hate speech, the rejection of „denial of reality“, and of allegedly „finalizing“ ideologies of history. (shrink)

Up to a certain age, young people are denied the right to vote. In this paper, it is argued that this general exclusion from democratic participation is unjustified and should be abandoned. After a short survey of some of the pedagogic, legal, and political arguments that have been brought forward to support a liberalisation of electoral law in favour of children, the essay presents a basic moral argument against any age limit with respect to voting rights. First of all, (...) it is argued that the right to vote is grounded in a fundamental claim of human beings to equal participation and, therefore, can be denied only for severe and cogent reasons. Subsequently, the essay purports to establish – and defends against objections – that there are no such reasons that sufficiently justify an age limit. The paper concludes with some remarks on practical consequences of the argument. (shrink)

Introduction -- "Every Legitimate Government is Republican": Rousseau's Debt to and Departure from Montesquieu on Republicanism -- What if There is no Legislator? Rousseau's History of the Government of Geneva -- Rousseau's Republican Citizenship: The Moral Psychology of The Social Contract -- Rousseau's negative liberty: Themes of domination and skepticism in The Social Contract -- Rousseau's Ancient Ends of Legislation: Liberty, Equality (& Fraternity) -- Property and Possession in Rousseau's Social Contract -- Political Equality Among Unequals -- On the Primacy (...) of Peoplehood: Nations and Nationalism in Rousseau's Social Contract -- Rousseau on Voting and Electoral Laws -- Rousseau and the puzzle of the Roman Republic -- Rousseau's Case against Democracy -- Rousseau's Dilemma or "Of Civil Religion" -- Entreating the Political: Politics and Theology in Rousseau's Social Contract -- Civil Religion and Political Unity: Social Contract 4.8. (shrink)

On 13 June 2003, elections for both the regional parliaments and the European Parliament were held in Belgium.The percentage of voters casting a preferential vote increased when compared with the previous regional and European elections of 1999, reaching scores clearly higher than 60%. The new electoral laws are one explanation for this increase, together with societal evolutions, such as individualism, anti-party feelings, personalization of polities and the appearance of cartels. In comparison with the federal elections of 2003 however, there (...) was a decrease in prererential voting, due to lower campaign expenditures and to the success of parties that traditionally do not attract many preferential votes. Voters can also cast a vote for several candidates figuring on the same party list, which is contrary to the past done quite frequently now. Finally, more candidates than ever succeeded in becoming elected out oî the order of the party list. (shrink)

In recent years the concept of parity democracy has rapidly risen up the European political agenda. Using a threefold typology of sex-quotas, this article undertakes a classification of the measures taken by the 15 old E.U. member states to improve the gender balance in representative assemblies. This is then used as the basis for an exploration of the advantages and disadvantages of the parity approach as a tool to promote gender equality, including the constitutional obstacles which stand in its way. (...) The article goes on to present a comparative study of several national systems in which attempts to achieve parity democracy have been pursued, concluding that, in order to maximise their effectiveness, parity measures must operate within a system of unbiased political structures and be properly adjusted to suit the particularities of individual national electoral regimes. (shrink)

Most party by-laws are too inexhaustive and vague to be adequate guidelines for describing party chairmanship or predicting the actual proceedings of chairman elections. Although nearly all party by-laws prescribe competitive elections, one candidate elections occur in 68 % of the cases and in nearly 25% of all cases the unique candidate is elected by acclamation only. Also, when more candidates are presented, the preferences of the party oligarchy are mostly made very clear.The small number of elections that involve real (...) choice even diminishes when reelections or the appointment of interim chairman are taken into account: the percentage of "more than one candidate"-presentation drops from 32 % to respectively 19% and 16%. In Flemish parties there is less opportunity for choice then in Francophone parties: 22 % versus 38% "more than one candidate"-presentation. Moreover, the chairman elections of the Francophone parties involve larger electoral bodies : e.g. in some parties and already in 41 % of the cases all partymembers have a right to cast their vote. A possibility that exists in none of the Flemish parties. As far as the evolution over time is concerned: there is a general and salient tendency towards more opportunities for real choice and larger electoral bodies.But taken together opportunities for real choice remain scarce : in general party chairmen are not actually chosen by the formally empowered party organs; before formal elections are held choices are mostly made already! (shrink)

In Japan, electoral campaigning in plurality districts often appears strangely ineffective to observers. In their explanations, political scientists have so far fallen back on the proximate cause, namely the strict Public Office Election Law (K), claiming that it is this law that prohibits different and more effective campaigning. This study, however, is based on the assumption that such an explanation could be insufficient since even those campaign tactics legally allowed are often executed and/or selected in an apparently ineffective way (...) in terms of their appeal to voters. Especially when looked at from the perspective of structural learning theory, which assumes that actors adapt their behavior within stable structures by learning what works well and what does not, these observations invite further investigation. (shrink)

This paper adds a new perspective to recent debates about the political nature of rights through attention to their distinctive role within social movement practices of moral critique and social struggle. The paper proceeds through a critical examination of the Political Constitutionalist theories of rights politics proposed by Jeremy Waldron and Richard Bellamy. While political constitutionalists are correct to argue that rights are ‘contestable’ and require democratic justification, they construe political activity almost exclusively with reference to voting, parties and parliamentary (...) law-making, neglecting the vital role rights play in political struggle outside and against the official institutions of democratic citizenship. In contrast to the political constitutionalist stress on the patient and reciprocal negotiation of rights within formal electoral processes, this paper locates the political nature of rights in their conflictual logic as ‘claims’ in multiple spheres that function to mobilise oppos... (shrink)

Recently, extremist ‘populist’ parties have succeeded in obtaining large enough democratic electoral mandates both to legally make substantive changes to the law and constitution and to legally eliminate avenues to challenge their control over the government. Extremists place committed liberal democrats in an awkward position as they work to legally revolutionize their constitutions and turn them into ‘illiberal democracies’. This article analyses political responses to this problem. It argues that the twin phenomena of legal revolution and illiberal democracy reveal (...) a latent tension between the constitutional commitments to democracy and liberalism, that is, the equal chance to have one’s political goals enacted into law and individual basic rights. Political extremists make the latent tension real when they use the procedures of democratic legal change to abrogate constitutional commitments to liberalism, among other things. Although the two commitments normally coexist side by side, exceptional times raise an existential dilemma for liberal democracies: is it constitutional to democratically amend liberalism out of the constitution? After analysing the moral legitimacy of both the democratic and liberal arguments, this article concludes that liberal constitutionalism is constitutive of genuine democracy. In other words, it is unconstitutional to abrogate basic liberal commitments and it is legitimate to adopt constitutional mechanisms to guarantee liberalism – even if it means constraining democracy to do so. This article then situates ‘constrained democracy’ within the liberal current as a way to conceive of and respond to this pressing problem. It concludes by discussing four constitutional mechanisms – inspired by the German Grundgesetz – to guarantee liberalism: unambiguous lexically prior commitment to liberalism, limits on negative majorities, the eternity clause and party bans. It concludes that constrained democracy is an important constitutional guarantee of liberal democracy and that the four mechanisms, among others, are essential to enact constrained democracy. (shrink)

Citizenship regimes are institutionalized systems of formal and informal norms that define access to membership, as well as associated rights and duties. This paper studies illegalized migration as one of the major tests to assess whether citizenship regimes are fair institutions, based on a historical analysis of legislation meant to reduce illegalized migration in the United States between 1995 and 2022. We build our empirical research starting from a simple observation: despite the great number of bills introduced to reduce illegalized (...) migration to the US, most of such initiatives fail to become law. In fact, 93.5% of all immigration initiatives did not even pass the chamber of Congress in which they were originally presented. Such a high rate of failure shows that these proposals are motivated by electoral aspirations, rather than coming from a genuine wish to help migrants or grant them citizenship. Furthermore, there is also an economic interest that justifies the maintenance of low-cost disposable immigrant labor, with no right to citizenship. Our analysis is an example of how state regulation processes seem to work to formalize, rather than alleviate or eradicate, the precarious legal statuses of illegalized migrants. We conclude that a globalized phenomenon such as citizenship requires going beyond merely institutional and formal conceptions. We need to rethink the institutional notion of citizenship, as a merely status held under the authority of a state and consider it from a cosmopolitan perspective and a multilateral basis. But as long as citizenship remains under the responsibility of states, illegalized migrants will continue to experience precarious citizenship. (shrink)

Judicial review by constitutional courts is often presented as a necessary supplement to democracy. This book questions its effectiveness and legitimacy. Drawing on the republican tradition, Richard Bellamy argues that the democratic mechanisms of open elections between competing parties and decision-making by majority rule offer superior and sufficient methods for upholding rights and the rule of law. The absence of popular accountability renders judicial review a form of arbitrary rule which lacks the incentive structure democracy provides to ensure rulers treat (...) the ruled with equal concern and respect. Rights based judicial review undermines the constitutionality of democracy. Its counter-majoritarian bias promotes privileged against unprivileged minorities, while its legalism and focus on individual cases distort public debate. Rather than constraining democracy with written constitutions and greater judicial oversight, attention should be paid to improving democratic processes through such measures as reformed electoral systems and enhanced parliamentary scrutiny. (shrink)

The latest volume of Leibniz’ Politische Schriften, in the great Akademie-Ausgabe of the Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe, reveals the astonishing range of Leibniz’ political-moral-legal-religious-scientific-cultural concerns: if the first, largest and most important section of this new fifth volume deals with justice and law, that is only to be expected, since Leibniz’ doctoral degree was in law and jurisprudence, and since he served as jurisconsult and “intimate counsellor of justice” to an ever-expanding circle of European rulers: first the Elector of Mainz, (...) then the house of Hannover, then the King of Prussia in Berlin, the Emperor in Vienna, and Czar Peter the Great.. But Politische Schriften vol. 5 also treats “church policy” and charitable religious reconciliation—including a Latin memorial poem on the death of benevolently ecumenical Huguenot-turned-Catholic Pellisson ; the raising of Hannover to the status of an Electorate within the Holy Roman Empire; and the relations of the Reich with Europe, especially with the France of bellicose Louis XIV. Moreover vol. 5 takes up “health policy,” the improvement of the coinage, and numerous schemes for the rational re-ordering of the ducal libraries of Hannover and Wolfenbüttel, with emphasis on books in the so-called “higher-faculties”. And all of these apparently diverse, seemingly scattered matters are coherently linked by Leibniz’ charitable concern for le bien général du genre humain: “Provided that something of importance is achieved, I am indifferent whether it is done in Germany or France, for I seek the good of mankind. I am neither a phil-Hellene nor a philo-Roman, but a philanthropos.”. (shrink)

Environmental protection presents a challenge for commodity-producing democracies. To account for the enforcement of environmental laws in decentralized systems, this article proposes a multilevel approach that highlights the importance of national laws and subnational implementation rules to the politics of enforcement. This approach contrasts with prominent scholarship that focuses on sanctions and the electoral incentives and bureaucratic resources of enforcers. The advantages of the multilevel approach are demonstrated by the enforcement of the native forest protection regime in the Argentine (...) Chaco Forest, which is shaped not only by whether sanctions on illegal deforestation are applied by subnational authorities but also by the design of both the national law and subnational regulations. The article employs quantitative data and case studies based on extensive fieldwork to show how affected subnational organized interests influenced the design of the NFPR and the provincial regulations that weaken or strengthen enforcement. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to systematize and generalize information about the political right-conservative movement in modern Poland. In the course of the study, the potential for support for right-wing parties exists in every society. It can grow due to two groups of factors. The first concerns issues related to the difficult economic situation, the modernization of societies or cultural aspects, which are called demand-related in the literature. The second large group consists of supply factors: factors of possible political (...) success (structure of political opportunities), electoral rules, inter-party competition, the role of the mass media, the structure of political divisions or the role of the winning ideology. Polish right-wing conservatism and nationalism is characterized, both in the past and in the present, by a powerful influence on the social and political life of the Republic of Poland, acting as a fundamental element of the unification of the Polish people. This movement retains its traditional features, which are reflected in the ideology of the Polish ruling party “Law and Justice”, which adheres to a national-conservative orientation with elements of clericalism, maintains close ties with the Catholic Church and organizations close to it. In the period after coming to power (2015), “PiS” slowly but steadily lost its Christian-democratic character and evolved into a conservative political force. This allowed “PiS” to win elections for a long time, and in 2023, it allows it to maintain leading positions in public opinion polls regarding support for political parties. In the field of international relations, supporters of “PiS” operated with judgments that expressed the ideas of nationalism, presenting the Poles as a strong nation that should occupy an important place among other countries. The process of creating right-wing conservative political parties and associations in Poland continues on an ongoing basis. The strengthening of nationalist movements in Poland takes place with the support of the state authorities of the Republic of Poland and is accompanied by a gradual shift of emphasis on controversial historical issues in the direction of nationalist ideology. Despite official Warsaw providing political support to Kyiv in the international arena in connection with the Russian military threat, the authorities of the Republic of Poland have no intention of blocking anti-Ukrainian activities carried out by Polish national-patriotic right-wing movements. This is due to the preparation of the ruling elite for the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the tragic events in Volyn in 2023, as well as the parliamentary election campaign. In the future, the activation of radical right-conservative formations on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth may lead to protest actions in Poland, the purpose of which will be the dissemination of information unfavorable to our state in the Polish information space, which will have a negative impact on the formation of the foreign policy vector of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Ukrainian direction. (shrink)

According to the standards of public law, municipal polls have only a local scope : the election of a common council. Do politicians make deductions concerning the formal political power-constellation on national level either from the approach of municipal elections or from their results? Can these elections lead to changes in or of the government and eventually to anticipated legislative elections?After the first world-war, the electorate was called eight times to vote for new common councillors. Half of these elections had (...) no influence on the national power-constellation :they hardly stirred the national political life. In 1958 any possible influence of the municipal elections was even a priori ruled out. A remarkable point is that all municipal elections which took place undergovernments of national union, were only of local importance.Since the first world-war not a single municipal election has led to changes within the government : there was never a redistribution of ministerial portfolios amongst the coalitionpartners, nor did any electioncause the dismissal of an individual minister.It is traditional in Belgian politics that the national opposition, when the results of municipal elections are in its favour and prejudicial to the party in office, tries to call in question the legitimacy of the government in the opinion of the public by the way of motions or interpellations in parliament, claiming dismissal of the government or anticipated legislative elections. At these occasions it appeared unimportant whether the parliamental majority were confortable or not. But never did the governments give in to these attempts.The elections of 1857, 1884 and 1932 constitute an element of power - although of subsidiary importance - in the discharge of the then governments. The governmental crisis of 1884 however can only be explained if the constitutional position of Leopold II is taken into account. With all other factors alike, such a crisis wouldn't arise any more in the context of to-day. The municipal elections of 1932 have moreover led to anticipated legislative elections whose date was an element of power in the election-process. At that time, these elections played the part of an indicator of the electorial condition, comparable to that of the by elections in Great-Britain. And an unreliable indicator too, in view of the difference between national and local electionstatures. (shrink)

Purpose: The primary objective of this study was to determine the role of church in state and public affairs during the Kibaki Era, 2002-2013Methodology: The methodology employed in this study was qualitative in nature. The study relied mainly on the analysis of an existing dataset from secondary sources. The data was gathered from technical reports, scholarly journals, reference books, past sermons, church publications, official and unofficial doctrine, theologies and from the Kenya National Archives in Nairobi. Other sources of data collection (...) for the study included official statistics collected by government and the various agencies, bureaus and departments. The target population for this study was the mainland churches in Kenya and the role these churches played in state and public affairs in Kenya between 2002 and 2007.Results: The Kibaki era has been characterized by many an events that have attracted by far and wide the attention of the clergy. In 2005, the most significant development of the 2005 constitutional referendum is not the defeat of the draft, but the emergence of strains and tensions not just between Christians and Muslims, but also between church and state. Another significant development was the fact that the mainline clergy were increasingly viewed as partisan and divided along ethnic lines and serving narrow political interest depending on the ethnic group to which its leaders belonged. The prophetic role and voice of the church to act as the conscience of society was lost, and the church did nothing to evaluate its own role even after the people voted to soundly reject the draft constitution.Unique contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study recommended that the government should put in place laws that would involve the church in government matters. This can be done by introducing motions into parliament that advocate for the direct involvement of the church. This would involve laws which ensure that a portion of all members sitting in any committee represents the church. This can also be done by the introduction of electoral posts for church representatives just as there are positions for women representatives. The study also recommends that amendments be made to the constitution to make a legal requirement that one of the nominated MPs must be from the church. (shrink)

In this article, I consider a curious blind spot in constitutional scholarship concerning the resurging rural/urban divide—a readily evident phenomenon closely associated with political resentment and anti-establishment sentiments—and how we may begin to address that challenge through creative constitutional designs. Specifically, I draw upon insights from comparative constitutionalism to discuss four main areas of constitutional law and theory that appear to hold some intellectual promise in this context: formal constitutional commitment at the national level to recognizing the urban/rural divide and (...) commitment to addressing it; creative electoral system designs that take into account the spatial dimension of politics; spatial pluralization based on concepts such as “mixed constitutions,” “community standards,” and “margin of appreciation”; and rethinking elements of equalization and fiscal federalism more generally. Taken together, the four directions I discuss here offer a repertoire of constitutional design possibilities that hold promise in mitigating the resurging rural/urban gulf. More generally, they serve as an invitation to constitutional thinkers to shake up the rather stagnant constitutional thought of spatial governance, and to think creatively about the ever-expanding urban/rural divide and its consequences for the theory and practice of 21st century constitutional democracy. (shrink)

Five major claims are made in our paper on strategic voting within the context of Japan's multimember single non-transferable vote (SNTV) electoral system (Fournier and Kohno, 2000). Two claims deal with the reconciliation of Steven Reed's (1990) and Gary Cox's (1997) important work on extending Duverger's law to the Japanese case, and three claims deal with the informational effects of partisan labels on strategic voting.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:M. Tullius Cicero: The Fragmentary SpeechesJohn NicholsonJane W. Crawford. M. Tullius Cicero: The Fragmentary Speeches. An edition with commentary. 2d ed. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994. x + 350 pp. Cloth, $39.95; paper, $24.95. (American Classical Studies 33)Here we have a manifestation of the paradox that scholarship thrives on ignorance. Scanty evidence begets profuse speculation and reconstruction, and often the less we know about something, the more we write (...) about it. Hence flows this elaborate presentation of Cicero’s fragmentary speeches, which complements the author’s previous book in the same vein, M. Tullius Cicero: The Lost and Unpublished Orations(Hypomnemata 80, Göttingen 1984). With great industry Crawford presents us 350 pages of intense erudition devoted to the explication of about 220 fragments (most rather short) from sixteen otherwise lost but identifiable Ciceronian orations; this second edition adds a brief appendix of another thirty-one fragmenta incertae sedis.But Crawford’s sprawling edition of these remnants is by no means in vain. They have been unduly neglected, and deserve to be more widely appreciated. If nothing else they remind us of how much we have lost from antiquity, even of an author such as Cicero from whom so much else has survived. This rich inheritance is nevertheless only a fraction of the original legacy, and we must remember that there are many pieces missing from the puzzle, the loss of which distorts the overall picture. This new edition represents a dedicated effort to fill in some of the neglected pieces not just from along the edges, but also from the vital center, to reconstruct their original context, and thereby to sharpen the focus of the whole. The fact that most of the speeches under view in this study date to the 60s B.C., a period not fully represented in the extant Ciceronian letters, [End Page 148]makes them all the more important as valuable evidence in the proper understanding of Cicero’s political and forensic career at its height.The fragments here range in length from single isolated words to several lines; most average one or two lines, though there are about a dozen longer fragments between five and nine lines each. Not included in this edition are orations such as Pro Scauroand Pro Tulliowhich, though incomplete, are considered essentially extant. Some of the fragments come from minor orations about which we know very little (five speeches are represented by a single fragment), while others survive in large clusters from important speeches which were well known in antiquity and whose loss to modern readers must be regretted. There are, for example, twenty-seven fragments from Cicero’s electoral oration In Toga Candida(all preserved by Asconius), thirty-three from the invective In P. Clodium et Curionem,and twenty-five from the speech De Aere Alieno Milonis(preserved in the Bobbio scholia). But the most extensively preserved are the twin defense speeches Pro C. Cornelio,together represented by eighty fragments (well over a third from Asconius) whose discussion consumes nearly a quarter of Crawford’s book. Over all, Asconius, Quintilian, and the Bobbio scholiast provide the most numerous and significant fragments, augmented by their encasing commentary which provides valuable context and discussion. Less important are the stray words and phrases picked out by some three dozen others, mostly grammarians with narrow linguistic purposes, working as late as the sixth century a.d.Crawford’s modus operandifor making sense of these fragments is logical and thorough. For each of the sixteen orations, arranged here in chronological order, she first gives a preliminary introduction rehearsing what we know of the historical facts about the case and summarizing the scholarship on the issues which surround it. Next come the ancient testimonia for each speech, both Latin and Greek, and then the fragments themselves (along with textual apparatus) arranged in their probable correct order. She does not offer translations. Finally, each fragment receives a comprehensive commentary addressing matters of date, prosopography, history, politics and law, rhetoric, style, and diction (including textual questions). Where the fragments are extensive enough, there is also a good attempt to reconstruct the overall structure and argument of the speech. At... (shrink)

This volume is primarily concerned with equality as a basic component of the democratic character of representation. In other words, of the many types of equality that have attracted the attention of theorists since democracy's beginnings - arithmetic equality, equality before the law, equality of opportunity- we would like to draw attention to representational equality, that is, the role of equality in systems of democratic representation. In what form is equality present in traditional forms of electoral representation? How can (...) it be secured in new forms of representation, such as claims-making, deliberative, klerotarian and epistemic representation? And to what extent are electoral or non-electoral models of representation able to accommodate increasing social inequalities? The articles in this volume discuss these issues from a normative and conceptual point of view, seeking to shed new light on the important but under-explored relationship between equality and representation. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. (shrink)

There are a number of grounds for criticizing what the state requires of one, and for thinking that one no longer has an obligation to obey it. I will begin by attempting to locate liberalism amongst such grounds. It is useful for this purpose to contrast two headings under which these grounds may fall. Firstly, there are criticisms concerning the content of the requirements of the state. In this case exception is taken to what it is that the law requires (...) quite apart from the process by which it was arrived at. If Jews are legally prevented from practising certain professions, and objection is taken because no state should make laws debarring persons from certain professions on religious grounds, the objection is one of content. Secondly, there are grounds concerning the procedure by which a decision was reached. If it is thought that the British Government ought not to have signed the Treaty of Rome because no referendum was taken on whether the electorate wanted Britain to join, exception is taken to the procedure by which this decision was made. The objection could be made by one who thought that British entry was the best policy. liberalism lays down principles concerning the permissible content of what is required by the state. (shrink)

The Eurozone crisis has triggered profound political and economic changes across the debtor member states. This article shows how the crisis and the imposition of austerity policies by the Troika have forced Spain to pursue internal devaluation as a means of economic adjustment through the reduction of real wages, increased pressure for liberalizing labor market institutions, and given Spain’s conservative government the opportunity and cover to pursue radical neoliberal labor law reforms. Spain’s 2012 labor law reforms went well beyond external (...) demands. The crisis and the Troika’s policy demands generated mass unemployment, devastated Spain’s Socialist Party, and created the enabling conditions for economic reforms. But domestic partisan considerations led the conservative People’s Party to commandeer the crisis to weaken unions as the electoral and organizational base of the center-left opposition. The PP channeled reform into an attack on labor that decisively shifted power to employers. As organized labor relations were reduced to concession bargaining, real wages have plummeted for the vast majority of Spaniards, even as mass unemployment and economic stagnation persist. Analysis suggests the emergence of a winner-take-all economy that will have lasting consequences for the Eurozone and the European Union. (shrink)

Scholars loosely affiliated with the “Cambridge School” (e.g., Pocock, Skinner, Viroli, and Pettit) accentuate rule of law, common good, class equilibrium, and non-domination in Machiavelli's political thought and republicanism generally but underestimate the Florentine's preference for class conflict and ignore his insistence on elite accountability. The author argues that they obscure the extent to which Machiavelli is an anti-elitist critic of the republican tradition, which they fail to disclose was predominantly oligarchic. The prescriptive lessons these scholars draw from republicanism for (...) contemporary politics reinforce rather than reform the “senatorial,” electorally based, and socioeconomically agnostic republican model (devised by Machiavelli's aristocratic interlocutor, Guicciardini, and refined by Montesquieu and Madison) that permits common citizens to acclaim but not determine government policies. Cambridge School textual interpretations and practical proposals have little connection with Machiavelli's “tribunate,” class-specific model of popular government elaborated in The Discourses, one that relies on extra-electoral accountability techniques and embraces deliberative popular assemblies. (shrink)