Concentration Of Political Power Research Articles

Analyzing the Lange–Lerner Hypothesis: is a monopolized banking sector a threat to democracy?

Is a monopolized banking sector a threat to democracy? Increasing bank monopolization and its growing share of the economy have brought renewed interest to this historical concern. Oskar Lange and Abba Lerner held that banking monopolization would undermine democracy through the concentration of political power among banking elites. This led them to exclude the banking sector from their more general support for private ownership of the means of production. We examine whether banking monopolization is associated with concentrated political power and the undermining of democracy using the Lerner Index (based on Lerner’s measure of banking concentration), Polity scores, Varieties of Democracy’s (V-Dem’s) Political Civil Liberty Index, and V-Dem’s Power Distributed by Socioeconomic Position Index, comprising data for 101 countries from 1996 to 2014 in our full specification. We find no relationship between civil liberties and the banking sector in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries but a negative and statistically significant relationship in non-OECD countries. We find no relationship between the Lerner Index and the concentration of power by socioeconomic status. Our results support only one variant of the Lange–Lerner Hypothesis and only among non-OECD countries. We argue that, most likely, this is because long-established democracies are more resilient.

The limits of concentrated power: Bureaucratic independence and electricity crises in Rwanda

Abstract Rwanda is a posterchild of economic success in twenty-first century Africa. Dominant explanations for the country’s growth use the political settlements framework, asserting that concentrated political power enabled long-term planning. In contrast, this article uses the case of Rwanda’s impressive boom in electricity generation to demonstrate that such concentrated power also distorts policy-making processes, creating a fiscal crisis that jeopardizes Rwanda’s economic transformation. Therefore, this article questions a central premise of the political settlements framework. Concentrated political power in Rwanda enabled rapid and ambitious construction of power plants but resulted in an oversupply crisis, plunging the sector into significant debt and raising the cost of electricity. Rwanda’s political settlement prevented experts from challenging unrealistic targets set by top politicians, which led to a headlong pursuit of electricity generation capacity. To understand this process, we assert the importance of focusing on the bureaucratic/politician relationship, which we label ‘bureaucratic independence’, rather than on the oft-used concept of ‘bureaucratic autonomy’ usually associated with the concentration of political power.

CARL SCHMITT AND FRIEDRICH HAYEK ON DEMOCRACY: ELECTIVE AFFINITIES?

The aim of the present paper is to disclose the structural affinities between Carl Schmitt and Friedrich Hayek regarding the concept of parliamentary democracy. Identifying Hayek’s neoliberal thinking with Schmitt’s theoretical justification of fascism would apparently be an a-historical overgeneralization. While Schmitt develops a model of absolute sovereignty relying on the sovereign’s decision on the state of exception, Hayek envisages the historical realization of those conditions allowing the market competition to flourish. Schmitt’s model subjugates market to an omnipotent state whereas Hayek views the latter as an engine abetting the free market competition. 
 A closer reading, however, could discern affinities behind the seemingly opposed models of the two thinkers. 
 Schmitt’s model of an emergency dictatorship and Hayek’s nomocracy are two different responses and attacks to the Left’s attempt to construct a democratic welfare state in the Weimar Republic and postwar Europe. Schmitt advocates the concentration of political power in a totalitarian state as the sole “remedy” to the democratic contamination of liberalism induced by the politicization of civil society. Similarly, Hayek castigates any state intervention taking the form of the welfare state but endorses a powerful state entrusted with the role of securing the conditions of market competition.

SOME SPECIFIC FEATURES OF THE GENESIS OF MODERN BELGIAN POLITICS

This article discusses the symbolism of the year 1830 in the transition from the old political order to the establishment and gradual consolidation of the modern Belgian state. Modern constitutionalism was characterized by the struggle against monarchical absolutism and the concentration of political power in the hands of a single person. In addition, it supported the respect of civil rights and liberties, the individual being at the center of liberal philosophy, along with the idea of a representative government, the separation of powers in the state and the supremacy of the rule of law. The spread of the revolutionary wave from 1830 throughout the country opened a new period in the history of Belgium, in which the ideas of centralizing the state and asserting national independence merged with the urgency to give a direction to the state by choosing the representative monarchy as a form of governance and with the introduction of the Senate as an intermediate power. By analyzing the Belgian deputies’ speeches, this article aims to make an introduction in the way the deputies imagined the construction of the state and to advance the idea of a mutual trajectory of the Belgian society in accordance with the young European nations.

Concentration of political power: Can we improve its measurement?

Concentration of political power: Can we improve its measurement?

Development of the conceptual foundations of the ratio of public law to private law in classical German jurisprudence

In the article, the author tries to focus on the problem of the evolution of views, ideas and concepts of the relationship between public and private law in classical German jurisprudence, taking into account the active influence of German legal doctrine in the formation of Ukrainian legal opinion on this issue. At the same time, the author attempted a generalized analysis of key theoretical positions in the history of the development of classical German legal doctrine regarding the distinction between public and private law.The author came to the conclusion that for a long time (practically until the end of the 18th century) German legal opinion did not attach any significant importance to the division of law into public and private law, and German legal scholars of that time considered this issue traditionally in line with the ideas formulated by Roman jurists, without succeeding to proper legal argumentation.At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, the first attempts to investigate the problem of the relationship between public and private law appeared in German philosophical literature, and later in legal doctrine, which began to develop actively. These subsystems are already considered as autonomous legal entities, because the concentration of political power in the hands of the state and the creation of public law also led to the separation of private law as a separate subsystem of law.In the 19th century, during the formation of classical legal science, German lawyers thoroughly developed the issue of distinguishing public and private law, trying to clearly define its criteria, the ontological essence and methodology of legal regulation within these subsystems, as well as, in general, the transformation and development of positive law in the context of its division on public and private. At the same time, within the limits of the German legal doctrine of this period, a detailed argumentation of the concept of interest, the concept of the subject, the functional concept, the concept of subordination, as well as the mixed approach, which offers a combination of the provisions of these concepts, is proposed.Since the end of the 19th century, under the influence of state intervention in the sphere of economy, active state regulation of social relations, development of concepts of social direction (in particular, the concept of the welfare state), a tendency to interweaving, rapprochement, and convergence of public and private law has been observed in German legal doctrine.

Less is more or the more the merrier? Analysing attitudes towards multiple‐mandate holding among local officeholders

AbstractThe practice of multiple‐mandate holding is widespread across Europe. Critics argue that this practice contributes to a concentration of political power, a higher risk for conflicts of interest and damage to the public image of political actors. Advocates meanwhile claim that it provides clear benefits, such as local embeddedness of the national or regional political decision‐making and a greater degree of professionalisation in politics. However, little is known about how political actors themselves look upon this practice. This especially in a context like Finland, where this practice is said to be embedded in the political culture and where another institutional level has recently been implemented, making it possible for political actors to simultaneously hold political mandates at the local‐, regional‐ and national levels. This paper examines attitudes towards multiple‐mandate holding among local political decision‐makers using unique survey data gathered through a new online panel. The results suggest that councillors from a populist radical right party and those who perceive corruption and partial treatment as more common were the most negatively disposed towards this practice, while councillors from the traditionally strongest rural party were the most in favour.

Ethnic diversity, concentration of political power and the curse of natural resources

The empirical evidence suggests that resource rich countries tend to have poor economic performance and higher rent seeking. In this paper, we develop a general equilibrium model explaining why natural resources turn out to be a curse in an economy divided into two classes: elite and workers. Our model explains the resource curse in a setup in which governing elite expropriate rents from natural resources which reduces the productive use of these resources. The expected costs and benefits of such rent seeking activities depend on the degree of ethnic polarization which affects the concentration of political power, and on the quality of institutions, which constrains rent seeking. The model predicts that in the presence of natural resources and rent seeking, ethnic polarization increases the concentration of political power, reduces income per capita and increases income inequality. Moreover, the impact will be higher in economies that depend more on natural resources.

ІСТОРІОГРАФІЧНІ ТА МЕТОДОЛОГІЧНІ АСПЕКТИ ПОРІВНЯЛЬНОГО АНАЛІЗУ ПІДХОДІВ ФРАНЧЕСКО ГВІЧЧАРДИНІ І НІККОЛО МАКІАВЕЛЛІ У РАМКАХ ПРОБЛЕМАТИКИ «ДЕРЖАВНОГО ІНТЕРЕСУ» ТА ТЕОРІЇ АБСОЛЮТИЗМУ

In the presented article, the author defends the idea that the argumentation system of Quentin Skinner (Quentin Robert Duthie Skinner), Maurizio Viroli (Maurizio Viroli) regarding the methodological foundations of the origin of the political theory of Niccolo Machiavelli in The Sovereign cannot cast doubt on the approach of the German-American political philosopher Leo Strauss (Leo Strauss). The same emphasis is proposed to be used for the most part in the final value judgments regarding the meaning of the “Sovereign” within the framework of the problems of “state interest” (raison d’état) and the theory of absolutism. In addition, the strengths and weaknesses of the concept of the British historian Nicholas Henshall are comprehensively considered. It is argued, with the involvement of a wide background of historiographical assessments and methodological remarks, the productivity in the general historical context of a comparative analysis of the positions of Machiavelli and Guicciardini in the framework of the analysis of the theory of absolutism. The further development of the theory of absolutism, presented within the framework of social and political thought by the works of, first of all, Thomas Hobbes allows us to see a direct relationship with Machiavellianism as a phenomenon. The analysis of the positions of the representatives of British historiography on the studied issue shows the characteristic features of their evaluations of the interesting author of the issue. Thus, Nicholas Henschel in the work “The Myth of Absolutism” bypasses the analysis of “The Prince”, which would add an additional possibility in substantiating the insufficient character of the theory of absolute power. However, it seems to us that Henschel was perfectly aware in his work that it is difficult to blame the author of “The Sovereign” for the lack of justification of the goal in the expressed theory of absolute power. Turning to the comparative analysis of the positions of political thinkers of the Italian Renaissance is of significant interest for modern Ukrainian society in a practical sense. The Italian political crisis of the specified period was reflected in the persistent search by the best minds of the Renaissance era for ways out of it, a thorough understanding of the historical and political reality that surrounded Italians. The result was the emergence of impressive theoretical generalizations of key aspects of historical development. The author comes to the conclusion that without Machiavelli, the ideology of absolutism, which was further developed in the works of the same Thomas Hobbes, could not have received its inherent conceptual outlines. In order to accomplish this, Machiavelli had to make a break with the classical tradition of political philosophy, just as the formation of a centralized state required the concentration of political power in the hands of the monarch, that is, a break with the feudal tradition of political thinking in general.

The efficiency of the political process in the Republic of Moldova in the context of increasing global threats in tearm of a realistic approach

The article deals with the problem of political process and political participation in the Republic of Moldova. The author draws on the realistic concept of Danilo Zolo about the “social complexity” in the context of the post-industrial era in the studying of this issue. The author shows that the evolution of the political process in the Republic of Moldova reflects the global processes of democracy crisis, being a product of the modern age development. The author pays a special attention to the problem of political participation, concluding that such a problems like the COVID-19, finally remove demos from political life. Actually, the mane subject of the political process become the executive branch. The concentration of political power requires strengthening of the professionalism and of the responsibility of the management team.

The efficiency of the political process in the Republic of Moldova in the context of increasing global threats in tearm of a realistic approach (Part II)

The article deals with the problem of political process and political participation in the Republic of Moldova. The author draws on the realistic concept of Danilo Zolo about the “social complexity” in the context of the post-industrial era in the studying of this issue. Th e author shows that the evolution of the political process in the Republic of Moldova refl ects the global processes of democracy crisis, being a product of the modern age development. The author pays a special attention to the problem of political participation, concluding that such a problems like the “COVID-19”, finally remove demos from political life. Actually, the mane subject of the political process become the executive branch. The concentration of political power requires strengthening of the professionalism and of the responsibility of the management team.

Representative Democracy and Social Equality

When are inequalities in political power undemocratic, and why? While some writers condemn any inequalities in political power as a deviation from the ideal of democracy, this view is vulnerable to the simple objection that representative democracies concentrate political power in the hands of elected officials rather than distributing it equally among citizens, but they are no less democratic for it. Building on recent literature that interprets democracy as part of a broader vision of social equality, I argue that concentrations of political power are incompatible with democracy, and with a commitment to social equality more generally, when they consist in some having greater arbitrary power to influence decisions according to their idiosyncratic preferences. A novel account of the relationship between power and social status clarifies the role of social equality in the justification of democracy, including a representative democracy in which public officials have more political power than ordinary citizens.

Introduction and Executive Summary

Antitrust institutions in the United States and around the world are at a crossroads. Until now, antitrust has been based upon the consumer welfare standard, which has served as the lodestar of modern antitrust for the past 40 years. The hallmark of modern antitrust enforcement has been a case-by-case approach, driven by economic analysis and an evaluation of conduct on the merits. Courts and competition agencies have generally rejected invitations to jettison this successful approach in favor of presumptions of illegality and other shortcuts. The reason is simple: Relying upon presumptions instead of evidence risks rendering unlawful business behavior that in fact benefits consumers. But there is increasingly talk of a revolution that would overthrow the antitrust regime in the United States and, indeed, around the world. The drumbeat for this revolution appears to be strong and growing, with a broad range of enthusiastic participants and followers, including legal academics and economists, public intellectuals, think tankers, prominent members of Congress, and some foreign competition authorities. The would-be revolution has already had some success—at least as measured by the increasing discussion in academia, the popular press, and social media, and having embedded some of its central ideas in the platforms of both major U.S. political parties. Signs of the gathering revolution can also be seen in the various reports on antitrust and the digital economy emanating from around the world, such as those of the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition, the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, and other think tanks and governmental bodies. The more radical revolutionaries want an antitrust regime to address a myriad of perceived socio-political problems, including, but not limited to, income inequality, relative wage depression, and the concentration of political power. Some call for incorporating other forms of regulation—particularly regulation of data and privacy—into the antitrust laws and putting them in the hands of the antitrust regulators. Their revolutionary zeal is aimed generally at the digital economy and in particular at large tech firms. Their proposed “fixes” targeting the largest tech firms run the gamut from the reinvigoration of competition rulemaking at the Federal Trade Commission, to shifting the burden of proof from plaintiffs to defendants in antitrust litigation, to extending the reach of antitrust to content moderation decisions, to size-based presumptions akin to the antitrust approach of the 1960s, to creating a new agency with unlimited regulatory power. These proposals have been refined to the point that they are now ripe, in our view, for rigorous examination from an evidence-based perspective.

Can Permissionless Blockchains Avoid Governance and the Law?

Permission-less (or public) block-chain networks are a new form of decentralized private governance in the digital sphere. Though legal scholars recognize the significance of law in the use of block-chain, existing research using legal and institutional perspectives leaves block-chain governance as something of a black box. We provide a more granular analysis, finding that block-chain governance operates on four distinct levels. Governance at the protocol layer involves discrete institutional design choices intended to constrain network members’ incentives in an ongoing sense. Subsidiary governance arises from the need for communities to draft protocol updates and from the fact that governance protocol design choices create discrete concentrations of political power within the network. Competitive governance forces arise because cryptocurrency networks are constrained by the possibility of exit of participants and users to other alternatives. Finally, in terms of superior governance, permission-less cryptocurrency participants and users are subject to a variety of laws and regulations due to how cryptocurrencies implicate property, contracts, tax, and securities law. Since the interaction of these governance aspects shapes the operation of any given network, legal and regulatory governance of block-chain ought to consider permission-less block-chains as confronting political and governance dilemmas much like any complex organization. Predicting the effect legal and regulatory treatment of permission-less block-chains requires an accurate understanding of the incentives of their members, all of which are greatly shaped by the governance forces we outline in detail here.

Fascism and Monopoly

The recent revival of political interest in antitrust has resurfaced a longstanding debate about the role of industrial concentration and monopoly in enabling Hitler’s rise to power and the Third Reich’s wars of aggression. Proponents of stronger antitrust enforcement argue that monopolies and cartels brought the Nazis to power and warn that rising concentration in the American economy could similarly threaten democracy. Skeptics demur, observing that German big business largely opposed Hitler during the crucial years of his ascent. Drawing on business histories and archival material from the U.S. Office of Military Government’s Decartelization Branch, this Article assesses the historical record on the role of industrial concentration in facilitating Nazism. It finds compelling evidence that, while German big business principally did not support Hitler before he won the chancellorship in 1933, the extreme concentration of market power during the Weimar period enabled Hitler to seize and consolidate totalitarian power through a variety of mechanisms. Hence, the German experience with Nazism lends support to the idea that extreme concentration of economic power enables extreme concentration of political power. However, most of the conduct that created the radical economic concentration of the Weimar period would be unlawful under contemporary antitrust principles, which casts doubt on claims that a significant shift in antitrust enforcement is necessary to forestall antidemocratic forces.

Was There Federalism in the Brazilian Empire? A Case of Contrast Between Federal State and Federalism in 19th Century

This article aims to demonstrate that there were federative relations during the Empire of Brazil, with some reform during the regency period. The methodology used to measure the results focuses on the use of bibliographic sources from the 19th century and from more recent studies on the scope of the article. In addition, the use of documentary sources is present, since legislation of nineteenth-century Brazil is used, in particular, the Additional Act of 1834, which gives name to the present work. Although expressly provided for in the 1824 Political Charter that Brazil would constitute a Unitary State, in practice the increased regional concentration of political power led to a functioning situation such as a decentralized federal State. To this end, it begins with a brief demonstration of the antecedents of the Constitution of 1824. It then proceeds to treat the provision of this Constitution about the political organization to finally discuss the effects caused by the Additional Act of 1834.

The Counter-Playbook: Resisting the Populist Assault on Separation of Powers

This Article first distinguishes regimes, like that of Trump's America, from ones, as in Hungary and Poland. It then shows how the major target of structural populism's determined assault on the institutional framework of constitutional democracy has been the separation of powers rather than free and fair elections, political and civil rights, or the rule of law. Since neutralizing all sources of independent and dispersed political power has been the distinctive strategy of structural populism, the Article argues that the defense of constitutional democracy must develop a similar disciplined focus as its enemies, in the form of an anti-concentration principle that makes dismantling separation of powers more difficult to accomplish. This anti-concentration principle has a number of components in practice, addressing the major structural elements of constitutional, institutional, and democratic design, and amounts to a counter-playbook for constitutional democrats on how to increase resistance to, or preemptively thwart, the moves that have proven so successful over the past few years. Of course, relying on constitutional, institutional, and democratic design to render the concentration of political power more difficult to achieve is not a panacea, and can only be part of any solution to the threats posed by authoritarian populism, but it is not irrelevant. In particular, the counter-playbook that is developed and presented in this Article may help to prevent political populist regimes from transitioning into the more dangerous second type, and frustrate or slow down the slightly less determined, ruthless, politically astute, or popular structural populist. Even if the strongest roof cannot withstand a Category 5 hurricane, it is still sensible to build one in the event of a Category 2, 3 or 4.

Political selection and the optimal concentration of political power

We study how policy choice and political selection are affected by the concentration of political power. In a setting with inefficient policy gambles, variations in power concentration give rise to a trade-off. On the one hand, power-concentrating institutions allocate more power to the voters’ preferred candidate. On the other hand, they induce the adoption of more overly risky policies and decrease the voters’ capability to select well-suited politicians. We show that full concentration of power is optimal if and only if the conflict of interest between voters and politicians is small. Otherwise, an intermediate level of power concentration is optimal.

The opportunism of populists and the defense of constitutional liberalism

AbstractLiberal constitutionalism is under attack from a new breed of autocrats broadly classified as populist. These populists understand the weaknesses of constitutional liberalism and attack their opponents with criticisms that take advantage of internal weaknesses of the theory. But a closer analysis of theoretical framework used by populists to substitute for constitutional liberalism reveals that they are not really committed to populism in any serious sense. Instead, they have abandoned liberalism in the quest for raw power. Focusing on Viktor Orbán of Hungary and his chief ideologist András Lánczi, this article shows how their public critique of liberalism has attempted to wrong-foot their critics and how their recipe for gaining and wielding political power is only populist to the extent that these leaders are determined to (and often succeed in) winning elections. By peeling back the cover of populist ideology to look at the theories of legitimation under which they rule, however, we can see that the new breed of autocrats aims at primarily constitutional deconstruction through the concentration of political power in one leader. This sort of challenge to liberal constitutionalism is easily countered.

Is the Ethiopian Federalism in Trouble?

Ethiopia is a country of a cultural and linguistic mosaic. Paradoxically, the political and bureaucratic system of the country has failed to accommodate the ethnolinguistic and religious diversity of the society. The Ethiopian monarchical system and the military dictatorial government have had pursued a policy of national unity and territorial integrity of the state often at the expense of ethno-linguistic and religious diversity. In effect, the different ethnic and religious groups had suffered from domination and injustice. This has led to the birth of ethno-nationalist movements taking arms against the strong central government demanding selfadministration. In 1991 the ethno-nationalist forces led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) have won the battle against the military government which led to the establishment of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. However, since its inception, there has been a widespread disagreement among Ethiopian political groups, scholars and even the public at large about the origin, structure and function of the federal system and its constitution. This particular paper aims at critically analysing the risks associated with the Ethiopian federal system in light of Ronald Watts’s six principles of federalism: disposition to democratic procedures; non-centralization as a principle; checks and balances to limit the concentration of political power; open political bargaining for making collective decisions; genuine group power-sharing within central institutions, often consociational and respect for constitutionalism and the rule of law while using literature and document analysis as data collection procedure and research methodology. In effect, secondary data sources have been reviewed including various types of relevant books, journal articles, government and non-governmental reports, government implementation plans and progress reports and lastly they have been carefully scrutinized and analysed to secure their reliability, suitability and adequacy. Finally, even though the aforementioned principles are embedded in the Constitution, the paper has found out that the government has practically failed to implement them. Consequently, the federal system in Ethiopia is mainly regulated by the policies of the ruling party rather than by the merits of the Constitution. In effect, the country is facing a multifaceted crisis and the federal system and its constitution are under imminent threats. In the end, the paper recommends that under the present scenario, the situation necessitates the government to carry out a deep structural and system reform focusing on the political and economic imbalances that are observable in the coalition ruling party and among the different ethnic groups in the country. Furthermore, since there is a widespread disagreement about the origin and development of the federal system and its constitution among different groups in and outside the country, holding a national reconciliation and political referendum on the federal system and its constitution is fundamental to fix ethnic driven conflicts and political instability in the country.