Legislative Capacity Research Articles

The Collaboration of Private Hospitals with the Public Health Service: The Case of La Rioja, Spain (1986-2019).

In Spain, the public National Health Service provides care to Spaniards and other residents and is tailored for a decentralized state of autonomies. Each Autonomous Community has legislative capacity in its organization and management. We study the case of the collaboration between private hospitals and the public health service in La Rioja, an Autonomous Community of Spain located in the North of the Iberian Peninsula, due to the importance that this relationship has in health systems, in general. We applied the case study method as a methodological tool in a long-term local study. The interpretation was carried out within a national context, which allows us to understand its meaning and the historical keys to hospital development in this region. Primary sources have been reviewed (mainly reports, catalogs, and censuses of hospitals from the Ministry of Health and the Government of La Rioja) and other secondary sources, located in archives, libraries, Institute of Rioja Studies, and Department of Health. The hospital system in La Rioja was characterized by a predominance of public beds compared with private ones, although there has been a growing trend in the number of private beds from 2013 onwards due to the incorporation of health and social care convalescent hospitals (two). La Rioja has been promoting public-private collaboration (seen as a strategic alliance) and focusing on agreements in the socio-health space, particularly using the management service agreement and the concession of work formulas. The development of the public health service in La Rioja, from 1986 to 2019, has been determined by a progressive lower dependence on specialized hospitals from other health services of neighboring Autonomous Communities and by a mixed public-private hospital system.

Democratic Political Law in Indonesia After Amendments to the 1945 Uud

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to find out the implementation of democracy before and after the amendment of the 1945 Constitution. Method: This research uses descriptive normative research methods, normative legal methods in research conducted by researchers by examining library materials or secondary data consisting of primary legal materials, secondary legal materials and tertiary legal materials. Results and Conclusion: Amendments to the 1945 Constitution brought about changes in the configuration and status of the Indonesian People's representative institutions. Before the adjustment to the chamber system in Indonesia, this country adhered to a unicameral system where the People's Consultative Assembly held supreme power as the highest state institution and guardian of people's sovereignty. After the amendment to the 1945 Constitution, the People's Consultative Assembly of the Republic of Indonesia underwent a transformation, from an institution that holds the sovereignty of the people to a state institution that is on par with other leading state institutions. Apart from that, the results of the revision of the 1945 Constitution also increased the role of the DPR, especially regarding legislative capacity. The inclusion of the Regional Representative Council (DPD) under the People's Consultative Assembly, alongside the People's Representative Council (DPR) in a parliamentary system, can be linked to the constitutional amendment to the 1945 Constitution. This amendment aims to establish a bicameral system in Indonesia, with the basic aim of encouraging checks and balances between state institutions.

Science communication in Congress: for what use?

Background:Elected members of the US Congress rely on staff, including fellows with scientific and engineering expertise, to find and interpret information for use in policymaking. Factors that impede, or facilitate, the communication of scientific information within the institution thus can play a critical role in legislative capacity, but there is a limited understanding of these dynamics in the hyper-partisan body. Aims and objectives:This study presents and tests a four-dimensional model describing how the obstacles to science communication in Congress change depending on whether information is sought for use in support of established policy positions (‘strategic use’) or to inform decision making (‘substantive use’). Methods:Data were collected between November 2017 and February 2019 through interviews with 58 congressional staff members in personal offices assigned to energy, natural resources, and science issue portfolios, and through surveys with 68 science and engineering fellows who completed their year in Congress between 2015 and 2019. Findings:Placing scientists and engineers in Congress as fellows augments staffing and institutional expertise. Yet we find that both staff and fellows experience communication-related impediments in using scientific information. Staff report more challenges in using science to substantively make policy decisions, due not only to lack of time, but also factors such as contacts, access, and information presentation. Fellows report fewer barriers and use science for policy in largely identical ways to staff. Discussion and conclusion:These findings support the proposed model and highlight the importance of staff scientific fluency and the decision-making context for science communication in Congress.

Descriptive Representation and Innovation in American Legislatures

Previous scholarship has linked increased representation of women, racial/ethnic minorities, the LGB community, and the working class to more representative legislative agendas and roll call voting. But it is unclear if descriptive representation of historically excluded groups also affects policy innovativeness. Borrowing from interdisciplinary research, we argue that diverse legislatures are more innovative, so long as legislators operate in a quality deliberative environment. We measure the descriptive representation of seven different underrepresented groups in state legislatures from 1984 to 2016. We find that representation of women is a key predictor of innovation, operationalized as the tendency for states to adopt new policies early. We also find the effect of women is not dependent on critical mass, is undermined by high levels of polarization, and helps boost the capacity of legislatures to produce unique policy language. Some models are suggestive of a relationship between racial/ethnic minority (Black, Latinx, Native American) representation and innovation, but the results are inconsistent. The study provides insights into how representation of women can enhance legislative capacity to innovate in public policy.

The legislative cost of ruling: Voter punishment of governing parties fuels legislator party dissent

AbstractPolitical parties in office generally incur a cost of ruling among the electorate. This article considers the broader implications of this phenomenon for democratic governance. We argue that the electoral cost a party incurs in office entails that its individual legislators become more inclined to vote against the party line as a way to distance themselves from the deteriorating party brand. We test and support several observable implications of this argument using time series data including all members of parliament in the British parliament between 1992 and 2015 coupled with monthly opinion poll data. The well‐established electoral cost of ruling thus translates into a legislative cost of ruling by reducing incumbent party legislators’ loyalty to the party line. We discuss how the legislative cost of ruling complicates effective governance but may also strengthen democratic accountability by reducing legislative capacity of governing parties that have lost their electoral mandate.

Legislative capacity, bureaucratic reputation, and delegation from a trust perspective: A survey experiment

AbstractChallenging the assumptions of the principal‐agent theory, the recent bureaucratic politics literature contends that politicians do not necessarily have weaker capacities and bureaucrats are not necessarily bad apples. What this means for the delegation decision remains underexplored, particularly regarding how legislative capacity and bureaucratic reputation jointly affect delegation. We examine this issue with a trust perspective and a survey experiment of city mayors. Treating bureaucratic reputation as individual trustworthiness and perceived legislative capacity as institutional trustworthiness, we find they interact in complex ways in influencing delegation. When bureaucratic reputation is high, perceived legislative capacity is not associated with delegation. Perceived legislative capacity matters only when bureaucratic reputation is low, and high capacity relates to greater delegation willingness than when capacity is not considered. The findings have implications for studies on delegation, discretion, and bureaucratic reputation.

A different state of mind: developing a mental health simulation programme for foundation doctors in Scotland

The new Foundation Curriculum 2021 for Doctors in Training (DiT) in the United Kingdom calls for an increased focus on developing mental health-related skills [1], bringing them into parity with physical health. The importance of developing the core clinical skills needed to work with patients who have mental illness is now well-recognised within medical education [2,3]. In collaboration with NHS Education Scotland (NES), we piloted a half-day programme of immersive high-fidelity simulation in Psychiatry for foundation year one (FY1) doctors working in NHS Lothian. Scenario design was by a core group consisting of simulation faculty and Foundation programme directors who were consultant psychiatrists and acted as content experts. The intended learning outcomes (ILOs) for these sessions were constructively aligned with key presentations set out in the revised Foundation Curriculum. The scenarios considered the limitations of practice for an FY1, particularly in regard to mental health law. The three immersive scenarios developed included management of an aggressive patient with delirium, challenging communication with relatives, and management of a depressed patient. Scenarios were based in general wards to maximise fidelity with FY1 experience. 18 sessions were run for FY1 doctors at the three main acute hospital sites in NHS Lothian to ensure equitable access. Participants completed a pre-session evaluation to determine their perceived ability to perform key skills, including assessment of a patient who has self-harmed, a patient with depressive symptoms, assessment of capacity and use of mental health legislation, use of verbal de-escalation, safe sedation, and how to take a collateral history. Assessments were made on a Likert scale and were repeated immediately following the session. We plan to repeat this questionnaire three months following the session. A total of 68 FY1 doctors attended the pilot sessions. When considering the percentage of participants who felt prepared or very prepared, substantial improvements were seen in all assessed domains following the session ( Percentage of candidates who reported feeling either prepared or very prepared to carry out they key skills included in the pilot sessions We have demonstrated that immersive simulation-based education can be used to improve knowledge and confidence in core aspects of psychiatry. With support from NES, we aim to offer this session to all FY1s in Scotland. 1. UK Foundation Programme (2021) UK Foundation Programme. 2. Piot MA, Dechartres A, Attoe C, Jollant F, Lemogne C, Layat Burn C, Rethans JJ, Michelet D, Cross S, Billon G, Guerrier G. Simulation in psychiatry for medical doctors: a systematic review and meta‐analysis. Medical Education. 2020;54(8):696–708. 3. Piot MA, Attoe C, Billon G, Cross S, Rethans JJ, Falissard B. Simulation training in psychiatry for medical education: a review. Frontiers in Psychiatry. 2021;12:658967.

Checks in the Balance: Legislative Capacity and the Dynamics of Executive Power. By Alexander Bolton and Sharece Thrower. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022. 236p. $99.95 cloth, $35.00 paper.

Checks in the Balance: Legislative Capacity and the Dynamics of Executive Power. By Alexander Bolton and Sharece Thrower. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022. 236p. 35.00 paper. - Volume 20 Issue 3

The Politics of Police Data: State Legislative Capacity and the Transparency of State and Substate Agencies

Police, like other bureaucratic agencies, are responsible for collecting and disseminating policy-relevant data. Nonetheless, critical data, including killings by police, often go unreported. We argue that this is due in part to the limited oversight capacity of legislative bodies to whom police are accountable. Although many local assemblies lack the means for effective oversight, well-resourced state legislatures may induce transparency from state and substate agencies. This argument is evaluated in two studies of police transparency in the United States. First, we examine the compliance of 19,095 state, county, and municipal police agencies with official data requests over five decades, finding strong positive effects of state legislative capacity on transparency. Second, we examine the accuracy of transmitted data on killings by police, finding that lethality is systematically underreported in states with lower-capacity legislatures. Collectively, our study has implications for research on policing, legislatures, agency control, and analyses of government data.

ОЦІНКА ВПЛИВІВ РИЗИКІВ ЗОВНІШНЬОГО СЕРЕДОВИЩА ТЕЛЕКОМУНІКАЦІЙНОГО ПІДПРИЄМСТВА НА ЙОГО ЕКОНОМІЧНУ СТІЙКІСТЬ

The article identifies the need for timely and objective assessment of the impact (risks) of the external environment of the telecommunications company in order to make strategic management decisions to ensure its proper economic stability. An integrated indicator for assessing the degree of impact of external risks of a telecommunications enterprise on the level of its economic stability is proposed. Interpretation of the level of impact of external risks of the telecommunications company on its economic stability is proposed to be based on the Harrington scale. The method of macro-environmental assessment is used – PEST-analysis, which is carried out using the expert method. The experts were tasked to assess the level of impact and probability of various environmental risks on the telecommunications company. In the process of assessing the impact of socio-political, economic, scientific, technological and socio-demographic environment on the level of economic stability of the telecommunications company to determine the probability of their occurrence, the overall integrated indicator of environmental risk assessment of the telecommunications company. It is established that the risks of the external environment have a significant impact on the economic stability of the telecommunications company, the level of impact on the verge of high and risky. It is determined that the crisis situation, which has developed not only in Ukraine but also around the world due to the spread of coronavirus infection COVID-19, strongly hinders the development of the national economy, despite the fact that relative investment activity, opportunities for issuance legal capacity of current legislation. Currently, there are negative effects of risks and uncertainties on the level of economic stability of all domestic enterprises, including telecommunications, due to deteriorating political conditions, as the existence of objective economic laws is possible only in conditions of political stability. Prospects for further research are to substantiate the concept of strategic management of economic stability of a telecommunications company that operates in today's crisis.

Judicial Review as an Accountability Mechanism in South Africa: A Discourse on the Nkandla Case

Separation of powers among the three branches of government, in most Constitutional democracies, is a design to avert the tyranny of a personalized rule. With specific roles, in relationships characterized by separated but shared powers, each branch of government is a watchdog against the other in case of any abuse. In the South African governing system, the Constitution guarantees functional power relationships among the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary branches of the government. Nevertheless, the dominant party system, in practice, has weakened the legislative oversight and accountability powers to tame the excesses of the executive, contrary to the intendments of the drafters of the Constitution. Judicial review of the various legislative and executive actions, however, has created precedents that seek to reassert legislative capacity to hold the executive accountable. At one time or the other, the judiciary had indicted the legislature and the executive of dereliction of duties. Using primary and secondary data from judicial pronouncements, constitutional provisions, and other public documents, with extant literature, respectively, this paper reviewed the environment that prompted the activist posture of the South African judiciary. An entrenched culture of party loyalty and the incapacity of the legislature to enforce accountability have bolstered the need for assertive judicial review in ensuring accountability. The failure of the legislature to exercise its oversight power has provided the platform for the judiciary to rise as a formidable accountability instrument. Judicial independence, guaranteed by The Constitution, would continue to sustain the tenets of South African representative democracy.

KURDISTAN PARLIAMENT: FORMATION OF A DE JURE INSTITUTION IN A DE FACTO STATE

The Kurdistan Parliament – Iraq was established in 1992 and has increasingly gained legitimacy both inside and outside the region. The parliament is a unicameral legislative body in the northern part of Iraq recognized as a federal region officially known as Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). It has been functioning as a de jure institution in a de facto state, with a reasonably stable legislative capacity. The formalized procedures and legally established functions of this parliament are indicative of a functional institution, albeit with long periods in which the main parliamentary parties do not reach the required consensus to legislate. After five election cycles, five parliamentary terms and having passed hundreds of laws, are the region and its representative institution able to pass the test of being a minimal democracy?

Humanitarian Law Compliance

Abstract Ensuring humanitarian law compliance and repression of its violations receives constant reiteration but to mixed effect. While international judicial, jurisprudential and investigatory modalities have advanced, requisite State level competencies exhibit marked variability. This paper devotes most attention to disadvantaged States – those that, for whatever reason, lack the judicial, institutional or administrative capacity to ensure humanitarian law compliance and repression of its violations. Here a profile of 46 States is selected for review, 20 of which are identified as impacted by previous or continuing forms of armed conflict. Data from the World Justice Project’s 2020 Rule of Law Index is utilised. Chosen indicators assess individual State legislative, judicial, due process, and criminal investigatory capacities as perceived and recorded by local publics and individual experts. A comparative evaluation of this data reveals differences within profiles of disadvantaged States. They are investigated to better comprehend humanitarian law compliance challenges facing such States. They include international cooperation, utilisation of amnesties, and the conduct of armed non-state actors. The paper’s central thesis is that humanitarian law compliance, and repression of its violations, remains inadequate without remediation of the capacity impediments evident in disadvantaged States.

Canada's legal preparedness against the COVID-19 Pandemic: A scoping review of federal laws and regulations.

As the world continues to grapple with the COVID‐19 pandemic, the preparedness of governments to respond to it will likely undergo review. A key component is the legislative capacity and authority that governments had in place or could rapidly introduce to address the social, economic and health consequences of the emergency. We review Canada’s legal preparedness for public health emergencies and the use of federal legislation to address the pandemic. We provide an overview of the concept of legal preparedness, summarize the federal statutes, regulations and orders enacted, and analyze the coherence of federal activity and its relevance to provinces, territories and international health regulations. We determine that the federal government has relied on spending power rather than constitutional authority over public health or existing legislation on influencing the course of the pandemic.

The New Authoritarianism in Public Choice

Much early public choice theory focused on alleged pathologies of democratic legislatures, portraying them as irrational, manipulable, or subject to capture. Recent years have seen the emergence of a new strand of argument, reaffirming the old skepticism of legislatures but suggesting that transferring power from legislatures to chief executives offers a solution. Just as the earlier prescriptions ignored the pathologies of the agencies empowered to check and constrain legislatures, so the new scholarship overlooks the pathologies of executive power. The primary sources of congressional dysfunction call for reforms that would strengthen Congress instead of hobbling it in new ways that exacerbate the drift toward authoritarian presidentialism in the American system. Executive aggrandizement is a consequence of decades of institutional malfunction, worsened by right-wing attacks on legislative capacity. This has been the enduring impact of the public choice movement since the 1950s, but its twenty-first century offshoot is especially malign.

The New Authoritarianism in Public Choice

Much early public choice theory focused on alleged pathologies of democratic legislatures, portraying them as irrational, manipulable, or subject to capture. Recent years have seen the emergence of a new strand of argument, reaffirming the old skepticism of legislatures but suggesting that transferring power from legislatures to chief executives offers a solution. Just as the earlier prescriptions ignored the pathologies of the agencies empowered to check and constrain legislatures, so the new scholarship overlooks the pathologies of executive power. The primary sources of congressional dysfunction call for reforms that would strengthen Congress instead of hobbling it in new ways that exacerbate the drift toward authoritarian presidentialism in the American system. Executive aggrandizement is a consequence of decades of institutional malfunction, worsened by right-wing attacks on legislative capacity. This has been the enduring impact of the public choice movement since the 1950s, but its twenty-first century offshoot is especially malign.

Legislative Capacity & Administrative Power Under Divided Polarization

Abstract Conventional wisdom holds that party polarization leads to legislative gridlock, which in turn disables congressional oversight of agencies and thus erodes their constitutional legitimacy and democratic accountability. At the root of this argument is an empirical claim that higher levels of polarization materially reduce legislative productivity as measured by the number of laws passed or the number of issues on the legislative agenda addressed by those laws, both of which are negatively associated with party polarization. By focusing on the content of statutes passed rather than their number, this essay shows that in the era of party polarization and divided government, Congress has actually 1) enacted an ever growing volume of significant regulatory policy (packaged into fewer laws); 2) increasingly employed implementation designs intended to limit bureaucratic and presidential power; and 3) legislated regulatory policy substance in greater detail (reducing bureaucratic discretion) when relying on litigation and courts as a supplement or alternative to bureaucracy. This essay thereby complicates, both empirically and normatively, the relationship between Congress and administrative power in the era of party polarization and divided government.

Legislative budgetary power and fiscal discipline in the euro area

PurposeThe objective of this study is to understand the budgetary role of national legislatures in euro area (EA) countries and to analyse implications for fiscal discipline.Design/methodology/approachBuilding on the budget institutions literature, a legislative budgetary power index for all the 19 euro area (EA) countries is constructed using Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and European Commission data as well as data generated from questionnaires to national authorities. A two-way fixed effects panel data model is then used to assess the effect of legislative budgetary power on the budget balance in the EA during 2006–2015.FindingsOverall, in the EA, formal legislative powers vis-à-vis the national budgetary process are weak, but there is more legislative involvement in Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) procedures, and legislative budgetary organisational capacity is generally quite good. In contrast to the traditional view in the budget institutions literature, this study’s empirical findings show that strong legislative budgetary power does not necessarily result in larger budget deficits.Research limitations/implicationsData on legislative budgeting were available from different sources, and time series data were very limited.Practical implicationsThere is scope to improve democratic legitimacy of the national budgetary process in the EA, without necessarily jeopardising fiscal discipline.Originality/valueThe constructed legislative budgetary power index covers all the 19 EA countries and has a broad scope covering various novel institutional characteristics. The empirical analysis contributes to the scarce literature on the impact of legislative budgeting on fiscal discipline.

Legislative Capacity in Germany's Parliaments

We present new data on the legislative capacity (or professionalism) of Germany's national and subnational parliaments including legislator salary, informational expenditures, and counts of committee and plenary sessions. We describe these data and aggregate them into a summary measure modeled after the Squire Index as well as a measure derived from factor analytic decomposition. The internal validity of these measures is assessed in a case study of recent parliamentary reforms in Baden‐Württemberg and the external validity is assessed via comparison to electoral turnover. We conclude with suggestions for future research and hope that our colleagues will both make use of these data to study the causes and consequences of legislative capacity in Germany and also be motivated to collect and disseminate similar data for new contexts.

Public Sector Procurement Practice: A Leadership Brainteaser in South Africa

In the application of the procurement practices, public’s confidence can be impacted by unethical public procurement practice as is predominant at the initial phase of tender planning procedure. Prices can be overestimated and outcome is that a missed prospect vis-à-vis finance for mega infrastructure projects. There are convolutions, proportions and an extraordinary bulk of financial stream as handy transactional dealings interacts in the market for goods and services. Certainly, procurement is mostly susceptible to unscrupulous procurement and nonconformity with relevant legislations. Such destructive practices prohibit government from procuring at cheaper prices. The paper will bridge ranks into the academic environment discourses with regards to accountability, institutional leadership capacity, transparency, stewardship, compliance and enforcement of legislation, good governance and corruption in research. The study seeks to scrutinise methods which gave rise to leadership brainteaser. A descriptive and content analysis qualitative research method will guide the study.