Legislative Capacity Research Articles

Legislative Capacity and Administrative Power Under Divided Polarization

It is commonly argued 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, a design choice that occurs more frequently under party polarization combined with divided government. It thereby complicates, both empirically and normatively, the relationship between Congress and administrative power in the era of party polarization and divided government.

One agenda-setter or many? The varying success of policy initiatives by individual Directorates-General of the European Commission 1994–2016

Analyses of strategic agenda-setting in the European Union treat the European Commission as a unitary actor with perfect information. Yet, the constraints for correctly anticipating acceptable policies vary heavily across its individual Directorates-General. Do these internal rifts affect the Commission’s agenda-setting ability? This article tests corresponding expectations on the edit distances between 2237 Commission proposals and the adopted laws across 23 years. The quality of legislative anticipation indeed varies with the responsible Directorate-General. Legislative proposals are more likely to remain unchanged if they face less parliamentary involvement, are less complex, were drafted by an experienced Directorate-General, and were coordinated more seamlessly within the Commission. However, the uncovered variation also calls for more systematic research on the distribution of legislative capacities inside the Commission.

Partisan Competition and the Decline in Legislative Capacity among Congressional Offices

Since the 1990s, members of the US House have shifted resources away from legislative functions to representational activities. We reveal this decline using an original dataset constructed from 236,000 quarterly payroll disbursements by 1,090 member offices for 120,000 unique staff between the 103rd and 113th Congresses, as well as interviews with former members and staff in Congress. These data allow us to test two plausible alternative explanations, one rooted in the centralization of legislative power over time and the other in conservatives’ desires to contract government power. We show that the decline in legislative capacity is symmetrical between and consistent within both parties, contrary to expectations rooted in asymmetrical, ideological sabotage. Additionally, this divestment occurs within incumbent member offices over time, accelerates when new members replace incumbents, and persists when majority control changes. We conclude that competition over institutional control and centralization of legislative functions motivates declining legislative capacity among individual members.

Executives, Legislatures, and the Semantics of EU Public Law: A Pandemic-Inflected Perspective

This contribution will serve as the epilogue to a forthcoming volume on executive-legislative relations in the European Union (EU). It begins by noting that the EU’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, encouraging though it may be in some respects, has nonetheless reminded us of the constraints placed on a system of supranational governance that lacks a legislative fiscal capacity of its own. Although there is much excitement about the pandemic ‘recovery fund’ built on borrowing against the EU budget (and distributed, at least in part, through grants), the fund will still be ultimately backed by the fiscal capacities of the member states severally rather than by the EU’s own. Autonomous fiscal capacity, however, is arguably the core attribute of a genuinely ‘constitutional’ form of governance, and more specifically of a genuinely constitutional ‘legislature’. The EU’s persistent lack of a fiscal capacity of its own leads this epilogue to pose an admittedly radical question: Semantically speaking, is it right even to speak of the EU possessing ‘legislative’ power at all, at least in the most robust sense of the term, when it otherwise lacks autonomous fiscal capacity? This question might seem bizarre given key features of the EU’s institutional system, notably the existence of an elected assembly—the European Parliament (EP)—as well as that body’s participation in something called the ‘ordinary legislative procedure’ (OLP) in order to make rules of general and prospective application to govern European integration. According to the ‘as if’-constitutional framing that dominates most legal analysis of the EU today, the EP and OLP are so-labelled for a simple reason: they are the focal points of ‘legislative’ power in the European system. And yet, might this labelling be misleading? Might both the EP and OLP merely serve to inject an electoral component into a regulatory system that is fundamentally executive-technocratic (ie administrative) in character? Might specifically ‘legislative’ power in the EU—in the sense of the legitimate-compulsory mobilization of fiscal and human resources—still be concentrated entirely at the national level? With these questions in mind, this epilogue examines the many stimulating topics covered by the chapters in this volume: the application of Rodrik’s famous ‘political trilemma of the world economy’ to the EU context; the role of the EP in counter-balancing the powers of the Commission, Council, and European Council; the expansion of national executive power as a consequence of integration—the so-called ‘deparliamentarisation’ phenomenon—which operates to the obvious detriment of national parliaments (NPs); and finally the respective roles of the EP and NPs, as the case may be, in such areas as trade policy, the supranational regulation of national budgets, as well as several former 'second’ and ‘third pillar’ domains (security, defense, foreign policy, justice and home affairs). Based on this discussion, this epilogue concludes by reflecting on whether the last decade of upheaval in the EU—from the Eurozone crisis to the current pandemic emergency—has brought the EU to a ‘critical juncture’, in which some form of supranationalised fiscal capacity is now in the offing and which, if realised, might then allow the EU to transcend the current but misleading ‘as if’ constitutionalism that continues to characterise discussions of EU public law.

Legislative Capacity and Human Rights in the Age of Populism–Two Challenges for Legislated Rights: Discussion of Legislated Rights – Securing Human Rights Through Legislation

Legislative Capacity and Human Rights in the Age of Populism–Two Challenges for Legislated Rights: Discussion of Legislated Rights – Securing Human Rights Through Legislation

Booster seats: new committee chairs and legislative effectiveness

ABSTRACT Recent years have seen increased attention to legislative capacity and performance, including the development of individual Legislative Effectiveness (LE) scores for the US Congress. In comparing new committee chairs' scores to their scores prior to becoming chair I find significant variation in the ‘boost’ that committees impart to their chairs' LE, including several committees that do not significantly boost their chairs' LE scores at all. This study advances an organisational explanation for legislative effectiveness (at least as measured by LE scores) in contrast to previous work that emphasises member-level characteristics. Variation in committee tasks, roles, and member turnover significantly affect a committee chair's LE boost, often moreso than individual characteristics or shifts in party status. The LE boost a committee chair receives does not endure but disappears once the member is no longer chair, which challenges our understanding of the connections between experience, learning, and skill in the legislative process.

The Affordable Care Act in the States: Fragmented Politics, Unstable Policy.

Many argue that the frustrated implementation of the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) stems from the unprecedented level of political polarization that has surrounded the legislation. This article draws attention to the law's "institutional DNA" as a source of political struggle in the 50 states. As designed, in the context of US federalism, the law fractured authority in ways that has opened up the possibility of contestation and confusion. The successful implementation of the ACA varies not only across state lines but also across the various components of the law. In particular, opponents of the ACA have experienced their greatest successes when they could take advantage of weak preexisting policy legacies, high levels of institutional fragmentation, and negative public sentiments. As argued in this article, the fragmented patterns of health care politics in the 50 states identified in previous research have largely persisted during the Trump administration. Moreover, while Republicans were unsuccessful at repealing the legislation, the administration has taken advantage of its structural deficiencies to further weaken the legislation's capacity to expand access to affordable, quality health insurance.

Local Government Borrowing Capacity: Legislative versus Market Approach in Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia

In this article, we develop a new conceptual model for estimating local government borrowing capacity that combines a legislative and market approach. The model has wider applicability and is relevant for several stakeholders: for the local governments to determine their development financing potential, for the central government to balance local development needs with macroeconomic stability objectives, and for financial institutions and project, developers to tailor their products to the local financing and investment opportunities. We apply the model on selected local government units in Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia and test the hypothesis that their relative (per capita) borrowing capacities differ. We find that the legislative borrowing capacity is more restrictive in Slovenia, while market limitations cap the borrowing capacity in Croatia and Serbia. Overall, Slovenian local government units have the highest relative (per capita) market borrowing capacity, followed by local government units in Croatia and Serbia. We also find evidence that market sentiment may be prohibitive for the borrowing of some units. Our results additionally indicate substantial unused local borrowing capacities in the analysed local government units.

The Grand National Assembly of Turkey: A Decline in Legislative Capacity

The Grand National Assembly of Turkey: A Decline in Legislative Capacity

Subverting Administrative Oversight: Campaign Contributions and Nursing Home Inspections

Abstract I study the consequences of interest group campaign contributions for administrative oversight. Unlike the few previous studies in this area, however, I study the influence in state bureaucracies and at the level of individual groups. Specifically, I test whether campaign contributions to state elected officials influence the outcomes of annual inspections of skilled nursing facilities in 16 states, leveraging the context of state politics in two important ways. First, I consider the differing effects of contributions to the legislative and executive branches. Second, I argue that legislative capacity for oversight influences the efficacy of contributions Regression analysis of inspection results with controls for facility characteristics provides evidence that contributing facilities have better overall inspection results, with a large reduction in citations for severe problems. Furthermore, contributions to legislators reduce overall problems, particularly in less professionalized legislatures, while those to the governor reduce severe ones.

Unpacking policy gridlocks in Africa’s development: An evolving agenda

Abstract Policies are not an end in themselves, but deliberate systems of principles to guide decisions and achievement of rational outcomes. Many factors inherent in or transcending policy processes have dramatic consequences for how policies are interpreted and applied. In this article, we deploy the concept of ‘policy gridlocks’ to better understand factors that facilitate or hinder implementation of single or multiple policies in different African policy arenas. We argue that minimizing or ameliorating ‘policy gridlocks’ requires stakeholders to quantify and more directly feel the cost of their decisions and actions, while scholars must continue to search for institutional means to prevent gridlocks, including broadening the array of conceptual and analytical tools for understanding policy processes. We conclude that limits in financial resources, technical expertise and legislative capacity are the more powerful drivers of policy formulation, implementation and revision gridlocks that need to be addressed, than fragmentation of stakeholder interests.

Legal Review for Strengthening Local Autonomous Legislative Capacity - Focusing on analysis of legislative evaluation system of Seoul metropolitan council -

Legal Review for Strengthening Local Autonomous Legislative Capacity - Focusing on analysis of legislative evaluation system of Seoul metropolitan council -

Legislative Capacity and Credit Risk

AbstractLegislatures differ in their institutional capacity to draft and enact policy. While strong legislatures can increase the congruence of policy outcomes to the electorate's preferences, they can also inject uncertainty into markets with their ability to alter the political economic landscape. We argue that this uncertainty will manifest in a state's ability to borrow and hypothesize a negative relationship between legislative capacity and creditworthiness. Using ratings of general obligation bonds issued by the American states over nearly two decades and data on the institutional capacity of state legislative assemblies, we find support for the claim that having a legislature that is better equipped to affect policy change increases credit risk evaluations. The results we present broaden our understanding of the importance of legislative institutions, the determinants of credit risk, and the economic implications of democratic responsiveness.

Marginal/peripheral populations of forest tree species and their conservation status: report for Atlantic region

This report is a synthesis of information from the national reports, prepared as part of the COST Action FP1202 Strengthening conservation: a key issue for adaptation of marginal/peripheral populations of forest trees to climate change in Europe (MaPFGR) . The individual national reports can be found as part of the supplemental data to the COST action. The data compiled in this report indicate that the Atlantic area has sufficient resources in terms of knowledge and capacity to assess the potential impact of climate change on marginal and peripheral (MaP) sites within the area. Maps of vegetation, soil, climate and climatic predictions are publicly available for most countries and often are of high quality and resolution. These can be utilized to help identify MaP sites and populations in the Atlantic area. In addition, some species have been characterized genetically and the genetic data can also be utilized to identify and characterize sites. However, genetic data is not universally available and in particular may be absent for peripheral sites. There are many data sources for phenotypic traits, such as data from provenance trials but these have not been assessed for MaP populations. There may not be sufficient legislative capacity for the conservation of MaP populations in comparison to, for example, annex habitats of the EU Habitats Directive. Although some of the MaP sites lie within Natura 2000 boundaries, many are not in protected areas. If MaP populations are not characterized and conserved there is a risk of losing traits that may be of potential in adaptation to climate change. A detailed spatial analysis incorporating all of the data is needed to give a comprehensive assessment of the potential threats to MaP populations in this area.

Правовое регулирование муниципальной нормотворческой деятельности

The article considers the common characteristics of basic normative legal acts governing the issues of municipal rule-making process. The Constitution of the Russian Federation, in accordance with the rules of the European Charter of local authorities, establishes the fundamentals for the legal regulation of municipal rule-making process. The federal legislator, taking into account the constitutional provisions, establishes the principal provisions of municipal rule-making process in the Federal Law of the Russian Federation October 6, 2003 "On General Principles of the Organization of Local Self-Government in the Russian Federation". However, it is essential to adopt a special federal act in order to regulate the municipal rule-making process properly. Since January 1, 2006 legislative capacity of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, namely in the sphere of municipal rule-making process, has been considerably reduced. The legislator of the constituent entity is restricted in regulating the issues of municipal rule-making process. In addition, municipalities have to resolve many issues of norm-setting activities independently. Undoubtedly, they are guided by the statute of municipalities adopted in accordance with federal and regional legislation. At the same time, it is necessary to adopt a municipal act that could regulate the whole range of issues of municipal rule-making process. This act should contain norms about the concept and characteristics of the stages of municipal rule-making process, the types of subjects of norm-setting activities and their acts, the hierarchy of municipal normative legal acts, and legal service. Having analyzed the basic norms of municipal rule-making process, the authors are able to suggest a layout of the provision on municipal rulemaking process. Thus, the development and adoption of this provision will result in more effective municipal rule-making process.

An Examination of State-Level Public–Private Partnership Adoption: Analyzing Economic, Political, and Demand-Related Determinants of PPPs

This study examines the influence of economic, political, and demand factors on the adoption of public–private partnerships (PPPs) from 2000 to 2016. State debt, urban travel demand, and state laws allowing unsolicited PPP proposals have a significant effect on PPP adoption. Counter to previous studies that suggest conservative state governments adopt PPPs at a greater rate than liberal governments, we find that the influence of political ideology on PPP adoption is contingent upon state legislative professionalism. For states with high legislative professionalism, a change in state government ideology in the liberal direction decreases the likelihood of PPP adoption. For states with low legislative professionalism, a change in state government ideology in the liberal direction increases the likelihood of PPP adoption. The results inform the study of politics of privatization by demonstrating how ideological preferences can be shaped by the legislative capacities of state governments.

The Potential Use of Cellular Phone Technology in Maintaining an Up-To-Date Register of Land Transactions for the Urban Poor

This article investigates the concept of using cell-phone technology for obtaining information about unofficial (off-register) transfers in land as are commonly undertaken by the urban poor in South Africa. Since the introduction of social housing programmes in South Africa after the democratic elections in 1994, mass land distribution and housing projects have been undertaken. Formal transfer of these properties has been discouraged by policy (such as a moratorium on transfers for a period of years), and the inaccessibility of land professionals and formal processes to the poor. From the disuse of formal transfer mechanisms one can conclude that these fail, at least in part, to meet the needs of this segment of society. Cell- (mobile) phone technology penetrates urban poverty more than other interactive technologies such as the internet, largely due to the lack of access to computers and the 'digital divide'. The aim of this article is exploratory. It investigates the potential use of cell-phone technology as a means to inform authorities that a transfer of property has taken place informally or semi-formally. Such information could pave the way for a process of formal registration and hence aid the upkeep of the deeds registration system. Research into the potential use of the cell-phone as an information and communication technology (ICT) tool of land administration, particularly in the developing world, is undertaken. It is envisaged that a more detailed investigation will follow, which will include an analysis of organisational and legislative capacity. Further study in which the use of cell-phone technology in land administration is tested, taking into consideration structural/organisational factors as well as socio-economic and cultural factors and motivating factors for use, may be required.

Don't Sweat the Details! Enhancing Congressional Committee Expertise Through the Use of Detailees

In contrast to the dramatic growth in the size and influence of the executive branch over the past 40 years, congressional committee staffing levels are at an all‐time low. Faced with growing demands to produce legislation and to conduct oversight of executive branch policymaking, Congress can and does supplement its existing staff by borrowing personnel, known as detailees, from federal agencies. Using an original dataset of detailees from 1997 to 2015, we analyze the degree to which congressional committees rely on detailees to increase legislative capacity. We find that committees in the House and Senate use detailees in different ways to further both legislative and oversight initiatives.

The Temptation of Executive Authority: How Increased Polarization and the Decline in Legislative Capacity Have Contributed to the Expansion of Presidential Power

This paper argues that our increasingly polarized politics has led to political stalemate and policy gridlock in Congress which, in turn, have contributed to a change in the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches of government; specifically, executive power has increased at the expense of a diminished legislature. The paper will trace the extent to which Congress has become increasingly polarized and how this increased polarization has reduced Congress’s capability and productivity while simultaneously increasing policy gridlock resulting in the expansion of executive power (and judicial authority) relative to legislative authority.

A CRITICAL APPROACH TO EU URBAN POLICY FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF GENDER

1.IntroductionCities have been on the focus of EU since the end of the '80s. Due to the awareness of the relevance of issues in achieving the objectives of the treaties, a complex process of policy-building has taken place within EU institutions since the late '80s. This has led to the definition of what we could call today the Union's policy or the urban dimension of EU policy.In order to understand the process of construction that has taken place over the last three decades, it is relevant to mention that the European Union does not have powers in the field of issues. The legislative capacity in this regard lies in the hands of the Member States. Consequently, over the years, issues within EU have been drafted using a number of non-compulsory tools of different types, produced and launched by different stakeholders (the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Committee of the Regions, the Informal Meeting of Ministers of Urban Development, and organizations such as Eurocities, etc.).These tools consist mainly of i) written documents (policy documents such as EC communications, case studies of best practices, guidelines, etc.); ii) instruments for regeneration launched by the European Commission (the Urban Pilot Projects - UPP, and the URBAN Community Initiative), cofunded by the Structural Funds; and iii) URBACT, a program aimed to develop knowledge, practical experience, and capacity in networks of cities that work around a specific challenge, considered relevant to sustainable in the context of the Europe 2020 strategy (European Commission, 2010).There are also other instruments, initiatives and programs that have exerted an influence on the definition and of the dimension in EU policy, however those mentioned here are the most specific and visible ones, which have produced the most demonstrable results, and which have been launched within this specific domain over the last three decades (De Gregorio, 2017).This process of policy-building has led to the construction of a concept of sustainable/integrated development that has been integrated within the tools mentioned through the of a specific discourse. This work is aimed at understanding how the gender perspective has been introduced into the EU's discourse on matters over the last 15 years.In order to achieve this objective, it is important to take into account that in 1999 the Treaty of Amsterdam (signed in 1997) came into force. It brought new insight into gender issues at Community level, as for the first time it introduced the concept of gender mainstreaming within the Treaty.This new approach to equal opportunities included multiple new provisions strengthening EU competence in this area. The Treaty moved equal opportunities on from a focus on equal pay to become a central objective of EU political commitment. As a result equal treatment between women and men now represents a fundamental right enshrined in EU law (Booth and Bennett, 2002: 2). For Pollack and Hafner-Burton (2000), the most farreaching provision in the new Treaty was the revision of Articles 2 and 3 that made equal opportunities for women and men a central objective of the Union.As a result of the adoption of this perspective, from that moment on, the gender perspective became integrated within many areas where the EU was politically active. Today, 15 years after the adoption of the gender mainstreaming approach in the Treaty, the current level of implementation of this perspective within the different areas is highly heterogeneous: some fields have integrated or have started to mainstream gender (e.g. gender is now mainstreamed within EU research policy), while others have not yet started this process.As will be explained, the results of this research indicate that the gender dimension has not yet been introduced into EU policy. …