Partisan Power Research Articles

The disappearance of the ‘legislative model': Indonesian parliament's experience in response to Covid-19

ABSTRACT The argument that choosing a legislative model will strengthen Parliament's checks and balances in an emergency has not been proven in Indonesia. Due to the high president’s constitutional legislative power, combined with his coalition supported by a majority of parliamentarians in Covid-19 emergency, left parliament to serve much of the executive’s agenda. This paper compares the law-making process in the parliamentary period before and during the pandemic. Extreme partisan power will allow the executive to control the legislative agenda and weaken Parliament's legislative power under the pretext of the Covid-19 pandemic emergency. The ‘legislative model’ is no longer viable; instead, various laws have been passed, unrelated to Covid-19.

Tinkering with executive term limits: partisan imbalances and institutional legacies in Latin America

ABSTRACT Why are some democratically elected presidents more likely than others to extend or remove their current term limits? This paper argues that the frequency and type of reforms relaxing executive term limits depend on the relative partisan power of presidents and on inherited institutional constraints. These reforms are more likely when short-term shifts in the distribution of partisan resources significantly favour an incumbent executive vis-à-vis the opposition. Yet partisan imbalances do not fully account for the observed variation in outcomes across presidential democracies. Long-standing institutional legacies also affect whether presidents are willing and able to ease existing term limits. Specifically, the maintenance of effective executive constraints over time reduces the probability that incumbents facing restrictions on consecutive re-election will obtain a one-term extension and makes it extremely unlikely that they will abolish term limits altogether. A statistical analysis of reforms allowing consecutive executive re-election in Latin America between 1978 and 2015 and a comparison between Ecuador and Colombia support these arguments.

The Political Realignment of Health: How Partisan Power Shaped Infant Health in the United States, 1915-2017.

The US two-party system was transformed in the 1960s when the Democratic Party abandoned its Jim Crow protectionism to incorporate the policy agenda fostered by the civil rights movement, and the Republican Party redirected its platform toward socioeconomic and racial conservatism. The authors argue that the policy agendas promoted by the two parties through presidents and state legislatures codify a racially patterned access to resources and power detrimental to the health of all. To test the hypothesis that fluctuations in overall and race-specific infant mortality rates (IMRs) shift between the parties in power before and after the political realignment (PR), the authors apply panel data analysis methods to state-level data from the National Center for Health Statistics for the period 1915 through 2017. Net of trend, overall, and race-specific IMRs were not statistically different between presidential parties before the PR. This pattern, however, changed after the PR, with Republican administrations consistently underperforming Democratic ones. Net of trend, non-Southern state legislatures controlled by Republicans underperform Democratic ones in overall and racial IMRs in both periods.

Conflict, choice or geography? Explaining patterns of democracy in continental Europe

AbstractThe ‘character’ of democracy is regularly summarised using political‐institutional measures of, for instance, ‘consensus’ or ‘majoritarian’ democracy. Yet, there is little quantitative‐comparative research on the origins of such configurations. Drawing on literature on endogenous institutions and constitutional design, this article proposes a model for the explanation of empirical patterns of democracy. Using a novel database of 26 continental (neighbouring) European democracies and Bayesian spatial modelling, the results indicate that while today's empirical patterns of democracy in terms of proportional power diffusion can be traced back to waves of democratisation rather than historical partisan power configurations, decentral power diffusion can partially be explained by socio‐structural factors, and spatial dependencies exist for all variants of power diffusion.

Presidential unilateral action: partisan influence and presidential power

Focusing on executive orders (EOs) and extending previous models, we present a general theoretical framework of unilateral presidential action. This framework allows us to examine systematically how various possible party roles, such as agenda setting, result in legislative gridlock which, in turn, create or undercut presidential incentives, and how directional constraints on discretion undermine presidential leverage. In particular, negative agenda setting and party discipline intensify gridlock, enhancing presidential policy gains; positive agenda setting’s effect depends upon governmental regime. Empirically, majority parties consistently play some role, especially negative agenda setting, regardless of the threshold used to define EO significance, while party discipline is more pronounced with higher thresholds. Also, while a majority party median is crucial for constraining the direction of how presidents use discretion with lower thresholds, a chamber median (whose preference may be induced by party pressure) is key with higher thresholds.

Implementing ObamaCare

After President Barack Obama signed into law the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010, 26 states filed lawsuits challenging key provisions. In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled in support of most provisions but held that the mandatory Medicaid expansion was unconstitutional, in effect making it optional for the states. Yet Medicaid expansion is critical if the ACA is to achieve its goal of substantially increasing coverage, especially for lower-income adults with health problems, many of whom are racial and ethnic minorities. This article examines the factors explaining state variation in Medicaid expansion from 2012 to 2014. Although partisan power in the states is a key predictor, other relevant factors include the state’s Medicaid policy legacy, providers’ influence, conservative ideology, and racial resentment. We demonstrate that the enactment of legislation is only a part of the policy formation process and that implementation is equally salient, with state dynamics playing a critical role.

Government Policy Responses to Financial Crises: Identifying Patterns and Policy Origins in Developing Countries

This paper investigates how three major political conditions—political constraint (imposed by veto players), government partisanship, and elections—have influenced the government responses to financial crises in 98 developing countries over the period 1976–2004. We find that governments experiencing financial crises generally tightened their monetary and fiscal policies, but the extent of the tightening was considerably moderated by the presence of large political constraint (large and strong veto players), strong leftist partisan power in government, and upcoming legislative or presidential elections. We also find that fiscal policies are more considerably constrained by political conditions than monetary policies.

Partisan power, economic coordination and variations in vocational training systems in Europe

This article explores the variation of vocational education and training systems in European countries. From a survey of experts in 15 European countries, we develop a typology along two dimensions: employer involvement and public commitment. In a second step, we explain the variety of skill formation systems, highlighting the importance of partisan power and economic coordination. The causal argument is applied in three illustrative case studies of Germany, Sweden and the UK. In particular, we argue that a high degree of economic coordination increases the relevance of training relative to academic education. However, differences within the cluster of coordinated market economies are related to different legacies of partisan power in the post-war decades.

Market Inequality and Redistribution in Latin America and the Caribbean

This article analyzes how politics influences Latin American and Caribbean income inequality. Most studies view the distributional process in two phases with inequality shaped first by markets and then by state redistribution. Typically, cross-national analyses of inequality limit the influence of politics to the redistributive phase. But we argue that a full understanding of how government affects inequality must also consider how politics shapes the market. While redistribution is undoubtedly an important mechanism employed by government to influence distributional outcomes, we find that inequality produced by the market is more responsive to politics than is redistribution. Left partisan power and public investment in human capital significantly reduce inequality in the market phase. In addition, social spending on human capital conditions the effect of economic growth. As human capital investment increases, growth becomes more equality enhancing, providing further evidence of the market conditioning effect of policy.

Partisan Power Play: The Origins of Local Election Timing as an American Political Institution

Eighty percent of American cities today hold their general elections on different days than state and national elections. It is an established fact that voter turnout in these off-cycle local elections is far lower than turnout in local elections held concurrently with state and national elections. In this paper, I demonstrate that the timing of city elections has been an important determinant of voter turnout since before the Civil War. By examining three large American cities over the course of the nineteenth century, I find that American political parties regularly manipulated the timing of city elections to secure an edge over their rivals. I show that the decisions to change the election dates of these cities were contentious, partisan, and motivated by an expectation of subsequent electoral gain. The Progressive municipal reformers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries continued in this tradition when they separated city elections from state and national elections, and the local election schedule they implemented has largely persisted until today.

「プレイヤーとしての大統領」トライアン・バセスク

Fierce and continuous political battles broke out in Romania immediately after its accession to the European Union (EU) in 2007, with President Traian Băsescu’s leadership style as the main issue. Băsescu declared that he would be an activist president, a “player-president,” who would advance his own political agenda, control the parliamentary majority, and actively shape policy. He fulfilled this vision to some extent and won the re-election; however, the Romanian Constitution stipulates the role of president as a mediator and obliges him/her to adopt a nonpartisan stance. Moreover, since the late nineties, semi-presidential systems in Central and Eastern Europe (except the former USSR) have tended to be more parliamentarian, shifting supreme executive power from the president to prime minister. Thus, Băsescu’s presidency poses the difficult and interesting question for scholars: Why and how might President Băsescu behave as a “player-president”? To answer this question we must analyze the resources for presidential leadership in the semi-presidential context. Here we can identify three factors of particular importance: the president’s constitutional power; partisan power, focusing on the nature of the parliamentary majority and relationship between the president and majority; and the president’s popularity. The present study describes and analyzes the successes and failures of Băsescu’s initiatives during the period between December 2004 and August 2012 from the perspective of these three factors. Specifically, we focus on the following three situations in which the president’s action became a serious issue: “government formation,” “intraexecutive conflict,” and “referendum.” To examine specific constellations of political resources available for each actor, especially the president, we take the constitutional text as our starting point. The Constitution’s ambiguity allowed the president to expand his formal institutional capacity. For example, according to the Constitution, the Romanian President must consult with the parties in Parliament when nominating the prime minister. However, Băsescu always declared that he would nominate a member as the prime minister from the party or alliance that supported him before he officially consulted other parties in Parliament, and he continued holding initiatives to choose the prime minister. Here, two other factors played an important role. Băsescu was the recognized leader of the parliamentary majority, especially between December 2008 (when his party, the PDL (former PD) became the top party in the general election) and spring 2012 (when the governing coalition collapsed). Furthermore, the president maintained high popularity until the economic crisis worsened and his PDL government introduced austerity measures in spring 2010. His partisan power and popularity enhanced Băsescu’s constitutional power, making him a president with considerable material power. In addition, the president is the only office holder who is popularly elected nationwide. Therefore, winning the post gave him additional leverage, especially immediately after winning the elections. In this context, the threat to dissolve Parliament, which is very difficult according to the constitutional provisions, could be a bargaining chip for him. At the same time, the lack of party discipline and cohesiveness expanded the president’s room for maneuvering. However, Băsescu’s actions to avoid “cohabitation” (sharing power) as much as possible caused political polarization and led to the suspension of the President by the Parliament twice.

América Latina: las renuncias presidenciales y el papel del Congreso

Since the 1980s have occurred numerous presidential resignations in different Latin American countries. The novelty was that these crises were not followed by regime instability. The paper interrogates this phenomenon in two ways. In the first place, it hypothesizes that presidents resignations present two formats according to the distribution of partisan power in Congress: a) the parliamentary exit formula, and b) the presidential exit formula. In the second place, the paper explores the impact of presidential resignations on the functioning of presidential regimes. From this perspective, we hold that it seems convenient to redefine the role of fixed mandates in the characterization of presidentialism.

Market Conditioning, Redistribution and Income Inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean

This article analyzes Latin American and Caribbean income inequality, making three important contributions. First, we show that politics not only shapes redistribution, but also affects inequality produced by the market, with much of the effect occurring through the market conditioning mechanism. Second, multiple facets of politics impact inequality, including partisan power, social spending, and regime type. Third, politics shapes how economic conditions influence inequality. Specifically, economic growth is equity-enhancing where social spending is high, but equity-reducing where such spending is low. We reach these conclusions based on a time series cross sectional analysis of nearly 200 country-years from 19 Latin American and Caribbean countries.

Propaganda y publicidad institucional: algunas consideraciones teóricas

Este artículo parte de que la publicidad institucional es un fenómeno emitido por el Estado en los diferentes niveles de la Administración pública. Estas condiciones de emisión implican cuestiones interesantes para la Teoría de la Propaganda, derivadas de la peculiar naturaleza del Estado en tanto que instancia de poder. Consideramos que el Estado es un emisor fundamental de propaganda, pero también un ámbito generador de mensajes publicitarios variados que no persiguen necesariamente un fin propagandístico. En este contexto, manejamos dos conceptos básicos: por un lado, la idea de una publicidad institucional propagandística, guiada por fines partidistas e intención de poder; por otro, la noción de una publicidad institucional de servicio o interés público, antenta a los intereses generales.

Retirements, Retentions, and the Balance of Partisan Power in Contemporary Congressional Politics

In this paper we extend earlier work on the effects of disparate retirement rates on the partisan composition of the contemporary House of Representatives (1954–2006). Gilmour and Rothstein had posited that the Grand Old Party's (GOP) ‘permanent minority’ status in the House between 1954 and 1994 was the principal cause of this differential. Contrary to expectations, we find that even after their takeover of the House in 1995, Republican Members of Congress (MCs) continued to leave the chamber voluntarily at higher rates than their Democratic colleagues, both to retire completely from public life and to seek higher office. Ceteris paribus, even as the GOP made considerable offsetting gains in its ability to re-elect incumbents and to retain open seats, this continued disparity significantly attenuated the size of their legislative majority and contributed to their ousting as the majority party in the elections of 2006. We conclude the paper with some speculations regarding the reasons for the persistence of relatively high rates of Republican retirements.

The Legislative Effects of Presidential Partisan Powers in Post-Communist Russia

CURRENT SCHOLARSHIP ON PRESIDENTIAL POLITICAL SYSTEMS FINDS that the distribution of power between presidents and assemblies can vary significantly from one presidential polity to the next, and can even change within the same presidential regime over a relatively short period of time. Presidents are shown to exercise different levels of control over the law-making process according to the de jure legislative powers at their disposal – initiation, veto, veto override, budgetary and decree powers– and their de facto partisan power – the level of disciplined party support that they command within assemblies. Different combinations of these powers can have strikingly different institutional, behavioural and policy effects. Indeed, such variation has led some analysts to question the usefulness of models of executive–legislative relations that are based solely on the traditional distinction between presidential and parliamentary political systems.

The Politics of Re-Centralization in Argentina And Brazil

In response to the growing salience of re-centralization in several Latin American countries that decentralized in the 1980s and 1990s, this paper examines presidential efforts to re-centralize fiscal power in the 1990s. In our study of re-centralization in Argentina and Brazil, we assess the utility of four common political economy explanations: the presence of economic crisis; the partisan powers of the president; the division of formal powers between the branches; and the extent of intra-bureaucratic conflict. We find that the success of economic stabilization measures facilitated re-centralization in both countries, though the pathways connecting the two phenomena were partially distinct. In Argentina, key re-centralization measures were rapidly achieved after stabilization as the result of the president's strong partisan powers and in the form of political deals within the Peronist party. Subsequently, the dissipation of President Carlos Menem's powers over the course of his second term facilitated the “return of the governors.” In Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso re-centralized despite weak partisan powers, largely by using his reputation as a successful stabilizer to build a broad reform coalition. In Cardoso's Brazil, strong partisan cohesion in important cabinet posts also served as a partial substitute for the lack of partisan power in the legislature. These findings suggest the need for a closer examination of re-centralization efforts, particularly in the wake of macroeconomic stabilization and economic reform.

The Politics of Re-centralization in Argentina and Brazil

In response to the growing salience of re-centralization in several Latin American countries that decentralized in the 1980s and 1990s, this paper examines presidential efforts to re-centralize fiscal power in the 1990s. In our study of re-centralization in Argentina and Brazil, we assess the utility of four common political economy explanations: the presence of economic crisis; the partisan powers of the president; the division of formal powers between the branches; and the extent of intra-bureaucratic conflict. We find that the success of economic stabilization measures facilitated re-centralization in both countries, though the pathways connecting the two phenomena were partially distinct. In Argentina, key re-centralization measures were rapidly achieved after stabilization as the result of the president's strong partisan powers and in the form of political deals within the Peronist party. Subsequently, the dissipation of President Carlos Menem's powers over the course of his second term facilitated the return of the governors. In Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso re-centralized despite weak partisan powers, largely by using his reputation as a successful stabilizer to build a broad reform coalition. In Cardoso's Brazil, strong partisan cohesion in important cabinet posts also served as a partial substitute for the lack of partisan power in the legislature. These findings suggest the need for a closer examination of re-centralization efforts, particularly in the wake of macroeconomic stabilization and economic reform.

Bridging State and Society

Congressional scholars have a unique opportunity to reconnect the histories of American state and society, a task central to the new generation of political historians. As MarkLeff (1995:852) recently argued, social and political historians have come to realize that they “ignored the other at their peril” and that “interaction was the only way to interrogate power—how it was structured and changed, where it was contested, how it was exerted, what its impact was, and what assumptions shaped the discourse that framed it” (see also Gillon 1997).To accomplish the challenge of integrating social and political history, congressional historians will have to examine how the institution’s development related to external forces. Much of what has been written about Congress thus far remains insular.A handful of books published in the past two decades suggest how integration can be accomplished. InSectionalism and American Political Development 1880–1980, Richard Bensel (1984) situates the internal development of Congress within the larger context of sectional tensions between the “industrial northern core” and the “underdeveloped southern and western periphery.” He pays close attention to key policy decisions and the ongoing struggle between decentralized committee and centralized partisan power to show the influence of sectionalism.

Comment: Conceptualization, Measurement, and the Analysis of Representation in Electoral Systems Undergoing Structural and Social Change

Understanding the consequences for democracy and representation of various electoral structures has never been easy. Scholars from the Reverend Dodgson to Kenneth Arrow to Gary King have all undertaken theoretical and empirical studies of the comparative strengths and weaknesses of different electoral arrangements, yet these debates continue with no resolution in sight. Empirical studies often cannot distinguish social from structural effects, while analytic studies often make assumptions that diminish our ability to apply the findings to any real world comparison. Such enterprises are most difficult when the electoral systems under consideration are concurrently in the midst of structural, social and issue evolution. The two preceding papers undertake a difficult task; i.e., separating the consequences of structural change from those of social change in the US South during a period of great flux in racial and partisan power relations. Much of the disagreement between these two analyses—and perhaps some of the agreement as well—can be attributed to the conceptual and methodological difficulties of the enterprise they undertake. The two key questions addressed are: 1) which party benefited from the change to single-member districts, winner-take-all elections, from various multimember district electoral formats, and 2) which party benefited from redistricting?