Political Bargaining Research Articles

IMPLEMENTATION OF INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE OF STATE PROTECTION OF NATIONAL VALUES IN UKRAINE

The author of the article reveals the purpose of implementing the international experience of the system of state protection of national values through the prism of two important trends that should be implemented and and enshrined in the practice of state-building processes in modern Ukraine. One of them stipulates that national values are the central core of the national security system security system, they define the triad of ‘values-interests-goals’. The second trend defines the system of creating mechanisms for legislative support of guaranteeing and protecting of national values, which is embodied in the systemic nature of the state policy on national development and is the actual consolidation of the civilisational civilisational choice of the Ukrainian nation at the level of legal acts. The purpose of the article is to analyse practical aspects of implementation of the state mechanisms for protection of national values in foreign countries and their implementation in the Ukrainian State. The author emphasises that national values of of modern Ukraine should not be subject to political bargaining, speculation, etc. They are are always an element of political struggle. Without this, political processes are impossible, and therefore, national values should be defined and prohibited for political speculation on them, which, by the way, requires the development of an institution of for their criminal law protection; and - to have its own system of mechanisms of legislative protection. It is determined that the first step towards the implementation of the experience of foreign countries in protecting national values should be the introduction of an all-Ukrainian analytical study of the system of national values. It should should be based on long-term and medium-term forecasts of domestic development and the development of the system of world politics, its specific regional and functional subsystems. This means that the full potential of national research institutes in the field of public opinion, civil society, and sociological research should be used to society, and sociological research should be directed within the framework of a single state policy to study and define national values.

Can Ethnic Minority Political Parties Influence the Policy Process in Fragmented Societies? Insights from Sri Lanka

Existing scholarship from developing countries explores the dynamics of identity/ethnocentric politics and finds that in fragmented societies, politicians’ identities tend to influence government policies to favour their own community or group. Against this backdrop, the article explores how the Hill Country ethnic minority community of Sri Lanka influences the policy process through electoral politics. Findings reveal that ethnic minority parties systematically use rational choice theory to influence policy processes to gain material and welfare benefits. The study highlights the fact that ethnic parties tend to induce strong ethnic feelings using ethno-populism to mobilize voters, provide unconditional support, maintain an ever-changing coalition with the ruling administration and have political bargaining based on ethnic headcounts to influence policies. The article informs that this pattern is harmful to post-conflict societies striving for sustainable peace and reconciliation and highlights the necessity of inclusive and impartial policies and institutions, political consolidation and inter-ethnic justice to accommodate ethnic minorities in the mainstream politics and development to prevent deepening ethnopolitical cleavages in the guise of electoral politics.

Beyond technological flexibility: Unpacking citywide inclusive sanitation through the territorial political economy framework

Decentralisation and the flexible combination of infrastructures and technologies are advocated to expand access to safe sanitation amid rapid urbanization, worsening water scarcity, resource depletion, and climate change. Yet, narrowly technical approaches such as the citywide inclusive sanitation approach tend to underestimate social and political bargaining and the role of structural power in shaping access to basic urban services. Building on international political economy, this article develops the territorial political economy framework to explore specific sanitation systems’ distribution of structural power in security, production, and finance. Utilizing this framework, the study constructs a typology of five sanitation bargains, derived from theoretical insights, expert interviews, scientific case studies, and key policy documents. Each bargain represents an ideal typical combination of technology, organisation, and finance, with the corresponding spatial and social distribution of costs, benefits, risks, and opportunities. Together, this enables a political economy analysis of sanitation systems in cities that is sensitive to both multiscalar negotiations and distributional outcomes associated with sanitation provision in the city. When expanding sanitation services to so-far unserved areas in the cities, the paper shows how the limitations of the citywide inclusive sanitation approach in its current form can be overcome. It enables to explicitly consider the implications of embedded structural power on households when assessing and selecting technological options and organizational models for providing access to safe sanitation inclusively across the city.

Corporations and corporatism: Swedish big business and the Harpsund conferences 1955–1962

ABSTRACT Between 1955 and 1962, the Swedish Social Democratic Prime Minister Tage Erlander invited big business leaders to his country estate Harpsund to discuss issues of common concern. Erlander called the conferences ‘consultative democracy’ and the meetings have come to symbolise compromise and cooperation between big business and organised labour during the zenith of Swedish corporatism. This article finds that participating in the talks was a political maximisation strategy for business. Corporatist institutions, such as the Harpsund conferences, were used to communicate business core issues to the government, while at the same time, businesses tried to return the centre-right parties back into power through financial support and public relations campaigns. The article further argues that the cordial relationship between business and labour at the Harpsund conferences fits Katzenstein’s theories on corporatism, including the factors of an export reliant economy, an ideology of social partnership between elites, centralised peak organisations and continuous political bargaining between interest groups, the state, and political parties. Also, the article maintains that the unique good relations were a consequence of a generation of leaders on both sides who gained influence in an era of fast economic growth and mounting international geopolitical tension.

Comparing evidence use in parliaments: the interplay of beliefs, traditions, and practices in the UK and Germany

Abstract This article draws on rich qualitative data from two national parliaments—the UK House of Commons and the German Bundestag—to examine knowledge practices in political institutions. This is an important topic, not only because parliaments play a significant role in democratic decision-making, but because it sheds light on debates about how such decision-making is based on and interacts with knowledge and evidence. By adopting an interpretive analytical approach, I analyze the ways in which those practices are shaped by the beliefs and values of parliamentary actors. Indeed, in better understanding everyday practices, beliefs, and ideational traditions, it also contributes to better explaining how components of political and parliamentary cultures contribute to knowledge use more broadly. In the House of Commons, MPs draw on a highly trusted and independent parliamentary administration; meanwhile, committees have become fruitful avenues for MPs to develop policy expertise and engage with knowledge and evidence in a non-partisan way. In the German Bundestag, MPs also develop policy expertise—in fact, they interpret their role as specialists in a “working” parliament—but their knowledge practices are more openly partisan through the structuring role of parliamentary party groups and the skepticism of “neutral” advice from research services. Consequently, committees tend to be sites of political bargaining and conflict, rather than evidence-gathering. In both cases, parliaments’ knowledge practices are shaped by wider webs of beliefs about the role of MPs within the institutions. This suggests that knowledge use in political and policy settings is shaped by broader cultural factors.

Criminal Behavior Politician During Reform in Indonesia

Criminal behavior politician during reform in Indonesia perspective white-collar crime is a crime committed by respectable men in corporation and government environments. This study aims to assess and analyze the behavior of white-collar criminals involving an individual of state officials, parliament or political parties politicians and the ruling government in Indonesia during the reform period. This study is qualitative research based on the literature, journals and reporting publications of Indonesian white-collar crime. The result of study concluded that white-collar crime in Indonesia has reached a very alarming level. This crime could even can be called state organized crime in a corrupt government. This crime is based on the achievement of individual interests, group or political party and retains the power. The lack of success of Indonesian government in resolving the case of state officials or politicians involved in corruption, collusion and nepotism rapidly, lightly court decisions, many cases delayed in its prosecution process, even termination of the case of important officials state to be indication the weakness of law enforcement against white-collar criminals in Indonesia. This happens due to the severity of conflict of interest so the solution is often based on the interests or political bargaining and abuse of power. This situation reinforces Hobbes’ theory that a crime act, and fault can be assessed otherwise when the ruling government decided that the action was not malicious and wrong. This means that a value either good or evil depending on the assessments decision committed by the authorities.

“Et tu, Bruté?”: Do audit committees besmirch investors’ desire for increased disclosures?

AbstractThis paper presents the results of a content analysis of the comment letters submitted in response to the SEC concept release on the enhancements of audit committee disclosures. The comment letters were drafted by investors and a cross‐section of various governance actors or practitioners, such as audit committees, management, legal advisers, and auditors. Hence, the letters provide insights as to how these different groups interpret the proposed revisions and try to adapt them according to their needs and context. The comment letters are analyzed through the framework of the behavioral theory of boards and corporate governance, which arguably better explains the analysis results over the traditional agency theory framework. The theory examines governance actors’ interactions and behavioral processes and asserts that the corporation is a nexus of stakeholders’ coalitions, who render decisions primarily through engaging in political bargaining rather than through evaluating investor needs. Results show that, while investors are urging enhanced disclosures, audit committee respondents are against the suggested improvements. These results are consistent with the behavioral theory of boards and corporate governance but inconsistent with an agency theory perspective.

Skotovoz, pripiski and the “law of labour settlement”: Transportation planning and management in the USSR

Transport specialists in the USSR persistently called for mathematical expressions of fundamental laws in urban transportation, to assist the development of efficient transportation systems. However, the specificity of the planned economy meant that these appeals did not receive substantial financial support. In response to challenges such as falsified data and political interference, practitioners developed an “imaginative” approach based on intuition, tradition and experience. Analysis of academic literature written in Russian, archival sources and new data gained from interviews shows that the demand for quantitative methods was a bureaucratic response to the uncertainties of public transport administration, while planning documents functioned as leverage in political bargaining for resources. In practice, urban transport planners and transport company employees relied on their own creativity and innovation to compensate for pervasive resource and methodological deficits.

Бюджетная политика развитых стран: игра по правилам?

The article examines the reasons for the adoption of fiscal rules in advanced economies, their main types, evolution and results of application. In the practice of fiscal policy over the past decades, there has been a steady trend towards budget deficits. There are two main reasons that explain this widespread deficit bias phenomenon: the tendency to push out the financial discipline burden to future governments or even to future generations and the interplay of political processes and interest group activities (common pool effect). Chronic budget deficits and growing public debts have prompted many countries to adopt certain national and supranational (in the EU) fiscal rules – long-lasting constraints on fiscal policy through numerical limits on main budgetary aggregates: budget balance, debt, expenditure or revenue. Fiscal rules can promote financial discipline and reduce the deficit bias in several ways. This influence on fiscal behavior arises from their capacity to “tie the hands” of policymakers and to be a useful signaling tool, helping to reduce the asymmetry of information between policymakers and voters. But the compliance track record with fiscal rules is relatively poor. They have failed to provide sufficient fiscal discipline: the deficit bias persists and the debt-to-GDP ratio in most advanced economies continues to grow. The adopted budget rules are periodically suspended, they are subject to revision, sometimes formally implemented by applying the creative accounting, policymakers use them as a tool of political bargaining. Ultimately, fiscal discipline does not depend on the existence of rules, but on the willingness of politicians to comply with this discipline.

BOOK REVIEW: Sri Lanka's Easter Sunday Massacre: Lessons for International Community by Rohan Gunaratna

Rohan Gunaratna's recent publication titled Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday Massacre: Lessons for International Community tries to explore the “Easter Attack massacre” and its root causes in Sri Lanka. The work would indeed become one of the main references for those interested in exploring the sources and roots of the Easter Attack. Although the Easter Sunday massacre was a watershed event in Sri Lankan history as well as the ‘September 11’ of Sri Lankan Muslims, there has been a lack of detailed analysis on the subject thus far. In this sense, Gunaratna's work could be seen as the first detailed study of the tragedy, elaborating on the background of the bombers, their preparations, and the execution. In the aftermath of the attack, there has been a serious public debate on the nature of tragedy and its root causes. Participating in this debate, Imthiyaz Razak argued that the Easter attacks were a by-product of both “violence against Muslims since 2012”, unleashed by the Sinhala-Buddhist extremists and cultural exclusivism of Muslims, enabled by the political bargaining between the majoritarian state and minority political elites. For his part, Rajan Hoole argued in his work Sri Lanka's Easter Tragedy that the Easter Attack was the result of the entrenched phenomenon of the deep state that tries to manipulate religious extremists for their political ends. For him, the Easter Attack was more political than ideological. However, Gunaratna stressed the point that the Easter Attack directly resulted from the religious radicalization of a segment of the Muslim community in Sri Lanka, who embraced the Salafi-Wahhabism ideology of political Islam. The book elaborates this argument through a lengthy introduction and subsequent four chapters.

Informal institutionalization in modern Ukraine

The relevance of the research lies in the observation that, while Ukraine has established formal democratic institutions since its independence, many democratization issues remain unresolved. These formal structures lack effectiveness and support, with informal, often non-democratic political processes and secret agreements continuing to prevail. The study aims to conclude a theoretical study, conceptualization, and generalization of the problems of the existence of informal institutions, as well as a comprehensive analysis of practical technologies of informal institutionalization in modern Ukraine. The authors used such general scientific methods as analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, abstraction, the ascent from the abstract to the concrete. The authors considered such informal institutions that exist in the political reality of Ukraine, such as lobbying, corruption, populism, non-conventional forms of political participation of citizens, party agreements, clientelism, and political bargaining. The effective technologies for the informal institutionalization of modern Ukraine, including technologies for eliminating authoritarian practices, technologies of party structuring, technologies of political participation and technologies for the formation of democratic political consciousness have been proposed. These technologies are aimed at the political modernization of Ukraine, ensuring the institutional functioning of democracy at the proper level and minimizing the negative effects of informal institutions.

Whose security? Whose justice? Customary authorities in security and justice interventions in the Horn of Africa

ABSTRACT An evolving body of literature calls for politically realistic security and justice interventions that reflect the plurality of norms, power and legitimacy in the security and justice arena. In this arena, customary authorities may provide more security and justice than the state, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. They matter for peace, security, and development, but engaging them requires donors to navigate hidden power structures and illiberal traditions and ideas. In response to this complexity, this article proposes an approach for working with customary authorities – supporting fluid networks of customary, community and state agents and the political bargaining between them. Looking at a specifically conflict-affected area of the Horn, this paper provides an important survey of what we know, and what we don’t know and embraces customary authorities’ agency in change.

Hope in the Ruins of Home: Narrative Meaning-Making of Forced Displacement, Place Attachment, and Deferred Future Resettlement in Varosha

Abstract In 1974, the Cyprus War turned the seaside resort of Varosha into a derelict and decaying town, captured by the Turkish army and held for subsequent decades as a political bargaining chip in the peace negotiations of the unresolved reconflict. In 2020, the city partially opened to public visits, allowing its former residents to tour a landscape of ruination. This paper explores the contested narratives of the city’s future revival that have emerged in the wake of this opening. In particular, the paper describes forcibly displaced Varoshians’ narratives as discursive practices that reclaim the lost ‘homeplace’ and insist on the right to return. These narratives, the paper shows, become a mnemonic means of communicative meaning-making, with four main themes: loss, threshold, transformation, and the future. The paper uses these themes to show how such narratives may enable refugees to maintain hope even in the ruins of hoped-for futures. The thematic analysis also shows how place attachment narratives transmitting memories of home may transform with a vibrant present-ness related to people’s imaginations of a future Varosha. Speaking to the possibilities of return, this study calls for further explorations towards the narrative of restitution beyond legal property and political territory.

Post-water political-economics

ABSTRACT Existing concepts of water political economy focus on political bargaining within relatively static institutional and climactic environments. This article adds ‘post’ to water political economy to explore how non-stationary climate interacts with endogenous political institutions to create and magnify policy and behavioural uncertainties. These post-water political economy ideas are then applied to food security to explore potential future scenarios. The implications are terrible for poor people living in water-scarce, food-importing countries, but not much better for everyone else.

Right wing cultural hegemony and the decline of socialism in Pakistan: A case study of Punjab – 1977–1997

Soon after its independence from the British in August 1947, Pakistan's socio-political culture became entangled into a monopoly of the right-wing with feudal lords, especially in the Punjab province. The pseudo right-wing political parties exploited Pakistan’s religious foundations and established a cultural hegemony. Historically, Punjab had remained the epicentre of political bargains since its inception; therefore, it retained strong alliances for stable government in the centre. Somehow, dissident voices and views from any other political ideology were deemed to be anti-state or anti-religious. This paper analyses through Antonio Gramsci's Theory of Cultural Hegemony how the right wing manipulated the opinion of the masses to legitimize their rule, which ultimately led to the decline of socialism. This paper illustrates the underlying ultra-religious campaigns in the electoral manoeuvring of the right wing from 1977 to 1997, thereby gaining the consent of the people. This study also outlines the systematic othering and demonizing of the left wing in society by pseudo right-wing factions.

Labor pathways to achieve net-zero emissions in the United States by mid-century

Achieving an economy-wide net-zero emissions goal by mid-century in the United States entails transforming not only the physical energy system, but also the energy workforce. In this study, we develop and demonstrate a labor model, tailored to the context of energy system transitions, and coupled with geospatially-resolved, supply-side energy system activity projections. We find that a net-zero transition supports an annual average of approximately 3 million direct energy jobs or $200 billion in wages during the first decade, and approximately 4–8 million direct energy jobs or $200–500 billion during the 2040s. The modeled supply-side energy workforce represents 1.5% of the total U.S. labor force in 2020, increasing to 2.5–5% by mid-century. Boom-and-bust cycles arise, with employment and wage losses in declining fossil fuel sectors offset (in aggregate) by increases in low carbon resource sectors. We further estimate training, education, and experience requirements, finding that the diversity of workforce development needs will be similar to historical transitions, but at a much larger scale over a sustained time period. We also show that labor pathways are influenced by policy-mediated factors such as technology selection, pace of infrastructure expansion, infrastructure siting and investment decisions, oil and gas exports, workforce development, labor productivity, and extent of domestic manufacturing. Most states have the potential to experience long-term expansion in the supply-side energy workforce, but substantial state-level variation is possible in labor pathways depending on resource availability, siting decisions, and political bargaining.

The 2022 presidential election: what happened on Facebook?

ABSTRACT This article aims to retrace the main stages of the 2022 Italian presidential election through the messages spread within the Web environment. In particular, it investigates the digital communication on Facebook of the main political leaders and parties involved, as a privileged perspective from which to understand contemporary Italian politics. To achieve these objectives, the article is divided into three sections. First, it discusses the main challenges of presidential elections over the last twenty years, by observing how digital disruption has transformed their fundamental dynamics and political actors’ communication strategies. Second, it employs methodological approaches that are based on digital methods and content analysis to explore the digital discourse of both party leaders and their respective parties before, during and after the 2022 election. More specifically, it analyses how they used Facebook as a primary tool to inform and engage with both citizens and mainstream media, as well as to shape political bargaining. Overall, the article argues that, although Italy’s presidential race lacks any formal list of candidates, as the election is largely decided behind closed doors, the spread of digital platforms has to some extent brought the manoeuvring between political forces into public view introducing, to some extent, a new phase of campaigning. Finally, it shows how presidential elections in the Web environment have contributed to presidential personalization in Italy and explores complementary reasons why digital platforms have acquired a new centrality in the Italian political environment.

Political Dowry in the Maelstrom of Political Practices in Indonesia: Legal and Political Aspects

Political dowry can be understood as an underhand transaction that involves the provision of large amounts of funds from a candidate for a position contested in the General Election or Regional Head Election with a political party as the political vehicle. A final political decision can change due to transactions in order to change the political attitudes or actions of the people who are influenced. In transactional politics, power or power is at play. Those who want a change in political attitudes and actions from political actors (friends or foes) will use power. The research method used is a normative method that uses secondary data sources or data obtained through literature, books, etc. In politics, political bargaining can be in the form of threats of punishment (giving sticks or sticks), can also be in the form of profitable offers (giving carrots or carrots). The power base of the first party to influence the second party varies, it can be in the form of money, political position or control of negative information about the second party. The practice of unreasonable political dowry in all political activities also has a negative impact on the progress of the country's development. For example, costs that are too high will have an impact on the possibility of greater corruption.

We will pay compensation from future profits: the nationalisation of foreign businesses in post-colonial Uganda

The 1970 nationalisation of foreign businesses in Uganda was arguably the first time that a country would announce to pay compensation for nationalised businesses from the future profits earned by such businesses. Using two interrelated models, namely the Obsolescing Bargaining Model and Political Bargaining Model, and materials from three UK archives and the World Bank Archives, this paper critiques the negotiations between the nationalised businesses and the Ugandan Government during the period. It explores the role of the British Government in the entire episode, including the covert negotiations with international agencies such as the World Bank in order to ensure that UK companies got the best possible settlement from the Ugandan authorities. The result of this study shows that Uganda’s nationalisation programme was indeed hastily formulated and implemented, which joined to weaken the government’s bargaining powers and rendered the major clause of ‘paying compensation from future profit’ more idealistic than practical.

Caudillos y plebeyos: La construcción social del estado en América del Sur (Argentina, Perú, Chile 1830–1860)

Caudillos y plebeyos: La construcción social del estado en América del Sur (Argentina, Perú, Chile 1830–1860)