III Governmental and Administrative Institutions / Institutions Politiques et Administratives
| DOI | 10.1177/00208345211051896 |
| Published date | 01 October 2021 |
| Date | 01 October 2021 |
663
III
GOVERNMENTAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE INSTITUTIONS
INSTITUTIONS POLITIQUES ET ADMINISTRATIVES
(a) Central institutions /Institutions centrales
71.6439 ARIOTTI, Margaret H. — Government type and public
spending in Africa. Legislative Studies Quarterly 46(1), Feb.
2021 : 85-118.
How does government composition affect government spending in Africa’s
democracies? Many scholars have examined the political, institutional,
and ideological determinants of government spending, finding that govern-
ment attributes can affect government spending levels. However, many of
these studies have focused on OECD countries, largely overlooking the
link between government spending and government composition in Afri-
can democracies. I examine support for two existing theories about the
characteristics of governments that can lead to increases in spending lev-
els: the number of parties in government and the number of ministers. I
assess empirical evidence for these theories using original data on gov-
ernment composition in 19 African countries from 1990 to 2015 and data
on government spending from the World Bank. [R, abr.]
71.6440 BECHER, Michael ; STEGMUELLER, Daniel — Reducing un-
equal representation: the impact of labor unions on legis-
lative responsiveness in the US Congress. Perspectives on
Politics 19(1), March 2021 : 92-109.
In contrast to the view that unequal responsiveness in favor of the affluent
is nearly inevitable when income inequality is high, we argue that orga-
nized labor can be an effective source of political equality. Focusing on the
paradigmatic case of the US House of Representatives, our novel dataset
combines income-specific estimates of constituency preferences based
on 223,000 survey respondents matched to roll-call votes with a measure
of district-level union strength drawn from administrative records. We find
that local unions significantly dampen unequal responsiveness to high in-
comes: a standard deviation increase in union membership increases leg-
islative responsiveness towards the poor by about six to eight percentage
points. As a result, in districts with relatively strong unions legislators are
about equally responsive to rich and poor Americans. [R, abr.]
71.6441 BULL, Martin — The Italian government response to COVID-
19 and the making of a prime minister. Contemporary Italian
Politics 13(2), 2021 : 149-165.
Italy was the first European democracy to be hit by the COVID-19 pan-
demic. The government’s response, especially in the first wave, was con-
fused, dilatory and inadequate, and the country found itself in an unprec-
edented public health crisis, leading to a national lockdown between
March and May. The easing of restrictions in May and an improved situa-
tion in the summer did not prevent cases rising again from the autumn
onwards, and Italy finished the year in a series of mini-lockdowns. The
government was confronted with a debate over Italy’s high death toll and
the role of the executive’s ow n failings in it. Yet, the pandemic did not
prompt a political crisis. Rather, it had the effect of blunting the frontal op-
position of the League and strengthening the standing of the government
with the public. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 71.7027]
71.6442 COHEN, Jeffrey E. ; ROTTINGHAUS, Brandon — Constitu-
ent approval and presidential support: the mediating ef-
fect of party and Chamber. Political Research Quarterly
74(1), March 2021 : 76-89.
Approval affects congressional support for the president, with a reelection
motivation the main linkage mechanism. Yet, the literature has not fully
explored this linkage due to theoretical barriers and serious data limita-
tions. Using a new theory and novel data, we argue that the impact of the
reelection motivation should vary with contextual factors. This paper iden-
tifies two such factors rarely explored together: member party and cham-
ber. We hypothesize that opposition party legislators will be more respon-
sive to constituent approval than co-partisans, but this partisan differential
will hold only for the Senate, not the House. We test our hypothesis on
House and Senate data, from 2006 through 2012, using multiple regres-
sion poststratification (MRP) to measure district and state approval of the
president. [R, abr.]
71.6443 COLLORD, Michaela — Pressuring MPs to act: Parliament,
organized interests and policymaking in Uganda and Tan-
zania. Democratization 28(4), 2021 : 723-741.
What motivates MPs to challenge executive policy priorities? When and
why do they support seemingly more “pro-poor” measures? This article
presents a novel framework to answer these questions, adapting its anal-
ysis to the context of competitive authoritarian regimes in Africa. Recent
literature tends to focus on whether heightened electoral pressure encour-
ages more pro-poor policy interventions, for instance, leading to improved
health services. While not dismissing the significance of voter demands,
this article refocuses attention on the largely overlooked role of organized
interests in shaping legislative action. More specifically, it examines how
the dis tribution of power across more “mass-based” groups as well as
within the ruling elite jointly influence policy outcomes, including pro-poor
policies consonant with voter preferences. [R, abr.]
71.6444 CRAIG, Alison W. — It takes a coalition: the community im-
pacts of collaboration. Legislative Studies Quarterly 46(1),
Feb. 2021 : 11-48.
Members of [US] Congress frequently collaborate on policy initiatives,
reaching out to colleagues in both parties to find common ground on solu-
tions for the problems faced by their constituents. Using a novel dataset of
over 30,000 “Dear Colleague” letters sent by members of the 111th Con-
gress, I use the collaborative relationships that exist in the earliest stages
of the policy process to measure the social influence of legislators. I
demonstrate that districts represented by members of Congress who are
better connected to their colleagues receive a greater share of federal
grant money. I argue that this is because collaborative legislators are well‐
positioned to be influential allies to strategic bureaucrats who want to main-
tain a broad base of support for their programs in Congress. [R, abr.]
71.6445 DEMAREST, Leila — Men of the people? Democracy and
prebendalism in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic National As-
sembly. Democratization 28(4), 2021 : 684-702.
While Nigeria’s National Assembly has become increasingly assertive
since the start of the Fourth Republic, lawmakers continue to be heavily
engaged in corruption. Such rent-seeking practices are commonly re-
garded as antithetical to democratization. In this article, however, I argue
that individual access to public rents actually supports legislative inde-
pendence. Based on an original dataset of 8th National Assembly MPs
(2015-2019), I find that membership of lucrative committees is positively
associated to the number of bills and motions sponsored. I also show that
while legislative initiatives may be self-serving, an important share also
appear to strengthen accountability and the rule of law. This result can be
explained by the fact that MPs access to rents is not determined by their
loyalty towards the president, but rather by their relations with the Assem-
bly leadership and the bureaucracy. [R, abr.]
71.6446 DIETRICH, Bryce J. — Using motion detection to measure
social polarization in the US House of Representatives.
Political Analysis 29(2), Apr. 2021 : 250-259.
I use motion detection to understand the extent to which members of Con-
gress (MCs) literally cross the aisle, but motion detection can be used to
study a wide range of political phenom ena, like protests, political
speeches, campaign events, or oral arguments. I find not only are Demo-
crats and Republicans less willing to literally cross the aisle, but this be-
havior is also predictive of future party voting, even when previous party
voting is included as a control. However, this is one of the many ways mo-
tion detection can be used by social scientists. In this way, the present
study is not the end, but the beginning of an important new line of research
in which video data is more actively used in social science research. [R,
abr.]
71.6447 DODEIGNE, Jeremy, et al. — The effect of institutional affil-
iation and career patterns on (de)centralization prefer-
ences in advanced multi-level state s: parliamentarians’
support for (de)centralization in Belgium. Publius 51(2),
Spring 2021 : 262-282.
The decentralization of political power towards subnational entities is one
of the major contemporary processes of territorial transformation in Euro-
pean democracies. Traditionally, research has focused on arguments re-
lated to nationalism and identities. Later, the strategic agency of political
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