The Politics of Institutional Choice

The Politics of Institutional Choice PDF Author: Steven S. Smith
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691057378
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Events in Russia since the late 1980s have created a rare opportunity to watch the birth of democratic institutions close at hand. Here Steven Smith and Thomas Remington provide the first intensive, theoretically grounded examination of the early development of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Federation's parliament created by the 1993 constitution. They offer an integrated account of the choices made by the newly elected members of the Duma in establishing basic operating arrangements: an agenda-setting governing body, a standing committee system, an electoral law, and a party system. Not only do these decisions promise to have lasting consequences for the post-communist Russian regime, but they also enable the authors to test assumptions about politicians' goals from the standpoint of institutional theory. Smith and Remington challenge in particular the notion, derived from American contexts, that politicians pursue a single, overarching goal in the creation of institutions. They argue that politicians have multiple political goals--career, policy, and partisan--that drive their choices. Among Duma members, the authors detect many cross currents of interests, generated by the mixed electoral system, which combines both single-member districts and proportional representation, and by sharp policy divisions and an emerging party system. Elected officials may shift from concentrating on one goal to emphasizing another, but political contexts can help determine their behavior. This book brings a fresh perspective to numerous theories by incorporating first-hand accounts of major institutional choices and placing developments in their actual context.

Reforming Bureaucracy

Reforming Bureaucracy PDF Author: Jack H. Knott
Publisher: Prentice Hall
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Br> Reforming Bureaucracy : The Politics of Institutional Choice by Knott, Jack H.; Miller, Gary J. Terms of use Shows how modern public bureaucracies share a common set of institutional rules determining the internal patterns of decision-making and external relationships with other political factors. Descriptive content provided by Syndetics"! a Bowker service.

The Politics of Oligarchy

The Politics of Oligarchy PDF Author: J. Mark Ramseyer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521636490
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
This book examines the failure of the Meiji oligarchy to design institutions capable of protecting their hold on power in Japan.

The Politics of Institutional Choice

The Politics of Institutional Choice PDF Author: Steven S. Smith
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691057370
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Events in Russia since the late 1980s have created a rare opportunity to watch the birth of democratic institutions close at hand. Here Steven Smith and Thomas Remington provide the first intensive, theoretically grounded examination of the early development of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Federation's parliament created by the 1993 constitution. They offer an integrated account of the choices made by the newly elected members of the Duma in establishing basic operating arrangements: an agenda-setting governing body, a standing committee system, an electoral law, and a party system. Not only do these decisions promise to have lasting consequences for the post-communist Russian regime, but they also enable the authors to test assumptions about politicians' goals from the standpoint of institutional theory. Smith and Remington challenge in particular the notion, derived from American contexts, that politicians pursue a single, overarching goal in the creation of institutions. They argue that politicians have multiple political goals--career, policy, and partisan--that drive their choices. Among Duma members, the authors detect many cross currents of interests, generated by the mixed electoral system, which combines both single-member districts and proportional representation, and by sharp policy divisions and an emerging party system. Elected officials may shift from concentrating on one goal to emphasizing another, but political contexts can help determine their behavior. This book brings a fresh perspective to numerous theories by incorporating first-hand accounts of major institutional choices and placing developments in their actual context.

Institutional Choice and Global Commerce

Institutional Choice and Global Commerce PDF Author: Joseph Jupille
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107434947
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
Why do institutions emerge, operate, evolve and persist? Institutional Choice and Global Commerce elaborates a theory of boundedly rational institutional choice that explains when states USE available institutions, SELECT among alternative forums, CHANGE existing rules, or CREATE new arrangements (USCC). The authors reveal the striking staying power of the institutional status quo and test their innovative theory against evidence on institutional choice in global commerce from the nineteenth through the twenty-first centuries. Cases range from the establishment in 1876 of the first truly international system of commercial dispute resolution, the Mixed Courts of Egypt, to the founding and operation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the World Trade Organization, and the International Accounting Standards Board. Analysts of institutional choice henceforth must take seriously not only the distinct demands of specific cooperation dilemmas, but also the wide array of available institutional choices.

Political Institutions

Political Institutions PDF Author: Josep M. Colomer
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 9780191529252
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
The role of institutions is to establish the domains of public activity and the rules to select leaders. Democratic regimes organize in simple institutional frameworks to foster the concentration of power and alternative successive absolute winners and losers. They favour political satisfaction of relatively small groups, as well as policy instability. In contrast, pluralistic institutions produce multiple winners, including multiparty co-operation and agreements. They favour stable, moderate, and consensual policies that can satisfy large groups' interests on a great number of issues. The more complex the political institutions, the more stable and socially efficient the outcome will be. This book develops an extensive analysis of this relationship. It explores concepts, questions and insights based on social choice theory, while empirical focus is cast on more than 40 democratic countries and a few international organizations from late medieval times to the present. The book argues that pluralistic democratic institutions are judged to be better than simple formula of their higher capacity of producing socially satisfactory results.

Procedural Politics

Procedural Politics PDF Author: Joseph Jupille
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781139454117
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
This book was first published in 2004. Under what conditions, in what ways, and with what effects do actors engage in politics with respect to, rather than merely within, political institutions? Using multiple methods and original data, Procedural Politics develops a theory of everyday politics with respect to rules - procedural politics - and applies it to European Union integration and politics. Assuming that actors influence maximizers, it argues and demonstrates that the jurisdiction ambiguity of issues provides opportunities for procedural politics and that influence-differences among institutional alternatives provide the incentives. It also argues and demonstrates that procedural politics occurs by predictable means (most notably, involving procedural coalition formation and strategic issue-definition) and exerts predictable effects on policymaking efficiency and outcomes and long-run institutional change. Beyond illuminating previously under-appreciated aspects of EU rule governance, these findings generalize to all rule-governed political systems and form the basis of fuller accounts of the role of institutions in political life.

Rediscovering Institutions

Rediscovering Institutions PDF Author: James G. March
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451602405
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
The authors propose a new theory of political behavior that re-invigorates the role of institutions—from laws and bureaucracy to rituals and symbols—as essential to understanding the modern political and economic systems that guide contemporary life.

The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions

The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions PDF Author: R. A. W. Rhodes
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191563390
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 840

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Book Description
The study of political institutions is among the founding pillars of political science. With the rise of the 'new institutionalism', the study of institutions has returned to its place in the sun. This volume provides a comprehensive survey of where we are in the study of political institutions, covering both the traditional concerns of political science with constitutions, federalism and bureaucracy and more recent interest in theory and the constructed nature of institutions. The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions draws together a galaxy of distinguished contributors drawn from leading universities across the world. Authoritative reviews of the literature and assessments of future research directions will help to set the research agenda for the next decade.

Can Democracy be Designed?

Can Democracy be Designed? PDF Author: Sunil Bastian
Publisher: Zed Books
ISBN: 9781842771518
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Constitution-making for democracy has always been a highly political and contested process. It has never been more ambitious, or more difficult, than today as politicians and experts attempt to build democratic institutions that will foster peace and stability in countries torn by violent conflict. The extended investigation out of which this book has grown has ranged across three continents. It has examined such apparently intractable cases as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sri Lanka and Fiji, as well as apparent 'success stories' like South Africa, Ghana and Uganda. Three groups of questions are explored: * How and by whom were democratic institutions (re)designed? * How have they functioned in practice: what has been the relationship between democratic institutions and democratic politics? * How have they measured up to the pressures placed on them by ongoing violence, poverty, globalization and democratization itself? The authors, while regarding democracy as a general entitlement, refuse to subscribe to a triumphalist view which sees it as a universal panacea. Instead they seek to understand how democratic institutions actually facilitate (or sometimes fail to facilitate) improved governance and the management of conflict in a variety of national settings. This thoughtful and empirical set of explorations is highly relevant to other societies wrestling with similar problems of institutional design in situations of democratic transition and/or deep-seated social conflict.