Divided Government and the Rise of Social Regulation

Political scientists have debated the causes of divided government since the Reagan administration. In addition, a handful of scholars have also pondered the possible consequences of divided party rule for politics and policy. Still, one serious oversight in the divided'government literature is the potential consequences of divided party rule for the types of policy pursued during divided and unified party regimes. Divided government may create incentives for conflicting institutions to use social regulation debates, often considered the most divisive public policy debates, as "wedges" in order to damage the opposing party in future elections. Each party also has an incentive to embrace social regulation in order to reaffirm its allegiance to its core constituency. This article tests the hypothesis that divided government produces more important social regulation votes than unified government. I define the population of important votes as all Key Votes in the House of Representatives from 1953 to 1998. The data analysis reveals that important social regulation votes are in fact more prominent during eras of divided government than during unified party control. This finding has potential implications for the tenor of our national politics as well as the public trust.     

The Heroic Presidency in the Era of Divided Government

Abstract

Contemporary democratic theorists focus on democratic processes to the exclusion of the substantive goods which motivated their predecessors. This undermines the legitimacy of democracy, especially in an era of emerging democracies. This article critiques underlying deficiencies in contemporary theory and prescribes revisiting early modern, natural-law-based democratic theory exemplified by John Locke. Locke argued that the ultimate legitimacy of democratic processes depends on their serving the good of the people, as distinct from the will of the people. The authors argue that this conclusion is unavoidable, because it is impossible for democratic legitimacy to rest ultimately on any kind of process at all, even a democratic process. Legitimacy must rest on a substantive norm used to govern (create or repair) processes. Contemporary democratic theory seems unwilling to revisit this important problem.     

Attitudes Towards Divided Government and Ticket-splitting in Australia and the United States

Divided party government has become a frequent occurrence in both the United States and Australia in recent years. In the United States, Morris Fiorina has argued that this result is intentional on the part of the voters, who do not fully trust either party to govern by itself. We test this theory in both the United States and Australia by comparing the voting patterns of those who prefer divided versus united party government. It is hypothesised that Fiorina's theory will actually work better in Australia than in the United States, due to the presence of a strong party system as well as a voting system for the Australian Senate that facilitates strategic voting on behalf of small parties. Indeed, near-identical logistic regression models demonstrate that Australians' attitudes about divided government are a very significant predictor of straight-ticket voting even when a host of other factors is controlled for, whereas in the United States such attitudes are insignificant.     

Advocacy Coalitions, Policy Entrepreneurs, and Policy Change

The advocacy coalition framework (AC) explains policy stability The policy entrepreneurship model (PE) explains dynamic policy change. Thus, augmenting the AC with insights from the PE provides a method of explaining a common empirical phenomenon: policy stability punctuated by dynamic policy change. This analytical strategy could be used to explore stability and change in many policy arenas. Here, we use it to interpret the background lo and dynamics of recent education policy reform in Michigan.     

Sharpening Advocacy Coalitions

The concept of “advocacy coalitions” is the bedrock of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), one of the most established and successful approaches for understanding policy processes across the globe. This article revisits and sharpens the conceptual definition of advocacy coalitions. We summarize the lessons from its theoretical emphases under the ACF and specify its five attributes (policy actors, shared beliefs, coordination, resources, and stability). Through this specification, we identify the ideal coalition type and several coalition subtypes. We then clarify and make a distinction between how we think about coalitions as a concept and how we approach coalitions empirically. This article sharpens the lens for describing and explaining coalitions toward better observations, theorizing, and measurements. It ends with next steps for further deepening and broadening knowledge about advocacy coalitions.     

Belief System Continuity and Change in Policy Advocacy Coalitions: Using Cultural Theory to Specify Belief Systems,Coalitions, and Sources of Change

This paper evaluates the prospects for application of the “grid/group” cultural theory (CT), as advanced by Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky, to the Advocacy Coalition Theory (ACF). CT would seem to be relevant to several key aspects of the ACF: the content of the core beliefs that provide the “glue” that binds coalitions; the resilience of core beliefs and associated implications for belief change and learning; and the structure of coalitions and the mechanisms for coordination and control within them. The paper considers the compatibility of the ACF's account of deep core beliefs and coalition structure with that of CT; surveys an array of empirical studies based on variations of CT; and extends accounts of change in cultural identities from CT to the ACF. In addition, we highlight some of the ways in which the ACF may offer important theoretical insights for scholars of CT, potentially clarifying hypotheses concerning the relationships among basic worldviews, more specific beliefs, and behaviors.     

President Clinton and the Republican Congress, 1995-2000: Political and Policy Dimensions of Veto Politics in Divided Government

This article melds alternative theoretical perspectives on veto threats to explain President Clinton's influence over legislative outcomes in the 104th-106th Congresses (1995-2000). Formal models of executive-legislative relations–in particular the "coordination model"–yield an incomplete understanding of veto politics and executivelegislative conflict from 1995-2000. Explaining Clinton's success through veto politics requires a recognition of the unique context of legislative conflict from 1995-96. Presidential- congressional relations in the 104th Congress turned on "blame-game" politics that Clinton manipulated to his advantage. Clinton's second term heralded a return to "normal politics" during which the Republican majority's response to his veto threats coincided better with the basic tenets of the coordination model. Quantitative analysis of Clinton's public threats and secondary analysis of bill histories are brought to bear to test the theoretical framework.     

Legislative Coalitions and Presidential Signing Statements

We examine how the congressional coalition in favor of a law affects the probability of the president appending a positive or negative signing statement to it. Our results show that coalitions matter—presidents consider the power and status of a law's sponsor and the composition of its cosponsorship coalition when deciding whether to offer praise or raise concerns. Moreover, the factors driving praise and criticism differ from one another in important ways. These analyses demonstrate the value of assessing the valence of a signing statement rather than just its presence, and of extending the focus of research on signing statements beyond aggregate factors to investigate how the context surrounding a particular law shapes the president's reaction to it.     

“第七次革命”:政府机构改革进展态势及问题

从建国到现在 ,已经过去了的机构改革有六次 ,加上现在正在进行的一共七次。第七次政府机构改革从 1 998年开始 ,舆论称之为“第七次革命”。总起来看 ,以前的六次行政机构改革尽管力度各不相同 ,裁员、缩编和机构撤并情况不大一样 ,但是它们却有一个共同特点 ,即那些改革不是旨在通过精简机构和裁减人员来达到调整行政机构整体功能和职能的过程 ,而仅仅停留在对机构和人员数量的简单减少上 ,人们称之为“机械式”改革。因为没有改革政府运行机制和职能 ,因而就不可避免地导致“精简———膨胀———再精简———再膨胀”和“越精简越膨胀”的逆向恶性循环现象     

Coalitions, Science, and Belief Change: Comparing Adversarial and Collaborative Policy Subsystems

Arguments for collaborative rather than adversarial approaches to governance rest partly on two axioms: first, that collaborative approaches mitigate conflict to intermediate levels and second, that collaborative approaches help integrate science and values through various joint fact-finding strategies. Using questionnaire data in 1984 and 2001 of policy participants involved in Lake Tahoe water quality policy, this article investigates whether a shift from an adversarial to a collaborative policy subsystem is associated with (i) convergence in beliefs regarding water quality problems and policy proposals; and (ii) an increase in the use of science-based empirical beliefs and a decrease in the use of normative beliefs in supporting policy proposals. The findings send a mixed message to policymakers and researchers about science and collaboration. The analysis suggests that collaborative policy subsystems are associated with convergence in some beliefs between rival coalitions, but it also suggests that policy participants are no more likely to rely on science-based, empirical beliefs in collaborative than in adversarial policy subsystems.     

Network Structures within Policy Processes: Coalitions,Power, and Brokerage in Swiss Climate Policy

The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) is a prominent approach to investigate the formation of coalition and their impact on policy outputs. Although the ACF combines both the network structures of a political process with actors' values and belief systems, most empirical tests focus mainly on beliefs rather than network structures. Considering a relational approach makes particular sense when one wants to investigate the structural patterns of a subsystem and to assess coalition formation and maintenance. The author therefore proceeds by taking two steps to study the existence of coalitions, power relations, and policy preferences: first, social network analysis frames the empirical study of network structures, based on the assumption that common beliefs are reflected in relations among actors involved in policy processes. Second, using a sophisticated mathematical algorithm, the multicriteria analysis furnishes a systematic evaluation of the elite's belief system. This methodological combination constitutes the added value of this research and allows for testing to establish if common beliefs are reflected in network structures.     

An Island Divided: Politicised Landscapes,Modern Borders,and Shifting Identities

Abstract

This paper looks critically at the division of Cyprus into North and South (the politically unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the Republic of Cyprus respectively) and will consider how this physical division emphasised and further developed a divided identity based on 'ethnic' differences (and the development of the 'other') between the two major populations—Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. The Green Line is just one of several recent manifestations in the landscape of social contestations between Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities. This paper outlines how the Green Line has structured the lives of people in relation to the ways that they conceptualise their environment, the past and, importantly, the 'other' side. Further, it addresses how this division, this physical line across the landscape, impacts upon the social landscape as it defines and reinforces identity through the processes of memory and forgetting.     

Coalitions,institutions and big tents: the new strategic reality of armed intervention

Armed interventions of the past decades demonstrate that strategic leadership can give way to lofty campaign plans, conflicting strategic narratives and concern with tactical, as opposed to strategic, issues. The intervention debate rightfully emphasizes the need for both leadership and institution‐building to rectify this situation, but then breaks down into discord: some critics argue that stronger leadership by big nations is necessary, others that this type of leadership wrecks the collective institutions that are needed in a new age of multilateralism and interdependence. This article argues instead that strategic leadership grows out of the effort to connect the three distinct political arenas that have come to dominate armed interventions: coalitions, institutions and big tent diplomacy. Strategic leadership is not about choosing between coalitions or institutions; it is about building bridges among these political arenas. The article embeds this argument within the strategic literature and demonstrates how it emerges from an engagement with modern armed interventions. It engages in two in‐depth assessments of NATO's experiences in Afghanistan and Libya and then undertakes a more general discussion of the steps that can be taken to encourage strategic leadership.     

Large Scale Projects: Planetwide Coalitions Needed

Abstract

Taking the Channel Tunnel as an example, there is a need for hard cost-benefit estimates to be made before any large scale project is begun. Long periods of gestation are frequent, high tech is not limited to macrosystems and structured collaboration between governments and other institutions is essential for success. The PAT system, supersonic tube flight and the priority selection of macroprojects are discussed and the establishment of a prototype development group is recommended.     

Science,Badgers, Politics: Advocacy Coalitions and Policy Change in Bovine Tuberculosis Policy in Britain

Badgers represent one of the most controversial and hotly debated environmental issues in modern Britain. This paper advances the study of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) by examining the limited extent to which extensive scientific research over a 15‐year period changed the basic composition and argumentation of different advocacy coalitions in a highly adversarial setting. Based on coding of the media coverage over the period 1986–2013, this paper analyzes the composition of the advocacy coalitions, their stability over time, and the limited extent to which learning took place in response to scientific disputes. It also highlights how coalitions between actors with similar policy beliefs did not form, highlighting the importance of the ACF and other policy processes to consider dynamics that go beyond the individual subsystem under investigation.     

Politics and Policy in the 103rd and 104th Congresses: Evaluating the Effects of Divided Government in the Postreform Era

The 1980 Reagan transition and the 1988 Bush transition offer important case studies for understanding the challenges of presidential transitions. Although not without its shortcomings, the 1980 transition was, at least comparably, the most successful of the transfers in power since the modern era of presidential transitions commenced with the Carter effort in 1976. 1988 offers useful lessons about "friendly takeovers": the passing of power from a president to a president-elect of the same party. The 1988 transition is also of interest because it offers the only instance of a sitting vice president elected to the presidency since Martin Van Buren in 1836. The 1988 transition, moreover, marked the ascendancy of President George W. Bush's father to the office, and it was a transition in which he and several members of this administration participated, Chief of Staff Andrew Card most notably.     

Israel: Divided by Religion and Education

Israel is a democracy splintered by religion and education. Two of its fastest growing religious groups, ultra‐Orthodox and Muslim Israeli Arabs, are not learning democratic principles or marketable skills that enable them to assist in the economic development of the country. Even Israelis who are attending secular and religious Israeli government schools are academically behind in mathematics as measured on 2011 international achievement tests of PISA and TIMSS. The history of religion and education from 1928 to 1955 built the foundation for the current divisions. The impact of the Ottoman and British occupation on citizens is particularized thorough the experiences of Elias Tuma, who lived under British and Israeli government systems. Today's educational system in Israel reinforces religious and sectarian conflict among its citizens. Educational and religious structural suggestions are provided for readers to consider. The implications of this work for future research are provided.