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A review essay on books by (1) Seyla Benhabib (Ed), Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political (Princeton, NJ: Princeton U Press, 1996); (2) Amy Gutmann & Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement (Cambridge, MA & London: Belknap Press, 1996); & (3) James G. March & Johan P. Olsen, Democratic Governance (New York: Free Press, 1995). These texts investigate the historical origins of democracy & consider democracy's future directions. March & Olsen study the types of institutions needed to establish democracies & the process of creating such institutions. Their contention that successful democracies must find a balance between government autonomy & the citizenry's establishment of accountability measures is deemed sensible. Gutmann & Thompson build on Rawlsian & post-Rawlsian debates in political philosophy to examine the moral elements of democracy & advance the notion of "deliberative democracy." Although Benhabib's volume favors this deliberative type of democracy, contributors offer different accounts of the interaction between difference & deliberation in democracies. It is concluded that deliberation is a desirable component of democracy; therefore, the deliberative form is not an actual model of democracy. J. W. Parker

Sanctioning institutions are of utmost importance for overcoming free-riding tendencies and enforcing outcomes that maximize group welfare in social dilemma situations. We investigate, theoretically and experimentally, the endogenous formation of institutions in public goods provision. Our theoretical analysis shows that players may form sanctioning institutions in equilibrium, including those governing only a subset of players. The experiment confirms that institutions are formed and that it positively affects cooperation and group welfare. However, the data also shows that success is not guaranteed. Players are unwilling to implement equilibrium institutions in which some players have the opportunity to free ride. Our results emphasize the role of fairness in the institution formation process. (JEL C72, D02, H41)

Monetary Issues: Monetary Unions: Between International Trade and National Sovereignty -- Why a Monetary Union?- Monetary Policy in a Monetary Union: Lessons from Simple Models -- Institutions and Monetary Policy -- Fiscal Issues: Government Deficits, Transfers and Debt -- Fiscal Policies in a Monetary Union -- The Policy Mix -- Toward an Ever Closer Union: Structural Adjustments and Reforms -- Fiscal Union -- Banking Union -- The Fate of a Monetary Union -- General Conclusion. .

Der Beitrag untersucht in einer policy-Analyse die Konstruktion des Weiblichen durch politisch- administrative Instanzen am Beispiel der Arbeitsverwaltung und Berufsberatung. Von dem Theorem der sozialen Konstruktion von Geschlecht ausgehend arbeitet die Autorin heraus, daß und wie sich das "doing gender" im und durch den Staat selbst vollzieht. Hinsichtlich der Korporatismusforschung des "geschlechtsblinden" politikwissenschaftlichen Mainstreams kommt die Autorin zu dem Schluß: "Nicht allein der Diskurs formt die Strukturen, sondern die sozialen Strukturen gestalten gleichfalls die Diskussionsprozesse und Inhalte". Die Analyse der Berufsberatung des Arbeitsamtes zeigt, wie politisch-administrative Institutionen im Prozeß des "gendering" involviert sind. Ein wesentlicher Faktor für die geschlechtsspezifische Vermittlung der Berufsberatung ist die "Leitidee essentieller Fähigkeiten der Geschlechter". (pre)

Angesichts der langen Tradition totalitärer und autoritärer Strukturen in Rußland ist es wenig verwunderlich, daß die Fortschritte beim Aufbau demokratischer Strukturen bislang begrenzt waren. Die Verfasserin gibt einen Überblick über den aktuellen Entwicklungsstand demokratischer Institutionen wie Verfassung, politische Parteien, Rechtswesen und Medien. Sie arbeitet die Bemühungen der russischen Führung zur Stärkung der Exekutive heraus und macht deutlich, welche Gefahren für eine demokratische Entwicklung des Landes sich aus der auf den gegenwärtigen Präsidenten zugeschnittenen Verfassung ergeben. Abschließend weist sie auf zunehmende Autonomiebestrebungen von Republiken und Regionen hin, die in den kommenden Jahren eine Schwächung des russischen Zentralismus bewirken werden. (BIOst-Wpt)

Institutions promote growth—this view now holds firm ground. The task then is to 'engineer' growth promoting institutions. Endogeneity characterises institutions, for example, groups enjoying political power influence economic institutions but political power itself is a function of wealth. The question then is: what to reform first? History stands witness that generally the societies with extreme inequality and a heterogeneous population tend to evolve institutions that restrict access to economic opportunities for the poor which in turn constrains economic development. On the other hand societies with greater equality and homogeneous population typically enjoy growth-promoting institutions. Institutional reforms should therefore begin with institutions that serve to create or perpetuate inequality and heterogeneity in the society. We argue that the four different kinds of educational systems in operation in Pakistan are a major source of creating and perpetuating inequality and heterogeneity in the population. Access to a single and common educational system will open-up similar opportunities of higher education and job attainment for all the citizens, thereby reducing inequality. Diverse educational systems promote different sets of beliefs while a uniform system forges beliefconvergence in the society that in turn facilitates agreement on a common set of institutional reforms. Therefore it is the educational system that should be the first to reform. We also argue that in Pakistan, unlike some European countries in the 17th century, neither commercial interest nor fiscal constraints can force the de jure power to reform institutions. Typically, large commercial interests in Pakistan have thrived on favours from the de jure power and therefore have no interest in changing the system. Foreign aid eases the fiscal constraints from time to time relieving government of the need to reform institutions. The thought of a revolution of some kind is still a far cry, the society having no such inclination. The alternative then is the gradual approach preferred by North, Acemoglu and Rodrik. This gradual approach suggests the area of educational reforms. JEL classification: D02, D03, P16 Keywords: Institutional Evolution, Institutional Change, Human Behaviour

On the basis of a game-theoretic model, this paper argues that governments typically manage crises more effectively in systems where political power is concentrated in a single party, but they are more likely to make investments in future welfare in systems where political power is shared among several parties. The paper makes two contributions. First of all, it shows that both crisis-management failures and investment failures can be explained by a common mechanism: an inter-temporal commitment problem that arises from the inability of political agents to commit to future policy choices. Second, it shows that power-sharing institutions are often associated with more effective government than power-concentration institutions, in contrast to much of the normative literature in comparative politics, in which power-sharing institutions are often justified on other grounds, such as representativeness, responsiveness, or social cohesion. In a world where crises dominate, power-concentration institutions typically perform better; in a world where investment problems dominate, power-sharing institutions typically perform better.

First published: 01 August 2018 ; On the basis of a game-theoretic model, this paper argues that governments typically manage crises more effectively in systems where political power is concentrated in a single party, but they are more likely to make investments in future welfare in systems where political power is shared among several parties. The paper makes two contributions. First of all, it shows that both crisis-management failures and investment failures can be explained by a common mechanism: an inter-temporal commitment problem that arises from the inability of political agents to commit to future policy choices. Second, it shows that power-sharing institutions are often associated with more effective government than power-concentration institutions, in contrast to much of the normative literature in comparative politics, in which power-sharing institutions are often justified on other grounds, such as representativeness, responsiveness, or social cohesion. In a world where crises dominate, power-concentration institutions typically perform better in a world where investment problems dominate, power-sharing institutions typically perform better.

La 4e de couverture indique : "Toute société dans laquelle la garantie des droits n'est pas assurée, ni la séparation des pouvoirs déterminée, n'a point de constitution". L'article 16 de la Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen de 1789 définit de manière pérenne le droit constitutionnel ; le droit des citoyens, en clair. Pourquoi en est-il ainsi ? Parce que ceux-ci sont à l'origine du pouvoir et bénéficient d'une protection de leurs droits et libertés. Par suite, cette discipline juridique poursuit la noble ambition de combiner la démocratie et l'État de droit. Il importe donc d'intérioriser et de revendiquer, à tout instant, ce stade suprême de la civilisation politique pour être libre. Ce manuel est destiné, à titre principal, aux étudiants des Facultés de droit, des Instituts d'études politique et, plus généralement, aux citoyens soucieux de participer à la vie démocratique

This paper presents twelve budget institutions that can support planning and delivery ofcredible fiscal strategies in the fiscal policy-making process. The resulting framework is applied to seven low-income countries and the status of their budget institutions compared to the G-20 advanced and emerging market economies. The paper then presents recommendations for designing and implementing appropriate fiscal strategy for low- income countries. Particular attention is paid to prioritization and sequencing of reformefforts

The paper divulges a comparison between the Bulgarian elites, elites in the new democracies and in the old democracies of the European Union and succeeds in interrelating them by using common assumptions, concepts and original and comprehensive empirical data. It shows that the European Union (EU) has been a forerunner and active proponent of the process of integration of Bulgaria in the recent decades and that the EU has played a significant role in mitigating its impact. The analysis on elites' Europeanness is backed-up by an extensive dataset revealing its constantly adapting nature; its diversity of practices; its repeated need to respond to exogenous challenges and, most importantly, its perpetually unsatisfactory quest to make "real existing democracy" conform better to "potentially ideal democracy." The Bulgarian elites' Europeanness is expressed in a high display of trust toward European institutions. However, their trust to national ones is significantly lower. The explanations for these diversities are looked for in the continuity of historical experiences of trust to the state and its institutions, the short period of European Union membership, the discontinuity during the hard economic transformation and the deep social differences in society since the transition has begun.

Can institutionalized transfers of resource rents be a source of civil conflict?Are cohesive institutions better in managing distributive conflicts? We studythese questions exploiting exogenous variation in revenue disbursements tolocal governments together with new data on local democratic institutions inNigeria. We make three contributions. First, we document the existence of astrong link between rents and conflict far away from the location of the actualresource. Second, we show that distributive conflict is highly organized involvingpolitical militias and concentrated in the extent to which local governmentsare non-cohesive. Third, we show that democratic practice in form havingelected local governments significantly weakens the causal link between rentsand political violence. We document that elections (vis-a-vis appointments), byproducing more cohesive institutions, vastly limit the extent to which distributionalconflict between groups breaks out following shocks to the availablerents. Throughout, we confirm these findings using individual level surveydata.

International audience ; "Mobilizing institutions – institutionalizing movements". Articles gathered for this volume of Focaal all question, from different angles and localities, the dichotomy between movements and institutions. The title reflects the very fluidity of the processes submitted to anthropological scrutiny. The articles all take their origins in what was to be originally two workshops, finally held jointly, for the EASA 6th Conference in Krakow in 2000 1. Starting from notions such as empowerment and popular participation, civil society, citizenship and the public sphere, both workshops aimed at exploring diverse representations of politics, collective forms of organization, and potentially new forms of relationships between the State, institutions and 'civil society' or citizens. But while one was taking as its starting point social movements and participation, the other was set to explore institutional practices in the same field. At the fertile crossing of these two approaches lie the contributions gathered here.

Arbeitsmarktinstitutionen sind arbeitsmarktpolitische Maßnahmen, die auf eine Verbesserung von Arbeitsmarktergebnissen (z. B. Beschäftigung und Löhne) abzielen. Da Arbeitsmärkte komplexen Anpassungsmechanismen unterliegen, sind diese Maßnahmen jedoch unter Umständen kontraproduktiv oder werden von Nebenwirkungen begleitet. Ziel dieser Dissertation ist es, die Beschäftigungseffekte von Mindestlöhnen und des Kündigungsschutzes zu analysieren. Das erste Kapitel führt den Leser in die Thematik Arbeitsmarktinstitutionen ein. Im zweiten Kapitel wird untersucht, wie die Einführung des Mindestlohns in Deutschland auf die Beschäftigung wirkt. Es wird gezeigt, dass geringfügige Beschäftigung abgenommen und sozialversicherungspflichtige Beschäftigung zugenommen hat. Das dritte Kapitel widmet sich derselben Maßnahme, jedoch mit einem anderen Schwerpunkt: Die Mindestlohneinführung erhöht die Arbeitsmarktmobilität aus Niedriglohnländern (der Tschechischen Republik und Polen) in Grenzregionen. Diese Zunahme ausländischer Arbeitskräfte hat keine negativen Effekte auf die deutsche Beschäftigung zur Folge. Im vierten Kapitel wird ein Problem existierender NK-SAM-Modelle adressiert, die das Modellieren von Kündigungsschutz erlauben. Eine hierfür vorgeschlagene Erweiterung verbessert die empirische Relevanz des Modells unter einer restriktiven Annahme. ; Labour market institutions are policy interventions aiming to improve labour market outcomes in terms of employment and wages. However, because labour markets are complex, it is not straight forward whether these policy interventions achieve their objectives. Instead, they may result in the opposite or induce side effects. In this dissertation, the impact of minimum wages and employment protection legislation on employment are studied. The first chapter discusses labour market institutions, focusing on the above mentioned polices. The second chapter analyses the effects of the German minimum-wage introduction on employment. The findings suggest that marginal employment decreased ...

Scholars have suggested that corruption could serve as a substitute for property-protecting institutions in developing countries, but very few empirical studies have been conducted to test this theory. Most existing studies on the determinants of corruption are cross-national, rely on perception-based measures, and focus on economic development, regime type, and market structure as explanatory variables. Little is known about why corruption occurs in an authoritarian state at the micro level. We theorize bribery as a bargaining process between a firm and a rent-maximizing public official, and we assume that graft-paying firms face different sets of rules and regulations, which govern firms' costs and benefits of bribing. We test the hypothesis that firms' bribes are determined by the rigor of their internal auditing control and the quality of property-protecting institutions. We use entertainment and travel costs directly observed in a large-scale firm-level survey in China as a proxy for corruption. Our study implies that firms operating in a weak property rights regime rely on political connections as a substitute for formal legal protection. The findings shed light on the literature on property rights, corruption, and East Asian development. Adapted from the source document.