Suchergebnisse

In this introductory chapter to Life after Reform: When Bipartisan Campaign Reform Meets Politics, the author contextualizes the reform act in the two decades of debate since the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974 & amendments, & the issues addressed by the Buckley court. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) is summarized, & the framework of analysis for the book is diagrammed. The model used throughout the book is a schematic of givers & receivers operating in an environment of tension between law as constraint & freedom within the law. The remaining articles of the book are introduced as unique perspectives written by a diverse group of political scientists brought together by the Campaign Finance Institute to address the impacts of BCRA on substantive issues. 1 Table, 1 Figure, 2 References. J. Harwell

A concluding chapter emphasizes the wide range of opinions generated by the 2000 presidential election, especially the intervention of the US Supreme Court, & examines the impact of these divisions on both the future nature of legal reasoning, & the relation between law & politics. Calls for reform that have emerged from the Bush-Gore contest are reviewed, including changes in the actual operation of election campaigns to afford equal & fair representation. Bush v. Gore put the spotlight on mundane aspects of elections that previously went unnoticed, such as different types of voting machines with varying patterns of failure rates. The call for reform via constitutional litigation is focused primarily on the Electoral College system & the division of power between large & small states. Historical reasons for the Electoral College system are examined, along with the possible consequences of abolishing it. The belief that the Bush-Gore election was a statistical tie is discussed, & suggestions are made for ways to improve the election process without making radical changes to the electoral system. J. Lindroth

Competing conceptions of corruption & their use in contemporary struggles to reform campaign finance laws are examined. Problems with James Scott's (1972) identification of three approaches to defining corruption are disclosed. Three standards of corruption used by US courts in corruption cases are discussed: quid pro quo, in which officials accept monetary compensation for performing an action; monetary influence, in which public officials perform public duties with the thought of receiving money; & distortion, in which officials' policy decisions are influenced by campaign contributions rather than public opinion. It is contended that the monetary influence standard offers the best approach for explaining political corruption. In addition, it is argued that deliberative theory offers strong support for the monetary influence standard approach. It is concluded that the US judicial system must consider explanations of corruption more carefully before attempting to influence campaign finance law. J. W. Parker

The paper achieves an analysis of some issues concerning the changes in the Romanian public administration in the context of integration into the European Union. The most important processes approach Europeanization and its theoretical and practical mechanisms. Concerning the Romanian public administration, the analysis starts with the reform process, on local and national level. The paper reveals the main laws and rules as well as the principles expressed in the administrative change: actuality and continuity, openness and transparency, accountability, efficiency and effectiveness. The paper also achieves a brief analysis of the reform strategies in view of complying with the European Administrative Space.

Germany and France offer two different models of political and administrative organisation: a federal state on one side of the Rhine and a unitary state on the other, albeit one that has become more decentralised over the last 40 years. Thus, the French régions have reduced capacities for action compared to the Länder. At the local level, the administrative structure was strengthened in Germany by merging municipalities, whereas France chose to use intermunicipal structures. In contrast to the political and administrative stability in Germany, local and regional organisation in France is constantly evolving, faced with a succession of laws, the pace of which has accelerated over time. The same applies to spatial planning, which has been framed from the outset by the German Grundgesetz (GG - Basic Law), but which has undergone much more evolution on the French side, even if the loi d'orientation foncière (LOF - Basic Land Act) of 1967 and the loi solidarité et renouvellement urbain (SRU - Law on Urban Solidarity and Renewal) (2000) represent two fundamental stages. In both countries, the strategic dimension of planning has been strengthened, and each side has developed its own tools for the management of urban projects.

"Rampant corruption and declining regime legitimacy force the Communist Party to reform the political and legal system of the PRC. There are different opinions on how far these reforms have affected Chinese authoritarianism so far. While some observers have identified a higher degree of regime legitimacy achieved by gradual political liberalization in recent years, others have stated a reconsolidation of non-democratic one-party rule providing only temporary stability for the political system at best. The PRC leadership, for its part, has repeatedly claimed to work towards 'socialist democracy' by separating the Party from the government and subjecting the system to the rule of law. The institutional foundations of 'socialist democracy' may have been spelled out by Beijing scholar Pan Wei by his idea of 'consultative rule of law' modelled along the Hong Kong and Singaporean examples. This paper reconstructs Pan Wei's basic argument for such a system and discusses both its conceptual consistency and political practicability. It is suggested in this article that reforming Chinese authoritarianism by implementing legal reforms, a modern civil service structure and more mechanisms of political consultation might work for some time. It is argued, however, that 'consultative rule of law' cannot sustain one-party rule in the long run." (author's abstract)

An efficient system for the protection of civil and human rights is essential for the achievement of the ideals that are a precondition for joining the European Union (EU). This paper analyses the origins of the crisis of the Croatian judicial system and the factors that have brought the
length of court proceedings into the centre of professional and political debates. Strategies for accelerating civil proceedings featured in current attempts at reform are presented, with an emphasis on the ongoing procedural reforms in litigation, enforcement and bankruptcy proceedings.
At the end doubts are expressed about whether it is possible to make any important advances with the operations planned. Without an efficient judiciary, however, it is impossible to have a complete transition to the model of the democratic liberal state, and a dysfunctional judicial system can bring the implementation of economic reforms into question as well. To this extent, then, a thoroughgoing reform is of first-rate importance for the creation of the preconditions necessary for EU membership.