Suchergebnisse

This article introduces a special issue of West European Politics on the COVID-19 crisis. It first sets out the dual challenge to democratic principles and democratic performance that the COVID-19 pandemic has posed to European liberal democracies. Three bodies of scholarship are especially relevant in framing this dual democratic challenge: those that provide accounts of policy, institutional and legitimacy crises; accounts of the governance of emergencies and of emergency politics; and accounts of political turbulence and organisational and policy responses. The articles that comprise the special issue provide comparative empirical insights into first reactions, with a focus on the responses by political decision-makers, European publics and the EU. Assessments of the likely longer-term, potentially transformative effects of COVID-19 on the principles and performance of European liberal democracies will need to draw on both sectoral and systemic perspectives, with a focus on the organisation and operation of public authority and the state.

AbstractThe staggered renewal of parliamentary mandates is widespread in upper chambers, yet little understood. Comparative work has found that all members of a chamber are affected by upcoming elections, not merely those whose terms are up for renewal. In this study, we explore for which activities, and under which conditions, staggered membership renewal is associated with class-specific parliamentary activity, defined as systematically differing behaviour across two or more classes of members. We examine these questions with data on the French Senate. Drawing on insights from the study of political business cycles, legislative cycles, and previous scholarship on staggering, the article shows that behaviour varies over the course of senators' mandates, and that class-specific behaviour exists. However, staggering produces a different pattern of parliamentary activity than might be expected: proximity to elections reduces parliamentary activity of the class of senators facing re-election; by contrast, senators 'not up next' become more active. This effect, we argue, reflects the electoral system under which senators are elected.

This article discusses the coordinative capacity of Centers of Government (COGs) in several Central and Eastern Europe countries. In formal terms, COGs are at the heart of the executive process; but their contribution to coherence in executive policymaking has remained limited. This observation applies both to coordination within the executive, and between the executive and other key participants in the political process. In important respects, the "solitary centers" operate in isolation from their political and institutional environment. In part, this weakness of linkage reflects the particular features of the post‐Communist political systems; in part, it can be explained by a lack of nodality, authority and policy expertise at the COG. There are good reasons to assume that, as policy systems mature, problems of linkage will decline in significance. But this outcome cannot be taken for granted. Instead, we might be witnessing the emergence of a "new administrative type" in some Central and Eastern European countries.

Examines Centers of Government (COGs), and political and executive processes; includes ministries and nonministerial central agencies, presidency, parliament, subnational government, governing parties, civic society, separation between support and advice for the prime minister and cabinet, and COG staff. Based on experiences of Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Rumania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

The manner in which time is institutionalized is critical to how a political system works. Terms, time budgets and time horizons of collective and individual political actors; rights over timing, sequencing and speed in decision-making; and the temporal properties of policy matter to the distribution of power; efficiency and effectiveness of policy-making; and democratic legitimacy. This book makes a case for the systematic study of political time in the European Union (EU) - both as an independent and a dependent variable - and highlights the analytical value-added of a time-centred analysis