Suchergebnisse

In fast allen Staaten sind Gesetze die wichtigsten Instrumente, um soziale, wirtschaftliche oder institutionelle Veränderungen herbeizuführen. Traditionell werden zwar die Parlamente als der Ort der Gesetzgebung betrachtet, doch es ist oft die Exekutive, die die Ergebnisse des legislativen Spiels stärker beeinflusst. Statistische Daten zeigen, dass die von der Regierung eingebrachten Gesetzentwürfe in den meisten Fällen unverändert verabschiedet werden. Das Werk untersucht im Detail, wie Gesetzesvorlagen innerhalb der Exekutive vorbereitet werden. Für diese genaue Analyse wurden sechs mitteleuropäische Länder ausgewählt (Österreich, Tschechische Republik, Deutschland, Ungarn, Polen, Slowakei).

Kvalita českého legislativního procesu a jeho výstupů je všeobecně hodnocena jako tragická. Přes tato konsenzuální tvrzení toho o řadě důležitých fází přípravy zákonů víme velmi málo. Jedním z takových černých míst je meziresortní připomínkové řízení, sloužící jako unikátní příležitost k připomínkování návrhů zákonů. Tento článek se snaží uvedenou mezeru v poznání zaplnit a nabízí nejen důkladný rozbor formálních základů meziresortního připomínkového řízení, ale především detailní empirickou analýzu průběhu a výsledků připomínkových řízení 623 návrhů zákonů předloženými mezi lety 2010 až 2016. Poznatky z analýzy dokazují, že především ministerstva se účastní připomínkování velmi aktivně (byť v rozdílné míře) a nástroj značně ovlivňuje podobu návrhů zákonů. Spíše než přijímat radikální změny meziresortního řízení by proto bylo vhodné omezit různé výjimky udělované v procesu a ponechat na připomínkování více času.

Populism might be a threat to parliamentary democracy but does not automatically signal its demise. First, not all populist parties seek illiberal goals. Second, in Europe most populist parties entering governments have done so as coalitions with mainstream parties. Yet, almost all populists, including the non-extremist and 'integrated' ones, call for more efficient governance. We assume that once in the executive, that objective will also manifest itself in the rationalisation of law-making in legislatures. By applying a more assertive strategy and exploiting existing rules, cabinets will attempt to streamline their legislative agendas. We test this theoretical framework on empirical evidence from the Czech Chamber of Deputies, which can serve as prototypical case. Since 2010, three coalition governments have ruled. In the last two, the influence of populist parties (represented by ANO under the leadership of Andrej Babiš) gradually increased. By tracking the legislative performance of cabinets in the Chamber, we found that executives with a populist presence actually fared worse than their non-populist predecessor (baseline) in almost all proceedings and outcomes of law-making. The bills submitted by the last government, where ANO dominated, even suffered the most. Contrary to our assumption, a strategy of rationalisation has therefore not succeeded. The findings open interesting questions about how effective cabinets with populists are in law-making in parliaments, and about the future of legislatures as resilient safeguards against the populist challenge.

For a long time, integration was viewed as a one-dimensional deepening process consisting of the transfer of Member States' competences to the EU, while the reverse procedure was treated as non-existent. But although re-nationalization might be considered controversial, it does not have to be destructive for the EU. This was openly accepted by the Lisbon Treaty, which specified conditions for exercising competences and introduced the return of EU competences to the Member States as a viable option. This article concentrates on the partial restoration of tasks (contrary to complete repatriation - i.e. withdrawal from the EU), which might be executed either as repatriation through the revision of primary law or as deactivation through repeal of secondary law. Attention is given not only to theoretical legal framework, but also to past empirical practice. As results indicate, very few restorations have taken place. The text explores obstacles to re-nationalization and suggests potential solutions.

AbstractLaw-making in most parliamentary democracies is dominated by the executive. Yet so far, all research has focused on the parliamentary stage of law-making. Studies suggest that the changes to bills submitted by coalition governments are the result of coalition policies dealing with the agency loss caused by ministerial drift. This is puzzling because it is already easier and more effective for coalition parties to attempt to change the bills in the executive phase than in the parliamentary one. The article aims to close the knowledge gap, and it quantitatively explores the factors that facilitate changes during the understudied executive phase on case study of the Czech Republic. Analysis reveals that government bills are altered more during the executive phase than the parliamentary phase. While we find no significant impact caused by the distance to coalition compromise, the saliency of a bill for coalition partners has a negative influence on the ratio of changes.

There is an ongoing debate on how political parties that form coalition governments keep tabs on each other during the drafting and negotiation of new bills. Our article complements existing studies focused on the parliamentary stage of law-making by enriching current knowledge with an analysis of the executive phase, where bills may be significantly changed before they are submitted to the legislature. Contrary to theoretical expectations, results based on unique data from the Czech Republic reveal that bills which are heavily altered during the executive phase are subsequently significantly changed in the parliament. Additional interaction models indicate the effect is stronger for bills that are highly significant for the proposing minister and are a greater distance from any coalition compromise. Our findings open the question of why the coalition parties leave the resolution of some controversial issues to the parliamentary phase: the outstanding conflict may be genuine, or the coalition MPs may just be playing out a prearranged and staged battle that enables the coalition partners to show their distinctive qualities to the voters.