Models and Methods Commons^™

The Subterranean Counterrevolution: The Supreme Court, The Media, And Litigation Retrenchment, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang

Sean Farhang

This article is part of a larger project to study the counterrevolution against private enforcement of federal law from an institutional perspective. In a series of articles emerging from the project, we show how the Executive, Congress and the Supreme Court (wielding both judicial power under Article III of the Constitution and delegated legislative power under the Rules Enabling Act) fared in efforts to reverse or dull the effects of statutory and other incentives for private enforcement. An institutional perspective helps to explain the outcome we document: the long-term erosion of the infrastructure of private enforcement as a result of …

A Quantum Congress, Jorge R. Roig

Jorge R Roig

The Democracy Cluster Classification Index, Mihaiela R. Gugiu, Miguel Centellas

Miguel Centellas

Using hierarchical cluster analysis, a new measure of democracy, the DCC index, is proposed and constructed from five popular indices of democracy (Freedom House, Polity IV, Vanhanen's index of democratization, Cheibub et al.'s index of democracy and dictatorship, and the Cingranelli-Richards index of electoral self-determination). The DCC was used to classify the regime types for twenty-four countries in the Americas and thirty-nine countries in Europe over a thirty-year period. The results indicated that democracy is a latent class variable. Sensitivity and specificity analyses were conducted for the five existing democracy indices as well as the newly proposed Unified Democracy Scores …

Opinion Polls And Presidential Campaign In Colombia, Fernando Estrada

Fernando Estrada

The polls, these surveys do not withstand any rigorous testing. And contrary to expand the formation of public opinion, impaired. To overcome this defect should propose means fewer surveys and more discussions. Presidential campaigns should seek democratic enlargement, and a less massive media exposure to foot the surveys. Simplify

Democracy In Dangerous Places: Colombia. Vote With Paramilitary Preferences, Fernando Estrada

Fernando Estrada

This paper discusses the problem of paramilitary violence in Colombia and its effects on democracy. The elections were part of the purpose of self defense and constituted a disguised form to retain its drug trafficking economy. The impacts on institutional technology have been negative: representative democracy, the electoral system and voting, they were not the same. With paramilitary violence changed the electoral map in areas contested by the traditional political parties. Voting with paramilitary preferences mean the biggest challenge is constitutional democracy in Colombia.

Does The Constitutional Process Matter?, Zachary Elkins

Zachary Elkins

Constitution-making is a ubiquitous but poorly understood phenomenon. There is much speculation but relatively little evidence about the impact of different design processes on constitutional outcomes. Much of the debate reduces to the question of who is involved in the process and when. We consider two central issues in this regard. The first is the problem of institutional self-dealing, or whether governmental organs that have something to gain from the constitutional outcome should be involved in the process. The second has to do with the merits of public involvement in the process. Both of these concerns have clear normative implications …

Uma História Política Da Transição Brasileira: Da Ditadura Militar À Democracia, Adriano Codato

Adriano Codato

This article discusses Brazilian political history, from the military-political coup in 1964 through Fernando Henrique Cardoso´s second presidential term. Written in the form of an explanatory summary, three themes are joined in a narrative on the transition from a military dictatorship to a liberal democratic regime: the military, the political and the bureaucratic. We seek to establish causal inferences linking content, methods and the reasons for and meaning of political change beginning in 1974 with the quality of the democratic regime as it emerged during the 1990s. Our explanation is premised on the need to analyze two different but interconnected …

Antipolitics: Closing Or Colonizing The Public Sphere, Andreas Schedler

Andreas Schedler

No abstract provided.