Public Administration Commons^™

Bills, Bribery And Brutality: How Rampant Corruption In The Electoral System Has Helped Prevent Democracy In Uganda, Sam Tabachnik

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study looks at the electoral system in Uganda and the corruption and inefficiencies that go with it. In addition, this study delves into the most common electoral crimes and the way they are committed. Going even deeper, the study examines the reasons for bribery pervasiveness, the role of money in politics and the views locals have of their government and its leaders. Crucial institutions such as police, military, judiciary, Electoral Commission and civil society groups were also discussed in how they relate toelections and politics in Uganda.

The research design was qualitative, historical and descriptive. Information was gatheredby in-person …

State Bankruptcy From The Ground Up, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

After a brief, high profile debate, proposals to create a new bankruptcy framework for states dropped from sight in Washington in early 2011. With the debate’s initial passions having cooled, at least for a time, we can now consider state bankruptcy, as well as other responses to states’ fiscal crisis, a bit more quietly and carefully. In this Article, I begin by briefly outlining a theoretical and practical case for state bankruptcy. Because I have developed these arguments in much more detail in companion work, I will keep the discussion comparatively brief. My particular concern here is, as the title …

Technical Bulletins: Ada Amendments Act Of 2008 (Adaaa): Back To Basics (2011), Bonnie Jones

MTAS Publications: Technical Bulletins

The ADAAA ensures protections for people with disabilities whose conditions have been denied as ADA eligible through years of Supreme Court ADA interpretation.

When The Government Is The Controlling Shareholder, Marcel Kahan, Edward B. Rock

All Faculty Scholarship

As a result of the 2008 bailouts, the United States Government is now the controlling shareholder in AIG, Citigroup, GM, GMAC, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Corporate law provides a complex and comprehensive set of standards of conduct to protect non-controlling shareholders from controlling shareholders who have goals other than maximizing firm value. In this article, we analyze the extent to which these existing corporate law structures of accountability apply when the government is the controlling shareholder, and the extent to which federal “public law” structures substitute for displaced state “private law” norms. We show that the Delaware restrictions on …

The Politics Of Reorganizing Connecticut State Government: Altering Administrative Structures In The Land Of Steady Habits, Lesley A. Denardis

Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications

Despite numerous attempts to reorganize state government aimed at streamlining, reducing, and creating greater efficiencies, the size and scope of Connecticut’s administrative apparatus has grown considerably over a fifty year period. This study will trace the political history of previous reorganization efforts with a particular emphasis on more recent attempts such as the Gengras (1970), Filer (1976), Thomas (1991), and Hull and Harper Commissions (1992). Observed trends follow national patterns: 1) reorganization commissions are cyclical in nature more likely to be undertaken in the wake of similar efforts at the federal level and 2) they are more likely to be …

Allocating Power Within Agencies, Elizabeth Magill, Adrian Vermeule

All Faculty Scholarship

Standard questions in the theory of administrative law involve the allocation of power among legislatures, courts, the President, and various types of agencies. These questions are often heavily informed by normative commitments to particular allocations of governmental authority among the three branches of the national government. These discussions, however, are incomplete because agencies are typically treated as unitary entities. In this essay, we examine a different question: How does administrative law allocate power within agencies? Although scholars have sometimes cracked open the black box of agencies to peer inside, their insights are localized and confined to particular contexts. We will …

On The Study Of Judicial Behaviors: Of Law, Politics, Science And Humility, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

In this paper, which was prepared to help set the stage at an interdisciplinary conference held at the University of Indiana (Bloomington) in March, I first briefly review what I take to be the key events and developments in the history of the study of judicial behavior in legal scholarship, with attention to corresponding developments in political science. I identify obstacles to cooperation in the past – such as indifference, professional self-interest and methodological imperialism -- as well as precedents for cross-fertilization in the future. Second, drawing on extensive reading in the political science and legal literatures concerning judicial behavior, …

Litigation And Democracy: Restoring A Realistic Prospect Of Trial, Stephen B. Burbank, Stephen N. Subrin

All Faculty Scholarship

In this essay we review some of the evidence confirming, and some of the reasons underlying, the phenomenon of the vanishing trial in federal civil cases and examine some of the costs of that phenomenon for democratic values, including in particular democratic values represented by the right to a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment. We discuss the Supreme Court’s recent pleading decisions in Twombly and Iqbal as examples of procedural attacks on democracy in four dimensions: (1) they put the right to jury trial in jeopardy; (2) they undercut the effectiveness of congressional statutes designed to compensate citizens for …