Insitutional Power and Democracy in the Post-Communist Region (original) (raw)

AN ATTEMPT TO CRYSTALIZE THE BLACK-BOX MYSTERY: Institutional Quality or Constitutional Rights

2018

This study deals with deeper analysis of the role of domestic institutional framework in policy making process of developing nations. Grossman-Helpman (1994) model of ‘protection for sale’ has been used to extract the extent of welfarism in government decisions related to trade policy, i.e., how much the government puts weight on welfare of the society when designing a trade policy. Findings of the study report that it is not about the type of political regime actually, rather it is about the types of political institutions under different constitutional structures, i.e., parliamentary or presidential systems which matters in promoting welfarism in government policies. These findings facilitates in drawing the conclusion that not only the democracy, rather parliamentary natured are welfare-enhancing for developing nations when taking any policy decision. Moreover, the results also support that de jure (constitutional rules) institutions play more imperative role in decision maki...

Presidents, Governments, and Parliaments. A Framework for Analysis of the Institutional Design of Contemporary Democracies.

The democratic method offers a peculiar solution of one of the central problems of politics, which is the exercise of power by a leadership. Democracy makes the holders of the power accountable for their actions and decisions and fixes such accountability in a relatively rigid institutional framework made of roles, procedural resources and arenas of interaction among the roles. The institutional design of the democratic political systems has attracted much attention both from the legal and political perspective, because it affects the actual distribution of power among the political actors and the effectiveness of their decisions. The article reviews critically some of the most influential classifications of the democratic institutional design, with particular reference to the triangular interactions among Presidents, Governments, and Parliaments. Moving from the assumption that the arrangements among these three top political institutions identify the main patterns of the democratic government, the distinction among Parliamentary, Presidential, and Semi-Presidential systems set by the constitutional law is rejected and a new classification schema is advanced. In this new perspective the institutional design of democracy consists of institutional roles of authority, procedural resources attached to them and arenas of the interactions among the roles.

Determinants of Judicial Institutionalization: A Study of the Post-Communist Constitutional Courts

Journal of Power, Politics & Governance, 2015

This study argues that institutional development of the courts is shaped primarily by the strategies of dominant political actors who attempt to maximize the congruence of the judiciary with their interests and its responsiveness to their priorities. To test this argument, this study identifies five factors-legislative fragmentation, the distribution of executive-legislative power, the transparency of the political environment, participation in the EU accession program, and direct foreign aidwhich are hypothesized to affect the process of judicial reforms by altering the politicians' interests, bargaining power, and the degree of electoral uncertainty. As an empirical test of these hypotheses, this paper examines institutionalization of 22 post-communist constitutional courts, from the beginning of the transition period through 2005. The findings suggest that there is a non-linear relationship between legislative fragmentation and judicial empowerment. In addition, this study finds that the participation in the EU accession program and executive power have an important impact on the development of viable constitutional courts. Transparent environment and foreign direct aid, on the other hand, do not exert a significant impact on the development of post-communist courts.

Increasing the Legitimacy of the Institutional Processes Favourable to Citizens

2013

In this paper, I analyze the problem of institutional reconstruction in Romania after 1989, which remained until today under the influence of the constitution and social revolution report. The 1991 and 2003 constitutional moments led to institutional conflicts. Regarding this, there are two implications: unsatisfactory institutional processes and the fact that political institutions often appeal the Constitutional Court to interpret or clarify the constitutional texts framing the institutional processes. This shows an underlying problem with the Constitution. I will analyze in detail the consequences of a weak normative integration of the two constitutional moments: decreasing the legitimacy of the institutional processes and the dilution of the Parliament's role. I thus emphasize the extent in which these implications are risky in relation to the integrity of the democratic institutional processes. In the constitutional economics approach, this brings instability and insecurity...

Power in office: presidents, governments, and parliaments in the institutional design of contemporary democracies

Constitutional Political Economy, 2020

The institutional design of democratic regimes has attracted much attention from a legal and political perspective, because it affects the actual distribution of power among political actors and the effectiveness of their decisions. The article advances a classification of the democratic institutional design, with particular reference to the triangular interactions among Presidents, Governments, and Parliaments. Moving from the assumption that the arrangements among these three top political institutions identify the main patterns of the democratic government, the distinction among Parliamentary, Presidential, and Semi-Presidential systems set by the constitutional law is rejected and a new classification schema is advanced. In this new perspective, the institutional design of democracy consists of the institutional roles of authority, procedural resources attached to them and arenas of confrontation among the roles.

Towards a Transnational Nomos The Role of Institutions in the Process of Constitutionalization

MPIL, Heidelberg, Jean Monnet WP 09/03, 2003

Constitutional law – nomos - entails two sets of social practices, including on the one hand, the agreement about principles, norms and procedures which guide and regulate politics, and, day-to-day interaction in the social, cultural, political, economic contexts of a community, on the other. Both constitute an expression of the universally derived yet particularly established set of institutions of a constitution. This paper argues that once constitutional norms are dealt with outside their sociocultural context of origin, a potentially conflictive situation emerges. The potential for conflict caused by this process lies in the decoupling of the two sets of social practices, i.e. the customary and the organizational. Through the transfer between contexts the meaning of norms becomes contested as differently socialized actors apply them and scholars of different legal tradition analyze them. The analytical challenge is to provide a methodological link between these practices. To that end, the chapter focuses on approaches to institutions. It proceeds in three steps. First three general political science approaches to institutions are distinguished. In a second step institutional analysis in the process of European integration is summarized based on three phases; first, integration through supranational institution-building, second, Europeanization through domestic institutional adaptation and third, late politicization as the complex process of sociocultural and legal institutional adaptation in vertical and horizontal dimension. The third step critically discusses the impact of institutions on political behavior. Two cases, citizenship and the finality debate, briefly illustrate the role of soft institutions in the process of constitutionalization.

Institutional commitments and democracy

European Journal of Sociology, 1998

Democracy, even if it is a system of self-government, rests on institutional commitments. An institutional commitment is a manipulation through rules of one's set of alternatives. I analyze the nature of institutional commitments in general and the role they play in a democracy. After drawing a distinction between committing to a rule and being committed by what a role establishes, three conclusions emerge: a) that representation is a functional commitment, b) that constitutions are commitments to rules, and c) that judicial review is not a commitment, but makes credible the commitments embodied in representation and constitutions.

Institutional Reform and the Judiciary: Which Way Forward?

Policy Research Working Papers, 2003

This paper presents some general lessons in institution building that has relevance for reform of the judiciary. The paper emphasizes the value of simplicity in design commensurate with country capacity, the importance of innovation/experimentation, and of economic openness in effective institution building. It underscores how the incentives of individuals depend on both the details of institutional design within the judiciary itself but also some critical institutions external to the judiciary. Finally the paper argues for the need to ground reform initiatives on a solid empirical and comparative approach. It illustrates some of these issues by drawing on a recent project conducted by the World Bank and others.

Democratic Constitutional Change: Assessing Institutional Possibilities

Democratizing Constitutional Law: Perspectives on Legal Theory and the Legitimacy of Constitutionalism, ed. Thomas Bustamante and Bernardo Gonçalves Fernandes (Springer Verlag), 2016

This paper develops a normative framework for both conceptualizing and assessing various different institutional possibilities for democratic modes of constitutional change, with special attention to the recent ferment of constitutional experimentation witnessed across the globe.