Delegation of power Flashcards
Design of courts- case studies
The UK Supreme court (est 2009), is selected through a mostly no-electable process, an selection commission decide and the Pm accepts
US Supreme court, is appointed through the nomination of the president and elected in the US senate
- In the US, states have the right to set their own appointment procedures for federal courts
- In some states judges are elected through a merit selection process (Alaska, Iowa), or through a non-partisan election (Idaho, Ohio). And in some judges are appointed through an partisan election (Alabama, Texas)
German Constitutional Court
Bundestag and Bundesrat elect 4 judges each (by a 2/3 majority), with the election of the Court’s President alternating between them
Design of central banks
Independent Central banks are independent of the legislature/gov so their decisions can’t be overruled by the gov
Central bank in the UK were started originally as an attempt to control the poor spending habits of the kings
Primary role now is to ….
1. Set interest rates, which is the rate the gov/bank is willing to lend to private banks
- Control the money supply
- Manage foreign exchange & gold reserves which is particularly true if there is a fixed interest rate
Additionally, Central banks are becoming a more influential political actor, which has led to efforts from both the populist right and left to reign in control
- Banks are lending to private institutions
- They regulate and supervise banking industry’s
- Advise gov on economic policies
The goals of monetary policies
- Price stability (low inflation): because high inflation leads to lender loss
- Economic Growth (higher employment): which is impacted by price stability and inflation
- Currency Stability: want no currency fluctuation
However, these goals are not complementary. As lowering interest rates does have short-term benefits through expanding growth, however it has long-term damages by creating fluctuation
So banks have competiting interests between keeping stability and economic growth.
Principal-Agent (PA) Theory
- why do the delegate
- why don’t they delegate
A theory to understand relations between ..
1. The delegator (the principle)
2. The delegate (the agent)
Why would principals delegate to agents?
1. To credibly commit to a particular policy: these delegation commitments ty our hands in order to ensure
2. To overcome coordination challenges: we see a delegation when there is a mutually beneficial outcome and avoiding blame from unpopular policies by forcing it decision on someone else e.g. courts
Why would a principle not delegate to a model
1. Shirking: when weak effort by an agent leads to lower performance
2. Policy drift: an agents self-interest leads to policies which diverge from the principles and it becomes difficult to take power away from them
Why Delegate to Courts?
- Protect human rights: helps lock in policies around human rights as they are obligated to follow declaration of human rights
- Complete legislative contract: legislation never considers all contingency’s and changing environment so courts serve as a way to solve legislative issues
- Controlling other agencies: places check on over agencies
- Limit power of executives: acts as a veto player which increases policy stability and increases gridlocks limiting the power of executives coming after them
Why delegate to central banks
- Solve time-inconsistent problem: politicians have incentives for short-term growth particularly around elections which comes at the growth of monetary policy stability so politicians who care about monetary stability and long-term growth have an incentive to tie their hands and remove their authority of monetary policies by delegating power to banks to do this
- Solve information gaps: central bankers know currency markets etc better than the average voter/politicians
- End political business cycle: no longer candoring to voters by shifting monetary policies. For exmaple, Donald Trump is very critical of independent institutions as he wanted the central bank to lower the interest rates for his own gain as he wanted to create short-term expansion of the currency
- Lock in stable macro-economic environment: give the central bank the authority to ensure that currency is not going to fluctuate wildly over the next few years
Case study- “Jaamal find a name”
Lawrence Broz (2018)
Looked at the bills in the US senate and house to limit the authority of the central bank (federal reserve)
Found that far from elections not many care about signing on to this but closer to elections a lot more politicians try to claw back authority and create monetary expansion
Does delegation to central banks and judges work?
Bodea et al 2015
Conditional: the credibility of the central banks are depedent on the law that ensures their own independence from gov influence
- Strong democracies: as central banks become more independent there is less inflation
- Autocracies: central banks have almost no effect on inflation because they have limited independence and need institutional credibility for central banks to effective. These countries use fixed exchange rates so they join the international market at a time they have limited policy stability
Hansen 2021 – adding central banks as a veto player leads to gridlock as short-term incentives to respond to economic crisis, so having very independent central banks these crises are more severe as monetary policies that could be used to respond to these are not easily accessible
Foundations of comparative politics - Legislative Supremacy Constitution
READING
- The core principle is that elections legitimize legislative authority, and legislative majorities legitimize statutory authority (Stone Sweet 2000, 20)
- Have 3 distinctive features
they’re not entrenched and can be revised at the discretion of the legislature
that there’s no institution with the power to review the constitutional legality of statutes: as the authority to make laws relays solely on the legislature so they can not be challenged once promulgated
that they don’t contain a bill of rights that might constrain legislative authority. The rights that are protected in countries with legislative supremacy constitutions have their source in the ordinary statutes passed by the legislature, not in the constitution
Foundations of comparative politics - Higher Law Constitution
READING
- according to this form of constitutions the state can do legal wrong, and must be constrained in what it can and cant do
- Higher law constitutions typically contain a bill of rights that allows nonstate actors to challenge state actions that violate individual and minority rights.
- Constitutional review:
defends the supremacy of the constitution and the rights it contain
is the authority of an institution to invalidate acts of government, such as legislation, administrative decisions, and judicial rulings that violate constitutional rules (Stone Sweet 2000, 21)
can be exercised by judges sitting on special tribunals—constitutional courts—that aren’t part of the regular judicial system - Judicial review:
When constitutional review is conducted by ordinary judges from the regular judicial system, it’s more commonly referred to as judicial review
Which presents constitutional laws being superior to “ordinary” laws passed by the legislature.
Foundations of comparative politics - The New Constitutionalism
READING
- Unlike before, in both democratic and authoritarian countries higher law constitutions are the most common (106 higher law constitutions were adopters during 1985-2007)
- This convergence around the idea that higher law constitutions are somehow better than legislative supremacy constitutions has been called the new constitutionalism (Shapiro and Stone Sweet 1994)
- Shift in Europe occurred after 1945 partly as a response to the experience with fascism in the interwar period, as it highlighted states could do bad (Stone Sweet 2000, 37)
Foundations of comparative politics - The American Model
READING
- In the United States, “any judge of any court, in any case, at any time, at the behest of any litigating party, has the power to declare a law unconstitutional” (Shapiro and Stone Sweet 1994, 400)
- Constitutional review in the United States is, as a result, judicial review
- American courts are supposed to avoid legislating as that’s the function of the people’s elected representatives in the legislature. Still, it’s recognized that a constitutional issue in need of resolution might arise in the course of a legal case.
- American courts are supposed to avoid legislating as that’s the function of the people’s elected representatives in the legislature. Still, it’s recognized that a constitutional issue in need of resolution might arise in the course of a legal case.
Foundations of comparative politics - The European Model
READING
- the judiciary has never been seen as a coequal branch of the government as it is in the United States
Judicial review has been explicitly banned in French and German constitutions since the end of the 18th century - From a European perspective, “American-style judicial review, rather than corresponding to a separation of powers, actually establishes a permanent confusion of powers, because it enables the judiciary to participate in the legislative function
To avoid this they have invented a completely new institution, the constitutional court to conduct constitutional reviews - Constitutional courts have several defining features
they have a monopoly on conducting constitutional review
constitutional courts are formally detached from the regular judicial system
constitutional courts have jurisdiction only over constitutional matters
they can evaluate legislative initiatives to see if they’re unconstitutional before they actually have the opportunity to harm anyone
Foundations of comparative politics - Veto Players
READING
- Political scientists traditionally categorized democracies based on federal or unitary systems, bicameral or unicameral legislatures, and acceptance of constitutionalism.
- Veto player theory, proposed by Tsebelis, suggests that these institutions act similarly as checks and balances on the political system, affecting the ease of changing the status quo.
- Two types of veto players are identified: institutional (e.g., presidents, legislative bodies) and partisan (emerging from political competition dynamics).
- This theory applies beyond democracies to dictatorships, where veto players could include the military or religious leaders, depending on their ability to resist change.
- Federalism, bicameralism, and constitutional review are reconceptualized as variations of institutional veto players, imposing hurdles on changing the status quo and fostering policy stability. The number and ideological divergence of veto players influence policy stability, with more and ideologically diverse players leading to greater stability and smaller policy changes.
- In contrast, fewer veto players with similar preferences lead to more significant policy shifts and stronger agenda-setting powers. For example, the U.S. embodies multiple veto players with its bicameral legislature, federal system, and constitutional review, making radical policy changes difficult, as intended by the Founding Fathers.
- Policy stability impacts government and regime stability differently, with high policy stability potentially leading to government instability in parliamentary democracies and increased risk of regime instability in presidential democracies.
Proffesionals vs. Politicians
Choi, Gulati, and Posner 2010
Reading
Judges that are elected can make decisions on partisan issues as they have to be elected on partisan lines, so judges have incentives to vote on partisan issue
But not having elected judges is undemocratic so have elections to overcome the democratic deficit
Posner et al had created a measured judicial performance looking at whether a judicial decision from judges was cited from someone else and how productive judges are
Found that elected judges were a lot more productive than appointed justices but the exact opposite when looking at the quality
The trade-off between pandering and shirking- tells us there is a trade off when getting judges elected as they are more productive but a bit shit
