Domestic Political Structures: Law, Constitutions, the Judiciary

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO

POLS 2310: Introduction to Politics

Dr. Sirin

REVIEW FOR EXAM 3

LECTURE 11 - Domestic Political Structures: Law, Constitutions, the Judiciary

• The definition of institutions - Regular Patterns of Behavior that provide stability and predictability to social life
• The meaning of the term “Weberian public administration” – Max Weber was a key theorist of the bureaucratic practices of the modern state, He argued for impersonal, rule-based, goal-oriented bureaucratic activity, with promotion of officials exclusively based on merit and performance
• What is the “Treaty of Westphalia” about? – The European State system is normally taken to have resulted from the Treaty of Westphalia, (1648), which ended the European Thirty Years’ War

• What is “the rule of law”?
• Western conceptions of law: monist, statist, legal positivist-

Monist - (one internally coherent legal system)

Statist - (the state has a monopoly of law within its territory)

Legal Positivist - (Law is what the state says it is)

• Requirements for just laws (for example, they should be general, public, consistent, relatively constant…) They must be general in scope, Public, Prospective rather than retrospective, Clear, Consistent, Relatively constant, Capable of being obeyed.
• What is “constitutionalism”? – 1) The overall Structure of a state’s political system and its political culture, 2) An specific document that lays down the basic institutions of state, procedures for changing them, and the basic rights and obligations of its citizens.
• Different forms of justice (legal positivism, politicized justice, religious justice, procedural justice)

Legal positivist justice– the idea that judges should stick to the letter of laws.

Politicized justice – in countries like the former Soviet Union, law can be subordinated to the needs of the ruling party.

Religious justice – practiced, for example, in Islamic states, where law-makers and judges are expected to defer to the Shari’ah law.

Procedural justice –  consistency in verdicts, a respect for the precedent, the right to appeal from one court to a higher one, and a legal bureaucracy.

• Positive versus negative rights

• Civil-Political “Negative Rights” – Free speech, freedom of religion, equal protection under the law, freedom from arbitrary imprisonment.
• Economic-Social “Positive rights” – rights to good living conditions, food, health care, social security and education.

• Concepts of (1) judicial philosophy; An ongoing “discussion” in American Politics about the extent to which justices/judges should involve themselves with setting policy - (2) judicial review; Power to review an overturn any legislative and/or executive action the court deems unconstitutional - (3) judicial activism; - The judicial branch is an equal partner with legislative and executive and should be actively involved in interpreting and applying laws. - (4) judicial restraint The judicial branch should let the Legislative and Executive branches set policy and only get involved if that policy is a flagrant violation of constitution.

LECTURE 12 - Domestic Political Institutions: Legislative Institutions

• The difference between a legislator and legislature – Legislatures are crucial institutions in any political system, but above all in democracies. Functions: representational, governmental, procedural. Legislators are people who write or pass laws.
• The structure of the US legislature (= bicameral) In Bicameral legislatures, there is a wide variety of relationships between the two chambers
• Key functions of legislatures (such as serving as a check on the power and accountability of the executive) Serving as check on the power and accountability of the executive.
• Major problems for legislatures they give little power to the national governemnt
• What is gerrymandering? “Manipulating Maps” a form of deliberate modification/redrawing of the electoral district or constituency boundaries for the electoral advantage. May be used to help or hinder particular constituencies such as members of a political, racial, linguistic, religious group or an economic class.
• The principle of recall versus the principle of parliamentary immunity Recall: Electors can “recall” their representatives either to be replaced or face re-election for failure to adequately represent the views of their constituencies. – Parliament immunity: Adopted to protect the rights of deputies to speak out without fear of legal prosecution or threat of legal proceedings for what they may say in the parliament. May include immunity from criminal prosecution.
• Types of legislatures (= active, reactive, minimal, marginal, vulnerable legislatures) Active legislature: the US Congress, often defies the executive even when the president belongs to the same party as the majority. – Reactive legislature: the UK parliament, are relatively passive most of the time but can present an effective challenge to government in specific circumstances. – Minimal legislature: such as Pakistan and post-Soviet Russia. On Occasion, rulers have showed themselves more than willing to ignore the legislature. – Vulnerable legislature: like those of the Philippines and Italy, where the local political culture tolerates legislators who use their positions for personal gain.
• The meaning of the term “political class” Has little experience of life outside poliotics and depends for its status on the resources of the state. Ex. In countries like Ireland and Japan, a high proportion of legislator are children of politicians – so their ‘political classes’ are hereditary.

LECTURE 13 - Domestic Political Institutions: Executive Institutions and the Bureaucracy

• The meaning of “embedded autonomy” means that civil servants of a particular state are partly insulated from the pressures of their societies without being entirely isolated from them
• The main argument of the “New Public Management” approach. -  Argues that the public sector should have the same motives as the private sector, and thus emphasizes incentives competition, and performance.
• What are “policy communities” “iron triangles” and “issue networks”? Policy Communities: Consist of all those actors who are most intimately concerned with a particular decision. – Iron Triangles: Similar to policy communities but involve more input from politicians in Congress. – Issue Network: Tend to be larger and more fluid than policy communities or iron triangles.

LECTURE 14 - Voting, Elections, and Political Parties

• The meaning, advantages, and disadvantages of (1) simple plurality (first-past-the-post) system, (2) proportional representation, and (3) the alternative member model.

Simple Plurality: is used by many states, including the US and the UK, basically the candidate with the most votes is the winner. It encourages the development of broadly-based parties. THE DISADVANTAGES of it are that it can lead to minority groups being under-represented, also it leads to many citizens feeling that their votes are “wasted” either because preferred candidate never stood a chance of winning, because their preferred candidate wins by a huge majority.

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