This book explains why citizens sometimes comply with and sometimes disobey the demands of democratic governments. It argues that citizens are more likely to comply and even give active consent when they perceive government as procedurally fair in both decisionmaking and implementation processes and when they believe other citizens are also doing their share. The author develops her argument by exploring over two hundred years of military service policies in six democratic countries.

With one party controlling the presidency and the opposing party controlling Congress, the veto has inevitably become a critical tool of presidential power. Combining sophisticated game theory with unprecedented data, this book analyzes how divided party presidents use threats and vetoes to wrest policy concessions from a hostile Congress. Case studies of the most important vetoes in recent history add texture to the analysis, detailing how President Clinton altered the course of Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution. Offering the first book-length analysis to bring rational choice theory to...

This book examines a key question of modern Japanese politics: why the Meiji oligarchs were unable to design institutions capable of protecting their power. The authors question why the oligarchs chose the political institutions they did, and what the consequences of those choices were for Japan's political competition, economic development, and diplomatic relations. Indeed, they argue, it was the oligarchs' very inability to agree among themselves on how to rule that prompted them to cut the military loose from civilian control--a decision that was to have disastrous consequences not only...

Between 1720 and the mid-nineteenth century, the legal framework of England remained static, while the country went through an economic and social evolution known as the Industrial Revolution. This book addresses the apparent discrepancy between the developing economy of 1720-1844 and the stagnant legal framework of business organization during the same period. The book specifically focuses on the ways by which the legal-economic nexus of the period gave rise to the modern institutions of organizing business.

This book explores the politics of wildlife conservation policy in Africa, specifically Zambia, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. The book addresses a general question: Why don't wildlife policies seem to be working? Rather than use standard explanations such as "bureaucratic inefficiency" or "corrupt dictators," the book demonstrates how politicians at all levels use wildlife policy for their own political ends, which may or may not include conservation. The book uses electoral and archival data, as well as interviews with individuals ranging from presidents to poachers to address this issue.

In this path-breaking book, David Epstein and Sharyn O'Halloran produce the first unified theory of policy making between the legislative and executive branches. Examining major US policy initiatives from 1947 to 1992, the authors describe the conditions under which the legislature narrowly constrains executive discretion, and when it delegates authority to the bureaucracy. In doing so, the authors synthesize diverse and competitive literatures, from transaction cost and principal-agent theory in economics, to information models developed in both economics and political science, to...

European legislation affects countless aspects of daily life in modern Europe but just how does the European Union make such significant legislative decisions? How important are the formal decision-making procedures in defining decision outcomes and how important is the bargaining that takes place among the actors involved? Using a combination of detailed evidence and theoretical rigour, this volume addresses these questions and others that are central to understanding how the EU works in practice. It focuses on the practice of day-to-day decision-making in Brussels and the interactions that...

Why do states delegate certain tasks and responsibilities to international organizations rather than acting unilaterally or cooperating directly? Furthermore, to what extent do states continue to control IOs once authority has been delegated? Examining a variety of different institutions including the World Trade Organization, the United Nations and the European Commission, this book explores the different methods that states employ to ensure their interests are being served, and identifies the problems involved with monitoring and managing IOs. The contributors suggest that it is not...

The 1980s and 1990s have seen several authoritarian governments voluntarily cede power to constitutionally elected democratic governments. John Londregan uses Chile as a case study of this phenomenon, exploring what sorts of guarantees are required for those who are ceding power and how those guarantees later work out in practice. He constructs an analytical model of a democratic transition and provides a new statistical technique for analyzing legislative votes, based on a detailed empirical analysis of Chile's legislative politics.

Advocates of parliamentary rule have been highly critical of presidentialism for dividing powers and providing the opportunity for gridlock between branches. Yet the great theorists of presidential rule saw in the same institutions a desirable combination of strong leadership with checks on executive discretion. These diverse assessments arise because we have surprisingly little comparative work on how presidential democracies function. The essays in this volume show, through case studies from Asia, Latin America, and Central Europe, how presidential democracies deal with the challenges of...