Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and multinational federalism in Australia

© 2018, © 2018 Griffith University. Democratic governance is premised on the belief that all citizens are empowered to shape the society in which they live. Over generations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have maintained that Australian democratic practice does not live up to this ideal, contending that the state's legal and political framework does not empower them with the capacity to have their voices heard and their interests considered in the processes of government. However, non-Indigenous Australians remain suspicious of Indigenous-specific political and legal mechanisms designed to rectify this structural fault. In this paper, I argue that this suspicion–and Australia's governance framework more broadly–arises from a particular conception of democratic theory that marginalises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoplehood. If, as the Uluru Statement from the Heart calls for, Australia's political institutions are to be rebuilt so as to empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples ‘to take a rightful place in [their] own country’, that conception of democratic theory must first be revealed and re-centred. Multinational federalism offers one path towards a more equitable future

The Effects of Proportional Representation on Election Lawmaking in Aotearoa New Zealand

It is widely recognized that most politicians are self-interested and desire election rules beneficial to their reelection. Although partisanship in electoral system reform is well-understood, the factors that encourage or constrain partisan manipulation of the other democratic “rules of the game”—including election administration, franchise laws, campaign finance, boundary drawing, and electoral governance—has received little scholarly attention to date. Aotearoa New Zealand remains the only established democracy to switch from a non-proportional to a proportional electoral system and thus presents a natural experiment to test the effects of electoral system change on the politics of election lawmaking. Using a longitudinal comparative case study analysis, this thesis examines partisan and demobilizing election reforms passed between 1970 and 1993 under first-past-the-post and between 1997 and 2018 under mixed-member proportional representation (MMP). Although partisan election reforms have not diminished under MMP, demobilizing reforms have become less common. Regression analysis uncovers evidence that partisan election lawmaking is more likely when the effective number of parties in parliament is lower, when non-voters have more leverage, and when reforms are pursued that diminish electoral participation

Redistributing the Surplus: Insights from the Political Economy of Cash Transfers in Bolivia (2005 – 2014)

This thesis aims to explain the key political economy drivers for the introduction of universal cash transfer programmes in countries which rely on natural resources, considering how their introduction and expansion may strengthen or weaken citizen-state relations in this context. The thesis uses Bolivia as a case study, focusing on the period 2005 – 2014, with fieldwork undertaken in La Paz and El Alto. It employs a political economy analysis framework and uses process tracing and discourse analysis as primary methods, supported by surveys and interviews. We argue that in this context the introduction and scale up to universal cash transfers is primarily driven by shifts in the fiscal capture of natural resource rent, the salience of redistributive and egalitarian ideas in political discourse, and the combination of political linkage strategies employed by politicians to appeal to citizens. We posit that higher-level normative ideas are particularly important, especially if these are domestic in origin and arise from or relate to core political constituencies. Despite evidence of resource nationalist ideas and rights-based language, we find the role of civil society to be weak. Moreover, we assert that where programmes are strongly influenced by charismatic (populist) political linkage strategies and where mechanisms for citizen-state interface are weak, programmes are more likely to be perceived as patronage than rights. We argue that in this context, cash transfers do not constitute “rightful shares,” and ultimately do not strengthen rightsbased citizen-state relations

Essays in political economy: elections, public finance and service delivery in South Africa

Who gets what, when and how? Each of the three papers in this thesis makes a distinct contribution to answering this question in the context of the political economy of South Africa. The first paper examines how South Africa’s public financial management system distributes central government funds to its provinces. Using a unique panel dataset comprising all provinces and three elections over the period 1995-2010, I demonstrate that provinces where the national ruling party has higher vote margins receive higher per capita equitable shares in pre-election years. This result suggests that even in a dominant party framework, electoral competition can function as an incentive to implement political budget cycles. The second paper evaluates how the extension of the franchise affected the delivery of electricity to South African households. The dataset combines nightlight satellite imagery, census data and municipal election results, making it possible to exploit the heterogeneity in the share of newly enfranchised voters across nearly 800 municipalities with a difference-in-differences approach. The analysis demonstrates that enfranchisement has a significant positive effect on household electrification. Moreover, the findings show that political parties have a potential mediating role in accounting for service delivery patterns in new democracies. The third paper addresses the problem of measurement in studying public service delivery by examining a novel methodology for combining census-based data with satellite imagery of the world at night. Using cross-national data and South African census data, the paper provides a roadmap for how to navigate limitations and thus make the most of this technological advance in quantitative social science research

Public Law and Economics

This comprehensive textbook applies economic analysis to public law. The economic analysis of law has revolutionized legal scholarship and teaching in the last half-century, but it has focused mostly on private law, business law, and criminal law. This book extends the analysis to fundamental topics in public law, such as the separation of government powers, regulation by agencies, constitutional rights, and elections. Every public law involves six fundamental processes of government: bargaining, voting, entrenching, delegating, adjudicating, and enforcing. The book devotes two chapters to each process, beginning with the economic theory and then applying the theory to a wide range of puzzles and problems in law. Each chapter concentrates on cases and legal doctrine, showing the relevance of economics to the work of lawyers and judges. Featuring lucid, accessible writing and engaging examples, the book addresses enduring topics in public law as well as modern controversies, including gerrymandering, voter identification laws, and qualified immunity for police

Governing the poor: the transformation of social governance in Argentina and Chile

A crucial phenomenon during the last two decades has been the transformation of social governance. New orientations in social policy have radically altered the roles of the state, market and civil society in social provision. The thesis proposes a framework for understanding this transformation of social governance that links political leaders’strategic calculations to the particular political challenges they face as a result of changes in the socioeconomic environment as well as to the ideas and institutions that shape their reform attempts. Importantly, it shows how the “pluralist” social policy approach that was initiated by governments all over the developing world in the 1990s may lead to different modes of social governance with contrasting effects on statesociety relations. By drawing on a comparative analysis of Argentina and Chile, the thesis shows how this is highly contingent on regime institutions. In Argentina, regime institutions provide politicians with wide discretion in distributing social funds. The result has been a populist mode of social governance in which neo-clientelism serves to politicize the linkages between the political elites and subaltern sectors. In Chile, by contrast, regime institutions provide politicians with very little discretion in distributing social funds. This has resulted in a technocratic mode of social governance in which neo-pluralism serves to depoliticize the linkages between the political elites and subaltern sectors. Both outcomes differ markedly from widely made assumptions that couple the pluralist social policy approach with more participatory governance and poor people’s empowerment

Public Law and Economics

This comprehensive textbook applies economic analysis to public law. The economic analysis of law has revolutionized legal scholarship and teaching in the last half-century, but it has focused mostly on private law, business law, and criminal law. This book extends the analysis to fundamental topics in public law, such as the separation of government powers, regulation by agencies, constitutional rights, and elections. Every public law involves six fundamental processes of government: bargaining, voting, entrenching, delegating, adjudicating, and enforcing. The book devotes two chapters to each process, beginning with the economic theory and then applying the theory to a wide range of puzzles and problems in law. Each chapter concentrates on cases and legal doctrine, showing the relevance of economics to the work of lawyers and judges. Featuring lucid, accessible writing and engaging examples, the book addresses enduring topics in public law as well as modern controversies, including gerrymandering, voter identification laws, and qualified immunity for police

AT THE TURN OF THE TIDE: A FRAMEWORK FOR A POLICY-ORIENTED INQUIRY INTO STRATEGIES FOR THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTIVE PROCESS OF AUTHORITATIVE DECISION IN MEXICO

Articulating a contemporary narrative of constitutional change in Mexico has been my chief preoccupation over the last four years. The coexistence of a constitutional order based on a monistic democratic model in which normal politics are the exclusive track for constitutional-making and a strong symbolic power of the constitution, has resulted in a seemingly unassailable rampart against the more modern approaches of constitutionalism in which the People are increasingly claiming ownership of the constitution. Furthermore, enduring constitutional inheritances that are no longer suited to present practices, perspectives, expectations and demands muddle further meaningful constitutional change. Authoritarian inheritances coexist with pressing new demands for self-government. Over the last two decades, Mexico’s transition to democracy has been akin to a child learning to walk. A satisfactory democratic outcome has not been achieved, because the constitutive process of authoritative decision-making, a critical part of any transition, has not departed from the traditional Mexican decision-making process. This has been a process that supported an authoritarian regime in which a one-party elite monopolized the power of decision-making. At the center of the problem of transition in Mexico— and perhaps other similarly situated states— is (as we will see) the dichotomy between power and authority, as well as the identity of the effective participants in the constitutive process

Unitarian Members of Parliament in the Nineteenth Century: A Catalogue

This is an alphabetical listing of biographical data on Unitarians and supposed Unitarians who sat in the House of Commons during the nineteenth century

Health systems and social values: the case of the South African health system

Health systems are complex social systems – driven by people and the relationships between them, characterised by feedback loops and path-dependency, and open to contextual influences. This entails that social values are an important determinant of health system change. In addition, health systems play a vital social role as generators of social value. However, the influence of social values on health systems is an under-explored field of study, and the evidence-based on the topic is weakened by conceptual confusion, a lack of theoretical models to support rigorous research, a dearth of empirical evidence, and methodological challenges attendant to the study of intangible factors such as values. In this theory-building study I explore the relationship between health systems and social values. Firstly, I use evidence mapping, interpretive synthesis and scoping review approaches to identify gaps in the existing evidence-base, develop an initial explanatory theory for the social value of health systems, and integrate insights from social sciences to establish a working definition of values, explore the social dynamics of values, and develop an account of the relationship between social systems – including health systems – and social values. Secondly, I conduct a case study of social values in the South African National Health Insurance policy process in its social and political context to gather empirical evidence on the role of social values in health system reform processes, and the mechanisms by which health systems shape social values. Lastly, I integrate the findings from the first two phases to develop a conceptual framework of the relationship between health systems and social values and offer methodological and conceptual insights intended to support further research on the topic. This study finds that social values, often borne out of social and political history, are cemented in health systems through daily practices and procedures. In this way, health systems serve to shape social values – by changing the way people think about what is just with respect to healthcare, their health rights and entitlements, and the appropriate role of the state in providing healthcare and regulating the behaviour of other health system actors