Unifying EU Representation at the IMF Executive Board

The consequences of consolidating EU representation at the IMF Executive Board by regrouping the 27 Member States into two EU constituencies, euro area and non-euro area, are discussed. In particular we contrast voting power as proposed by Penrose-Banzhaf (PBI) and Shapley-Shubik (SSI), and other respectively related measures of blocking (or veto) power and decision efficiency as proposed by Coleman and Paterson. Hitherto, IMF-specific literature is PBI-based. However, theoretical reasons and empirical plausibility arguments for the SSI are compelling. The (SSI) voting power of the two large constituencies – U.S.A. and euro area – reflects their corresponding voting shares over a range of majority thresholds, whereas PBI voting power reduces to only half of vote share at the majority threshold of 85% needed for some Executive Board decisions. SSI-related estimates of veto power are generally lower than the Coleman indices. Correspondingly, the efficiency of collective decision-making is considerably underestimated by the Coleman measure;International Monetary Fund, European Union, Voting power analysis, Veto power

One Person, One Weighted Vote

This Article argues that weighted voting should be used to comply with the constitutional one-person, one-vote requirement while preserving representation for political units on the legislative body. First, this Article demonstrates that weighted voting satisfies the quantitative one-person, one-vote requirement by equalizing the mathematic weight of each vote. Second, this Article demonstrates that weighted voting has the potential to remedy several negative consequences of equal- population districts. Specifically, this Article argues that by preserving local political boundaries, weighted voting eliminates the decennial redistricting process that gives rise to claims of partisan gerrymandering, enables local governments to function both as administrative arms of the state and as independent political communities and provides a format for regional governance. Third, this Article recognizes that while weighted- voting equalizes the mathematic weight of each vote, it does not equalize all aspects of legislative representation. In particular, this Article explains that weighted-voting generates inequality in the functional representation each voter receives, inflates the political power and voting power of legislators from more populous districts, and increases the risk of minority vote dilution. Though the Supreme Court has never addressed the constitutionality of weighted voting, this Article argues that weighted voting does not violate the Equal Protection Clause. Instead, this Article maintains that the Equal Protection Clause does not require equal functional representation or legislator power, and that the Supreme Court permits the use of at-large voting systems that have a similar capacity to dilute minority voice. Thus, this Article concludes that while it is important to recognize the tradeoffs inherent in weighted-voting apportionment plans, these tradeoffs do not preclude their use

Ethnicity and Elections under Authoritarianism: The Case of Kazakhstan

Despite the ethnicisation of power since independence in 1991, Kazakhstan has managed to maintain political stability without experiencing large-scale mobilisation to oppose Kazakh domination. This paper examines government strategy to avoid ethnic voting in an attempt to explain why ethnic divisions were rarely reflected in the struggle for power in the republic. While the arbitrary use of legal provisions considerably limited participation in elections by ethnic leaders, powerful pro-president parties that exhibited a cross-ethnic character were created to curtail ethnically based movements. The control strategy in elections aimed not simply at ethnicising the parliament in favour of Kazakhs, but at having loyal Russians and other minorities represented in the legislature through nomination by the president and catch-all pro-regime parties, or through the presidential consultative body—Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan. This well-controlled representation of minorities served not only to placate non-Kazakhs but also to provide legitimacy for the Kazakh-dominated leadership by projecting the image of cross-ethnic support for the president and some degree of power-sharing.Ethnic minority, Election, Kazakhstan, Minority Ethnic group, Politics

Fair votes in practice

Criteria for a good voting system have been given particularly careful scrutiny in recent years, with general agreement that the core values are fair results, voter power and choice, and local representation. This paper reexamines the basic ideas of three widely used voting systems, the Single Transferable Vote, List-PR, and Mixed Member Proportional (MMP); and evaluates their performance in terms of both principles and practice. It looks particularly closely at proportionality, examining three aspects:n linearity, the threshold for representation and the threshold for gaining a majority. As regards local representation, an important question is how to design multi-member constituencies. It will be argued that using constituencies based on natural demographic boundaries (such as local government areas) can combine better local representation with stability over time and better proportionality. STV is unsurprisingly best for voter empowerment and choice, as those are parts of its basic idea. Broad conclusions are summarised within the Summary on page 1 of the paper. The paper makes use of recent public availability of large preferential voting data sets for STV elections, making possible new analyses of how STV functions in practice, and of voter behaviour, particularly examining how voters' second preferences relate to their first preferences.Comment: 31 pages, 12 figures, submitted to J Roy Statist Soc A as a potential Discussion Pape

Ethnicity and Elections under Authoritarianism: The Case of Kazakhstan

Despite the ethnicisation of power since independence in 1991, Kazakhstan has managed tomaintain political stability without experiencing large-scale mobilisation to oppose Kazakhdomination. This paper examines government strategy to avoid ethnic voting in an attempt toexplain why ethnic divisions were rarely reflected in the struggle for power in the republic.While the arbitrary use of legal provisions considerably limited participation in elections byethnic leaders, powerful pro-president parties that exhibited a cross-ethnic character were createdto curtail ethnically based movements. The control strategy in elections aimed not simply atethnicising the parliament in favour of Kazakhs, but at having loyal Russians and otherminorities represented in the legislature through nomination by the president and catch-allpro-regime parties, or through the presidential consultative body—Assembly of the People ofKazakhstan. This well-controlled representation of minorities served not only to placatenon-Kazakhs but also to provide legitimacy for the Kazakh-dominated leadership by projectingthe image of cross-ethnic support for the president and some degree of power-sharing

Reinventing Black Politics: Senate Districts, Minority Vote Dilution and the Preservation of the Second Reconstruction

The United States Senate is an unsung power in the tripartite division of our constitutional government. Yet, through its advice and consent role in the appointment of federal judges, the Senate\u27s actions permeate the separation of powers and the daily lives of Americans, at times eclipsing the authority of the President himself. One need only witness President Clinton\u27s recent suurender of power to the G.O.P.- controlled Senate in the selection of a federal court of appeals nominee to the Ninth Circiut to understand the extraordinary power vested in this body. See Neil A. Lewis, Clinton Agrees to G.O.P. Deal on Judgeships, N.Y. TIMms, May 4, 1998, at Al. Perhaps no groups of Americans have been more affected by the Senate\u27s advice and consent power than racial minorities, who have historically looked to the federal judiciary for protection of their civil rights. The increasingly conservative cast of the federal judiciary, however, has led to retrenchment rather than protection of minority interests. The character of the judiciary, in turn, is in large part attributable to the Senate which must confirm members of the federal bench. The vicious cycle perpetuated by a disproportionately White and conservative Senate confirming a disproportionately White and conservative federal bench is abundantly evident in the Supreme Court\u27s recent voting rights jurisprudence, which has erected unnecessary and unprincipled barriers to the creation of majority-minority legislative districts. Without reform of the manner in which Senators are elected, such that minorities have a greater voice in that institution, further erosion of minority voting rights is inevitable. While other commentators have argued that a constitutional amendment to eliminate the equal representation of the states in the Senate would aid minorities, in this Article, Professor Smith finds the tools for reforming the Senate in the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Drawing on his earlier work in which he argued that states may voluntarily create United States Senate districts to aid minority voters, Professor Smith now makes the further and more controversial claim that states can be compelled to create majorityminority or minority-enhanced Senate districts in order to remedy minority vote dilution. Professor Smith discovers support for this novel proposition in the text and legislative history of the Voting Rights Act and in the legislative history of the Seventeenth Amendment, which, contrary to its placid, race-neutral text, focuses primarily on minority disenfranchisement and attempts to prevent the implied repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment. Employing illustrative Senate districts and original empirical analysis of voting returns, Professor Smith demonstrates that his proposed remedial Senate districts will avoid the obstacles created by the Supreme Court\u27s recent reverse-racial gerrymandering cases and thus will reinvent Black politics by infusing the Senate with more representative voices

Corporate governance in Germany : institutional background and empirical results

Corporate governance is currently a topic of great worldwide interest to academics, legislators, and practitioners. In addition to several academic articles, it has prompted active involvement of the OECD, the EU, the German Monopolkommission, the Bundestag, and several other institutions. Especially in comparison to the Anglo-American system, German corporate governance is characterized by lesser reliance on capital markets and outside investors, but a stronger reliance on large inside investors and financial institutions to achieve efficiency in the corporate sector. Since data on German corporations have become more easily available in recent years, the discussion has lately become more scientific and started to focus on studying the benefits and costs of the German system. The empirical results presented in this survey focus on the relation between ownership structure and firm performance in Germany. I summarize several empirical studies on this topic and put them into context to the institutional and legal environment in Germany. Due to data restrictions on unlisted firms, most results are based on corporations trading in official markets, representing the first-tier stock market in Germany. These firms have to publish large blockholdings exceeding 25% in their annual report. While this type of ownership data has been accessible for several years, information on voting control has only become available with the 1995 transposition of the European Union’s Transparency Directive into national law (Wertpapierhandelsgesetz, WpHG)