'Uncategorized' Category
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Sep022010
Call for papers, Parties, Mayors and Councillors in Western Europe
Convenors: Oscar Mazzoleni (Lausanne) and Duncan McDonnell (Birmingham/Torino)
Deadline for paper proposals: 17 September 2010
Party change and crisis has been a key theme for political science in recent decades, in particular as regards the capacity of Western European parties to adapt to a series of new structural challenges. One of the less [...]
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Aug122010
How dissentient is the UK Supreme Court?
Most journalists don’t care much about the law. The finer points of multiple concurring opinions are hardly catnip for the press corps — if indeed one can talk of a corps covering the UK Supreme Court rather than a few isolated snipers. If the Supreme Court is ever to gain widespread media attention — and [...]
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Aug052010
Party financing bleg
Anyone know how much, as a percent, each party asks its deputies and senators to contribute to the party from their indennità? or how this is enforced? or if there’s a paper trial?
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Aug022010
Berlusconi tries to win back parliamentary support
This is why it pays to establish your own micro-party in Italian politics.
And this is when Berlusconi is at his best. It’s not quite the LBJ treatment, but I imagine it’s almost as effective. -
Jul302010
Fini v. Berlusconi, round ten
So Berlusconi and Fini have fallen out, and the Popolo della Libertà has split.
Berlusconi wants Fini to leave the post of President of the Chamber of Deputies, but, as I mentioned before, there are no provisions for no-confidencing the President of the Chamber.
Berlusconi’s allies are giving the example of Sandro Pertini, who offered his resignation [...] -
Jun282010
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Jun022010
Talk at the LSE today
Here is the paper I’ll be presenting at LSE today, a slightly revised version of my PSA paper with Christel Koop.
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May202010
The press in the Gogol Bordello
Fresh from… well, fresh from doing something, one presumes, the Italian parliament is ready to vote on a law hamstringing the press even further (the so-called <a href=”http://www.repubblica.it/politica/2010/05/19/news/senato_accelera-4186524/?ref=HRER1-1″>legge bavaglio</a>).
The main provisions of the law relate to the publication of leaks from public prosecutors’ office: in particular, a ban on any information before the initial hearing, [...] -
May172010
Judicial diversity
So people have noted that if Elena Kagan becomes a Supreme Court Justice, every member of that Court will have been to either Harvard or Yale.
It could be worse: every member of the Bulgarian Constitutional Cour has been to the same university. -
May132010
Prediction: LibCon coalition to last full parliamentary term
I was inspired by this post at The Monkey Cage to repeat an exercise I’ve previously carried out for Italy: namely, to calculate the expected duration of the new cabinet using some off-the-shelf models. I think it’ll last a full five year term — here’s why.