riccardo pelizzo

Rethinking Crises and the Accretion of Executive Power: The "War on Terror" and Conditionality Evidence from Seven Political Systems

riccardo pelizzo et al. — Mon, 13 May 2013 06:43:01 PDT

External shocks to democratic systems are likely to threaten the stability of relations between the executive and the representative assembly. This article investigates the impact of the so-called “war on terror” on executive-assembly relations in comparative perspective. We analyze data from seven countries, which varied in terms of form of government, level of democracy, culture, social structure, and geographic location, to evaluate its effects. We find that whereas in some systems the “war on terror” altered the balance of power between the executive and the assembly, in other cases the extant balance of power was preserved. We postulate various conditions under which the constitutionally sanctioned balance of power is most likely to be preserved in times of crisis.

strengthening legislatures: some lessons from the pacific region

riccardo pelizzo — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 04:42:12 PDT

strengthening legislatures: some lessons from the pacific region

riccardo pelizzo — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 04:41:30 PDT

ICT and the transformation of political communication

riccardo pelizzo — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 23:35:58 PDT

dataset on parliamentary libraries

riccardo pelizzo — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 01:04:18 PST

These data were used by Miller, Pelizzo and Stapenhurst (2004) for their paper on parliamentary libraries, institutes and offices. Those willing to use these data should kindly cite the paper where we originally presented the data. The paer can be cited as: Pelizzo, Riccardo, Stapenhurst, Rick and Miller, Robert, Parliamentary Libraries, Institutes and Offices: Sources of Parliamentary Information (2004). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1026371 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1026371

a strategic interaction model

riccardo pelizzo — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 00:54:42 PST

The paper argues that institutional change and performance can bothe be explained on the basis of a simple startegic interaction model. The purpose of this presentation is to sketch this model.

Who was Gottfried Dietze?

riccardo pelizzo — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 23:53:33 PST

Published in 2006, this short note provides an overview of Dietze's work and ideas

A new index of legislative oversight

riccardo pelizzo — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 01:26:42 PST

The purpose of this paper is to present a new index of legislative oversight. Building on the work by Stapenhurst (2011), who argued that a proper index of legislative oversight capacity should reflect not only legislatures’ internal oversight capacity but also the impact of contextual factors, we devise and propose a modified version of the Stapenhurst. The results of the empirical analyses presented in the paper sustain the claim that when properly operationalized and measured, legislative oversight capacity is a good predictor of legislative oversight effectiveness and other policy relevant results.

Timbuktu: a lesson in underdevelopment

riccardo pelizzo — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 06:50:40 PDT

Th e purpose of the present paper is to investigate Timbuktu’s economic decline in the three centuries elapsed between 1526, when Leo Africanus reached the Mysterious City, and 1830, when the fi rst European explorers arrived in Timbuktu. It is argued that Timbuktu’s decline was neither an accident nor the result of inevitable natural conditions. Timbuktu’s decay was the product of historical and social forces. Specifi cally, it is argued that Timbuktu lost power and prestige because its market decayed. However, it is also suggested that no single factor can account individually for this event. Th e crisis of Timbuktu’s market was provoked by the interaction of two factors: fi rst, the general decline of Mediterranean trade resulting from the emergence of the new Trans-Oceanic trade, and the crisis of the system’s component parts at the individual level, and their inability to function as a system; and second, the institutional decay which followed the fall of the Songhai empire, which made Trans-Saharan trade particularly risky and, henceforth, economically ineffi cient. Building on this, the paper ends on a methodological note as it underlines the theoretical inability of monocausal explanations to capture the inherent complexity of social phenomena.

parliamentary libraries

riccardo pelizzo — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 04:37:08 PDT

the presentation shows that there is great variation in the capacity of parliamentary libraries, that capacity is multifaceted, and that the various facets of parliamentary capacity are strongly correlated and the capacity is strongly affected by institutionalization

the cartel party and the italian case

riccardo pelizzo — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 04:22:46 PDT

Cartel party literature has generated three lines of research investigating the transformation of party organizations, the party system, and policy output. The third line of research, which could be defined as the political economy of the cartel party, has shown that party systems resemble oligopolistic markets in two respects: the policy output has changed, and voters have the impression that changes in political supply did not represent adjustments to the transformation of voters’ demands. Yet literature on this subject has not provided any evidence to sustain the claim that parties’ behavior resembles the behavior of oligopolistic firms in a cartel. The purpose of the present article is to show that the legislative behavior of Italian parties gives the impression that Italian parties are engaged in collusive practices and that, for this reason, it is appropriate to regard the Italian party system not only as oligopolistic, but also as a cartel.

Cartel parties and cartel party systems

riccardo pelizzo — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 04:18:23 PDT

The transformation of Western European Party Systems was associated with the emergence of a new model of party organization: the cartel party.The cartel party differs from previous party models because it is increasingly less an agent of society, has interests on its own, depends on state subsidies and struggles to preserve the conditions under whihc it prospers by distorting electoral competition. Through such a distortion the cartel of parties resembles the behavior of oligopolistic firms. The purpose of this book is to investigate whether and to what extent patterns of inter-party competition resemble the functioning of oligopolistic markets.The results of our comparative analysis reveal that there is a growing gap between voters' demands and party system's political supply. In addition to arguing the implications of these findings for the theory of responsible party government, this books shows that the growing gap between voters' demands and party systems' supply creates the condition for the rise of the parties of the New Extreme Right

Party Positions or party direction?

riccardo pelizzo — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 03:31:54 PDT

The use .f the party manifesto data (PMD) to identqy parties’ position in the political space provida a rather distorted picture of the Italian party syJlern. Three possible explanations fbr this are explored, namely that the Italian party system is exceptional, that there are jlaws in [he data and there might be flaws in the methodology. The article argues that none of these explanations is jully satisJuctory and advances the hypothesis that the PMD left-right scores do not indicate parties’ posilions but instead indicate parties’ direction, that is how (and how much) parlies move to adjusl to changing political conditions und to remain competitive. Statistical analyses, pet-formed to tesl the validity of the directional interpretation qf the leji-right .scores, support this new interpretation.

legislative ethics and codes of conduct

riccardo pelizzo et al. — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 03:26:38 PDT

This chapter discusses the difference between codes of ethics and codes of conduct, their role, their function and their distribution. The chapter also pays some attention to what makes codes of conduct most effective.

Political parties

riccardo pelizzo — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 03:15:08 PDT

Building on the work by Huntington (1968) and Panebianco (1983) this chapters discusses the relationship between corruption and the inadequate institutionalization of political parties.

Party Direction

riccardo pelizzo — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 02:02:09 PDT

Building on Pelizzo (2003), this paper investigates whether and to what extent parties succeed in modifying voter perception of party position

an ethical map of indonesian MPs

riccardo pelizzo et al. — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 01:55:58 PDT

Building on the work by Mancuso (1993, 1995), the paper presents the results of an elite survey conducted among members of the DPR and DPD in 2006. The data analysis reveals the distribution of ethical preferences among MPs and the existence of four different types of MPs

the political economy of polarized pluralism

riccardo pelizzo et al. — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 01:49:36 PDT

Building on the work of Giovanni Sartori (1976), this paper argues that the polarization of a party system is not simply a function of the depth of cleavages and cleavage structure, but also reflects contextual conditions. Specifically we show that as economic conditions worsen, polarization increases and may lead to constitutional breakdown

Le virtù del clientelismo

riccardo pelizzo — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 04:00:51 PDT

The paper provides a critical discussion of Simona Piattoni's Le virtù del clientelismo.

Le teorie del segno neoplatoniche

riccardo pelizzo — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 03:01:55 PDT

the paper investigates the theories of sign developed by three of the most important neoplatonic philosophers