Comparative Executive Power In Europe

This book provides an up-to-date interdisciplinary assessment of the accountability of executive power in different European States and at the European Union level. From a legal perspective, it wonders to what extent the forms of responsibility and accountability of executive power have evolved in terms of legal technique or framework. From a historical perspective, it looks at the evolution of responsibility paradigms. From a political science perspective, it examines responsibility and the expectations of European democracies in terms of authority and efficiency. The volume also has a quantitative aspect identifying, gathering and analysing statistical material on responsibility and accountability in current political regimes. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers, academics, and policy-makers in constitutional law and politics, public law, comparative law, comparative politics, legal history and government.

This book discusses the major issues currently affecting the accountability of executive power in Europe. The work is divided into three parts. The first examines the territorial dimension including unitary, regional and federal. It discusses how territorial actors participate in strengthening or weakening the implementation of accountability of executive power in modern democratic States. The second part explores the links between national traditions and European accountability of executive power to establish a common European culture. The third and final part focuses on how to build a truly multidisciplinary approach to accountability of executive power and draws on legal, historical and political approaches. The volume will be an invaluable resource for researchers, academics and policy-makers in constitutional law and politics, public law, comparative law, legal history and government.

This book examines the use of presidential powers in Central and East Europe between 1990 and 2010. Focussing on presidential vetoes and the formation of governments, it maps patterns of presidential activism and its determinants across nine democracies. Thereby, it combines the analysis of original quantitative data on the use of presidential powers with in-depth case studies in an innovative mixed-methods framework. Based on regression analyses and unique insights from numerous elite interviews, the study shows strong support for the hitherto insufficiently tested assumption that popularly elected presidents are more active than their indirectly elected counterparts. As one of the first comprehensive comparative studies of presidential activism and veto power in Europe, this book will be a key resource not only for area specialists but also for scholars of presidential studies, comparative government, and executives.

This book examines the changes in the career experiences and profiles of 350 European prime ministers in 26 European democracies from 1945 to 2020. It builds on a theoretical framework, which claims that the decline of party government along with the increase of populism, technocracy, and the presidentialization of politics have influenced the careers of prime ministers over the past 70 years. The findings show that prime ministers’ career experiences became less political and more technical. Moreover, their career profiles shifted from a traditional type of ‘party-agent’ to a new type of ‘party-principal’. These changes affected the recruitment of executive elites and their political representation in European democracies, albeit with different intensity and speed.

"The author's primary purpose is to access how the euro-crisis and the responses thereto have changed the constitutional architecutre of economic governance in Europe"--Page v.

A comprehensive regional study of women in the political executive power.

The 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington prompted a "global war on terror" that led to a significant shift in the balance of executive-legislative power in the United States towards the executive at the expense of the Congress. In this volume, seasoned scholars examine the extent to which terrorist threats and counter-terrorism policies led uniformly to the growth of executive or Government power at the expense of legislatures and parliaments in other political systems, including those of Australia, Britain, Canada, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, and Russia. The contributors question whether the "crises" created by 9/11 and subsequent attacks, led inexorably to executive strengthening at the expense of legislatures and parliaments. The research reported finds that democratic forces served to mitigate changes to the balance of legislative and executive power to varying degrees in different political systems. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of Comparative Government Politics and International Politics.

"The traditional state model, based on a domestic approach to rule of law, is currently evolving towards a new one, where international factors and relations play a prominent role. This trend is also characterized by the pre-eminence of executive powers, along with a weakening of parliamentary balances and judicial controls. This work seeks to answer two essential questions concerning the rule of law: how can citizens challenge public decisions affecting them, and what kinds of public decisions can be judicially controlled. Two groups of legal regulations are considered in this analysis: the so-called European legal tradition, covering nine national laws strongly influenced by Council of Europe legal standards since 1950, and the more recent body of European Union law. The authors conclude that the issue of individual guarantees vis-à-vis public powers should be carefully monitored in Europe."--