1,720,975 research outputs found
Constitutional Degradation in a Time of Coronavirus: Reflecting on Governmental Accountability in the United Kingdom and Italy
No full textThe pandemic acted as an accelerator of pre-existing trends that see an overall dominance of Governments over legislative bodies, which are increasingly struggling to oversee executive power. This was the case both in the UK and in Italy, where the governments adopted specific institutional arrangements to manage the health crisis which did not necessarily include a prior involvement of the legislative body. An overview of the legal framework and of the instruments that the two legal orders used to face the pandemic highlights a common trend, and that is the preference for executive law-making to manage emergencies. The way statutory instruments and statutory decrees are used respectively in the UK and in Italy are issues that pre-exist the pandemic, but an analysis of their use throughout the emergency particularly sheds light on specific structural weaknesses which are evident in both exceptional and normal times, and that relate to the two Parliaments' difficulties in keeping up with the executives' law-making activity. Considering that Parliament's inability to oversee Government gives rise to a series of problems which relate more generally to the institutional arrangement of a parliamentary democracy, it is necessary to reflect about Parliament's traditional functions and ask whether these are still adequate as the legal and political systems change. The oversight and steering functions still are one of the most fundamental and determining elements of a parliamentary form of government, but as the two experiences have showed, procedures need to be re-adapted as the Government has become the main legislative actor. For these reasons it is worth exploring post-legislative scrutiny as an instrument to hold the executive into account and to counterbalance its increasing monopoly of decision-making
Costitutional Transitions and Democratic Consolidation in Asia at the Beginning of the XXI Century
No full textConstitutional transitions and democratic consolidation in Asia at the beginning of XXI cenutr
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Transformative Constitutionalism and Constitutional Courts in the European Legal Space. Germany and Italy in a Comparative Perspective.
No full textThe present contribution aims to understand whether the developments occurring in
the activity of two very famous constitutional courts, namely the German and the Italian ones, are compliant with the conception of separation of powers designed by contemporary constitutionalism, or, on the contrary, may represent the prelude of a democratic regression. The article also examines whether the Italian legal system may be considered an example of transformative constitutionalism
Fighting Europarties' Democratic Backsliding: Arguments for a Multilevel Approach
No full textAccording to art. 3, para. 1, point c) of Regulation (EU, Euratom) no. 1141/2014 on the statute and funding of European political parties and European political foundations, «[a political alliance that wishes to apply to register as a European political party] must observe, in particular in its programme and in its activities, the values on which the Union is founded, as expressed in art. 2 TEU (...)». For this reason, the same Regulation provides for an ad hoc verification procedure (art. 10, para. 3 and 4) that may end with the deregistration of a transnational political alliance which is deemed to violate EU's founding values. This article aims at understanding whether European political parties showing complicity with their "illiberal" member parties (such as EPP and ECR with regard to, respectively, Fidesz and PiS) can be targeted by means of the horizontal rule of law oversight mechanism. Although - at least at first reading - legislation currently in force seems to take a "unit" approach that leaves no room for assessment of national (member) parties' behaviour, at a closer look, the formulation of art. 3, para. 1, point c) of the 2014 Regulation does not seem to completely prevent a "multilevel" approach: in fact, by stating that Europarties must respect EU's founding values «in particular» in their programmes and activities, the provision allows the Authority for European political parties and European political foundations to: 1) assess transnational alliances' actions/omissions aimed at condoning or conniving members' activities that favour the erosion of liberal democracy at the national level; 2) consider such attitudes as evidence of an EU values breach. However, the above clearly suggests that the scope of art. 3, para. 1, point c) should be more clearly set out, in order to determine the relevance of the national party dimension when it comes to verifying transnational alliances' observance of art. 2 TEU
Constitutional Design v. Constitutional Degradation: Strengthening the Rule of Law in Bosnia-Herzegovina
No full textThe concepts of “constitutional degradation” and of “divided societies” are closely linked, as the former is at the core of the challenges posed by the latter, namely societies divided along ethno-cultural lines, and in which these lines are relevant markers of political mobilization. Indeed, the outcome of the tensions among groups may be violent (e.g., civil conflicts, ethnic cleansing, genocide), but even in absence of violence they may have a corrosive effect on the constitutional structure of the State. Consequently, this paper addresses two aspects: (1) how the processes of constitutional degradation take place in divided societies, and (2) to what extent they depend on the adopted model of constitutional design. Given the complexity of the subject, this article aims at exploring the topic by focusing on a specific matter in a determinate case study, namely the judiciary in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Indeed, Bosnia is a classic example of a divided society where the model of constitutional design introduced a complex judicial system. First, the paper deals with the theoretical framework of the concept of constitutional degradation in divided societies and focuses on the judiciary as a vulnerable area undergoing a process of degradation. Then, it examines how the Bosnian constitution designed the judiciary, and how the consociational model introduced by the Dayton Peace Agreement influenced its organization, especially at the state level. Finally, the article explores the problematic aspects emerging from the process of degradation, by taking into account the key priorities set by the 2019 Commission Opinion and the findings of the Priebe Report. Moreover, it recalls the proposals of constitutional reforms currently lost in the stalemate of the Bosnian political institutions, caused by the Dayton-system itself. This last element leads to the overall conclusion: the impact of constitutional design arrangements on divided societies should not be underestimated, as it can easily lead to a process of constitutional degradation
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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