The courts in Canada have often been cast, by both courts and legal scholars, as 'umpires' or 'arbiters' of the federal-provincial division of powers - umpires or arbiters that have the exclusive, or at least decisive, authority to clarify and enforce, and resolve disputes about, 'who does what' in the federal system. However, the image conveyed by these metaphors underestimates the role that the federal and provincial political branches play in the federal system, by working out their own solutions, in the intergovernmental arena, both directly and indirectly, where questions and disputes arise about how jurisdiction is and should be allocated. The image conveyed by the umpire or arbiter metaphors also sits uncomfortably with the facilitative role that the Supreme Court of Canada has carved out for itself in its recent division of powers decisions, a role that casts the courts as facilitators of these instances of intergovernmental dialogue. This doctoral dissertation challenges, and moves beyond, the umpire and arbiter metaphors. It examines the political safeguards available to the provinces in Canada to prevent, or limit, perceived federal encroachments on provincial jurisdiction, in the process highlighting the role that the political branches play in Canada in working out their own allocations of jurisdiction, outside of the courts. It describes, and critically evaluates, the facilitative role carved out by the Court in its recent division of powers decisions, identifying various reasons to be skeptical of a facilitative role that casts the courts as facilitators of intergovernmental dialogue. Finally, and with an eye to future research, it briefly outlines an alternative facilitative role that focuses on facilitating deliberation about the division of powers implications of particular initiatives, arguing that it would be premature to dismiss facilitative approaches to judicial review altogether.

Thesis (PhD--Māori Studies)--University of Auckland, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 401-410).

Ao lado da liberdade de expressão, a Constituição de 1824 garantiu o direito da sociedade se fazer ouvir pelas autoridades: o Artigo 179, parágrafo 30 estabelece que todo o cidadão poderá apresentar por escrito ao Poder Legislativo e ao Executivo reclamações, queixas, ou petições. A presente dissertação tem por objetivo compreender como este direito constitucional foi utilizado pelos cidadãos brasileiros durante o período em que a ordem monárquica constitucional se consolidava no Brasil. Durante os primeiros anos do Segundo Reinado, diversos grupos comerciantes, médicos, advogados, manufatureiros, autoridades locais, padres, proprietários de terra, votantes, eleitores etc. estabeleceram uma relação direta com a elite política que moldava as instituições do Império. A análise das petições que chegaram à Câmara dos Deputados na década de 1840 e do debate parlamentar que nela se desenvolveu indica que importantes mudanças políticas do período como a reforma eleitoral, a aprovação do Código Comercial, a reforma judiciária foram influenciadas por setores da sociedade brasileira que se organizaram para exercer o direito de petição. Por intermédio da atividade peticionária, governantes e governados se integraram em um diálogo que permeou a resolução de alguns dos mais relevantes assuntos concernentes à realidade brasileira. Este diálogo fez do ideal do regime representativo algo tangível para diversos setores que compunham o pacto político nacional. / Together with the freedom of thought and speech, the Constitution of 1824 provided Brazilian society with the right to be heard by authorities: Article 179, Paragraph 30 states that all citizens will be able to present to the Legislative or the Executive Power written grievances, complaints, or petitions. This dissertation attempts to explore how this constitutional right was used by Brazilian citizens during the time that monarchical order was being consolidated. During the reign of D. Pedro 2nd, many groups, including businessmen, manufacturers, doctors, lawyers, local authorities, priests, landowners, voters, electors, and others, established a direct relation with the political elite responsible for molding the new institutions. The analysis of the petitions sent to the Chamber of Deputies by the 1840s and the parliamentary debate ensued provide an indication that important political changes of that period (i.e., electoral reform, approval of the Commercial Code, judicial reform) were influenced by the participation of certain sections of Brazilian society that were able to organize themselves and successfully use their right of petition. Mediated by such petitionary activity, governors and governed took part in a dialogue that led to the resolution of some of the most important issues concerning Brazilian reality. That dialogue made the ideal of representative government tangible to many groups that formed the prevailing national political landscape.

Orientadores: Eduardo Guimarães, Jean-Claude Zancarini / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-12T14:01:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 GimenesMoralis_Edileusa_D.pdf: 1735406 bytes, checksum: 39f26d9196ab74ad596076174789a5e7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Resumo: O homem é visto, por alguns estudiosos, como signo da necessidade e não manifestação da inteligência. Dito de outro modo, o homem deixa de agir pela razão quando a necessidade oprime a sua inteligência. Logo, estaria na apresentação do dissenso como uma reunião conflituosa de dois mundos que encontramos o que lhe é valioso, o denominador comum: o argumento. Por meio do argumento, o homem político vê dois mundos num só, daqueles que falam e daqueles que não falam. Pelo paradoxo das ordens políticas do comando, o comando do igual se sobrepõe ao desigual. Nesta ordem, do domínio de uns sobre os outros, a mudança só ocorre se o homem deixar de ser um agente passivo para se tornar ativo. Têm-se, então, duas ordens heterogêneas que estabelecem relações diferentes, por se vincular a leis diferentes. Inserido na teoria da Semântica Enunciativa, este trabalho teve o objetivo de refletir sobre a prática política de um ator político, Dante de Oliveira, em um momento específico da história do Brasil, que ficou conhecido como Movimento das Diretas Já, ocorrido entre 1983 e meados de 1984. Seu interesse esteve nos desdobramentos e nas conseqüências que este acontecimento produziu sobre as práticas políticas deste político quanto de outros. Buscou-se analisar sua proposta de emenda constitucional (conhecida como emenda Dante de Oliveira ou emenda das diretas) e acompanhar seus desdobramentos. A hipótese fundou-se no dizer de que este acontecimento enunciativo aparece como produtor da ocasião e da oportunidade específica de um ator político específico: o então deputado federal Dante de Oliveira. Foi por um conjunto de discursos políticos, proferidos pelo próprio ator político Dante que se transitou para realizar as análises. Na trajetória de suas práticas discursivas, interessou, em particular, a Emenda Constitucional PEC/5/1983 ou Emenda Dante de Oliveira que objetivava o fim da ditadura no Brasil, por meio da exigência de eleição direta para Presidente da República. Assim, o corpus constitui-se de fragmentos dos discursos proferidos durante o Movimento das Diretas Já!, construídos dentro de um regime militar. As análises procuraram estudar a argumentação de textos do corpus, bem como o funcionamento da designação da expressão "eleições diretas", e mais especificamente "diretas". Como ator político, Dante de Oliveira teve uma boa chance e uma boa oportunidade, na medida em que sua proposta se articulava de modo particular às aspirações do povo, naquele momento, por meio de um projeto audacioso. Como afirma Zancarini e Fournel (2002), é preciso saber avaliar uma conjuntura e traçar objetivos que respondam aos interesses do político e do povo pela ''boa chance e oportunidade''. Foi esta participação política de Dante de Oliveira que refinou sua biografia e a inscreveu na história com seu próprio nome: Emenda Dante de Oliveira. / Abstract: Man is seen by some researchers as a sign of necessity, and not as manifestation of intelligence. In other words, man's action is not oriented by reason when his intelligence is oppressed by necessity. So, it is in the presentation of dissention because of the conflicting meeting of two worlds what is precious to him, a common denominator: the argument. Through the argument, the political man sees two worlds in one, i.e., the world of people who speaks and the world of people who does not speak. In the paradox of political order of command, the command of equal is superposed to the unequal. In this order of domination of one on the others, changes came if man changes his role from active agent to passive agent. Different relations are placed by two heterogeneous orders because they are linked to different laws. Supported by the Enunciative Semantics, this work aims to be an inquiry on the political practices of the political actor Dante de Oliveira in a specific moment of Brazilian history in 1983 and the beginning of 1984: the popular movement Diretas Já!. Our interest is concerned with the unfolding and the consequences this political movement produced in the political practices of this man of politics and others. It was analyzed his Constitution Mending (The Dante de Oliveira Mending or Diretas Já! Mending) and its unfolding. Our hypothesis is founded by the assumption of this enunciative event as generator of the occasion and the specific opportunity of a specific political actor: the then congressman Dante de Oliveira. The analysis is concerned with a sample of political discourses delivered by the proper political actor Dante. In the course of his political practices this work is concerned specially with the Constitution Mending PEC/5/1983 or the Dante de Oliveira Mending. This mending aimed the end of dictatorship in Brazil, and required direct elections for president of the country. Consequently, the corpus of research is composed by analyses of discursive fragments delivered in the course of the military government Diretas Já!. In presenting a daring project the political actor Dante de Oliveira had a good chance and opportunity in that moment while his proposal was articulated in a particular way with people desire. According to Zancarini & Fournel (2002), it is necessary to consider circumstances and establish objectives that answer to the interests of the politician and of people by "good chance of opportunity". It was this political participation of Dante de Oliveira that refined his biography and inscribed him in history with his proper name: The Dante de Oliveira Mending. / Doutorado / Linguistica / Doutor em Linguística

Modern parliaments are mostly compared to the top echelon of the society.The unfairness of the representation still holds true even where free, fair and periodic democratic elections are held. PWDs constitue the largest minority group accounting for 15.6% of the world's population. In Ethiopia approximately the same percentage of the population is disabled though nor fairly represented in the political system. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2011. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / nf2012 / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

The literature on descriptive and substantive representation focuses on elected representatives, but overlooks the gender of those who play an integral role in policy process (agenda-setting) and outcomes (implementation): The elected’s chief of staff, senior policy advisors, and, in council-manager systems, the city manager. This thesis examines the role policy staff and city manager gender plays in substantive representation. After analyzing staff composition and agenda priorities — gleaned from State of the City addresses — for mayors of the 50 most-populous cities in the United States, I found substantial evidence to support my hypotheses that the chief of staff’s gender, not the elected’s gender, will drive the overall gender of staff as well as the gender characterization of policy agendas. Mayors — regardless of gender — with female chiefs of staff in this dataset have more female staffers and more neutral policy agendas. Mayors — regardless of gender — with male chiefs of staff have more male staffers and mostly masculine policy. In weak mayor systems, city managers’ gender strongly influences mayoral policy agendas, especially in small cities; since most city managers are male, those policy agendas are more masculine, regardless of the mayor’s and chief of staff’s gender. Thus, I find that staff who are involved in the intricacies of policy process and outcome have a stronger influence on policy than the public-facing elected official. These results, supplemented by interviews with mayors and chiefs of staff from across the country, could change the importance scholars place on descriptive representation, and alter scholars’ approach to studying both substantive representation for women and American democracy in general.

This dissertation analyzes how redistricting, minority representation, and perceived polarization— three topics regularly studied at the national level—function at the level of local government. The first two chapters focus on city council redistricting. In the first chapter, I used a new approach, a sequential Monte Carlo algorithm, to simulate city council district plans. By simulating tens of thousands of plans for each city, I was able to compare the plans that are actually implemented to a representative sample of all plausible plans. This analysis represents the first large-N geospatial analysis of city council redistricting. I found that the city council maps that are actually implemented feature more majority-minority districts than the median simulation. This implies that somewhere in the redistricting process, a conscious effort is made to foster minority representation. In the second chapter, I merged city council map data with the results of city council elections. I then analyzed the relationship between the composition of districts and who runs and who wins in city council elections. I found that district-level demographic makeup continues to be the dominant factor in the supply of minority candidates. I also found that, comparing two cities that are otherwise demographically and politically similar, cities that fall under the Voting Rights Act (VRA) pre-clearance had more minorities run for office and win election on average. In the third chapter, I conducted an original survey experiment to determine if respondents’ perceptions of partisan polarization differed in local contexts relative to the national political landscape. I did not find measurable differences in the perceived prevalence of support for different issues. However, I did find that respondents were slightly less willing to endorse generic language about partisans’ issue support when cued to think about ordinary voters in their local area. All together, these studies probe three different aspects of local electoral politics. In doing so, they help reconcile our understanding of electoral politics nationally with areas of local politics that still have many open questions.

The basic problem in this study is to determine whether the electoral management body (EMB) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is sufficiently independent and whether it complies with most of the criteria of an ideal independent EMB in order to conduct free and fair elections in the promotion of democracy in the DRC. However, an ideal type of an independent EMB is not easily realizable but Ghana’s electoral commission (EC) is widely regarded as a model of an independent EMB in Africa. Therefore, this study uses the EC as a workable ideal type of independent EMB that informs this study in assessing the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI)’s level of independence. The study discovered that while the formal legal framework guarantee the independence of the CENI, it lacks practical independence due to certain factors which include the mode of appointment and composition of the body, the unstable security of tenure of its members, the negative influence of the judiciary, executive and the parliament over the functioning of the CENI, and the lack of adequate funding. The study argues that the composition of the CENI has to be depoliticized; its members should enjoy a strong security of tenure and the issue of political parties funding should be effective and handled by the CENI in order to enhance political competitiveness in the electoral process. An adequate funding should be timely realized so that the CENI carries out its work with autonomy. The judiciary, the parliament and the executive should support the growth of democracy in the DRC by allowing the CENI to work without the interference of any quarter. / African Centre for Arts, Culture and Heritage Studies / M.A. (African Politics)