Politics and the Constitution

The rural constitution and the everyday politics of elections in Northern Thailand

The Thai coup of 19 September 2006 derived ideological legitimacy from the view that the Thaksin government’s electoral mandate was illegitimate because it had been ‘‘bought’’ from an unsophisticated and easily manipulated electorate. There is nothing new about this argument, nor its use in justifying military interference. Political commentators have asserted regularly that the Thai populace l...

The Politics of Constitution Making: The Institutional Organization of the European Convention

This study investigates the politics of constitution making through an analysis of the institutional organization of the European Union (EU) constitutional convention. My argument is that constitutional conventions resemble parliamentary bodies in terms of their institutional arrangements, and need to be studied with the same sensitivity that has been given to the study of legislatures. My focu...

The Politics and Analytics of Health Policy

Let us start with an example of health policy analysis in action. Within that category of countries loosely known as ‘the West’, quite basic differences exist in attitudes to health policy and also actual health policy. Comparing the US with mainland Europe and indeed Canada, for example, one perceives a difference in attitude on the part of the majority towards collectivism and individualism i...

Taxation and the Constitution

The Politics of Consumption Taxes: Globalization and the Median Voter

The regressive nature of consumption taxes poses a challenge to partisan theory. Using data for up to 20 OECD countries in the period 1970-2003 this article aims to explore the question of whether the idea that social democratic governments typically have to compromise on policy goals and core constituency interests to make themselves more appealing to the median voter necessitates the use of r...