Search

How are government policy commitments converted into legislation and what happens in the conversion? The role of civil servants in preparing legislation is far more important than is generally assumed. By looking at the work of four recent bill teams in Britain--teams of civil servants given the task of developing Acts of Parliament--their crucial roles in initiating policies, placing them on the political agenda (even helping secure their place in a party manifesto), developing them, making sure they pass through parliament and enacting them once they have reached the statute books are assessed. The article explores the composition and working methods of bill teams. These teams work with considerable autonomy in developing legislation, but it cannot be assumed that they operate outside ministerial control. Teams see themselves as reflecting the priorities of the government in general and their ministers in particular. Yet ministers typically know relatively little about the law they are bringing in until they receive the submissions and briefings from their officials. Perhaps the biggest danger for democracy is not a civil service putting forward proposals which a minister feels forced to accept, but rather that ministers do not notice or fully appreciate what is being proposed in their name despite having the political authority to change it and a civil service which bends over backwards to consult and accommodate them.

How have Germans, East and West, responded to dramatic changes in their political and economic regimes resulting from re-unification? Since every German has lived under at least two regimes, evaluations of the present are made in the light of experience of their previous regime, the pre-unification Federal Republic or the German Democratic Republic. This article analyses the 1993 German Re-Unification Survey to test the extent to which Germans have shown a common response, as implied by theories of pan-German culture or, in the case of the GDR, that Sovietisation matters. In both parts of Germany, people are divided. It then tests three competing hypotheses about the causes of differing evaluations of regime change. At first glance, economic costs and benefits appear most important. But a causal model shows that context - evaluating regimes in the light of experience of the GDR or the Federal Republic - is most important, indirectly and directly. A follow up survey shows that positive responses are increasing in both parts of Germany., The German Democratic Republic is a special case in the transition to democracy because the German question is too important to be left to the Germans alone. Klaus von Beyme(1) [...]

Political leadership offers an exceptionally important vehicle for democratic control in modern political systems. In national political systems this may be exercised by ministers. In the European Community the closest equivalent to a national minister is the commissioner. How well equipped are commissioners to exercise political leadership? This article examines the backgrounds and careers of all 76 commissioners, past and present, and argues that a 'democratic deficit' within the Commission is at least as important as the democratic deficit more conventionally associated with the demand for increased powers for the European Parliament.