Nadia Fiorino

Judicial Branch, Checks and Balances and Political Accountability

This paper attempts to combine the political economics models on separation of powers between the legislature and the executive with public choice theories on the behavior of the judicial branch. We obtain a model of political accountability and checks and balances with up to three government branches: the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. We conclude that an independent judiciary improves the political accountability of democratic systems relative to the political economics models with two government branches. An accommodating judiciary, however, changes the distribution of political rents without improving accountability.

The Determinants of Judicial Independence: Evidence from the Italian Constitutional Court (1956-2002)

This paper tests the explanatory power of alternative theories on the determinants of judiciary independence using annual and decision-based data on the Italian Constitutional Court. The estimates show that structural measures of judiciary independence, such as the share of constitutional judges elected by theranks of the professional judiciary and the age of justices, are positively correlated with independent behavior of the Court. Contrary to previous studieson a similar sample, we find that the Court counteracts the greater cohesion of the other government branches with more independent behavior, improving theeffectiveness of the system of checks and balances.

Do Fiscal Decentralization and Government Fragmentation Affect Corruption In Different Ways? Evidence from a Panel Data Analysis

Are countries characterized by more decentralized fiscal and spending powers less corrupt? Or is a higher degree of government fragmentation a more effective way to deter corruption? Is there any evidence that these alternative ways to enhance government accountability reinforce each other? This paper tries to answer these questions by using several indicators of government fragmentation and fiscal decentralization for a panel of 23 countries in the 1995-2007 time interval. Taken separately, while various measures of government fragmentation do not seem to affect corruption in any significant way, fiscal decentralization measured as fiscal and spending autonomy does seem to reduce corruption. This latter effect is reinforced if fiscal decentralization is combined with a high degree of government fragmentation at the local level. The results appear robust to different specifications of the empirical model.

Rewarding judicial independence: Evidence from the Italian Constitutional Court

We use data about the Italian Constitutional Court (1956–2006) to verify an implication of the “revisionist” explanation of judicial independence related to judicial appointments, namely that elected politicians reward more independent justices with appointments to politically controlled posts after their Court tenure expires. In this respect, the Court tenure serves as a screening device for politicians to ascertain the justices’ personal independence. The empirical strategy is two-step. First, we estimate a logit fixed-effect model to evaluate the personal degree of independence for each justice reporter. This “justice-effect” is based on the proneness of a justice to declare the constitutional illegitimacy of a law controlling for the environmental conditional phenomena. Second, we verify to what extent this degree of independence affects the probability of obtaining a politically controlled post after the end of the mandate at the Court. Our results, obtained by a variety of estimators to check their robustness, strongly support the revisionist view.

Dimensions of civic activism and their effectiveness in exposing corruption: evidence from Italy

ABSTRACT This article studies the influence of civic activism in exposing corruption across Italian regions. Using different dimensions of civic activism (including local and national newspapers, the internet, blood donors, and voter turnout), we make the distinction between active (media, internet, voters) and passive (blood donors) activism. Results show interesting different impacts of civic activism on corruption. In particular, voter turnout, blood donors, and national newspaper diffusion consistently increased exposure of corruption, while the internet and local newspapers showed opposite effects. Thus, local newspapers and the internet point to the possibility of media capture (influence) with regard to corruption exposure. The main findings hold following the substantial reforms in the nineties (called Mani Pulite).

Measuring Direct Democracy

The empirical theory of democracy, contrasting the “classical” conception, is often said to have been conceived by Schumpeter (1962). Since then, a lot of theoretical and empirical contributes have been added. Most of them are directly related to the approach proposed by the venerable founding father. For this reason, they form the so-called economic theories of politics, strongly based on assumptions of individuals as rational and self-interested decision-makers (Downs 1957; Riker and Ordeshook 1973; Olson 1965). Another strand of research developed since the 1960s’ agreeing to completely different theoretical underpinnings. Here the main concepts draw from sociology, political culture being (one of) the most important (Dahl 1971; Lijphart 1968).