With inefficient bureaucratic institutions, the effects of laws are hard to assess and
incompetent politicians may pass laws to build a reputation as skillful reformers. Since too …

The decline in voters' trust in government and the rise of populism are two concerning
features of contemporary politics. In this paper, we present a model of commitment politics …

We study a model of the rise and fall of illiberal democracies. Voters value both liberty and
economic security. In times of crisis, voters may prefer to elect an illiberal government that …

This chapter presents a general overview of the roles of the legislature in the presidential
system. Scholars of comparative politics have discussed the presidential system from …

When an incumbent enacts a reform, the opposition frequently promises to repeal it,
claiming the reform to be a partisan overreach. When is the promise of a repeal by the …

Legislative and regulatory reforms often contain various forms of complexity–multiple
contingencies, exemptions and alike. Complexity may be desirable if it better satisfies the …

We examine how democracies choose their amount of checks and balances (C&B). For this
purpose, we consider a simple model of political competition with costly policy reforms. The …

We examine whether judicial review can affect political attitudes by studying how the ruling
of the Spanish Constitutional Court on the Catalan Constitution affected Catalan support for …

Politicians have limited ability to influence policy. This provides an incentive for politicians to
feign a policy agenda: they publicly propose policies that voters demand but privately exert …

Reform processes commonly involve professional bureaucrats drafting policies to be
adopted by political decision makers. Conflicts of interest between these two groups may …