The Swiss Parliament is distinguished in historical international comparison by its tradition of non-professional public service. Although existing literature on interest groups (IGs) mainly treats the influence and pressure they have placed upon members of parliament (MPs), for Switzerland – particularly in light of this non-professional public service tradition – it also appears warranted to study ties between IGs and MPs. These ties, however, whether in the form of MPs being full-time employees or leading members (but not employees) of interest groups, have so far not been studied systematically. This analysis investigates the evolution of these ties from 1970 to 2010. Taking as a point of departure the increased professionalization of the Swiss Parliament, especially due to the intro- duction of permanent and specialized committees and increased compensation for parliamentary work since the beginning of the 1990s, we find that the number of MPs who are also full-time employees of IGs has steadily decreased since the 1990s. The number of MPs serving as outside or “honorary” board members of IGs has, however, actually increased since the beginning of the 1990s. This also reflects the increased importance of the Parliament in the Swiss political system, which gives interest groups with an increased incentive to develop ties to MPs. At the same time, our results show that public IGs now have more MPs as board members than do traditionally corporatist IGs.
Cet ouvrage rassemble les contributions consacrées au droit d’auteur à l’ère du numérique et présentées lors de la Journée de Droit de la Propriété Intellectuelle (www.jdpi.ch) organisée le 22 février 2017 à l’Université de Genève.
Ces contributions sont: Blocage de sites web en droit suisse : des injonctions civiles et administratives de blocage au séquestre pénal (Yaniv Benhamou) ; Website Blocking Injunctions-a decade of development (Jo Oliver/Elena Blobel) ; Le marché numérique européen : enseignements de la jurisprudence de la Cour de justice et perspectives règlementaires (Jean-Michel Bruguière) ; User-generated Content and Other Digital Copyright Challenges: A North American Perspective (Ysolde Gendreau) ; Copyright in the Digital Age: A view from Asia (Wenwei Guan) ; Deep Copyright: Up - and Downstream Questions Related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) (Daniel Schoenberger).
This research note presents an innovative dataset of Swiss MPs' interest ties between 2000-2011. The longitudinal analysis shows that the average number of interest ties per MP has more than doubled: from 3.5 in 2000 to 7.6 in 2011. Since the mid-2000s, public interest groups have accounted for approximately one out of two ties between MPs and interest groups, showing the strongest increase during the period. However, when looking at the most present individual groups, important business groups dominate and appear well connected with the governmental parties of the political right. Finally, interest groups are also able to forge themselves a strategic presence within the parliamentary committees that are the most relevant for their policy issues. Next research steps include the assessment of the (un)biased access of interest groups to the parliamentary venue and their policy influence
To what extent does the inclusion of marginalized groups in policymaking institutions influence policy outcomes? This article examines whether and under which conditions female legislators are more likely to represent women's interests compared to male legislators. Building on the literature on women's substantive representation, it is argued that the advocacy of women's interests by female representatives depends on a number of factors, namely party affiliation, contact with women's organizations, electoral district, and seniority. This argument is evaluated using vote level fixed-effect models based on a unique dataset from a direct-democratic context which combines representatives voting behaviour, women's voting preferences, and recommendations from feminist groups. The findings show that female legislators defend feminist interests more than their male colleagues but that they only marginally respond to women's electoral preferences. Moreover, gender has its most visible effect within the populist party.
La présente thèse de doctorat a pour sujet d’étude les sociétés sportives, définies en tant que groupements sportifs professionnels organisés sous la forme de sociétés anonymes qui participent à des compétitions et autres événements sportifs au plus haut niveau, en y engageant des athlètes professionnels portant leurs couleurs (clubs de football, équipes de hockey sur glace, écuries de sport automobile, défis dans les sports nautiques). Cette thèse est divisée en trois parties : 1) La première partie est dédiée à l'examen des fondements de la détention par les sociétés sportives de leurs actifs spécifiques que sont, en particulier, leur contingent de sportifs professionnels (acquis sur le marché des transferts ou formés en interne) et les droits télévisés sur les événements auxquels celles-ci prennent part. 2) La seconde partie analyse le traitement comptable de ces actifs. 3) La troisième partie étudie le sort de ces actifs dans le cadre d'opérations relevant du droit des sociétés (fondation, financement, assainissement, restructuration et cotation en bourse).
In the framework of Mixed Models, it is often of interest to provide an es- timate of the uncertainty in predictions for the random effects, customarily defined by the Mean Squared Error of Prediction (MSEP). To address this computation in the Generalized Linear Mixed Model (GLMM) context, a non-parametric Bootstrap algorithm is proposed. First, a newly developed Bootstrap scheme relying on random weighting of cluster contributions to the joint likelhood function of the model and the Laplace Approximation is used to create bootstrap replicates of the parameters. Second, these replicates yield in turn bootstrap samples for the random effects and for the responses. Third, generating predictions of the random effects employing the bootstrap samples of observations produces bootstrap replicates of the random effects that, in conjunction with their respective bootstrap samples, are used in the estimation of the MSEP. To assess the validity of the proposed method, two simulation studies are presented. The first one in the framework of Gaussian LMM, contrasts the quality of the proposed approach with respect to: (i) an- alytical estimators of MSEP based on second-order correct approximations, (ii) Conditional Variances obtained with a Bayesian representation and (iii) other bootstrap schemes, on the grounds of relative bias, relative efficiency and the coverage ratios of resulting prediction intervals. The second simu- lation study serves the purpose of illustrating the properties of our proposal in a Non-Gaussian GLMM setting, namely a Mixed Logit Model, where the alternatives are scarce.
This paper discusses the contribution of Cerioli et al. (Stat Methods Appl, 2018), where robust monitoring based on high breakdown point estimators is proposed for multivariate data. The results follow years of development in robust diagnostic techniques. We discuss the issues of extending data monitoring to other models with complex structure, e.g. factor analysis, mixed linear models for which S- and MM-estimators exist or deviating data cells. We emphasise the importance of robust testing that is often overlooked despite robust tests being readily available once S- and MM-estimators have been defined. We mention open questions like out-of-sample inference or big data issues that would benefit from monitoring.
Alternative methods of dispute resolution are an important resource in matters of cultural heritage in addressing the return, restitution, and repatriation of cultural property. The purpose of this article is to analyze the situations in which such methods might be preferred to the classical judicial means and to examine the problems that might arise. The article is in two parts. The first part describes the actors as well as the current methods used for the restitution and return of cultural property. The second part explores the types of property that lend themselves to alternative dispute resolution techniques and lists the—often original—substantive solutions that have been used in practice. Alternative methods of dispute resolution enable consideration of nonlegal factors, which might be emotional considerations or a sense of “moral obligation,” and this can help the parties find a path to consensus.
