Multilayer Networks of Normative Principles in Statutory Law

• In Event: Public Administration and the Law in Democratic Contexts

Abstract

The legal basis of public administration provides it with fundamental normative principles that guide its practice. These principles, such as impartiality or transparency, are the primary formal way of connecting the normative values of a state to the practice of its public administration. How do administrative principles shape the legal structure of public administration? We develop a novel method for quantitatively measuring the importance of principles such as impartiality or transparency to national laws. We apply this method to the full corpus of Italian law, more than 73,000 laws adopted under the present constitution since 1948. We begin with qualitative methods that identify definitions and articulations of principles in statutes. We then use these references (and citations to them) to construct networks for each principle. Like a social network, statutes are written by politicians for public administrators and lawyers, and have reasons to emphasize (or de-emphasize) connections between principles and other statutes. We argue that more connected laws become institutionalized and are harder to change. We analyze these network dynamics through information about the types and topics of laws and the political context in which they are created, such as the electoral and party systems, government ideology, and the identity and characteristics of signing ministers. Our claim is that normative principles in statutory law constitute a dynamic scale-free multi-level network in which the networks of individual principles are interconnected (Kinsley et al. 2020). We estimate the probabilities of tie formation with ERGM models to understand under how political context influences the networks of principles.

Authors

• Anthony Michael Bertelli, Pennsylvania State University

• Silvia Cannas, Bocconi

• Marika Danielle Csapo, Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals

• Zsuzsanna Blanka Magyar, Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals