Comparative Politics Comparing Legislatures Varieties and problems Luca Verzichelli / Alessandro Chiaramonte Comparative Political Institutions Academic year 2016 -2017
How to compare among parliaments? Examples from old pieces of research • • • Shaw & Lees (eds. ), Committees in Legislatures, 1979. Truly comparative (n 8). Party and institutional factors under review. Strong committees in both the systems Kornberg & Musolf (eds. ), Legislatures in developmental perspective, Durham, Duke University Press, 1970. See the chapter of Packeman on Brazilian congress Mezey, Comparative legislatures (1979). 5 cases (Us, Uk, Pak, Phi, URSS) and a broader comparison: Policy making power and organisational matters: Vulnerable vs. active legislatures
Recent approaches to the study of parliamentary functions • Practices of parliamentary rule. Empirical extensive study of parliamentary devices: Doering 1995, Parliaments and Majority Rule in Western Europe • The central link in the delegation chain: studies of rational micro-institutional behaviours (Bergmann, Mueller & Strom, Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies, 2003) • Intensive studies of legislative impact and “delegation” to government (Shugart & Carey: Presidents and Assemblies, 1992; Rasch, & Tsebelis, The Role of Governments in Legislative Agenda-setting, 2011)
What do parliaments make? • Traditional classification: (parliamentary) assemblies vs. (presidential) congresses. . • . . . but a broad variability in both the classes is evident since the beginning of the process of democratization. • Differences emerged more clearly with the development of several European systems. • Several frames produced in order to classify legislatures 1) Levels of viscosity (Blondel et al. , Legislative Behaviour: Some Steps toward a Cross-national measurement, Government and Opposition, 1, 1970, pp. 67 -85) 2) Levels of legislative strength in relation to the executive (Mezey, 1979. Comparative Legislatures; Norton, 1993. Does Parliament Matter? ) 3) Evolution of their primary function (Debating vs. Policy making, questioning etc. ), (Olson, 1980, . The Legislative Process: A Comparative Approach)
Legislatures: traditional and modern functions Bagehot (1867) The English Constitutions • • • Elective Expressive Teaching Informing Legislative New classification of parliamentary functions • Making and breaking government • Executive control - Budget - Oversight • Policy making - Residual legislative capabilities - Delegation to government - Cooperation with other institutions • Formation of political agendas
Recent contributions to the comparative study of cameral structure • Parliamentary articulation as dimension of a given democratic pattern (see Lijphart 1999) • Parliamentary articulation as an expression of a general institutional design (see for instance Patterson and Mughan 2001) • Parliamentary articulation as a set of institutional and partisan veto points (Tsebelis 2002).
Bicameralism as veto power (Tsebelis and Money 1997) Hypothesis: the more numerous the actors who can kill legislation or influence its content, the more deals must be cut to pass a budget. → Bicameralism sets up a bilateral veto game between legislative chambers, which leads to higher government budget deficits, all else constant. Study on 17 democracies (some bicameralism with different powers and organization) Dependent variable: Long term (1965 -1990) rates of budget deficit
A bilateral veto game between two chambers Chambers want to spend money in different ways. Point z* is the ideal point on the contract curve between the ideal points of the 2 chambers. However, with no hard budget constraints imposed by the government, it is likely that the overall spending will be higher given the expectations from both the chambers Z 1 is the point where both the chamber will be able to maximise their interest
Lijphart (1999, chapter 11) Bicameralism as indicator of “consensus pattern” • Variety of bicameralism summarised in terms of strong and weak bicameralism • Measurement based on legislative functions and political composition (not dissimilar from Norton and other comparative studies) • Strength of the internal parliamentary articulation as a dimension of the “federalunitary dimension” of a democracy • Strong bicameralism: symmetrical and incongruent chambers [4] Australia, Switzerland, Germany, US • Medium strength bicameralism : symmetrical and congruent [3] Belgium, Japan, Italy, Netherland • Medium strength bicameralism: asymmetrical and incongruent [3] Canada, France, India, Spain, Venezuela • Between Medium and weak bicameralism [2, 5] Botswana, Uk • Weak bicameralism [2] Austria, Ireland, Sweden, • One-and-a-half-chambers [1, 5] Norway, Iceland • Unicameralism [1] Finland, Greece, Israel
The relationship between decentralization and cameral structure in 36 democracies (1945 -1996) • Strong relation: • Bicameralism strong in federal or highly decentralised democracies • Non surprising deviant cases: decentralised small countries or unitary state with “consensus spirit”
Sieberer 2011. Institutional analysis of Western European Parliaments More than legislative bodies. Using principal–agent framework, parliamentary power seen as a multidimensional concept comprising three mechanisms to ensure policy outputs : 1) direct influence on policymaking, 2) ex ante selection of external officeholders, 3) ex post control of the cabinet. factor analysis of several indicators institutional powers of 15 Western European parliaments show four distinct dimensions. These dimensions match three theoretically derived mechanisms with committee power as an additional factor. Complex frame: Western European parliaments influence policymaking in different aspects of delegation.
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• • • Saalfeld & Strom [2015] legislators may serve multiple principals through their party affiliation. Legislative functions perform as vehicles of electoral delegation and accountability. The discussion begins by presenting a brief morphology of legislative parties, Using a principal–agent framework, the chapter considers the complexity of the competing agency relationships. The role of political parties. Why they have become such durable features of legislatures and representative democracies. Changing linkages between legislative parties and legislative committees. How political parties influence legislative outputs. Andeweg & Thomassen [2005] • • • Revisting the role theory Comparison among surveys in the Dutch parliament The typology is supported by the real distribution
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