Suchergebnisse

This article surveys the rationales for and effects of legislative bicameralism. At heart, second chambers facilitate representation for groups or interests that otherwise might be ignored. They do so not only by making more legislative seats available to legislators elected from different districts and possibly by different rules, but more importantly by giving more legislators a voice in the legislative process. Traditional views of bicameralism hold that second chambers can matter because their members have the authority to veto or at least delay bills, so that whether they do in fact affect legislative content depends on whether and to what extent majority preferences differ across chambers. A new current of legislative research focuses on how the existence of a second chamber provides a forum for bargaining over policy and, in the process, creates a need for policy bargains within parties as well as across chamber majorities that would be unnecessary in a unicameral legislature. Adapted from the source document.

Political institutions define the allocation of decision-making authority among officeholders. Institutional position is empowering, but the preferences of each actor thus empowered also constrain what others can achieve. I argue that the combination of institutional prerogative and preference-imposed constraints gives policy makers incentives to adapt their priorities (and thus their revealed preferences) to both institutional structures and the preferences and priorities of other policy makers. Officeholders who must cooperate to make policy will invest resources and suffer losses, both to help counterparts they agree with to hold on to office and to make it more difficult to do so for counterparts with whom they do not agree. My argument rests on the assumptions that a) political actors have policy goals, but they can achieve their goals only if others in the policy process support them; and b) political actors compete for and retain power by working for the benefit of those who put them in office. When decision-making authority is split among several actors, decision makers are motivated not only to take each other's preferences into account, but also to tailor proposals to help (or hinder) each other's ability to retain office.

Parties participate in national politics that do not pretend to national presence. The author asks whether such parties affect policy outcomes and concludes that they do, albeit in unexpected ways. Basically, nonnational parties influence policy making under certain conditions by trading policy for authority. They help national parties get the policies they want in return for transfers of policy-making authority to regional governments. This willingness to support national policies with minimal amendment makes regional parties attractive partners for national parties in government. The author examines this argument in light of detailed evidence from Spain's minority Socialist and Popular Party governments in the 1990s, along with discussions of the role of regionalism in Belgian politics and of the relationship between the Scottish Nationalist Party and the Labour Party in the United Kingdom.

The ability of multiparty coalitions to make policy is a puzzle. However closely they agree on policy, at election time, parties compete against each other for a limited pool of votes. Since legislative alliances blur differences between parties, the ubiquity of party competition begs the question of what holds coalitions together to pass laws. Recent work by Huber (1996a) & others highlights the Prime Minister's ability to use the vote of confidence to keep rebellious coalition members in line. Attaching confidence to bills can be problematic, however, even suicidal under some circumstances. I argue that the authority to offer legislative amendments late in the process, when no one else can, protects the Minister in whose jurisdiction a bill falls. This "last-offer" authority holds enacting coalitions together & allows the Minister both to limit her losses from hostile amendments & use policy outcomes to punish parties that stray from the coalition fold. 4 Tables, 3 Figures, 1 Appendix, 70 References. Adapted from the source document.