Transcript Diapositiva 1

Comparative Politics
AY 2009-2010
Prof. Marco Giuliani
The Government Agenda in
Parliamentary Democracies
Camilla Mariotto
4th November 2009
Content
1.
2.
3.
4.
Introduction – research questions
Background
Supporting theory
Data:
1.
2.
3.
5.
6.
Country Selection
Sample of Government Bills
Measurement of Independent
Variables
and
Dependent
Analysis and Findings
Conclusions
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Introduction

Core research question:
How do governments organize the policy agenda?

Specific question:
How do coalition governments determine the sequence and timing
of bills submitted to the legislature?
Focus on the “life” of a coalition vs. focus on its “birth” or “death”
(who gets into government, which ministries each party controls
and how long the government will last).
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Background (1)
Parliamentary
Democracy
The government determines the
TIMING and SUBSTANCE of the
main policy initiatives.
To understand the policy agenda any attempt must focus on goals
and capabilities of parties involved in the government coalition.
≠ parties tend to prioritize their own
issues … Conflicting issues
Government parties have the incentives to seek
a policy agenda able to accomodate the
preferences of all partners in the coalition
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Background (2)
The construction of the policy agenda is taken by individual
cabinet ministers and their departments.
controls
Minister
(with portfolio)
controls
Gov.
Department
Policy area
Each minister has a crucial role in the definition of the
government policy agenda.
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Background (3)
CABINET MINISTERS
Positive
agenda control:
means of ensuring
that their proposal
does not face defeat,
extensive
modification
or delay
Negative
agenda control:
capability of keeping
unacceptable proposal
off the government’s
agenda
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Background (4)
Portfolio allocation approach (Laver and Shepsle):
 Cabinet ministers are able to act as virtual dictators in
the policy areas they control
 “Member of the cabinet will have only limited ability to
shape the substance of policy emanating from the
department of a ministerial colleague.”
 However, coalition parties would prefer a compromise
policy package instead of package of each party’s
ideal policy in the issue area it controls.
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Supporting theory (1)

Gains from cooperation

But, cooperation can disappear if a minister
(agent) has incentive to act contrary to the
interest of the whole cabinet (principal).
 Principal-agent framework.
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Supporting theory (2)

The prevention of subversion of the
agreement is to control and monitor the
actions of cabinet.

Not
costless!


Role of junior minister as watchdog (Thies)
Mechanisms of information-gathering and
conflict-management (Mueller and Strøm)
Parliamentary oversight devices (Martin
and Vanberg)  committees.
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Supporting theory (3)
When should coalition members be more likely
to use control devices to counter the actions of
minister from other parties?
1. Divisiveness of the issue
2. Saliency of the issue
• Not significantly divisive issue
more salient issue  quick
less salient issue  less quick
more salient issue  more reneging
• Significantly divisive issue
less salient issue  less reneging
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Supporting theory (4)

“If coalition partners use the monitoring and control
devices, then we should expect the government policy
agenda to be organized in an accommodative fashion”
Attractiveness as ordering criterion of the issues

At the cabinet level there should be a delay in the
introduction of the proposal  Inducement to initiate
bargaining with other parties and before a particularly
controversial bill is even brought to the cabinet, because
of intense scrutiny.
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Data_country selection
PROS:

Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and Netherlands

1979-1992

Governments were coalitions controlling a majority of
legislative seats.
CONS:

Difficult assessment of the impact of alternative
institutional arrangements and certain coalition attributes
on the organization of the government agenda.

Difficult conclusions if minority or single party
government.
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Data_sample of government bills

833 bills classified in 8 categories:

Tax policy, foreign policy, industrial policy, social policy,
clerical policy, agricultural policy, regional policy,
environmental policy.

Exclusion of budget bills and bills proposing
constitutional changes.

3 sources of variation in issue saliency and
divisiveness across bills:
1.
2.
3.
Across issue area (to whom is the issue important?)
Across governments (are there any gov. changes?)
Across elections (how big are the parties?)
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Data_measurement of dependent
and independent variables

Dependent variable  timing of bill introduction
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Data_measurement of dependent
and independent variables

Independent variables  issue saliency and
divisiveness




Government issue saliency
Government issue divisiveness
Opposition issue saliency
Opposition issue divisiveness
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clashes can affect
bill timing
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Data_measurement of dependent
and independent variables (A)
Government issue saliency:
An issue of average saliency for any given party
received a score of “1.”
A scaled saliency score >1 = relatively more salient
dimension for a party.
A scaled score < 1 = relatively less salient dimension.
 On gov-by-gov basis saliency scores were weighted
by the proportion of lgs seats.
 On dim-by-dim basis an average weighted saliency
score was derived by summing all the seat-weighted
saliency score for the dimension on which the bill is
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classified.

Data_measurement of dependent
and independent variables (B)
Government issue divisiveness:
The absolute distance of each coalition party from the
party position of the minister drafting the bill
The distance measures were weighted by the
proportion of lgs seats.
The seat-weighted distance were summed, on a dimby-dim basis, across coalition parties in order to create
the average weighted distance score.
This distance score was multiplied by the government
issue saliency.

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Analysis and
Findings (1)
Mod.1 estimated effect of:
- The ideology variables
- Countries
- Issue dimension indicators
Mod.1 for issue of mean saliency,
of 1 SD in the level of gov.divisiv.
 the probability that this bill
will be introduced by ~ 12%
Mod.1 for issue of mean divisiv.,
of 1 SD in issue saliency
 the probability of
introduction by ~18%.
 Contrary to expectations!
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Analysis and
Findings (2)
Mod.2 estimated effect of also
time dependency.
The effect shown for each
government variable is the
percentage change in the hazard
rate resulting from a 1 SD
increase in the variable 780 days
before
the
end
of
the
parliamentary term.
The effect for government issue
saliency is now positive and
statistically significant.
Expectations that governments
will give priority to bills dealing with
issues important to coalition.
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Analysis and Findings (3)
Effect of government issue saliency on timing of bills
over parliamentary term (CIEP)
Final year: issue
saliency  the odds
of bill introduction
by about 40%.
First 2 years: issue
saliency  the odds
of bill introduction by
slightly more than 40%.
Beginning: A bill on a
very salient policy D
is over 60% more
likely to be introduced
than a bill on 1-D
of average saliency.
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Analysis and Findings (4)
Effect of government issue divisiveness on timing of bills
over parliamentary term
The effect of
government issue
divisiveness does not
change very much
Last 2 years: the
effect falls to an
average
of about 20%
First 2 years: of
one SD in issue
divisiveness
the odds of
bill introduction
by more than 25%
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Conclusions (1)

Lawmaking is very demanding  it requires cooperation
and compromises by parties

Doubts on portfolio allocation approach (Laver &
Shepsle)  if ministers were free to implement their own
ideal policy, we cannot see any systematic relationship
between the timing of gov. bill and the ideological
preferences.

Accommodative fashion  first, the more attractive
issues, then the less ones

Emphasis on the policy divergence for other important
episodes in coalition politics (such as pregov.
negotiations, gov. formation and termination)
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Conclusions (2)

Future researches:
1.
Other
types
of
institutional
setting
and
governmental context, particularly majoritarian
2.
Organization of the policy agenda in minority
government
3.
Consideration on how coalition make substantive
policy making decision s at other important stages
of lawmaking.
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