1

Paper to be discussed at the 2009 CPA Conference

“Institutional friction and political representation in Spain”

Laura Chaqués and Anna Palau

Political Science Department

University of Barcelona

laurachaques@ub.edu

apalau@ub.edu

Avda. Diagonal, 690; 08034 Barcelona

Tel. 934021294

—Work in progress, please do not quote—

A previous version of this paper was presented at the ECPR, joint sessions (Lisbon

2009). We would like to thank all the comments, especially Thomas D. Lancaster, and

also Luz Muñoz, Lluis Medir, Ferran Davesa and John Wilkerson suggestions to

improve this paper. The research for this paper is an output of the project The Politics of

attention: West European politics in times of change: the case of Spain, funded by the

Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Plan Nacional de Investigación Científica,

acciones complementarias (SEJ-2007-30760-E/SOCI), as a part of the Eurocores ECPR

2007, of the European Science Foundation (ESF).

2

Abstract

This paper analyses how well the priorities of the Spanish public opinion, assessed by

the Most Important Problem query in the CIS poll, match the activities of policymakers

over different policymaking channels: laws, bills, oral questions and annual speeches by

the Prime Ministry. Following the Policy Agendas methodology, the paper analyses

from 1994 to 2007 and across 19 issue areas, the evolution of these policy instruments

across time in order to explain why changes in responsiveness occur. The main goal is

to test the institutional friction hypothesis (Baumgartner and Jones 1993, Jones et al.

2009) and to see whether parliamentary activities are more responsive to citizens’

preferences than other policy making channels in order to evaluate democratic

governance. The main conclusions are that public and policymaker priorities are

inversely related to institutional friction; and that the correspondence between the

prioritization of issues by the public and policy activity is higher at the agenda setting

stage than at the decision-making stage.

3

Introduction

The analysis of the relationship between public preferences and public policy is one of the most

important concerns in democratic theory. From different perspectives scholars have analyzed

the correspondence between public opinion and political behaviour as a means to have a better

understanding of the functioning of democracy1. In this paper we build on the work developed

by Jones and Baumgartner (2005) and Jones, Larsen-Price and Wilkerson et al. (2009) on the

study of political representation. In this view, representation is seen “as a part of a democratic

signal detection system that alerts policymakers to the anxieties and wishes of the public”

(Jones and Baumgartner 2005:249). Policymakers are attentive to public preferences and

respond to public concerns over time. Correspondence between public concerns and

policymaker’s activities is expected mainly because politicians are not simply problem solvers

that respond rationally to problems or crisis situations.

Public preferences, expressed in opinion polls give information about how citizen’s

detects and prioritizes issues, but they are just one of the variables driving changes in political

attention. What public opinion considers being the most important issue of the moment facing

the country is one of the numerous signals about changes in the environment that

representatives consider while taking political decisions. A salient focusing event would

probably lead to political attention even if there was no simultaneous increase in public concern

(Bartels 1991). Other factors like elections bringing new administrations to power; new partisan

or ideological distributions to Parliament can be also powerful agenda setters. They create new

opportunities to push some problems and solutions to the fore and (equally important) to

suppress others. Besides the responsibilities of any executive or political party (such as foreign

affairs) go beyond public priorities and to some extend are constrained by the requirements

imposed by daily activities. Policy actions and issue prioritization may also be driven by other

actors like the media and interest groups. The will of the general public may be biased in favor

of well-organized social groups, mainly business and professional groups that have a more

direct access to the policy arena. The media is also a powerful agenda setter (Soroka 2002,

McCombs and Shaw 1972, McCombs 2004). The salience of both issues and their

attributes on the media influences the salience of those issues and attributes on the

public and political agenda. Finally, political representation also varies according to the type

of issues. Elected officials are particularly responsive to citizen’s preferences on highly visible

and salient issues, but not on those issues where citizens tend to be less involved and have less

information (Page and Shapiro 1983, Jones 1994).

1 There is a large and growing literature about these issues. For a review see Page and

Shapiro 1983, Page 1994, Burstein 2003 among others.

4

Political representation studies have dealt with the analysis of the correspondence

between public preferences and policy activity following different approaches (Page 1994). A

large part of the empirical analysis of political representation focuses on policy positions

addressing the question of whether there is correspondence between legislators policy positions

–often measured by roll call votes— and their constituent’s policy preferences –measured by

opinion polls— (e.g. Miller and Stokes 1963, Weisberg 1978, Burden 2007). In this approach,

each issue is considered as having equal importance to the public (terrorism and housing are

equivalent); and in most cases the analysis is focused in the decision making stage of the policy

making process. Very recent agenda setting research is going further in the analysis, attempting

to compare the changing issue preferences of the public to those of policymakers (Jones et al.

2009). Following this agenda setting perspective, this paper is aimed to give an explanation

about the relationship between changes in citizen’s preferences and changes in policy decisions

at the macro level for the Spanish case (Page and Shapiro 1983, Jones et al. 2009).

The analysis of political representation in this paper is mainly empirical, and focused in

the Spanish case2. Our goal is to analyze what types of institutions within the Spanish

political system are more responsive to citizen’s preferences; to what extend the issues

that the Spanish public opinion considers to be the most salient are also identified as important

by parliamentary groups and the executive across different policy-making channels (laws, bills,

oral questions and annual speeches by the Prime Ministry).; and to what extend the

correspondence between parliamentary activities and the public agenda are related to

institutional friction (Jones et al. 2009). While giving an answer to these questions we also

explore the relevance of the type of government upon political responsiveness. For some

authors, parliamentary democracies are less responsive to the public mainly because the

executive controls the policy making process –the executive is introducing most of the bills,

most of these bills are passed, and the legislature has a limited power to control governmental

initiatives—. The results we present here for the Spanish case are a point of departure to go

further on this question about whether parliamentary democracies are less responsive to public

priorities.

Correspondence between public opinion and policy actions also depends on how

political power is organized and distributed across different levels of governments. One

of the main characteristics of the Spanish political system is its transformation into a

multilevel system of government. Spain entry in the EEC in 1986 means a profound

2 This is in itself a contribution, as most empirical analysis about this link between

political activities and public preferences are mainly related to the US case or to the

analysis of particular case studies For the case of Spain see Morales and Ramiro (2004)

or Chaqués, Palau, Muñoz and Wilkerson (2008).

5

transformation of the institutional scenario in which policy takes place reducing the

autonomy of the Spanish government to take political decisions in its territory. Besides,

democratization means the transformation of the territorial structure of the state from a

unitary system with a low degree of decentralization to a quasi-federal state by the

creation of the Comunidades Autónomas. Accordingly, we depart from the idea that

political responsiveness would vary across different policy areas depending on the

distribution of political competences across different levels of government. This is, we

expect that the higher the level of political decentralization, the less correspondence

between public opinion and parliamentary activities at the national level. Parliamentary

and governmental actors at the national level are less responsive to public opinion for

those issues of regional or local responsibility like housing for example.

By the same token, the increasing fragmentation of the Spanish political system,

and thus the increment in the number of governments involved in the policy making

process makes less clear which government is doing what in the policy making process.

For some, this process of increasing delegation of political power to subnational and

supranational institutions makes governments and national parliaments less responsive

to public preferences. In this sense, the analysis we present here is also a starting point

to go on in the analysis of whether multilevel systems of government (federalism) are

less responsive to public preferences.

The main conclusions of the paper are that public and policymaker priorities are

inversely related to institutional friction –the higher the institutional friction the less

responsive is a policy-making channel to citizen’s preferences—; and that the correspondence

between the prioritization of issues by the public and policy activity is higher at the

agenda setting stage than at the decision-making stage. Responsiveness is also lower in

those policy areas (like housing, or health issues) which are the jurisdiction of regional

authorities, particularly at the decision making stage (bills and laws). As expected,

correspondence is higher at the decision making stage for those issues under the

jurisdiction of the central government (rights issues).

The paper is organized as follows. The first part explains public and political

agenda dynamics across multiple issue areas between 1994 and 2007. The second and

third part of the paper analyzes public opinion correspondence with policy preferences

across multiple policymaking channels and its relation to institutional friction. The final

6

part of the paper is devoted to a discussion of the main conclusions and limitations of

the analysis and establishes an agenda for future research.

Public agenda

Public agenda refers to the set of issues to which the public attends (Jones and

Baumgartner 2005:251). “It measures the issues that are salient to the general public and

reflect what is on the mind of the country or the most important problem that people

think about” (Baumgartner and Jones 2001: 192). In order to assess the public agenda

we rely on data collected by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas that reports citizens’

views on the most important problem (MIP) facing the nation. To avoid problems related to the

variability in question wording, we have coded the answers to the question: “What is, in your

opinion, the most important problem that actually exists in Spain? And the second? And the

third?” from 1994 to 2007 (before 1993 the wording and format of the survey changed

dramatically). This is an open, multi-answer question that provides information about issue

priorization, but not on citizen’s policy positions or preferences for solutions. It’s also

worth to mention that to limit the number of responses to three may restrict public

agenda capacity since each respondent, when asked, has to make a selection and rank

the issues according to what considers more important in very different political, social

and economic contexts. This may result in that public agenda is more focused than other

agendas, because “demanding a response on the single most important problem when

problems are few and minor and when they are numerous and intense always yields a

ranking, but these may not be equivalent” (Jones and Baumgartner 2005).

Coding MIP survey responses give us the opportunity to systematically compare

changing public issue concerns with changing attention in different policymaking channels. To

translate CIS polls into issue attention percentages we took three steps. First we coded each

answer according to the Policy Agendas Project methodology developed by Baumgartner,

Jones and Wilkerson for the United States (Baumgartner and Jones 1993, Jones and

Baumgartner 2005) This is, each answer was coded according to a universal coding

system based on 19 major topic categories (table 1). Each of these categories is further

divided into more detailed 247 subtopics3. Second, we calculated for each poll the

3 This coding system has been adapted to the characteristics of the Spanish political

system introducing some revisions in order to take into account elements that have no

equivalent in the United States. For example questions dealing with the national health

7

percentages for each category. And finally, we aggregated the data on an annual basis, taking

the average values in those years where multiple polls were conducted (the number of polls

conducted varies across years, for example the MIP question was asked three times in 1993 and

ten in 2001).

Figure 1 shows the policy issues prioritized by the public between 1994 and 2007. The

total area of the graph represents the total public agenda space from 1994 to 2007, and each

policy issue area the percentage of people that considers this issue as the most important

problem facing the nation. The figure shows that economics, justice and crime, government

affairs and health issues occupy a prominent place in the public agenda. If we look at figure 2

we observe that until the late nineties they represent between the 80 and the 90% of the public

agenda space. In 1996, these four issues so dominate the public agenda (91%) that there was

little room for public discussion of anything else. If we look at the whole period, economics

represents (as average) 34.6% of the public agenda, justice and crime 25%, government affairs

8.5% and health issues 8.3 %.

With the turn of the twenty-first century, new issues enter the public agenda, and areas

that had traditionally been left out start to capture public attention (figure 3). In 2006, 17.2% of

all responses fell into the category of rights (in 1995 represented only 0.53%). The post

September 11 period (2001) and the new rights policy initiated by the socialist government in

2004 (among other the reform of the civil code to allow homosexual weddings or the beginning

of a debate to reform the abortion law) open a social debate on rights issues that make them to

enter public agenda. Because of the unprecedented increasing of housing prices and mortgage

financial problems in Spain, housing issues also register a significant increase with the new

millennium (in 2007 represented 12.8% of all responses while in 2001 were only a 1.3%). Other

issues that enter the agenda include defense and international affairs (responses grew up to 3.7%

in 2003 coinciding with the debate on the Spanish participation in different international

conflicts, among other the Iraq war), labor issues (the second government of the Partido

Popular started in 2000 with a general labor strike) and transport (0.6% of responses in 2003

coinciding with the problems originated by the high-speed train (AVE)).

To sum up, between 1994 and 2007 the public agenda is dominated by few

issues (mostly economics and crime and justice affairs) but different events, particularly

from the beginning of the new century, have opened a policy window for new issues to

enter the agenda. The question is whether political activities follow the same patterns

system or the establishment of the Autonomic State For more information there is

special issue in the Journal of European Public Policy (2006) about the policy agendas

project (www.policyagendas.org). The Spanish project web page is located at

http://www.ub.edu/spanishpolicyagendas.

8

for the last fourteen years; to what extend the prime minister in the new millennium is

also giving more attention to rights, housing or international affairs while giving the

annual speech, or whether parliamentary groups are responding to this public

preferences while introducing orals questions or parliamentary bills. The next section is

devoted to explain the evolution of the political agenda across different policymaking

channels.

Political agenda

The political agenda is defined here as the list of issues that parliamentary and

governmental actors attend across multiple policymaking channels. To measure issue

priorities (or policy preferences) of parliamentary groups and the executive we have

created different databases on laws (organic and ordinary laws and decree-laws),

executive and parliamentary group’s bills, oral questions and Prime Minister speeches.

These databases include as a whole 27.898 records which have been coded for the

period 1977 to 2008 following the methodology of the policy agendas project, as

described above for the public opinion4. Table 2 gives information about the 15.554

records for the period considered in this analysis 1994 to 2007.

Attention capacity of the political agenda is not open ended (McCombs and Shaw

1977, Jones and Baumgartner 2001, Soroka 2002, Jones et al. 2009). Speeches, oral

questions, bills and laws are constrained in size for several reasons. First, attention

capacity is constrained by institutional rules governing parliamentary activities. Organic

laws are limited to fundamental rights and public liberties, the general electoral system,

and the modification of basic institutions like the Constitutional Court. By the same

token, decree-laws may not affect the regulation of the basic institutions of the State, the

4 Our database goes back to 1978. Here we have only included the data from 1994

because public opinion is only available from that year. In order to fully understand the

prioritization of issues by the executive and Spanish parliamentary groups we have also

defined (an included in the databases) different explanatory variables which can be

summarized as follows: (1) Europeanization (for example to what extend a bill is

introduced for the transposition of a EU directive); (2) political decentralization (for

example an oral question dealing with a conflict of competences between the central

government and a Autonomous Community); (3) type of government (minority or

majority government); (4) political party (in the government, introducing a bill, etc); (5)

other variables related to the procedures associated to a particular indicator (type of

approval of a law –urgent, ordinary, etc), commission in which a bill is debated, etc).

9

rights, duties, and liberties of the citizens which are regulated in Title I of the

Constitution, the Autonomous Communities, or the general electoral law. Besides,

agenda capacity varies across these policymaking channels according to the level of

institutional friction, and its position in the policy-making process. As described in

more detail in the next sections, the closer it is a policy making channel to the agenda

setting stage, and the lower the institutional cost for introducing a new issue, the larger

the attention capacity of this institutional channel (Jones et al 2009). Table 3

summarizes agenda capacity across different policy making channels5.

In order to describe the political agenda we first consider issue competition

across different policymaking channels. To do that we compute Entropy scores for

speeches, oral questions, bills and laws in each year. Entropy is a measure of

competition among issues that gives information about the degree of fragmentation of

the political and public agenda over time6. The higher the entropy scores the more

fragmentation of the agenda. If all the attention were concentrated in just a single topic

area, then entropy would be equal to zero. The maximum entropy value would be in the

case where attention was evenly divided across all policy topics. As we have 19 topics,

the maximum possible value of entropy in our case is 2.94 (log 19) (Brouard et al

2008).

Figure 4 displays the results. Overall, the level of issue concentration is quite

low, and there are not significant differences along the period with the exception of

speeches. There is a tendency towards an increasing concentration of the speeches

agenda during the last years of Felipe Gonzalez Socialist government, a tendency that

disappears once the Partido Popular lead by Jose Maria Aznar wins the elections in

1996 (Chaqués et al. 2008). A comparison among policymaking activities illustrates that

political attention is specially dispersed in the oral questions (entropy 2.73), followed by

5 In general, attention capacity in legislative activities has increased for the last years

because improvements in parliamentary resources like personnel, policy advice and

access to electronic information systems; increasing division of labour among

committees which allows to process an increasing number of legislative proposals

simultaneously, and also by increasing the degree of professionalization (Becker and

Saalfeld 2004: 59) 6 Formally, entropy (H) is defined as H=Σ[p(xi) log(p(xi))]≡−Σ[p(xi) log(p(xi))] where

xi represents an issue, and p(xi) is the proportion of total attention the issue receives in a

given time period.

10

laws (2.43), parliamentary bills (2.40), executive bills (2.35) and speeches (2.27) with a

moderate dispersion across issues.

Another question is which issues are concentrating most of the attention in each

policymaking channel. Figures 5 to 10 gives information about the percentage of

attention given to each topic in different policy venues from 1994 to 2007. First, there

are some issues that always capture most of the political agendas attention. Economic

issues, labor, crime, foreign affairs and government capture most of the attention in all

the policymaking channels, with some exceptions in the case of Parliamentary bills.

Parliamentary groups do not give much attention to foreign affairs (only 1, 3%) or

economics (4,8%), and focus more on rights related issues (9.9%), education (7,4%) or

social policy (8,4%). Second, there are some issues that never capture much attention

like energy, environment, housing, research and development, foreign trade, social

policy and transport issues. Again there are two important exceptions: more than 8% of

the oral questions presented for the last fourteen years are devoted to transport issues,

and 8,4% of parliamentary bills deal with social policy issues7. Besides, three of these

issues –foreign trade, energy and research and development— are never mentioned as

important by public opinion, which could be seen as an indicator of their lack of

visibility.

Third, there are some issues in the political agenda that are object of increasing

attention across time (new issues). Figures 11 to 16 show for each policymaking

channel the percentage change (positive or negative) of issue attention corresponding to

each of the 19 issue areas. To do that, we have compared the percentage of attention

devoted to each issue in the period 1994-2000 with the percentage of attention devoted

to the same issue in the new millennium (period 2001-2007). A correlation analysis

between percentage changes by issue and policymaking channels (table 4) shows that

there is a positive and significant correlation (0.817) between issues that enter and leave

the public agenda (MIP) and the governmental agenda (speeches). Issues like rights,

labor, education, transport, crime and law, and housing are increasingly perceived by

public opinion as the most important problem facing the nation, and are also

increasingly mentioned by Prime Minister in annual speeches.

7 These results could be bias by the way we have constructed the database. This is we

are comparing the percentage of attention to big issues like Economics to other issues

like housing which are much more specific. One way to solvent this is to look at the

subcode level. Further analysis will be done in this direction.

11

In contrast, issues like economics and government affairs are increasingly

leaving both, the public and the governmental agenda (spechees). The case of

economics is particularly interesting because all other policymaking channels (laws,

executive and parliamentary bills and oral questions) show an increasing attention to

them. Other issue areas show a similar correspondence trend between MIP and speeches

on the one hand, and the rest of policy making channels on the other. Commerce issues

are receiving an increasing attention in all policymaking channels with the exception of

speeches and MIP. Transport in contrast, is receiving increasing attention in speeches

and MIP but is leaving the agenda in almost all the other policymaking channels. The

correlation between MIP and speeches in most issues shows the correspondence on

issue prioritization between two highly visible and connected venues. There is also a

significant and positive correlation (0.759) between issues that enter and leave the

agenda in laws and executive bills. This is an expected correlation since an important

percentage of laws (87%) come from executive bills8.

The next sections are aimed to analyze to what extent the issues identified as the

most important by the public are also capturing the attention of politicians and members

of the executive, and whether different types of institutions within the political system

are more or less responsive than other. From here we could analyze its consequences in

terms of democratic governance.

Correspondence matrix

In order to analyze whether the issues that are the focus of policymaking activity are

also the top priorities of the public, we construct a non-symmetrical correspondence

matrix following Jones et al. (2009). The correspondence matrix is the matrix of

correlations formed from the priorities-by-time and the activities-by-time matrices for

any one policymaking channel. In the priorities-by-time matrix each column is a Most

Important Problem topic (15 in total)9 and each row is a year. Each cell entry indicates

the percentage of the public that considers this topic to be the most important problem

8 Here we only consider organic and ordinary laws, excluding decree laws, and

legislative decrees. 9 Four issues included in the policy agendas codes (commerce, energy, science and

technology and foreign trade) are never mentioned by respondents as the most

important problem facing the nation.

12

facing the nation. In the activities-by-time matrix each entry shows the percentage of

activity in a policy channel that is devoted to each one of these 15 issues in a given year

(14 in total). Estimating the correlation between the priorities-by-time and the activities-

by-time matrix we obtain the correspondence matrix where each entry in the matrix

shows the correlation between the proportion of all MIP responses dedicated to one

issue with the proportion of total activity in a policy channel devoted to the same issue

over the 14 years (14 annual observations).

The correspondence matrices (tables 5 to 11) show the correlations between MIP

and each policymaking channel for the period 1994-2007. We observe that Prime

Minister Speeches, Oral Questions and Decree-Laws are the policymaking channels that

more strongly correlate with the priorities of the public. Speeches and MIP are strongly

correlated (with statistically significant correlations) with economics, rights, labor,

transport, housing and government affairs. Oral Questions are strongly correlated with

rights, health, housing, defense and international affairs, and Decree-Laws with

agriculture, government affairs and public lands. The correlations are weaker in the

other policymaking channels, particularly with regards to organic laws and

parliamentary groups bills (no statistically significant correlation), and ordinary laws

and governmental bills (only one significant correlation in the issue area of rights). The

next section of the paper analyzes in details to what extent differences in the

representation of public opinion preferences vary across policymaking channel and its

relation to institutional friction.

Political agendas and institutional friction

In order to measure institutional friction we consider different kinds of costs that decision-

making systems impose. We have ranked institutions and grouped them into five categories

according to the extend they impose decision and transaction costs -costs required to come to an

acceptable agreement, including bargaining and institutionally imposed costs—on policymaking

activities10 (table 12 and table 13). As table 12 illustrates institutional costs increase as a

proposal moves through the policy stages (from very high for organic laws to very low for

speeches). This is, institutional friction increases from agenda-setting actions (actions that

10 Decision and transaction costs are rules and institutional arrangements associated to

bills, laws, oral questions and speeches, defined by The Spanish Constitution, and

statutes of the Congreso de los Diputados and the Senate.

13

influence which issues will be formally considered by the government and policy makers) to

decision-making actions (formal decisions). The closer is an action to the input stream and the

more it focuses on monitoring and reporting relevant social indicators (like speeches or oral

questions), the higher the correspondence with public concerns (Jones and Baumgartner

2005:171). The ranking presented in table 12 also illustrates the relevance of institutional veto

players for explaining institutional friction (Tsebelis 1995:301). Decision and transaction cost

increase as the number of individuals or collective actors whose agreement is required for a

change in policy increases.

Following the agenda setting methodology, we have also estimated kurtosis as a

measure of resistance to change. The basic idea is that the higher kurtosis score the less frequent

are shifts in issue attention. Accordingly we should expect a higher kurtosis for those policy

making channels with higher institutional friction like laws. We have measured kurtosis for the

period under study in this paper (1994-2007) and the whole democratic period (1977-2007). The

results summarized in table 13 do not corroborate this assumption about kurtosis especially for

the case of oral questions in which kurtosis is really high (we do not have an explanation for

these variations yet).

Speeches have the lowest level of institutional friction, and the highest level of visibility

among the policy making channels. They are one of the most visible political moments of the

year. What the Prime Minister says is reported by the media and watched and debated by the

public and their representatives. In these respects it is an important agenda setting event. It is the

President’s opportunity to define or “frame” what the government has done and what the

president hopes it will do, in ways that advance his personal goals. As an elected official, it is

also an opportunity to demonstrate concern for the issues that concern the public. The costs of

shifting speech attention to a new issue or devoting more or less attention to a given issue from

one speech to the next should be relatively low compared to other types of activity. If the

President wants to shift attention to a new issue, she does not need the consent of other political

actors as is required (for example) to pass a law. Besides, there is not a defined limitation in the

length of the speech11.

11 For a comparative analysis about issue attention and speeches following the policy

agendas project see (Chaques, Palau, Muñoz and Wilkerson 2008) or the special issue

‘The Comparative Agendas Project: a new perspective for comparative politics’, Revue

International de Politique Comparée (forthcoming).

14

Parliamentary control activities are policymaking channels with a low level of

institutional friction12. In this analysis we have only considered oral questions

introduced in plenary meetings. The introduction of an oral question is a quite open

process in which a single deputy or a parliamentary group can get involved, with only

few institutional veto points (eg. it is the president of the chamber with the agreement of

the Junta de Portavoces who decides the number of oral questions that will be presented

in each session). Oral questions are especially interesting for the analysis of political

responsiveness mainly because they are defined as an instrument for supervising the

implementation of policy decisions by the executive or/and the response given by the executive

to general problems and crisis situations. Oral questions, as the bills introduced by

parliamentary groups, could also be seen as reactive devices used by political parties for

disestablishing the executive. Parliamentary groups introduce bills that have no chance

to go through the legislative process as an attention- seeking strategy.

Bills are not actual-final policy decisions, but they give relevant information

about the direction of polity and legislative priorities of the executive and parliamentary

groups that go beyond symbolic discussions about policy issues. In the case of Spain a

bill introduction is also a relatively quite open process in which several policy actors

can participate –the executive, parliamentary groups of any of the chambers, the general

population, and regional authorities (Comunidades Autónomas)—. Institutional costs –

veto points, areas of friction—are low in relation to other legislative activities (laws),

although there are some important differences between executive bills and the rest.

First, executive bills are prioritized upon any other bill introduced during the same

parliamentary period; second, the chances to pass an executive bill are higher.

Finally, laws (and budgets) are the basic indicator to measure prioritization of

issues in a particular polity. They give information about actual final decisions. But the

level of institutional friction and veto points is higher than the rest. Here we have also

considered the differences between three types of laws with different levels of

institutional friction. Institutional costs are especially high for Organic laws mainly

because require the overall majority of the Members of Congress in a final vote on the

bill as a whole to be passed (article 81 of the Constitution). By the contrary, institutional

12 There is an important and growing set of literature about parliamentary behaviour in a

comparative perspective like WC Muller, K Strom (1999) or Doring and Hallerberg

(2004).

15

costs are moderate for decree-laws mainly because they follow a special legislative

process lead by the executive13.

To analyze whether representation of public priorities is related to institutional

friction we extract the main diagonal from tables 5 to 11 and produce a new table that

shows the number of significant correlations for every policymaking channel and the

average correlations (table 12). We observe that, as predicted by the institutional friction

hypothesis, those policymaking channels associated with a higher friction show a low

level of correspondence with public priorities than those associated with a low

institutional friction. Organic laws have the lower average correlation (0.009) and have

no significant correlation with any of the topics analyzed. As we move from high to

lower levels of friction we observe that the significant and the average correlations

increase: ordinary laws have a 0.012 average correlation (and 1 issue statistically

significant), parliamentary groups bills 0.016 (and 0 issues statistically significant),

governmental bills 0.046 (1 issue statistically significant), Decrees-Laws 0.135 (3 issues

statistically significant), oral questions 0.154 (5 issues statistically significant) and

speeches 0.278 (6 issues statistically significant).

Figure 17 shows the same information organized in a graph. Each bar shows the

average correlation across issue areas in the different policymaking channels. As Jones

et al. (2009) argue for the US case, these results indicate that policymaking channels

with higher levels of friction have a lower relationship with public priorities. Data on

the scatter plot (figure 18) corroborates that as institutional costs increase the average

correspondence coefficient between public preferences and policymaking activities

across different policy areas decreases.

Finally table 12 also gives information about whether correspondence between

public preferences and political activities is related to political decentralization. We

13 Section 86 of the Constitution states that “In case of extraordinary and urgent need,

the Government may issue temporary legislative provisions which shall take the form of

decree-laws and which may not affect the legal system of the basic State institutions, the

rights, duties and freedoms of the citizens contained in Part 1, the system of Self-

governing Communities, or the general electoral law. Decree-laws must be inmediately

submitted for debate and voting by the entire Congress, which must be summoned for

this purpose if not already in session, within thirty days of their promulgation. The

Congress shall adopt an specific decision on their ratification or repeal in the said

period, for which purpose the Standing Orders shall contemplate a special summary

procedure”.

16

depart from the idea that the higher the level of political decentralization of a policy

issue, the less correspondence between public opinion and parliamentary activities at the

national level. This is, parliamentary and governmental actors at the national level are

less responsive to public opinion for those issues of regional or local jurisdiction like

housing for example.

The first column in table 12 illustrates the level of political decentralization:

issues like defense or foreign affairs are exclusively regulated by the central

government; issues like housing are politically decentralized towards regional and local

authorities, while issues like health, education, or the environment are issues with

shared jurisdiction –the central government enacts basic laws and the Comunidades

Autónomas have the capacity to enact laws and/or define implementation rules—.

At this point the data shows that for those issues monopolized by the central

government we find, as expected, a higher level of correspondence at the decision

making stage (for example rights issues). For issues like defense, or international affairs

the low level of correspondence at the decision making stage (laws and bills) could be

explained by the fact that they are rarely considered by public opinion as the most

important problem, but also because in both cases policy decisions are often driven by

governing obligations.

Finally, as expected, for those issues with shared jurisdiction between the central

and the regional government there is a low level of correspondence at the decision

making stage. This is specially the case for housing issues. Correspondence between

public preferences and political actions is high and significant in the agenda setting

stages like speeches or oral questions. Both the executive and parliamentary groups are

giving attention to housing in order to demonstrate concern for the issues prioritized by the

public. But only few decisions are taken at the national level mainly because housing is an issue

under the jurisdiction of regional governments. Something similar occurs for health issues –

correlation is high and significant for oral questions—.

Discussion

In this paper we have assessed to what extend public preferences have been represented across

different policy making channels –speeches, oral questions, executive and parliamentary groups

bills, and laws (decree laws, ordinary and organic laws)— from 1994 to 2007. Our goal was to

17

make a contribution to the analysis of political representation and to test the relevance of

institutional friction as an explanatory variable about the correspondence between public

preferences and political activities. We find that (1) public priorities tend to be better

represented where institutional friction is lower and (2) correspondence between public

preferences and political activities is higher at the agenda setting stage than at the decision

making stage. Those policymaking channels associated with lower institutional costs like

speeches and oral questions, are more responsive to citizen’s preferences than those associated

with higher institutional costs like laws. These results are consistent with the existing literature

on institutional friction (Jones and Baumgartner 2005) and particularly with the analysis

developed by Jones et al. (2009) for the US case.

Decision and transaction costs are an important variable for explaining the lack

of correspondence at decision-making policy stages. They reduce the chances of sudden

policy changes and thus the capacity of rapid responses of political parties to public

preferences. In relation to this, one of the most striking results of this analysis is the low

level of correspondence of parliamentary bills and public preferences, despite its moderate

level of institutional friction. This is particularly interesting if we consider that parliamentary

bills share important features with oral questions, which in contrast show a much higher level of

correspondence than parliamentary group bill. Both initiatives could be partly seen as reactive

devices used by parliamentary groups to seek the attention of the public, the media and

political actors upon issues that potentially could disestablish the executive, but their

degree of correspondence to public opinion is quite different.

Further analysis should be made in order to explain these differences across policy

making channels that complement the institutional friction hypothesis. Parliamentary groups not

only respond to public preferences, but also to other factors. This question should be further

explored in order to determine the relevance of these other factors –like party politics, interest

groups or the media influence— for explaining issue attention in parliamentary bills or oral

questions for example. Besides, further analysis should be made in order to explain the different

levels of correspondence between different parliamentary groups and public opinion –to what

extend some issues are directly associated to specific parliamentary groups; or whether

parliamentary bills presented by nationalist political parties are more motivated by central-

regional politics dynamics than citizen’s preferences—. In relation to this, table 14 and figure

19 gives information about the correspondence between party preferences and public opinion

for oral questions. The analysis of correlations illustrate that national parties are more

responsive to public preferences than regional-nationalist parties. This is specially the case of

PSOE (the highest average correlation). Regional-nationalist parties are less responsive to

18

public preferences and this is specially the case for the PNV (nationalist-conservative Basc

party) with a negative average correlation.

Another question that must be addressed in future research is to what extent

changes in responsiveness are associated with electoral periods. Does responsiveness

increase with the proximity of elections? Which policymaking channels are more

sensible to electoral periods? Existing research indicates that electoral competition often

mandates responsiveness to the public (Burstein 2003:31).

Finally, it is important to take into account that correlations give information

about whether public and policy preferences are coincident but does not tell us if this

relationship is causal. One of the open questions in the literature analyzing democratic

responsiveness is to determine if causal impact proceeds from public opinion to policy

or if it is the other way about (Page 1994: 25). Does public opinion exert a powerful

influence on government action or does it simply react to what policymakers come up

with? There is a third force, for example a salient event or a crisis situations, media

attention, interest groups or partisan politics driving both public opinion and policy

makers’ preferences?

An increasing distance between public opinion and political action along the last

decades could also be directly related to the increasing delegation of political power towards

supranational and subnational political institutions like the European Union and the

Comunidades Autónomas (1999). By the same token, the relationship between public

preferences and policy actions is not necessary a unilateral relationship in which politicians

follow citizen’s opinions. It could also be interpreted as a direct influence of politicians willing

to educate, or manipulate public opinion (Page and Shapiro 1983:175, Page 1994:25). The

question about how much of the observed relationship is causal rather than spurious, or/and how

much causal impact proceeds from opinion to policy rather than the reserve, or/and if there are

third factors that mediate this relationship is still an open question in the analysis of democratic

responsiveness.

REFERENCES

Bartels, L. M. 1991. “Constituency Opinion and Congressional Policy Making: The

Reagan Defense Build Up”. The American Political Science Review, 85 (2): 457-

474.

19

Baumgartner, Frank and Bryan D. Jones. 1993. Agendas and Instability in American

Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Becker, Rolf and Saalfeld, Thomas .2004. “The Life and Times of Bills”. In: Döring,

Herbert and Hallerberg, Mark, eds. Patterns of Parliamentary Behaviour.

Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, UK, pp. 57-90.

Breeman, G., L. Chaques, C.Green-Pedersen, W. Jennings, P. John, P.B. Mortensen, A.

Palau, A. Timmermans. 2009. “Comparing the government’s agenda: the

Executive speeches in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Denmark, and Spain”,

article for the special issue ‘The Comparative Agendas Project: a new

perspective for comparative politics’, Revue International de Politique

Comparée (special issue).

Brouard, Sylvain, Frank Baumgartner, Laura Chaqués, C. Green Pedersen, Stefaan Arco

Timmermans, Walgrave and John Wilkerson .2008. “The Comparative

legislative agenda, studying Parliaments by their outputs”; Paper presented at the

Joint Sessions, (ECPR), Rennes (France).

Burden, B. 2007. Personal Roots of Representation. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Burstein, Paul. 2003. “The impact of Public Opinion on Public Policy: A Review and an

Agenda”, Political Research Quarterly, 56 (1), 29-40.

Chaqués, Laura, Anna M. Palau, Luz Muñoz and John D. Wilkerson .2008. “Comparing

Governmental Agendas: Evolution of the Prioritization of Issues in the USA and

Spain”, IBEI Working Papers, Available at SSRN:

http://ssrn.com/abstract=1159670

Doring, Herbert and Mark Hallerberg .2004. Patterns of Parliamentary Behaviour,

Aldershot: Ashgate.

Jones, Bryan D. and Frank R. Baumgartner. 2001. Policy Dynamics. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.

Jones, Bryan D. and Frank R. Baumgartner. 2005. The Politics of Attention. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.

Jones, Bryan D., Larsen-Price, H. and Wilkerson, J. 2009. “Representation and

American Governing Institutions”, Journal of Politics (forthcoming 2009).

20

McCombs, M.E. 2004. Setting the Agenda, the Mass media and Public Opinion. Cam-

bridge: Polity Press.

McCombs, M.E. and D.L. Shaw. 1972. “The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media”.

Public Opinion Quarterly, 36 (Summer): 176-187.

McCombs, M.E. and D.L. Shaw. 1977. “The Agenda Setting Function of the Press”. In

D. L. Shaw and M. E. McCombs (eds.). The emergence of American Political

Issues: The Agenda Setting Function of the Press. St. Paul, MN: West.

Miller, Warren E. and Donald Stokes .1963. “Constituency Influence in Congress.”

American Political Science Review 57(1): 45-57.

Morales, Laura and Ramiro, Luis .2004. “Latecomers but early-adapters. The adaptation

and response of Spanish parties to social changes” in Lawson, K amd T

Poguntke (eds.) How Political parties respond, ECPR/Routledge

Muller, WC and K Strom .1999. Policy, office, or votes? Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press

Page and Shapiro .1983. ”Effects of Public Opinion on Policy” American Political Science

Review, 77, 175-190.

Page, B. I. 1994. “Democratic Responsiveness? Untangling the Links between Public

Opinion and Policy” PS: Political Science and Politics 27, 25-29.

Scharpf, Fritz W. 1999: Governing in Europe. Effective and Democratic? Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

Soroka, Stuart N. 2002. Agenda-settting dynamics in Canada. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Soroka, Stuart N. and Christopher Wlezien .2004. Degrees of democracy, public

preferences and policy in comparative perspective”, Working paper 2004/206,

Center for Advanced Study in Social Sciences, Juan March Institute.

Tsebelis, G. 1995. "Decision-Making in Political-Systems - Veto Players in

Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, Multicameralism and Multipartyism", British

Journal of Political Science. 25: 289-325

Weisberg, Robert. 1978. “Collective versus Dyadic Representation”, American Political

Science Review 73(2): 535-47.

21

Wilkerson, John, Frank Baumgartner, S. Brouard, L. Chaqués, C. Green Pedersen, E.

Grossman, B. Jones, A. Timmermans, S. Walgrave .2009. “The comparative

Agendas Project : Principles, contents and Challenges”, Revue International de

Politique Comparée (special issue, forthcoming)

22

ANNEX: Tables

Table 1. Issue Topics of the Policy Agendas Project

Table 2. Policymaking channels

Policymaking channel Records (1994-2008) Records (1977-2008) Organic Laws 117 219 Ordinary Laws 684 1.322 Decree-Laws 215 454 Executive Bills 622 1.639 Parliamentary Bills 1.110 1.916 Oral Questions (plenary) 8.000 13.764 Speeches 4.806 8.584 TOTAL 15.554 27.898

1.Macroeconomics

2. Civil rights

3. Health

4. Agriculture

5. Labor

6. Education

7. Environment

8. Energy

10.Transportation

12.Internal affairs and justice

13. Social Policy

14. Housing

15. Commerce and industrial policy

16. Defense

17. Science and Technology

18. Foreign Trade

19. International Affairs

20. Government and Public Administration

21. Public Lands and water management

23

Table 3

Agenda capacity

Total

Average per

year

Total laws 800 57,1

� Organic laws 116 8,3

� Ordinary laws 684 48,9

� Decree-law 205 14,6

Total bills 1.733 123,8

� Executive bills 621 44,4

� Parliamentary bills 1.112 79,4

Oral questions 7.995 571,1

Speeches 7.280 520,0

Table 4. Correlations among policymaking channels on new issues

Laws

Executive

Bills

Parliamentary

Bills

Oral

Questions Speeches MIP

Laws 1 .759(**) .007 .054 .347 .205

Executive

Bills .759(**) 1 .048 .028 .116 .139

Parliamentary

Bills .007 .048 1 .066 -.434 -.304

Oral

Questions .054 .028 .066 1 .113 .343

Speeches .347 .116 -.434 .113 1 .817(**)

MIP .205 .139 -.304 .343 .817(**) 1

24

Table 5. Correlation between Public’s Most Important Problem and Organic Laws (1994-2007)

Note: Pearson correlation coefficient. Entries in bold are statistically significant at the 0.05 level (*) or at the 0.01 level (**) (for the appropriate one-tailed test)

Economics Rights Health Labor Education Transport Crime Defense Internat Govern

Economics -,104 -,371 ,350 ,598(*) -,225 ,468 -,052 -,306 ,005 ,375

Rights ,071 ,406 -,212 -,426 ,337 -,316 -,035 ,299 ,040 -,346

Health ,045 -,283 ,307 ,370 -,177 ,417 -,110 -,216 ,018 ,271

Labor -,034 ,475 -,134 -,386 ,158 -,289 -,061 ,266 ,099 -,224

Education -,054 ,293 -,438 -,644(*) ,183 -,465 ,029 ,505 ,198 -,169

Transport -,180 ,143 -,185 -,343 ,050 -,248 ,350 ,273 ,166 -,370

Crime ,319 ,016 -,526 -,702(**) ,056 -,526 ,049 ,403 -,270 -,420

Defense -,161 -,098 -,163 -,195 -,174 -,141 ,429 -,128 ,256 -,123

International ,128 -,238 -,126 -,192 ,028 -,139 ,739(**) -,237 -,279 -,515

Government -,108 -,169 ,292 ,593(*) -,098 ,313 -,117 -,443 ,025 ,374

25

Table 6. Correlation between Public’s Most Important Problem and Ordinary Laws (1994-2007)

Econom Rights Health Agricul Labor Educat Environ Transp Crime Welfare Housing Defense Internat Govern

Public

Lands

Economics ,159 -,633(*) -,088 ,304 -,076 ,086 -,521 -,008 ,053 -,010 ,464 -,042 ,413 -,011 -,028

Rights -,195 ,617(*) ,137 -,287 ,122 -,048 ,582(*) -,086 -,175 ,081 -,427 ,023 -,445 ,209 -,073

Health ,226 -,502 -,087 ,255 -,003 ,201 -,462 ,354 -,120 -,179 ,632(*) ,136 ,559(*) -,207 -,195

Agriculture -,066 ,196 ,056 ,200 -,199 ,663(**) ,188 ,471 -,235 -,152 -,173 -,223 ,048 -,225 ,342

Labor -,295 ,691(**) ,056 -,344 ,129 -,133 ,612(*) -,202 -,111 ,165 -,365 ,029 -,454 ,357 -,105

Education -,189 ,311 ,084 -,270 ,168 -,204 ,263 ,144 -,002 ,066 -,113 ,369 ,033 -,045 -,283

Environm -,261 ,032 ,229 -,200 ,309 -,137 -,015 ,366 ,002 ,066 ,460 ,272 ,375 ,009 -,403

Transport -,074 ,256 ,154 -,359 ,164 -,282 ,273 -,187 ,226 ,134 -,463 -,163 -,617(*) -,114 ,185

Crime ,324 ,151 -,018 ,132 -,266 -,096 -,063 ,146 ,034 -,189 -,377 ,310 ,032 -,498 ,032

Welfare ,033 -,198 ,214 -,333 ,245 -,343 -,026 ,300 -,055 ,044 ,205 ,016 ,357 -,044 ,094

Housing -,344 ,541(*) -,041 -,411 ,259 -,212 ,495 -,280 ,112 ,113 -,415 -,116 -,521 ,282 ,056

Defense -,286 ,000 ,387 -,154 ,037 -,255 -,031 ,222 ,546(*) ,090 -,204 -,213 -,108 -,293 ,107

International ,059 -,070 -,275 -,408 ,370 ,052 -,087 -,087 ,348 -,308 -,381 -,373 -,447 -,475 ,671(**)

Government -,040 -,297 ,025 ,010 -,092 ,079 -,076 -,198 -,036 ,215 ,325 -,292 ,011 ,338 ,145

PublicLands -,261 -,068 -,173 -,061 -,046 ,199 ,156 -,193 ,012 -,056 ,157 -,141 ,034 ,327 ,267

Note: Pearson correlation coefficient. Entries in bold are statistically significant at the 0.05 level (*) or at the 0.01 level (**) (for the appropriate one-tailed test)

26

Table 7. Correlation between Public’s Most Important Problem and Decree-Laws (1994-2007)

Econon Health Agricult Labor Educat Environ Transp Crime Welfare Housing Defense Internat Governm

Public

Lands

Economics -,050 -,098 ,398 ,021 -,129 -,094 ,043 -,207 ,185 -,060 -,041 ,059 ,578(*) ,137

Health -,171 -,125 ,562(*) ,024 -,085 -,086 ,230 ,044 ,374 -,069 ,035 ,350 ,412 -,132

Agriculture -,085 -,144 ,648(*) ,044 -,250 -,172 ,181 -,368 -,219 -,255 -,283 ,249 -,195 ,057

Labor ,126 ,162 -,485 -,016 -,019 -,016 -,140 ,239 -,216 ,307 -,135 -,207 -,328 ,148

Education -,093 ,151 -,122 -,007 ,169 ,112 -,022 ,486 ,036 -,239 ,051 ,088 -,447 -,238

Environm -,159 ,069 ,250 -,248 ,091 ,051 -,152 ,402 -,050 -,107 -,023 -,094 -,193 -,098

Transport ,023 -,046 -,729(**) ,132 ,381 ,239 -,055 -,040 -,248 ,032 ,240 -,302 -,473 -,047

Crime -,084 ,159 ,034 -,093 ,153 ,268 -,010 ,237 ,103 -,371 ,278 ,290 -,554(*) -,684(**)

Welfare ,059 ,253 ,055 -,262 ,113 -,067 -,066 ,457 ,043 -,537(*) ,369 ,000 -,110 -,281

Housing ,082 ,170 -,614(*) ,112 ,111 -,008 -,022 ,070 -,231 ,337 -,042 -,284 -,343 ,217

Defense ,083 -,082 -,228 -,288 ,745(**) -,135 -,126 -,313 -,141 -,173 -,048 -,172 -,371 -,234

International -,005 ,212 -,134 ,473 -,216 ,197 ,608(*) -,351 -,139 -,055 ,324 ,028 -,369 ,019

Government ,135 -,068 ,078 -,011 -,206 -,228 -,155 -,339 ,005 ,150 -,229 -,143 ,655(*) ,529

PublicLands -,052 -,280 ,076 ,049 -,159 ,062 -,221 -,342 -,085 -,055 -,158 -,121 ,269 ,686(**)

Note: Pearson correlation coefficient. Entries in bold are statistically significant at the 0.05 level (*) or at the 0.01 level (**) (for the appropriate one-tailed test)

27

Table 8. Correlation between Public’s Most Important Problem and Parliamentary Groups Bills (1994-2007)

Note: Pearson correlation coefficient. Entries in bold are statistically significant at the 0.05 level (*) or at the 0.01 level (**) (for the appropriate one-tailed test)

Econom Rights Health Agricult Labor Educat Environ Transp Crime Welfare Housing Defense Internat

Governm

ent

Public

Lands

Economics -,363 -,394 -,197 ,718(**) -,260 ,188 -,075 ,131 ,432 -,309 ,289 ,605(*) -,398 -,189 -,232

Rights ,417 ,467 ,423 -,604(*) ,123 -,140 -,016 -,139 -,549(*) ,296 -,329 -,633(*) ,179 ,412 ,159

Health -,626(*) -,308 -,050 ,511 ,064 ,198 -,205 -,209 ,570(*) -,212 ,370 ,539(*) -,298 -,359 -,340

Agriculture -,089 ,229 -,085 ,054 ,320 -,147 ,216 ,092 ,150 -,053 -,301 ,106 ,018 -,563(*) -,066

Labor ,356 ,396 ,266 -,523 ,054 -,162 ,217 ,064 -,624(*) ,165 -,268 -,711(**) ,069 ,475 ,409

Education ,230 ,078 ,366 -,583(*) ,700(**) ,214 -,287 -,422 -,189 ,515 -,065 -,580(*) ,461 -,200 -,213

Environm -,142 -,298 ,324 ,207 ,765(**) ,038 -,060 -,338 ,238 -,122 ,170 -,232 ,228 -,309 -,281

Transport ,596(*) ,149 ,128 -,478 -,041 -,298 -,055 -,168 -,412 ,399 -,210 -,428 ,635(*) ,439 ,055

Crime -,013 ,228 -,114 -,712(**) ,428 ,211 -,208 -,317 ,034 ,383 -,148 -,004 ,511 -,493 -,062

Welfare -,072 -,515 ,111 -,330 ,568(*) ,147 -,152 -,104 ,777(**) -,177 ,123 -,057 ,077 -,505 -,164

Housing ,468 ,264 ,148 -,486 -,112 -,240 ,168 ,092 -,589(*) ,241 -,169 -,731(**) ,221 ,581(*) ,364

Defense ,488 -,434 -,192 -,030 ,259 -,371 -,030 -,269 ,060 ,170 ,078 -,180 ,815(**) ,028 -,138

International ,044 ,333 ,004 -,358 -,003 -,077 -,017 ,079 -,099 ,361 -,393 -,342 ,457 ,006 -,030

Government -,113 -,271 -,228 ,667(**) -,473 -,111 ,342 ,542(*) ,167 -,495 ,051 ,387 -,582(*) ,161 ,203

Public

Lands ,284 -,079 -,276 ,436 -,258 -,264 ,264 ,643(*) ,100 -,317 ,047 ,284 -,242 -,111 ,033

28

Table 9. Correlation between Public’s Most Important Problem and Governmental Bills (1994-2007)

Econom Rights Health Agricult Labor Educat Environ Transp Crime Welfare Housing Defense Internat Governm

Public

Lands

Economics ,185 -,484 ,069 ,200 ,023 ,290 -,402 -,084 -,171 -,067 ,432 -,071 ,486 ,089 ,182

Rights -,277 ,616(*) -,120 -,270 ,047 -,197 ,259 -,057 ,142 -,012 -,359 ,055 -,576(*) ,185 -,072

Health ,252 -,486 ,074 ,226 ,048 ,196 -,515 ,207 -,301 -,003 ,324 ,242 ,634(*) -,084 -,074

Agriculture ,073 -,131 ,210 ,362 -,243 ,606(*) ,042 ,236 -,517 ,151 -,213 ,324 -,003 -,305 ,426

Labor -,376 ,563(*) -,139 -,219 ,219 -,244 ,481 -,217 ,172 ,098 -,279 ,009 -,557(*) ,244 -,186

Education -,216 ,286 ,044 -,031 -,135 -,504 ,043 ,328 ,065 ,234 -,445 ,566(*) -,086 -,001 -,487

Environm -,143 -,130 ,207 ,193 ,379 -,358 -,164 -,040 -,025 ,773(**) -,007 ,723(**) ,141 -,151 -,433

Transport -,118 ,288 ,043 -,410 ,036 -,420 ,297 -,205 ,525 ,032 -,346 -,230 -,697(**) -,024 ,031

Crime ,326 ,118 -,011 ,159 -,521 -,256 ,026 ,685(**) -,023 -,221 -,283 ,092 ,196 -,554(*) -,326

Welfare ,209 -,176 -,002 ,105 -,199 -,506 -,110 ,226 -,130 ,342 ,121 ,493 ,326 -,298 -,434

Housing -,429 ,460 -,167 -,386 ,190 -,300 ,557(*) -,282 ,374 ,019 -,340 -,165 -,620(*) ,274 -,088

Defense -,186 ,023 ,493 -,177 ,227 -,319 ,142 -,063 ,337 ,362 -,197 -,055 -,147 -,325 ,005

International -,175 -,091 -,266 -,292 -,352 -,079 ,301 ,137 ,482 -,232 -,278 -,311 -,419 -,182 ,308

Government -,020 -,268 ,067 ,046 ,249 ,332 -,034 -,493 -,107 ,092 ,454 -,273 ,033 ,272 ,348

PublicLands -,049 -,118 -,105 -,174 -,179 ,386 ,086 -,203 -,007 ,192 -,174 -,155 -,180 ,127 ,505

Note: Pearson correlation coefficient. Entries in bold are statistically significant at the 0.05 level (*) or at the 0.01 level (**) (for the appropriate one-tailed test)

29

Table 10. Correlation between Public’s Most Important Problem and Oral Questions (Presented in Plenary Meeting) (1994-2007)

Econom Rights Health Agricultur Labor Educat

Environm Transp Crime Welfare Housing Defense Internat Govern

Public

Lands

Economics -,100 -,313 ,692(**) ,679(**) ,262 ,062 -,572(*) ,323 -,534(*) -,045 -,684(**) ,188 -,338 ,086 -,350

Rights -,103 ,542(*) -,650(*) -,720(**) -,387 -,145 ,589(*) -,444 ,631(*) ,079 ,660(*) -,308 ,327 ,133 ,416

Health -,078 -,428 ,785(**) ,676(**) ,409 ,148 -,482 ,395 -,674(**) -,217 -,680(**) ,094 -,284 -,073 -,332

Agriculture ,179 -,212 -,037 ,258 ,085 ,145 -,133 ,186 -,142 ,190 -,274 -,195 -,131 ,108 ,320

Labor -,057 ,580(*) -,601(*) -,694(**) -,454 -,255 ,481 -,345 ,735(**) ,036 ,583(*) -,265 ,291 ,178 ,213

Education -,170 ,184 -,350 -,615(*) -,069 -,114 ,672(**) ,092 ,230 -,081 ,432 -,295 ,342 -,165 ,522

Environment -,210 -,214 ,113 -,363 ,197 -,405 ,499 ,622(*) ,081 ,137 ,035 ,046 -,155 -,088 ,145

Transport -,069 ,175 -,811(**) -,767(**) -,221 -,036 ,676(**) -,476 ,505 ,277 ,882(**) ,118 ,498 -,055 ,347

Crime ,477 -,197 -,288 -,108 ,321 ,380 ,212 -,113 -,242 -,219 ,323 -,170 ,106 -,606(*) ,247

Welfare ,149 -,101 ,328 -,147 ,301 -,468 ,113 ,651(*) -,236 -,321 -,250 ,230 -,135 -,231 -,236

Housing -,160 ,522 -,675(**) -,659(*) -,531 -,190 ,418 -,402 ,717(**) ,056 ,607(*) -,085 ,473 ,220 ,190

Defense -,090 -,417 -,404 -,343 -,020 -,214 ,505 ,077 ,178 ,305 ,493

,733(**) ,097 -,326 ,128

International ,030 ,134 -,424 -,009 -,030 ,414 -,045 -,334 -,115 -,248 ,101 -,192 ,787(**) ,340 ,226

Governm -,042 -,028 ,492 ,416 -,049 -,240 -,476 ,202 -,072 ,101 -,516 ,239 -,337 ,343 -,483

PublicLand -,011 -,214 ,117 ,135 -,318 -,014 -,153 ,295 ,170 ,519 -,192 ,152 -,314 ,137 ,083

Note: Pearson correlation coefficient. Entries in bold are statistically significant at the 0.05 level (*) or at the 0.01 level (**) (for the appropriate one-tailed test)

30

Table 11. Correlation between Public’s Most Important Problem and Speeches (1994-2007)

Note: Pearson correlation coefficient. Entries in bold are statistically significant at the 0.05 level (*) or at the 0.01 level (**) (for the appropriate one-tailed test)

Econom Rights Health Agric Labor Education Envir Transport Crime Welfare Housing Defense Internat Governm

Public

Lands

Economics ,832(**) -,763(**) ,247 ,109 -,490 -,668(**) -,501 -,770(**) -,382 -,218 -,482 ,154 ,276 ,635(*) -,662(**)

Rights -,729(**) ,838(**) -,288 -,155 ,677(**) ,483 ,343 ,717(**) ,327 ,128 ,604(*) -,283 -,438 -,597(*) ,536(*)

Health ,727(**) -,759(**) ,386 ,354 -,394 -,449 -,401 -,612(*) -,274 ,013 -,613(*) ,442 ,357 ,214 -,361

Agriculture ,185 -,152 -,241 ,060 -,092 ,001 ,373 ,009 ,321 -,261 -,411 -,043 -,132 -,107 ,036

Labor -,697(**) ,904(**) -,306 -,255 ,629(*) ,541(*) ,355 ,680(**) ,246 ,120 ,692(**) -,264 -,553(*) -,500 ,503

Education -,709(**) ,513 ,000 ,330 ,178 ,470 ,190 ,791(**) ,619(*) ,466 ,247 ,254 ,022 -,794(**) ,494

Environm -,046 -,190 ,006 ,708(**) -,160 -,156 -,192 ,313 ,591(*) ,568(*) -,337 ,428 ,285 -,427 -,193

Transport -,815(**) ,540(*) -,350 ,074 ,302 ,302 ,316 ,744(**) ,343 ,165 ,482 -,261 ,060 -,256 ,341

Crime -,525 ,132 ,246 -,001 -,034 ,671(**) ,432 ,292 ,200 ,276 -,131 ,116 ,256 -,500 ,607(*)

Welfare ,009 -,192 ,576(*) ,025 -,519 ,149 -,155 ,087 ,357 ,205 -,110 ,677(**) ,169 -,263 ,017

Housing -,749(**) ,890(**) -,370 -,270 ,524 ,504 ,305 ,678(**) ,139 ,098 ,775(**) -,285 -,450 -,298 ,458

Defense -,375 -,145 -,168 ,403 -,179 -,087 ,298 ,459 ,179 ,453 -,081 ,113 ,590(*) -,037 ,022

Internat -,640(*) ,446 -,277 -,134 ,083 ,542(*) ,105 ,200 ,070 ,116 ,135 -,060 -,060 ,037 ,234

Governm ,706(**) -,412 -,007 -,203 -,274 -,621(*) -,351 -,611(*) -,322 -,444 -,113 -,034 -,109 ,690(**) -,638(*)

PublicLand ,393 -,258 -,413 -,138 -,294 -,511 -,285 -,313 ,137 -,535(*) -,063 -,207 -,026 ,503 -,405

31

Table 12. Most Important Problem – Policy Channel Correspondence Coefficients (1994-2007)

Organic

Laws

Ordinary Laws Parliamentary groups

bills

Executive bills Decree-Law Oral Questions Speeches Jurisdiction

Cost category Very high High Moderate Moderate Moderate Low Very Low

Economics -0,104 0,159 -0,363 0,185 -0,05 -0,1 ,832(**) Shared

Rights 0,406 ,617(*) 0,467 ,616(*) -- ,542(*) ,838(**) Central government

Health 0,307 -0,087 -0,05 0,074 -0,125 ,785(**) 0,386 Shared

Agriculture -- 0,2 0,054 0,362 ,648(*) 0,258 0,06 Shared

Labor -0,386 0,129 0,054 0,219 -0,016 -0,454 ,629(*) Shared

Education 0,183 -0,204 0,214 -0,504 0,169 -0,114 0,47 Shared

Environment -- -0,015 -0,06 -0,164 0,051 0,499 -0,192 Shared

Energy -- -- -- -- -- -- Central government

Transport -0,248 -0,187 -0,168 -0,205 -0,055 -0,476 ,744(**) Central government

Law and Crime 0,049 0,034 0,034 -0,023 0,237 -0,242 0,2 Shared

Welfare -- 0,044 -0,177 0,342 0,043 -0,321 0,205 Decentralized

Housing -- -0,415 -0,169 -0,34 0,337 ,607(*) ,775(**) Central government

Commerce -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Central government

Science and Techn -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Central government

Defense -0,128 -0,213 -0,18 -0,055 -0,048 ,733(**) 0,113 Central government

International -0,279 -0,447 0,457 -0,419 0,028 ,787(**) -0,06 Central government

Foreign Trade -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Central government

Government 0,374 0,338 0,161 0,272 ,655(*) 0,343 ,690(**) Shared

Public Lands -- 0,267 0,033 0,505 ,686(**) 0,083 -0,405 Shared

Significant

correlations

0 1 0 1 3 5 6

Average correlations 0,009 0,012 0,016 0,046 0,135 0,154 0,278

32

Table 13. Estimated Institutional Cots for 10 Policymaking Channels

Policymaking

channel

Kurtosis

(94-07)

Kurtosis

(77-2007)

Cost

Category

Cost Rank

Organic Laws 3,3 4.5 Very high 5

Ordinary Laws 13,9 7.6 High 4

Parliamentary Bills 7,2

10.5 Moderate 3

Executive Bills 14,6

20.3 Moderate 3

Decree-Law 9,7

4.9 Moderate 3

Oral Questions 43,3

70.1 Low 2

Speeches 14,5

24.2 Very Low 1

Table 14. Correlation MIP and Political Parties

PP IU CIU PSOE PNV MIX

1.Macroeconomics -0.2367 0.207 -0.624* 0.2599 -0.407 -0.247

2. Civil rights 0.859** -0.076 -0.3 -0.586* 0.305 0.174

3. Health 0.903** 0.617* 0.125 0.3021 0.414 -0.059

4. Agriculture 0.2421 0.3243 0.606* 0.1517 0.197 0.486

5. Labor -0.710** -0.3703 0.25 -0.168 0.316 -0.225

6. Education -0.2265 -0.0078 0.27 -0.051 0.041 -0.427

7. Environment 0.654* 0.086 0.549* 0.243 -0.115 0.053

8. Energy

10.Transportation -0.23663 -0.4 -0.334 -0.4586 -0.137 0.26

12.Internal affairs and

justice

-0.569* -0.839* 0.406 0.4021 -0.259 -0.173

13. Social Policy -0.1234 0.006 -0.288 -0.3513 -0.174 0.08

14. Housing 0.3134 0.754* -0.039 0.444 0.59

15. Commerce

16. Defense -0.0949 0.647* -0.15 0.836* -0.061 -0.07

17. Science and

Technology

- - - - - -

18. Foreign Trade - - - - - -

19. International

Affairs

0.4425 0.198 - 0.4816 -0.06 0.072

20. Government and

Public Administration

0.3706 0.27 - -0.0091 -0.432 0.179

21. Public Lands and

water management

0.0822 -0.124 - 0.4631 -0.212 -0.175

Average Correlation 0.088 0.068 0.025 0.103 -0.031 0.027

33

Figure 2Most Salient Issues on the Public Agenda (1994-2007)

Economics

Healt h

Just ice and C rime

Go vernment

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Y ear

Economics Health Just ice and Crime Government

Figure 1 Policy Issues on the Public Agenda (Most Important Problem)

E conomi cs

Ri ght s

Heal t hAgr i cul t ur e

LaborE ducat i on

E nvi r onmentT r anspor t

Just i ce and Cr i me

Wel f ar eHousi ng

Def ense and I nt er nat i onal

Gover nm

P ubl i cLands

Ot her s

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Y ear

Economics Rights HealthAgriculture Labor EducationEnvironm Transport CrimeWelfare Housing Defense and InternationalGovernm PublicLands Others

34

Figure 3New Issues on the Public Agenda (1994-2007)

Ri ght s

Housi ng

Def ense and I nt er nat

Labor

T r anspor t

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Year

%

Rights Housing Defence and Internat Labor Transport

Figure 4 Entropy Scores

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

oral questions law s executive bills parliamentary bills speeches MIP

Means (1994-2007):

Oral Questions: 2.73

Parliamentary Bills: 2.40

Laws: 2.43 Executive Bills: 2.35

Speeches: 2.27

MIP: 1.66

35

Policy Issues on Public Agenda

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Econo

mics

Rights

Health

Agricu

lture

Labo

r

Educa

tion

Enviro

nmen

t

Energ

y

Trans

port

Crime

Welf

are

Housin

g

Comm

erce

Scienc

e

Foreig

nTra

de

Gover

nmen

t

Public

Land

s

Defen

se a

nd In

tern

at

Policy Issues on Laws (all types)

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

Econo

mics

Rights

Health

Agricu

lture

Labo

r

Educa

tion

Enviro

nmen

t

Energ

y

Trans

port

Crime

Welf

are

Housin

g

Comm

erce

Defens

e

Scienc

e

Foreig

nTra

de

Inter

natio

nal

Gover

nmen

t

Public

Land

s

Policy Issues on Executive Bills

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

Econo

mics

Rights

Health

Agricu

lture

Labor

Educa

tion

Enviro

nmen

t

Energy

Trans

port

Crime

Welfa

re

Housing

Comm

erce

Defens

e

Scienc

e

Foreig

nTra

de

Inter

natio

nal

Gover

nmen

t

Public

Land

s

Policy Issues on Parliamentary Bills

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

Econo

mics

Rights

Health

Agricu

lture

Labo

r

Educa

tion

Enviro

nmen

t

Energ

y

Trans

port

Crime

Welf

are

Housin

g

Comm

erce

Defen

se

Scienc

e

Foreig

nTra

de

Inte

rnat

ional

Gover

nmen

t

Public

Land

s

Policy Issues on Oral Questions

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Econo

mics

Rights

Health

Agricu

lture

Labo

r

Educa

tion

Enviro

nmen

t

Energ

y

Trans

port

Crime

Welf

are

Housin

g

Commer

ce

Defen

se

Scienc

e

Foreig

nTra

de

Inter

natio

nal

Gover

nment

Public

Lands

Policy Issues on Speeches

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

Econo

mics

Rights

Health

Agricu

lture

Labo

r

Educa

tion

Enviro

nmen

t

Energ

y

Trans

port

Crime

Welf

are

Housin

g

Comm

erce

Defen

se

Scienc

e

Foreig

nTra

de

Inter

natio

nal

Gover

nmen

t

Public

Land

s

Figures 5 to 10

36

MIP

-13

-10

-7

-4

-1

2

5

8

11

Econom

ics

Rights

Health

Agricu

lture

Labo

r

Educa

tion

Enviro

nmen

t

Trans

port

Crime

Welfa

re

Housing

Gover

nmen

t

Public

Lands

Defens

e and

Inte

rnat

Laws

-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

4

5

Econo

mics

Right

s

Health

Agricu

lture

Labo

r

Educa

tion

Enviro

nmen

t

Energ

y

Trans

port

Crime

Welf

are

Housin

g

Comm

erce

Defen

se

Scienc

e

Foreig

nTra

de

Inter

natio

nal

Gover

nmen

t

Public

Land

s

Executive Bills

-8

-6

-4

-2

0

2

4

6

8

10

Econo

mics

Rights

Health

Agricu

lture

Labo

r

Educa

tion

Enviro

nmen

t

Energ

y

Trans

port

Crime

Welf

are

Housin

g

Comm

erce

Defen

se

Scienc

e

Foreig

nTra

de

Inte

rnat

ional

Gover

nmen

t

Public

Land

s

Parliamentary Bills

-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

4

5

Econo

mics

Rights

Health

Agricu

lture

Labo

r

Educa

tion

Enviro

nmen

t

Energ

y

Trans

port

Crime

Welf

are

Housin

g

Comm

erce

Defen

se

Scienc

e

Foreig

nTra

de

Inte

rnat

iona

l

Gover

nmen

t

Public

Land

s

Oral Questions

-6

-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

Econo

mics

Rights

Health

Agricu

lture

Labo

r

Educa

tion

Enviro

nmen

t

Energ

y

Trans

port

Crime

Welf

are

Housin

g

Comm

erce

Defen

se

Scienc

e

Foreig

nTra

de

Inte

rnat

ional

Gover

nmen

t

Public

Land

s

Speeches

-10

-8

-6

-4

-2

0

2

4

6

8

Econo

mics

Rights

Health

Agricu

lture

Labo

r

Educat

ion

Enviro

nment

Energy

Trans

port

Crime

Welfa

re

Housin

g

Comm

erce

Defen

se

Science

Foreig

nTra

de

Inte

rnat

ional

Gover

nmen

t

Public

Land

s

Figures 11 to 16

37

Figure 18 Relationship between institutional costs and correspondance

Organic Law sOrdinary Law sParliamentary Bills

Executive Bills

Decree-Law

Oral Questions

Speeches

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Cost category for channel

Ave

rag

e M

IP-A

ctiv

ity

corr

elat

ion

fo

r ch

ann

elFigure 17

Average MIP-Issue Correlations by Policy-Making Channel (1994-2007)

0.000

0.050

0.100

0.150

0.200

0.250

0.300

Organic Laws Ordinary Laws ParliamentaryGroups Bills

Governmental Bills Decree-Law Oral QuestionsPresented

Speeches

Policymaking Channel

Ave

rag

e co

rrel

atio

n

38

Figure 19. Correlation MIP and Political Parties

PSOE

PP

IU

M IX CIU

PNV-0.040

-0.020

0.000

0.020

0.040

0.060

0.080

0.100

0.120

1