Setting the agenda by motions: comparison between Israel and England

Setting the agenda: the theoretical aspects

Setting the agenda in a legislative assembly is considered a very important issue; it is

intensively investigated in the U.S. Congress and some European assembles. The

previous theoretical literature examined the ability of government to control agendas

and offered different emphases; Laver and Shepsle (1996) suggest that coalition

governments distribute proposal rights to their members, who would then use those

rights to bring their preferred bills directly to the floor for a vote. However, Cox and

McCubbins (2005; 2007) and Tsebelis (2002) suggest that coalition governments

distribute blocking rights to their members, requiring collective bargaining over the

government agenda.

In addition to these emphases we can say that the diverse studies regarding setting the

agenda have two main components: first, understanding the procedures of the relevant

assembly which gives the government and the opposition the ability to block or delay

legislation; and, second, understanding how effective those procedures are in delaying

and blocking legislation.

The procedures

In France’s National Assembly, Huber (1992) found blocking tactics (the Guillotine).

Similar to the Guillotine procedure, Wilkerson (1999) found the ‘killer amendment’

used as a parliamentary tactic, which can, if adopted, cause a bill to fail. Rasch (2000)

found the amendment procedure in Western and East-Central Europe. In the Israeli

parliament, Akirav Cox and McCubbins (2008) found the “arrangement law” in which

the government can veto expenditure bills after they have been enacted.

The studies mentioned above found that governments have more ability to block

legislation than the opposition, while Cox Heller and McCubbins (2008) found that

both the government and the opposition in the Italian Parliament have the power to

block bills (Rule 23).

Huber found delaying tactics called the ‘package vote’ (1992) in the National

Assembly in France. While Rasch (2000) found the successive procedure in Western

and East-Central Europe parliaments. In the Israeli government, Akirav Cox and

McCubbins (2008) found at least six points wherein the government can delay

opposition and private members’ bills, such as time restriction, budget restriction, and

committee restrictions.

Furthermore, Cox Heller and McCubbins (2008) used the term 'circumventing tactics'

to describe tactics used by the government and the opposition in Italy to delay

legislation. For example: the government can propose that parliament delegate to the

executive the right to emit ‘legislative decrees’ or administrative rules in stipulated

areas. After that, the government is free to pursue policies within the area delegated.

(Cox Heller and McCubbins 2008:174-175) They found that governing parties in Italy

have very low roll rates and that Italy's parliament stands out from other assemblies

because it gives opposition parties more power to delay or block statutes.

Sinclair (1995) and Doring (2001) examine the issue of setting the agenda from

different point of view; Sinclair (1995) presents the issue of agenda setting in the

Congress in the post reform era from several aspects: members' expectations, in-

House and external agenda setting strategies, agenda success. According to Sinclair,

the rules have been changed and the party's leaders need collective media strategies in

order to set the party agenda. While Doring (2001) indicated that there are variations

among different forms of agenda control across Western Europe. His research focused

on two kinds of agendas: the rules and procedures covering the passage of the budget

and the procedure for passing legislation (Doring 2001: 154).

In sum, we can say that different parliaments have a variety of blocking and

delaying tactics and all of the parliaments are trying to keep the delicate balance

between the power of the coalition and the power of the opposition.

The effectiveness of the procedures

In order to understand the effectiveness of the procedures each assembly provides, we

must assume, the same as Huber (1992) does, that the institutional arrangements play

important roles in structuring not only legislative-executive relationships but also

strategic interactions between parties that are partner in coalitions and between

government and opposition parties during minority government. (Huber 1992:684-

685)

The first and the more common explanation about the effectiveness of the procedures

relies on the ability of a government to hold its majority (Huber 1992; Doring 1995;

Krehbiel 1997, 2007; Masuyama 2000; Marshall 2002; Akirav Cox and McCubbins

2008)

Huber (1992) found that the use of the Guillotine tactic decreases as elections

draw near and the use of the package vote increases when the government is a

coalition government. Doring (1995) found that as long as the government has the

ability to control the parliamentary agenda, the amount of private legislation

decreases. Akirav Cox and McCubbins (2008) had the same findings; the government

in Israel can block bills outright when it can hold its majority together.

Krehbiel (1997) pointed out that "the obvious point of agreement is that special rules

and Rules Committee are instruments of majority-party power in a partisan

Congress". (Krehbiel 1997:920) Furthermore, Krehbiel agreed with the claim of

previous studies that, by controlling legislative procedures, the majority party is a big

winner relative to the minority party and the median voter in the legislature.

In present work Krehbiel (2007) strengthens his previous studies, stating that majority

party leaders set the agenda in countless ways: monopolizing chairmanships,

dominating committee assignments, choosing the speaker who dominates the Rule

Committee, etc. (Krehbiel 2007:20)

The majority explanation is also valid in the Japanese Diet; it ranks relatively high in

terms of a ruling majority's ability to control the legislative agenda. (Masuyama

2000).

Moreover, France, Greece and the United Kingdom rank highest in government

control of the agenda while Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, and Denmark

rank lowest. (Doring 2001)

Marshall (2002) expands on the majority explanation by supporting partisan claims

that the Rules Committee acts as the agent of the majority party in assigning rules,

and procedural choice is one key institutional mechanism that the House uses to

govern its process of choosing policy. (Marshall 2002:79).

The second explanation regarding the effectiveness of the procedures relies

on understanding parliamentary institutions (Shepsle and Weingast 1984b; Ferejohn

Fiorina and McKelvey 1987; Kim and Loewenberg 2005).

Shepsle and Weingast (1984b) concluded that institutional arrangements, especially

mechanisms of agenda construction, impose constraints on majority outcomes. A

similar point of view can be found in Ferejohn Fiorina and McKelvey’s 1987 study.

They examined the role of institutional rules in a legislative environment and showed

that any agenda’s independent outcome has a small project minimal winning coalition

bias.

Kim and Loewenberg (2005) presented evidence that, in the German parliamentary

system, committee chairs are distributed in a manner that makes it possible for parties

to monitor their coalition partners in the executive branch. In addition, Martin and

Vanberg (2005) focus on the central role that parliamentary institutions play in

strengthening government parties that have been forced to delegate important agenda-

setting powers to their coalition partners in Germany and Netherlands. (Martin and

Vanberg 2005: 93) The dependent variable of their research is defined as Number of

articles altered (or deleted) in the draft version of bill + Number of new articles

added to the draft version of bill. The independents variables were: government issue

divisiveness, opposition issue divisiveness, having a junior minister from a partner

party, the number of committee referrals, the number of articles in a draft bill and

expiration of bill before plenary vote. Their main conclusion was that, the greater the

level of policy divisiveness among parties that participate in the coalition, the more

likely ministerial drafts are to be changed extensively in the legislative process.

The third explanation about the effectiveness of the procedures is contingent on

understanding the procedures (Shepsle and Weingast 1984a; Wilson 1986).

Shepsle and Weingast (1984a) studied the circumstances under which rules of

procedure are likely to play significant roles. They claimed that different procedures

have different effects, ranging from marginal to all-important. (Shepsle and Weingast

1984a:219)

We can see similar patterns in Wilson’s 1986 research, which were based on

laboratory experiments in a committee-like setting and examined the connection

between procedures and choices in collective decision-making arrangements. He

found that very different patterns of outcomes arise from different procedural rules;

backward voting procedure are very constraining for myopic participants, while

forward voting procedures converge toward the center of the Pareto optimal subspace.

(Wilson 1986:407)

Four more explanations about the effectiveness of the procedures cannot be

defined in one category. Binder (1999) explains that the government’s ability to delay

or block legislation is caused by the difference in political opinion in and between the

two major parties. Rasch’s (2000) main conclusion was that the possibilities for any

agenda setter to control the voting order are limited (Rasch 2000:17). While Doring

(2004) concluded that the multidimensionality of a bill was one of the main reasons

for protecting bills from being rolled on the floor through the use of restrictive

rules.(Doring 2004:166)

Krehbiel (2007) develops and employs a baseline model to assess roll rates. His

model has four assumptions. First, parties are weak, possessing neither agenda-setting

rights nor disciplinary powers. Second, members of a party have common policy

predispositions. Third, party sizes may vary. And fourth, roll call voting is stochastic

and parametric. (Krehbiel 2007:4)

As mentioned before, the literature review shows that setting the agenda is well

researched, more in the U.S. House of Representatives and less in Western European

parliaments and those elsewhere in the world. The current research intends to add to

the existing knowledge a wider understanding of the government’s ability to set

agenda by comparing the British Parliament to the Israeli Parliament.

Scholars do not ask whether there is another way to examine agenda setting except by

legislation, but Krehbiel (2007) suggests supplementing the roll call analysis with

other kinds of data whenever possible. (Krehbiel 2007: 22)

The current research suggests expanding Cox and McCubbins’ model and adopting

Krehbeil’s advice by adding to the roll rate analysis the testing of motion for the

agenda. Here we will use the term Negative agenda power and define it as the ability

to block or significantly delay motions from reaching a debate in committee in the

Israeli parliament and the amount of support signatures in the British parliament.

We decided to compare these two parliaments for two main reasons. First, the

use of motion for the agenda is common and intensively use in both parliaments.

Second, the Israeli parliament was based on the British parliament when it was

established.

In the rest of the paper, we first describe floor procedures in a comparative view and

try to understand the differences between parliaments. Then we describe the context

of our study: Tony Blair’s third (and last) government in England (2005-2007) and

Ariel Sharon’s second (and last) government in Israel (2003-2000).

We then describe the negative agenda power of Israeli governments and how this

power is shared within the coalition. We argue that Israeli governments do not form

agenda cartels, such as those Cox and McCubbins show in their studies of many other

parliamentary regimes, when they try to delay or block motions for the agenda.

Turning next to the opposition, we argue that Israeli oppositions are powerful when

they use motions for the agenda. Then we describe the negative agenda power of the

British government and its opposition.

We advance seven hypotheses which we test using recently available motions

for the agenda data from the 16th Knesset in Israel and early day motions data from

the UK's 54th Parliament.

Procedures on the floor: a comparative view Although a significant amount of research has not been devoted to floor procedures,

in this section we will concentrate on the results that did emerge from the existing

studies.

In the Canadian House of Commons, debate occurs only when the House has a

motion before it; motion can be initiated by the government, opposition or private

members. Franks (1985) claims that the function of most debate in the Canadian

House is not to state, convince or support, but simply to occupy time.

As did Franks, Atkinson and Docherty (2004) examined the Canadian House by

describing the opposition's opportunities to construct roadblocks for the government;

25 "opposition days" are set aside in each parliamentary session during which motions

are proposed by opposition parties. Atkinson and Docherty claim the essential

problem is that the quality of parliamentary debate is simply not high enough to

attract media attention. On the other hand the Question Period is considered a focal

point of great attention, sometimes even to the point of diminishing the significance of

other debates.

Rasch (2002) examined the parliamentary floor voting procedures in Europe and tried

to indicate some consequences of various approaches to voting for legislative

outcomes. One of his arguments is that the outcome of parliamentary voting may

depend on the order in which feasible alternatives are voted upon on the floor. (Rascn

2002:276)

Many other studies tried to understand different procedures existing in parliaments

and their influence on the ability of governments to rule. (Dion and Huber 1996;

Schickler and Rich 1997; Gilligan and Krehbiel 1989; Austin-Smith 1987; Ordeshook

and Schwartz 1987; Krehbiel 1988)

In the next section of the paper we will try to understand those voting alternatives in

order to examine the ability of the government and the opposition to set the

parliament agenda.

The British government’s negative agenda power

The debate procedures of the floor enable MPs to present their ideas to their voters

and their fellow MPs. Therefore the floor procedures matter and are very important in

understanding the strengths and the weaknesses of MPs' ability to set their agenda on

the floor.

In this section we consider the context of Tony Blair’s 2005-2007 government in

England and procedural sources of the government’s negative agenda power in

Britain.

Context

The Parliament of England evolved from early medieval councils that advised the

sovereigns of England. The first 'United Kingdom' Parliament was formed as a result

of the Treaty of Union in 1707 to replace the parliaments of England and Scotland,

though in practice the parliament was a continuation of the English parliament with

the addition of Scottish MPs and peers. The parliament is bicameral, with an upper

house, the House of Lords, and a lower house, the House of Commons. The Queen is

the third component of Parliament. In theory, supreme legislative power is vested in

the Queen-in-Parliament; in modern practice, real power is vested in the House of

Commons. The Sovereign generally acts on the advice of the Prime Minister and the

powers of the House of Lords are limited.

The British Government is answerable to the House of Commons. The Queen

requests the person most likely to command the support of a majority in the House,

normally the leader of the largest party in the House of Commons, to form a

government. The political party with the second largest number of seats in the House

of Commons forms the Official Opposition.

In the United Kingdom general elections are held when MPs forming the House of

Commons are elected. Following the Parliament Act of 1911, parliamentary sessions

last a maximum of five years, and are ended with the dissolution of Parliament.

Therefore elections are not fixed, and the time is chosen by the governing party to

maximize political advantage. The UK has a first-past-the-post system (FPTP) with a

single member constituency and simple majority.

Each party or registered organization offers a candidate for each seat.

The country is divided up into 659 constituencies: England 529, Scotland 72, Wales

40, and Northern Ireland 18. The candidate with the most votes in his/her

constituency becomes the Member of Parliament (MP).

Historically, the United Kingdom had two major political parties, though currently

three parties dominate the political landscape. Originally, the Conservatives and the

Liberals dominated British politics, but the Liberal Party collapsed in the early

twentieth century and was largely replaced by the Labour Party. In the 1980s, the

Liberals merged with the Social Democratic Party and, as the Liberal Democrats, are

viewed as the third major party. Other parties, often called minor parties in the UK,

contest elections but few except those which are based in single counties of the United

Kingdom win seats in Parliament.

The history of the Labour party goes back to 1900 when a Labour Representation

Committee was established which then changed its name to the Labour Party in 1906.

After World War I, this led to the demise of the Liberal Party as the main reformist

force in British politics. The existence of the Labour Party on the left of British

politics slowly drew support away from the Liberal Party, which has consequently

assumed third place in national politics.

Following two brief spells in minority governments in 1924 and 1929–1931, the

Labour Party had its first true victory after World War II in the 1945 "khaki election".

Throughout the rest of the twentieth century, Labour governments alternated with

Conservative governments. The Conservatives were in power for most of the time,

with the Labour Party suffering the "wilderness years" of 1951-1964 (three straight

General Election defeats) and 1979-1997 (four straight General Election defeats).

During this second period, Margaret Thatcher, who became leader of the

Conservative party in 1975, made a fundamental change to Conservative policies,

turning the Conservative Party into an economic neoliberal party. In the General

Election of 1979 she defeated James Callaghan's troubled Labour government after

the winter of discontent.

For most of the 1980s and the 1990s, Conservative governments under Thatcher and

her successor John Major pursued policies of privatization, anti-trade-unionism, and,

for a time, Monetarism, now known collectively as Thatcherism.

Tony Blair became leader of the Labour party in 1994. He continued to move the

Labour Party back towards the 'centre' by loosening links with the unions and

embracing many of Margaret Thatcher's liberal liberalizing economic policies. This,

coupled with the party machine's more media-savvy approach, helped Labour win an

historic landslide in the 1997 General Election, after 18 years of Conservative

government.

This research will discuss the UK's 54th Parliament in 2005-2007, from Blair's third

victory to his reassignment. The 2005 UK general election was held on Thursday, 5

May 2005 to elect members to the House of Commons. The Labour Party under Tony

Blair won its third consecutive victory, with a reduced overall majority of 55.2% of

seats (356 out of 646). The Conservative Party gained 30.7% of seats (198 out of

646). The Liberal Democrat Party won 9.6% of seats (62 out of 646). The rest of the

small parties won 36 seats.

Following the election results, Labour remained in power and Tony Blair remained

Prime Minister, reshuffling government positions over the following weekend, with

formal announcements made on 9 May 2005. The most senior positions of

Chancellor, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary remained the same, but a few new

faces were added. The official opposition remained the Conservative Party. The new

Parliament met on 11 May for the election of the Speaker of the House of Commons.

During his time in parliament, Blair raised taxes, introduced new employment rights,

introduced significant constitutional reforms, promoted new rights for gay people in

the Civil Partnership Act 2004, and signed treaties integrating Britain more closely

with the EU. He introduced substantial market-based reforms in the education and

health sectors, introduced student tuition fees, sought to reduce certain categories of

welfare payments, and introduced tough anti-terrorism and identity card legislation. In

foreign affairs, Blair strongly supported the United States’ foreign policy, notably by

participating in the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. Following the

Omagh Bombing (which killed 29 people and wounded hundreds) on 15 August

1998 by dissidents opposed to the peace process, Blair visited the County Tyrone

town and met with victims at Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital. That was a significant

contribution towards the Northern Ireland Peace Process formed in the Good Friday

Agreement.

On 24 June Blair formally handed over the leadership of the Labour Party to Gordon

Brown at a special party conference in Manchester. Blair tendered his resignation as

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to the Queen on 27 June 2007.

Early Day Motion

Early day motions (EDMs) are formal motions submitted for debate in the House of

Commons. However, very few EDMs are actually debated. Instead, they are used

for reasons such as publicizing the views of individual MPs, drawing attention to

specific events or campaigns, and demonstrating the extent of parliamentary support

for a particular cause or point of view.

MPs can add their signature to an EDM to show their support. They can also submit

amendments to an existing EDM. Although the majority of EDMs are never

debated, the group of EDMs known as 'prayers' may be debated. Prayers are

motions to overturn Statutory Instruments (laws made by Ministers under powers

deriving from Acts of Parliament).

Members give notice of an early day motion by handing in its text to the Table Office

near the House of Commons Chamber, behind the Speaker’s Chair. After the EDM

has been checked for conformity with the rules of the House (which are the same for

all motions, whether for a specified day or not) it is printed. The Table Office can

advise on the rules of the House concerning the text of motions; however the final

decision on whether a motion is in order rests with the Speaker1. Additional MPs can

sign Early Day Motions. Commonly, MPs do this by tearing out pages from their

copy of the ‘Blues’ and signing below the chosen Motion or Motions. The pages are

then handed to the Table Office, and the EDM (together with its top six sponsors, but

not others who have previously signed the Motion) is reprinted in the next Notice

Paper with the new names added.

A Member may put down an amendment or amendments to another Member's EDM.

If Members wishes to table an amendment to an EDM which they have already

signed, they first have to withdraw their name from the main motion.

Some amendments advance a view contrary to that offered by the main Motion and

may advocate the replacement of the whole text from ‘that’ with an alternative

proposition on the same subject, whilst others may seek additional or strengthening

provisions. The Table Office can advise whether amendments which amount to total

opposition to the EDM (in the form of an “expanded negative”) would be in order.

EDMs remain current for the rest of the session in which they were put down and

extra names can be added at any time up until the session ends in prorogation or

dissolution. For the first two weeks, motions are reprinted when new names are

added. They are then reprinted only on Thursdays if any signatures have been added

to the EDM since it was last printed. Before each parliamentary recess, the Table

Office prints a list of EDMs giving their titles in numerical order, the date of first

printing and total number of signatories to date. This is issued with the ‘Blues’. At the

end of the session all EDMs fall, but they can be introduced again in the new session.

They do not automatically carry forward the signatures appended to them in the

previous session. Some EDMs reappear session after session.

1 The main rules are: • Motions should not be over 250 words. • Motions should not criticize other MPs, Peers, judges or members of the royal family except as the main subject of the motion • no reference should be made to matters before the courts • no unparliamentary language or irony should be used • titles must be purely descriptive

EDMs tend to fall into several distinct groups. First, the Opposition may put down an

EDM to pray against statutory instruments. Many appear in the name of the Leader of

the Opposition or of another opposition party. Thus the Opposition gives public notice

that it may seek to secure a debate on an SI; this type of EDM is generally the only

one which can lead to a debate. Under Standing Order No. 118, the Government may

refer a statutory instrument subject to negative procedure for debate in a standing

committee once a motion for its annulment has been tabled.

In the House of Commons, any member may put down a motion to annul an SI

subject to the Negative Procedure. In practice such motions are now generally put

down as Early Day Motions (EDMs), which are motions for which no time has been

fixed and, in the vast majority of cases, for which no time is likely to be available. A

motion put down by the Official Opposition will often be accommodated, although

there is no absolute certainty of this. An annulment motion put down by a

backbencher is unlikely to be dealt with, but a debate may be arranged if there are a

large number of signatories to the EDM. In the House of Lords prayers can be tabled

by an individual member and are usually debated, although rarely put to the vote.

Second, a group within a party might put down an EDM. This may express a view

different from the official position of the party concerned. For example, motions put

down by government backbenchers may seek to accelerate or otherwise change

government action.

In sum, we can say that EDM in the British Parliament has less similarity to Cox and

McCubbins' roll rate model, yet the MPs' support for EDM can set agenda.

Furthermore, the British Parliament deals less in debate on the floor and focuses on

the publicity of the EDM supporters.

Putting together the discussions of the ability of government to delay or block EDMs

and the ability of the opposition to set its agenda using EDMs, we can state a

prediction as follows:

H1: The rate of EDMs initiated by coalition MPs should be lower than

that of EDMs initiated by opposition MPs.

H2: Coalition MPs will support EDMs less often than opposition MPs.

H3: The number of coalition MPs that support an EDM initiated by

coalition MPs will be greater than the number of coalition MPs that

support EDMs initiated by opposition MPs.

H4: The number of opposition MPs that support an EDM initiated by

opposition MPs will be greater than the number of opposition MPs that

support an EDM initiated by coalition MPs.

The Israeli government’s negative agenda power

Context2 Israel’s political system has been described as a hybrid, combining electoral rules

similar to the Netherlands’, a fragmented party system similar to Italy’s, bipolar

competition similar to Germany’s, and a constitutional framework, or lack thereof,

similar to the UK’s. (Hazan 2001, p. 47) In the first 30 years of its history, Israeli

politics was dominated by the Mapai Party which, although it never won an outright

majority, always formed the basis of the government (and, in 1968, merged with other

parties to form the Labour Party). As several scholars have noted (e.g., Hazan 2001;

Ottolenghi 2004), the long dominance of Labour meant that relatively few restraints

on or challenges to executive authority developed.

After Labour’s defeat in 1977, and especially during the 1980s, the Israeli party

system fragmented and chronic policy stalemates developed. Two successive reforms

sought to remedy this problem. The first, passed in 1992, introduced (among other

changes) direct election of the prime minister. After this reform failed to address the

problems it was intended to fix, the Knesset in 2001 restored most of the old system,

with the important addition of a constructive vote of no confidence. (To remove a

sitting Prime Minister, at least 61 Knesset Members [MKs] must vote for a specific

alternative candidate).

Our study begins when Israel’s 30th government—Ariel Sharon’s second—was sworn

in on 27 February 2003. Sharon’s government was backed by two distinct coalitions

during his time in office: The first coalition consisted of Likud (40 seats), the anti-

2 The section based on the Akirav Cox and McCubbins article (2008)

clerical Shinui (15 seats), the National Religious Party (6 seats), and the merged

National Unity-Yisrael Beitenu (7 seats), for a total of 68 out of the Knesset’s 120

seats. This coalition came under severe stress beginning in May 2004, when Sharon

introduced his disengagement plan, which called for unilateral withdrawal from the

Gaza Strip and from four settlements in Samaria. The National Unity-Yisrael Beitenu

bloc withdrew from the coalition in early June 2004, leaving the coalition with 61

seats. Soon thereafter, two members of the National Religious Party quit their party,

leaving the coalition with a minority (59 seats). Sharon nonetheless carried on,

relying on votes from several opposition parties to advance his agenda in general and

the disengagement plan in particular. On 26 October 2004, the Knesset approved the

disengagement plan by a vote of 67 to 45, despite 17 defections from within Sharon’s

own Likud party.

In early November, the National Religious Party quit the government rather than

support a government bill that sought to compensate the settlers who would be

evacuated under the disengagement plan. Soon thereafter, Sharon reached an

agreement with the ultra-Orthodox Yahadut HaTorah party (5 seats), under which it

would support (at least) the government’s budget but accept no cabinet portfolios. At

this point, the government had 55 seats from parties with ministers in cabinet, plus the

support of 5 MKs from Yahadut HaTorah, for a total of 60 seats.

In early December, Shinui declared its opposition to the budgetary concessions that

Sharon had made in order to obtain support from Yahadut HaTorah; Shinui then voted

against the government in a budgetary vote. So Sharon dismissed Shinui from the

government and entered into negotiations with Labour (19 seats). Labour agreed to

vote with the government on 4 December 2004 and entered the government on 10

January 2005, with Yahadut HaTorah also accepting cabinet posts. Sharon’s second

coalition thus again gave his government a majority (64 seats).

Motions for the agenda

Motions for the agenda are one of the means by which Knesset Members can place issues

on the Knesset agenda. At the beginning of every Knesset year the House Committee

determines how many motions for the agenda every faction can table in that year. A

Motion for the Agenda requires the approval of the Speaker. Motions that are insulting or

judgmental towards a person, motions on issues that are already on the Knesset agenda or

have been debated in the plenum in the previous four weeks and on which there has been

no development justifying a renewed debate, or motions on subjects that are sub judice,

not approved. If there is concern that a debate in the plenum will have a negative effect

on the security of the state, its foreign relations or secret international economic

operations, the Speaker may decide, after consulting the Foreign Affairs and Security

Committee, that the issue will be raised in the committee. A Knesset Member may

request that his motion be approved as urgent, and the Knesset Presidium will decide

whether to approve it as such. A Motion for the Agenda will be approved as urgent if the

debate on it is likely to prevent an act or omission which is irreversible or that the subject

of the motion is of urgent public interest. Before a motion comes up for debate, the

Government announces whether it is interested in expressing an opinion on the issue.

After the motion comes up and the minister or deputy minister replies, the plenum

decides whether to remove it from its agenda, debate it or pass it on to a committee for

further deliberation.

Putting together the discussions of the ability of government to delay or block

motions for the agenda and the ability of opposition to set its agenda using motions for

the agenda, we can state a prediction as follows:

H5: Governing parties’ roll rates on motions for the agenda in the Knesset should

be low.

H6: Opposition parties’ roll rates on motions for the agenda in the Knesset should

be low.

H7: Israeli opposition parties’ roll rates on motions for the agenda should be

greater than Israeli governing parties’ roll rates.

We can see that motions in England and in Israel have the same purpose; rising and

emphasizing an issue that important to the MP. But there are two main differences

between Israel and England in the voting procedure: first, in Israel every motion that

reaches the floor is been voted while in England voting is very rare. Second, in Israel

debate regarding a motion for the agenda can be continued in a committee and thus

expand the depth of the debate and the ability of MP to set his/her agenda while in

England it is an option. Still the comparison will enable us to examine the abilities of

governments, for the one hand, and oppositions' parties, from the other hand to set its

agenda.

Government's negative agenda power in Israel

In this section, we consider the procedural sources of the government’s negative agenda

power in Israel. There are (at least) four points at which the Israeli government can delay

opposition motions for the agenda.

First, Article 78(b) of the Knesset’s Rules of Procedure entitles a Knesset member,

whose motion for the agenda has not been approved, to appeal to the House Committee,

but its decision is final. The chairman of the House Committee is a coalition member and

has the ability to block motions from reaching the floor by using his majority.

Second, Article 80(a) gives the Speaker and the Deputy Speakers the power to determine

the agenda for the sitting at which members' motions for the agenda are to be debated,

taking into account the size of the parliamentary groups to which those members belong.

The Speaker is the representative of the majority party so he can schedule the opposition

motion for late at night or some other inconvenient time to evade the public spotlight.

Third, the debate of a motion for the agenda is quite short (about 15 minutes) and, at the

end of the debate, according to Article 88(a) a simple majority in the plenum can reject

the motion for the agenda. If the coalition can hold its majority, it is possible to block

the motion.

Fourth, Article 94(a) gives the Speaker the authority to decide when to set a date for

debate on a motion for the agenda the Knesset decided to include on its agenda (after a

previous vote in the floor). As mentioned before, the Speaker as the coalition

representative can delay his decision and schedule the debate on the motion after a long

time.

In sum, the government in Israel can block motions for the agenda outright, when it can

hold its majority together, simply by voting to remove the motion from the agenda after

the floor debate. When it cannot hold its majority together, it can still delay motions

indefinitely in committee, assuming a cooperative chair.

Previous research examined the government's ability to block bills by roll rates. Cox and

McCubbins (2007) defined "roll" thus: “If a majority of a party’s voting members vote

against a bill that nonetheless passes, we say that the party has been rolled".

In our research we will examine the roll rate of motions and by that the ability of the

Israeli government to block the ability of the opposition to set its agenda.

Opposition's Negative agenda power in Israel

In this section, we consider the procedural sources of the opposition’s negative agenda

power in Israel. There are (at least) four points at which the Israeli opposition can force

the government to enable the opposition to set its agenda by motions.

First, according to Article 33(d) issues that the Knesset has decided to include on its

agenda in pursuance of ordinary motions for the agenda shall be debated at a time set by

the Speaker, within three months from the day on which the motion was voted on the

floor. Article 33(d) gives the opposition power to enforce the Government by the

Speaker to set a date for the debate. Thus, the government can try to delay the date but

not by more than three months.

Second, after the committee debates a motion that was referred by the Knesset, the

committee shall bring its conclusions to the attention of the Knesset members by laying

them on the Knesset's table. ( Article 111(a))

This article gives the opposition the power to demand that the government show the

committee's conclusion regarding the motion that was debated. As with the previous

article, the government can delay the motion but there are time limitations.

Third, Article 112(a) states that, if three months have elapsed from the day on which a

motion was referred to a committee under Article 111 and the committee has not include

the issue on its agenda, a member of the committee is entitled to approach the House

Committee and request its intervention

.Article 112 give the opposition an additional tool to force the government to debate the

opposition's motions. Fourth, Article 112(b) also provides that, if six months have

passed from the day on which an issue was referred to a committee and the committee

has not laid its conclusions on the Knesset's table, the chairman of the committee shall

inform the Speaker in writing of the reasons thereof. The article gives the opposition the

ability to criticize the committee if it has not finished debate on the motion and by that to

expedite the concluding step.

In sum, the opposition in Israel has some tools to enforce government debate on the

opposition's motions, but the opposition must be very tenacious and consistent in order to

succeed.

Data

To test our hypotheses regarding Israel, we gathered data from the Knesset’s

web site on all motions for the agenda cast during Sharon’s second government,

2003-06 (300 motions). We identified the type of final vote for each motion;

identified the content of the motion; and identified the committee the motion was sent

to after the vote. For each motion, we know how each MK voted and can thus

compute the roll rate of each party. Formally, Party J’s roll rate equals the number of

times it was rolled, divided by the number of motions on which it voted and that

passed.

If we denote the roll rate of Party J by RRJ, and denote the set of all

opposition parties by Opp, then a measure of how frequently the opposition as a

whole is rolled is OppRR = , where w∑∈Oppj

jj RRw J is the share of all opposition

seats held by opposition Party J. OppRR tells us what the roll rate of a randomly

sampled opposition member’s party is. Similarly, GovRR tells us what the roll rate

of a randomly sampled government member’s party is.

To test our hypotheses regarding England, we gathered data from the United

Kingdom Parliament's web site on motions for the agenda cast during Tony Blair’s

third (and last) government in England: 2005-2007. (There were1021 EDMs and 100

amendments to these EDMs from 17 May 2005 through 14 November 2005) We

identified the initiator of the EDM; identified the number of the supporters of the

EDM and their affiliation (opposition/coalition); and then calculated for each EDM

supporter proportion (the number of opposition supporters divided by the number of

coalition supporters).

It is important to note that the Israeli data are by MP while the data for

England are by motion; this difference is a result of the motion's procedures; in Israel

there is a vote at the end of the debate, therefore we can expand and compare our

results to Cox and McCubbins’ model, while in England debates are rare and the

main issue is the numbers of supporters for each EDM.

First we will examine the date from the British Parliament and then we will

examine the date from the Israeli Parliament by the hypothesis defined earlier in the

paper.

The British Parliament analysis

H1: The rate of EDMs initiated by coalition MPs should be lower than

that of EDMs initiated by opposition MPs.

Out of 1112 EDMs 1103 were valid. The coalition initiated 573 EDMs (which

are 51.9% of all EDMs) while the opposition initiated 530 (which are 48.1%

of EDMs).

We thought that the opposition's parties would more frequently use EDMs in

order to force the government to respond to an issue raised by the opposition,

but we found out that both coalition parties and opposition parties use EDMs

in almost at the same manner. hypothesis H1 is not supported

H2: Coalition MPs will support EDMs less often than opposition MPs.

As previously mentioned, each EDM can be supported by MPs from any

party. The support number for each EDM can be used as a tool to measure the

ability of an MP to set his/her agenda and to convince his/her colleagues to

help emphasize the subject.

We found an average of 27 coalitions MPs that support EDMs while an

average of 30 opposition MPs do so. The median is 18 MPs for the coalition

and 19 MPs for the opposition; the mode is 0 for coalition and 1 for

opposition.

We can see that hypothesis H2 is supported. Furthermore, these data show us

that there is a great variation among the MPs regarding their support for an

EDM, both in the coalition and in the opposition.

H3: The number of coalition MPs that support an EDM initiated by

coalition MPs will be greater than the number of coalition MPs that

support EDMs initiated by opposition MPs.

We run a T test for independent samples and found out that 38 coalition MPs

on average support EDM initiated by a coalition MP, while 15 opposition

MPs on average support an EDM initiated by a coalition MP. The result was

significant (F=45.09, Sig=0.00). We can see that hypothesis H3 is supported.

H4: The number of opposition MPs that support an EDM initiated by

opposition MPs will be greater than the number of opposition MPs that

support an EDM initiated by coalition MPs.

We run a T test for independent samples and found out that 36 opposition

MPs on average support an EDM initiated by opposition MPs, while 28

coalition MPs on average support an EDM initiated by opposition MPs. The

result was significant (F=39.416, Sig=0.00).We can see that hypothesis H4 is

supported.

Digging deeper in the data reveals interesting findings; we calculate the

proportions between the numbers of supporters from the opposition to the

number of supporters from the coalition.

The proportion index will show us the opposition's power; if the proportion

number is greater then 1 it means that for that specific EDM more opposition

MPs supported it than coalition MPs. If the proportion number is less than 1,

it means that more coalition MPs support the EDM than opposition MPs.

There were 979 valid EDMs (In 133 the denominator was 0.). The average

proportion was 2.9, the median 0.85, the mode 0 and the standard deviation

8.721. As we thought, the opposition has dominancy over the coalition in their

support for EDMs. Perhaps opposition MPs think that by adding their support

to an EDM they can force the issue and so that the government or the coalition

MPs will respond with their support.

We can say that the proportion index shows us the opposition’s ability to set

its agenda.

In order to understand the content of the EDMs we read each one of them and found

out that: 34 out of 1021 EDMs dealt with UK armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan

during 2007, and issues which received multiple supporters were about health care,

welfare and the war situation (Iraq and refuge problems). Furthermore, we found that

there are 93 amendments to the 1021 EDMs (almost 10%).

Reading the content of the EDMs helps us to strengthen the support proportion index;

EDM No. 128 has 362 supporters, 126 from the coalition and 236 from the

opposition; the support proportion is 1.87. The EDM was initiated by an MP from the

Conservative party (Theresa May) which was at that time in the opposition. The

subject of the EDM is about the rights of separated parents to have a legal

presumption of contact with their children, so that both parents can continue to raise

their children and the children are able to benefit from being parented by both, as well

receive the benefit from contact with any grandparents and extended family members

able and willing to play a role in their upbringing.

This EDM is a consensus one, so MPs from both the coalition and the opposition can

support it, even though the opposition MPs supported this EDM at almost twice the

rate as coalition MPs.

EDM No.178 has 412 supporters, 202 from the coalition and 210 from the opposition;

the support proportion is 1.04. The EDM was initiated by an MP from the Labour

Pparty (Michael Meacher), which at that time was in the coalition. The subject of the

EDM is about the threat of climate change. The EDM welcomes the cross-party

agreement in favour of major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Again we

can see a consensus EDM; both opposition MPs and coalition MPs supported the

initiation almost equally.

EDM No.393 has 351 supporters, 148 from the coalition and 203 from the opposition;

the support proportion is 1.37. The EDM was initiated by an MP from the Liberal

Democrat Party (Paul Burstow) who was then in the Opposition. The subject of the

EDM regards the 100,000 children who run away from home or care each year. The

EDM welcomes the Children's Society's Safe and Sound campaign regarding the

issue and calls all local authorities to put into place the safeguards recommended by

the Department of Health to protect young runaways.

The EDM is consensual; both opposition MPs and coalition MPs supported the

initiation with a bigger share to the opposition.

EDM No. 641 has 363 supporters, 170 from the coalition and 193 from the

opposition, the support proportion is 1.14. The EDM was initiated by an MP from the

Liberal Democrat Party (Julia Goldsworthy) who was then in the Opposition. The

subject of the EDM is the Sustainable Communities Bill introduced into the House

before the General Election and supported by over 200 MPs.

The bill requires the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

and the National Assembly for Wales, in conjunction with local authorities and local

communities, to draw up and implement strategies to promote local services and local

economic activity and measures for protecting the environment, social justice and

greater political involvement. It further notes that the bill specifically enables

councils and communities significantly to influence government policy and actions

on these issues.

The EDM is consensual; both opposition MPs and coalition MPs supported the

initiation with a bigger share to the opposition.

EDM No.679 has 275 supporters, 162 from the coalition and 113 from the opposition,

the support proportion is 0.7. The EDM was initiated by an MP from the Labour party

(John Battle) who was in the coalition. The subject of the EDM is making eradicating

poverty through fair trade. Battle believes that the UK should not push developing

countries to open up their markets but should respect their right to decide on trade

policies that will help them end poverty, respect workers' rights and protect their

environment.

In sum, we can say that EDMs with a significant amount of supporters, both from the

coalition and the opposition, are consensual ones; through cooperation between

opposition and coalition, British MPs can set their agenda.

Besides the consensual EDMs, there are EDMs with a lot of supporters. However,

these EDMS originate only from the opposition and have no significant support or

even minor support from the coalition.

An opposition MP from the Conservative Party named William Cash tabled EDM

No. 607; he managed to get 133 opposition supporters, but just 18 coalition

supporters. The support proportion is a startling 7.39. That EDM deals with "the

European Directive 2002/46/EC and the judgment of the European Court of Justice

on that Directive relating to food supplements shall not have effect in the United

Kingdom".

Henry Bellingham, an opposition MP who was also from the Conservative Party, ,

tabled EDM No. 651. This EDM received the support of 139 opposition supporters

and 41 coalition supporters. The support proportion is 3.39.

This EDM deals with a helicopter crash that had happened on 2nd June 1994. The MP

asks the government to revisit the findings of the crash investigation.

An opposition MP from the Democratic Unionist party, Gregory Campbell tabled

EDM No. 737. This EDM received 15 opposition supporters and 1 coalition

supporter; the support proportion is 15! The EDM deals with British passports for UK

residents. MP Campbell says that: "this House acknowledges the significant anomaly

which exists in Northern Ireland whereby people in Northern Ireland who were not

born in the Republic of Ireland can choose to have an Irish passport with no

naturalisation process being required, while those born in the Republic since 1949,

but living for many years since in Northern Ireland paying UK taxes and voting in

UK elections can only choose to have a British passport after going through such a

naturalisation process; and calls upon the Government to rectify this anomaly as a

matter of urgency".

A Liberal Democrat party opposition MP, Mark Oaten, tabled EDM No. 728. This

EDM received 124 supporters from the Opposition and 39 coalition supporters. The

support proportion is 3.18 and the EDM deals with a health issue: hypothyroidism

and the importance of raising awareness of it.

EDM No. 752 received 101 opposition supporters and none from the coalition. The

EDM was initiated by opposition MP from the Conservative party, Andrew Lansley.

The EDM deals with the closure of community hospitals.

EDM No. 813 tells us another story; it was initiated by a coalition MP from the

Labour party, Judy Mallaber. The EDM received 128 opposition supporters and none

from the coalition. MP Mallaber expresses concern at the way in which the

government developed its proposals to reconfigure the role of the primary care trusts

(PCTs). She calls for the ministers to review the consultation process and withdraw

these proposals until elected representatives, healthcare managers, and patient groups

will have the opportunity to examine the impact that they will have on the provision

of health services in their areas.

EDM No. 857 has the great supporter proportion: 106, with 106 supporters from the

opposition and just one from the coalition. This EDM was initiated by an opposition

MP from the Conservative Party, Michael Howard. The EDM is about fair, just and

free trade, and the MP believes that a fair and just world trading system is vital if

poverty is to be eradicated. Furthermore, the MP believes that "the British

Government should champion the benefits of free trade and push the EU and US to

scrap their immoral and hypocritical trade subsidies and tariffs, particularly in the

agricultural sector, in order to secure a breakthrough in world trade talks in Hong

Kong in December".

Up until now we try to understand the ability of the opposition and the

coalition to set its agenda by motion using the support proportion index. In

order to examine whether there is a difference between the coalition initiation

and opposition initiation in the support proportion we run a T test for

independent samples.

We found that when an MP from the coalition initiates the EDM the average

proportion is 0.649, while when an MP from the opposition initiates the EDM

the average proportion is 6.0122. (T=-9.940, sig=0.00)

Running an ANOVA test enables us to see whether there is a difference

between the parties in the support proportion. The results show that the test is

significant (F=43.162, sig=0.000) but the difference was not the same

between the different parties: between the Democratic Unionist Party

(opposition) and the Labour (coalition) the average support proportion was 5.9

; between the Liberal Democrats (opposition) and the Conservative

(opposition) the average support proportion was 6.88; between the Labour

(coalition) and the Conservative (opposition) the average support proportion

was -8.78; and between the conservative (opposition) and the Scottish

National Party (opposition) the average support proportion was 5.906.

All those comparisons are significant while other options are not.

The final test for our EDMs analysis was to find critical mass to the variable

“the number of supporters” in order to create an index which will examine the

ability of the coalition and the opposition to set its agenda.

As mentioned previously, we did not find a significant difference between the

frequency of the coalition support number and the opposition support number.

Therefore we divided the variables into 5 groups, with each one containing

approximately 20% of the cases.

Table 1: Frequency of the opposition support*.

Ordinary Scale Number of

supporters

Percentage

Very little

amount

0-6 0% - 21.7 %

Little amount 7-14 21.8%-39.9%

Medium amount 15-25 40%-60.1%

Great amount 26-50 60.2%-80.5%

Very Great

amount

51-236 80.6%-100%

*An interesting piece of data: 30 MPs gave zero support which is 2.7% from the

opposition support on EDMs.

Table 2: Frequency of the coalition support*.

Ordinary Scale Number of

supporters

Percentage

Very little

amount

0-3 0% - 21.4 %

Little amount 4-13 21.5%-40.2%

Medium amount 14-25 40.3%-60.3%

Great amount 26-45 60.4%-80.1%

Very great

amount

46-202 80.2%-100%

*Interesting data: 125 MPs gave zero support which is 11% from the coalition

support on EDMs.

The critical mass index shows us that 20% of the EDMs received the support

of a minimum 46-51 supporters and a maximum 202-236 supporters, meaning

that an MP who wants to set his/her agenda must try to gain over 46-51

supporters. The data shows that once you get this amount of supporters you

entered the higher tenth.

The Israeli parliament analysis

The second part of our analysis concentrates on the Israeli parliament.

In the first coalition of Sharon's second government (26 February 2003

through sixth January 2005) we found 210 motions were voted on to pass to a

committee for more intensive debate. Of these 210, 199 passed while just 11

out of 210 failed.

The numbers are very impressive because, as stated previously in order to use a

motion as a means to set an agenda the best option is to pass the motion to a

committee. Another option is to remove the motion from the floor, meaning the first

debate on the floor was comprehensive and no further discussion is needed. In the

first coalition we found 15 motions that were voted to be removed from further

discussion.

The motions were referred to almost all the committees except three: the House

Committee, the State Control Committee and the Committee on the Status of Women.

The two most popular committees that motions were referred to were the Foreign

Affairs and Defense committee (22.8% of the motions) and the Internal Affairs and

Environment Committee (23.9%).

The vote pattern in the Israeli parliament is characterized by great number of

MPs that do not come to vote at all. In the first coalition, 210 motions were

voted on: 0.1% of the MPs abstained, 89.3% did not vote, 0.8% voted no and

8.3% voted yes.

We raise three hypotheses regarding the data from the Israeli parliament:

H5: Governing parties’ roll rates on motions for the agenda in the Knesset

should be low.

H6: Opposition parties’ roll rates on motions for the agenda in the Knesset

should be low.

H7: Israeli opposition parties’ roll rates on motions for the agenda should be

greater than Israeli governing parties’ roll rates.

In order to calculate the roll rate for each party we divided the number of

times the party was rolled by the number of motions on which it voted and

that passed.

Table 3: Roll rate of the parties from the first coalition regarding the option to pass a motion to a committee.

Name of the party Party roll rate

Mafdal 0%

Hadash-Ta'al 0.026%

Ichud Leumi 0.115%

Israel Baaliya 0.01%

Labor–Meimad 0.025%

Likud 0.211%

Meretz-Yahad 0.02%

National Democratic Assembly 0.035%

Ra'am 0.03%

Shas 0.08%

Shinui 0.065%

United Torah Judaism 0.01%

Now we want to know how frequently the opposition as a whole is rolled.

Therefore we multiply each opposition party’s roll rate by its share of seats

and then look at the total. The result shows that the roll rate of a randomly

sampled opposition member’s party in Sharon's first coalition is 1.768%;

therefore hypothesis H6 is supported. However, the roll rate of a randomly

sampled coalition member's party is 9.818%; thus, hypothesis H5 is not

supported.

Comparing the roll rates of the opposition and the coalition, we can see that

the coalition roll rate is much higher then the opposition roll rate, so

hypothesis H7 is not supported.

The use of motions for the agenda in Israel lets the opposition set its agenda

while the coalition in Israel has little ability to block the opposition’s initiation

on motions.

Perhaps the coalition in Israel doesn’t address motion important ability,

therefore most of the time few MPs participated in a motion’s vote.

Furthermore, it might be that the coalition knows that when the motion comes

to the stage of deep discussion in committee they can control it because the

majority of chair committees are from the coalition, and in each committee the

coalition has a majority of members.

As mentioned before we tried to expand Cox and McCubbins’ model by using

votes for motions instead of legislation.

In order to compare our data to previous data regarding roll rate we rely on

Cox and McCubbins’ data in Table 4.

Table 4: Roll rates of opposition parties in 7 countries*

Country Years

examined

Roll rate of randomly

sampled opposition

member’s party

Data Source

Italy 1980-2002 18.9% Cox et al. 2008

Israel 2003-2004 17%

Denmark 1971-2003 21.1% Cox et al. forthcoming

Sweden 2005-2005 45% Prata 2006

UK 2001-2005 60% Prata 2006

Germany 1987-2002 62.4% Chandler et al. 2006

Malta 1998-2002 72.2% Prata 2006

* The table based on the Akirav Cox and McCubbins article (2008)

We can see that the opposition in Israel has a low roll rate compared to other

countries when examining legislation. The new data regarding motions show that the

trend is the same; the opposition roll rate in Israel is low, especially when we

compare it to the coalition roll rate.

It seems that legislation is controlled by the coalition while motions are controlled by

the opposition.

In order to see the second option for vote we calculate the roll rate for 15 motions

wherein “Yes” means to remove the motion from the floor, meaning no further

discussion will be on the floor, and “No” means additional discussion will be on the

floor in the future regarding the motion's subject.

Table 5: Roll rate of parties from the first coalition regarding the option to remove a motion from further

discussion on the floor.

Name of the party The party roll rate

Hadash-Ta'al 0.25%

Ichud Leumi 0.25%

Labor–Meimad 0.333%

Likud 0.25%

Meretz-Yahad 0.166%

National Democratic 0.166%

Assembley

Ra'am 0.083%

Shas 0.333%

Shinuy 0.083%

Unated Torah Judaism 0.083%

Israel Baaliya 0.083%

Now we want to know how frequently the opposition as a whole is rolled.

Therefore we multiple each opposition party’s roll rate to its share of seats and

then total it all. The result shows that the roll rate of a randomly sampled

opposition member’s party in Sharon's first coalition is 1.414%.

Hypothesis H6 is supported.

While the roll rate of a randomly sampled coalition member's party is 0.666%,

Hypothesis H6 is not supported.

Comparing the roll rates of the opposition and the coalition we can see that

the coalition roll rate is much higher then the opposition roll rate; Hypothesis

H7 is not supported.

Conclusions

Setting the agenda is an important issue in legislative studies, therefore expanding

previous models which examined the ability of a government to set its agenda is

important, too. In this paper, we have tried to expand Cox and McCubbins' model by

using motions for the agenda instead of legislation and by testing the Israeli

parliament. Since the EDMs in England cannot be tested by Cox and McCubbins'

model, we have tried to develop new indices to examine the ability of the coalition

and the opposition parties in the British parliament to set their agenda by EDMs; we

called it support proportion index and critical mass index.

.

The previous literature looked at the procedures in which governments can control

their agenda (Huber 1992; Wilkerson 1999; Rasch 2000; Cox, Heller and McCubbins

2008) and the effectiveness of the procedures (Doring 1995; Krehbiel 2007; Marshall

2002). In this paper we show that the procedures in Israel give both the coalition and

the opposition equal ability to set the agenda by motions. It is like a boxing match:

the first player attacks and thinks his rival will give up, but then the rival strikes back.

We found a different picture in the British parliament. The EDM procedure focuses

on the publicity initiated by the EDM’s initiators and supporters. Hence, the

government can use the Speaker’s power to deal with EDMs it isn't comfortable with,

but the government cannot block initiation of EDMs nor supporters’ signatures.

Therefore the opposition and the backbenchers in England can use EDMs to set their

agenda by exposing a subject to the public and getting a great amount of supporters.

In this paper we tried to present a preliminary model to examine the abilities of the

Israeli and the British governments to set their agenda and the Israeli and the British

opposition to do so by adopting Krehbiel’s (2007) suggestion to supplement the roll

call analysis with other kinds of data whenever possible.

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