the government agenda in parliamentary democracies

The Government Agenda in Parliamentary Democracies

4th November 2009

Camilla Mariotto

Comparative Politics Prof. Marco GiulianiAY 2009-2010

Comparative Politics 2

Content

1. Introduction – research questions2. Background3. Supporting theory4. Data:

1. Country Selection2. Sample of Government Bills3. Measurement of Independent and Dependent

Variables

5. Analysis and Findings6. Conclusions


Introduction

Core research question:How do governments organize the policy agenda?

Specific question:How do coalition governments determine the sequence and timing of bills submitted to the legislature?

Focus on the “life” of a coalition vs. focus on its “birth” or “death” (who gets into government, which ministries each party controls and how long the government will last).


Background (1)Parliamentary Democracy

The government determines the TIMING and SUBSTANCE of the main policy initiatives.

To understand the policy agenda any attempt must focus on goals and capabilities of parties involved in the government coalition.

≠ parties tend to prioritize their own issues … Conflicting issues

Government parties have the incentives to seek a policy agenda able to accomodate the preferences of all partners in the coalition


Background (2)

The construction of the policy agenda is taken by individual cabinet ministers and their departments.

Minister (with portfolio)

Gov.Department

Policy area

controls controls

Each minister has a crucial role in the definition of the government policy agenda.


Background (3)

CABINET MINISTERS

Positive agenda control:

means of ensuring that their proposal

does not face defeat, extensive

modification or delay

Negativeagenda control:

capability of keepingunacceptable proposaloff the government’s

agenda


Background (4)

Portfolio allocation approach (Laver and Shepsle): Cabinet ministers are able to act as virtual dictators in

the policy areas they control “Member of the cabinet will have only limited ability to

shape the substance of policy emanating from the department of a ministerial colleague.”

However, coalition parties would prefer a compromise policy package instead of package of each party’s ideal policy in the issue area it controls.


Supporting theory (1)

Gains from cooperation

But, cooperation can disappear if a minister (agent) has incentive to act contrary to the interest of the whole cabinet (principal). Principal-agent framework.



The prevention of subversion of the agreement is to control and monitor the actions of cabinet.

Role of junior minister as watchdog (Thies) Mechanisms of information-gathering and

conflict-management (Mueller and Strøm) Parliamentary oversight devices (Martin

and Vanberg) committees.

Not costless!


Supporting theory (3)When should coalition members be more likely to use control devices to counter the actions of minister from other parties?

1. Divisiveness of the issue

2. Saliency of the issue

more salient issue quick• Not significantly divisive issue

less salient issue less quick

more salient issue more reneging

• Significantly divisive issueless salient issue less reneging



“If coalition partners use the monitoring and control devices, then we should expect the government policy agenda to be organized in an accommodative fashion”

Attractiveness as ordering criterion of the issues

At the cabinet level there should be a delay in the introduction of the proposal Inducement to initiate bargaining with other parties and before a particularly controversial bill is even brought to the cabinet, because of intense scrutiny.


Data_country selection

PROS: Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and Netherlands 1979-1992 Governments were coalitions controlling a majority of

legislative seats.

CONS: Difficult assessment of the impact of alternative

institutional arrangements and certain coalition attributes on the organization of the government agenda.

Difficult conclusions if minority or single party government.


Data_sample of government bills

833 bills classified in 8 categories: Tax policy, foreign policy, industrial policy, social policy,

clerical policy, agricultural policy, regional policy, environmental policy.

Exclusion of budget bills and bills proposing constitutional changes.

3 sources of variation in issue saliency and divisiveness across bills:

1. Across issue area (to whom is the issue important?)

2. Across governments (are there any gov. changes?)

3. Across elections (how big are the parties?)


Data_measurement of dependent and independent variables Dependent variable timing of bill introduction


Independent variables issue saliency and divisiveness Government issue saliency Government issue divisiveness

Opposition issue saliency clashes can affect Opposition issue divisiveness bill timing

Data_measurement of dependent and independent variables


Data_measurement of dependent and independent variables (A)

Government issue saliency:An issue of average saliency for any given party received a score of “1.” A scaled saliency score >1 = relatively more salient dimension for a party.A scaled score < 1 = relatively less salient dimension. On gov-by-gov basis saliency scores were weighted by the proportion of lgs seats. On dim-by-dim basis an average weighted saliency score was derived by summing all the seat-weighted saliency score for the dimension on which the bill is classified.


Data_measurement of dependent and independent variables (B)

Government issue divisiveness:The absolute distance of each coalition party from the party position of the minister drafting the billThe distance measures were weighted by the proportion of lgs seats.The seat-weighted distance were summed, on a dim-by-dim basis, across coalition parties in order to create the average weighted distance score.This distance score was multiplied by the government issue saliency.


Analysis and Findings (1)

Mod.1 estimated effect of:- The ideology variables- Countries- Issue dimension indicators

Mod.1 for issue of mean saliency, of 1 SD in the level of gov.divisiv. the probability that this bill

will be introduced by ~ 12%

Mod.1 for issue of mean divisiv.,of 1 SD in issue saliency the probability of introduction by ~18%.

Contrary to expectations!


Analysis and Findings (2)

Mod.2 estimated effect of also time dependency.The effect shown for each government variable is the percentage change in the hazard rate resulting from a 1 SD increase in the variable 780 days before the end of the parliamentary term.

The effect for government issue saliency is now positive and

statistically significant.Expectations that governments

will give priority to bills dealing with issues important to coalition.


Analysis and Findings (3)Effect of government issue saliency on timing of bills

over parliamentary term (CIEP)

Beginning: A bill on a very salient policy D is over 60% more

likely to be introduced than a bill on 1-D

of average saliency.

First 2 years: issue saliency the odds of bill introduction by

slightly more than 40%.

Final year: issue saliency the odds

of bill introduction by about 40%.


Analysis and Findings (4)Effect of government issue divisiveness on timing of bills

over parliamentary termThe effect of

government issue divisiveness does not

change very much

First 2 years: of one SD in issue

divisiveness the odds of

bill introduction by more than 25%

Last 2 years: the effect falls to an

average of about 20%


Conclusions (1) Lawmaking is very demanding it requires cooperation

and compromises by parties Doubts on portfolio allocation approach (Laver &

Shepsle) if ministers were free to implement their own ideal policy, we cannot see any systematic relationship between the timing of gov. bill and the ideological preferences.

Accommodative fashion first, the more attractive issues, then the less ones

Emphasis on the policy divergence for other important episodes in coalition politics (such as pregov. negotiations, gov. formation and termination)


Conclusions (2)

Future researches:

1. Other types of institutional setting and governmental context, particularly majoritarian

2. Organization of the policy agenda in minority government

3. Consideration on how coalition make substantive policy making decision s at other important stages of lawmaking.

the government agenda in parliamentary democracies

Documents

government policy agenda

government agenda

policy agenda able

government coalition

policy areas

coalition parties

delaynegative agenda

compromise policy package