Comparative Politics
III. Comparing Legislatures
Varieties and problems
Luca Verzichelli / Filippo Tronconi
Comparative Politics
Academic year 2014-2015
How to compare among parliaments?
Examples from old pieces of research
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Shaw & Lees (eds.), Committees in Legislatures, 1979.
Truly comparative (n 8). Party and institutional factors
under review. Strong committees in both the systems
Kornberg & Musolf (eds.), Legislatures in developmental
perspective, Durham, Duke University Press, 1970. See the
chapter of Packeman on Brazilian congress
Mezey, Comparative legislatures (1979). 5 cases (Us, Uk,
Pak, Phi, URSS) and a broader comparison: Policy making
power and organisational matters: Vulnerable vs. active
legislatures
Recent approaches to the variability
of parliamentary functioning
• Practices of parliamentary rule. Empirical extensive study of
parliamentary devices: Doering 1995, Parliaments and
Majority Rule in Western Europe (download: http://www.unipotsdam.de/db/vergleich/Publikationen/Parliaments/PMR-W-Europe.pdf )
• The central link in the delegation chain: studies of rational
micro-institutional behaviours (Bergmann, Mueller &
Strom, Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary
Democracies, 2003)
• Intensive studies of legislative impact and “delegation” to
government (Shugart & Carey: Presidents and Assemblies,
1992; Rasch, & Tsebelis, The Role of Governments in
Legislative Agenda-setting, 2011
What do parliaments make?
Traditional and recent concerns
• The traditional classification (parliamentary) assemblies vs. (presidential)
congresses....
• ... but a broad variability in both the classes is evident since the beginning
of the process of democratization.
• Differences emerged more clearly with the development of several
European systems.
• Many schemes recently produced in order to classify legislatures
1) according to their level of viscosity (Blondel et al., Legislative Behaviour:
Some Steps toward a Cross-national measurement, Government and
Opposition, 1, 1970, pp. 67-85)
2) to their legislative strength in relation to the executive (Mezey, 1979.
Comparative Legislatures; Norton, 1993. Does Parliament Matter?)
3) the evolution of their primary function (Debating vs. Policy making,
questioning etc.), (Olson, 1980,. The Legislative Process: A Comparative
Approach)
Legislatures: traditional and modern functions
Bagehot (1867)
The English Constitutions
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Elective
Expressive
Teaching
Informing
Legislative
Towards a new classification of
parliamentary functions
• Making and breaking government
• Executive control
- Budget
- Oversight
• Policy making
- Residual legislative capabilities
- Delegation to government
- Cooperation with other institutions
• Formation of political agendas
Recent relevant contributions to
the comparative study of cameral structure
• Parliamentary articulation as dimension of a
given democratic pattern (see Lijphart 1999)
• Parliamentary articulation as an expression of a
general institutional design (see for instance
Patterson and Mughan 2001)
• Parliamentary articulation as a set of institutional
and partisan veto points (Tsebelis 2002).
Bicameralism as veto power (Heller 1997)
• Hypothesis: the more numerous the actors who can kill
legislation or influence its content, the more deals must be
cut to pass a budget.
→ Bicameralism sets up a bilateral veto game between
legislative chambers, which leads to higher government
budget deficits, all else constant.
Study on 17 democracies (some bicameralism with different
powers and organization)
Dependent variable: Long term (1965-1990) rates of budget
deficit
A bilateral veto game between two chambers
Chambers want to spend money in
different ways.
Point z* is the ideal point on the
contract curve between the ideal points
of the 2 chambers.
However, with no hard budget
constraints imposed by the
government, it is likely that the overall
spending will be higher given the
expectations from both the chambers
Z1 is the point where both the chamber
will be able to maximise their interest
Evidences from Haller (1997)
Government budget
deficits are higher
when policy conflicts
are built into the
budget process in form
of a bilateral game
between legislative
chambers
Bicameralism matters. But this has not to do (only) with political composition and
legislative functions.
Agenda powers, Voting procedures and committee systems are also relevant
The theory of institutional veto points will be refined by Tsebelis and Money
(Bicameralism, 1997)
Lijphart (1999, chapter 11)
Bicameralism as indicator of “consensus pattern”
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Variety of bicameralism
summarised in terms of strong
and weak bicameralism
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Measurement based on
legislative functions and
political composition (not
dissimilar from Norton and
other comparative studies)
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Strength of the internal
parliamentary articulation as a
dimension of the “federalunitary dimension” of a
democracy
• Strong bicameralism: symmetrical and
incongruent chambers [4]
Australia, Switzerland, Germany, US
• Medium strength bicameralism : symmetrical
and congruent [3]
Belgium, Japan, Italy, Netherland
• Medium strength bicameralism: asymmetrical
and incongruent [3]
Canada, France, India, Spain, Venezuela
• Between Medium and weak bicameralism
[2,5]
Botswana, Uk
• Weak bicameralism [2]
Austria, Ireland, Sweden,
• One-and-a-half-chambers [1,5]
Norway, Iceland
• Unicameralism [1]
Finland, Greece, Israel
The relationship between decentralization and
cameral structure in 36 democracies (1945-1996)
• Strong relation:
• Bicameralism
strong in federal or
highly decentralised
democracies
• Non surprising
deviant cases:
decentralised small
countries or unitary
state with
“consensus spirit”