Government alternation and legislative
agenda setting.*
Francesco Zucchini
Università di Milano
Paper prepared for SISP Venezia 2010
Recent studies of the legislative process contain
a number of plausible hypotheses regarding the
distribution of agenda-setting powers, and these
hypotheses lead scholars to identify which
conflicts (and consequently which actors) are of
fundamental importance in explaining legislative
change and the wording of legislation (Tsebelis
2002, Huber and Shipan 2003, Cox & McCubbins
2005.).
The unchallenged opinion about the crucial
importance of the agenda setting power in
explaining the lawmaking has not yet induced to
deepen the origins of the specific agenda setting
power configuration in the different countries. ==>

Research Question
• Why in some parliamentary democracy the Cabinet
has an undisputed leading role in the law making
whilst in others the Parliament still plays effectively
the role of co-protagonist?
General hypothesis
• In pivotal party systems with rare and limited
government alternation it is much more difficult any
strengthening of the government vis-vis the
Parliament. One factor prevents the procedural and
institutional predominance of the Cabinet in these
circumstances: lack of opportunities of and
expectations for a large and controversial policy
change.
More precisely
H1) a high level of government alternation
strengthens de facto the agenda-setting power
of the government. Government alternation is
a necessary and sufficient condition for a less
frequent use of the amendment power from
the parliament (the “closed rule”).
H2) Government alternation is a necessary but
not sufficient condition for the creation of new
rules that increase formally and permanently
the agenda setting power of the government .
An increase of the government ideological
homogeneity is the other necessary condition.
The model (1)
• Parliament whose median voter is M
• Government composed at least of two political players who are
disposed at the opposite sides of the left-right ideological spectrum
(VPL and VPR), in a one-dimensional space.
• The government decides to promote the policy change and the
Parliament decides the procedure. Inside the government we can
assume without lack of generality that the closest actor to the
present status quo, q, is also the first promoter of the change, while
the farthest one is only a veto player.
The model (2)
• The options of the Parliament are grouped into three categories:
• a) Adopting a rule granting amendment powers to the
parliamentary floor: procedure r = o. The government chooses a
policy and a parliamentary majority adopts it under open rule. The
final policy outcome coincides with the ideal point of M, the
parliamentary median voter position m.
• b) Adopting a rule preventing a government agreement from
being amended by the floor: procedure r = c . Once the bill is
proposed, the majority of the parliament decides to give up the right
to amend. The government chooses a policy and a parliamentary
majority adopts it under “closed rule. The final outcome is g. As the
government is supposed to know the preferences of the parliament,
the closed rule allows the government to select and propose the
policy that it prefers the most and that will be accepted by the
parliament.
• c) Changing the rules: procedure r=n. Parliament before dealing
with the bill proposed by the Government creates a new rule that
allows the government to propose the bill by a take-it-or leave-it
option at the onset of the legislative process. This new rule deprives
quasi- permanently the Parliament of its power to amend the
government proposal.
The model (4)
The three moves at M’s disposal imply different decision costs cr.
The procedures that leave more scope to debate, like open rule (o), are by far
more vulnerable to a parliamentary conflict sparked off by opposition parties.
They can be more costly for government parties and for the median voter in
Parliament than the closed rule (c) is. Changing the rules can be very costly
as well. However this price is overwhelmingly compensated by the long run
of benefits of the reform: once the new rule is approved the parliament does
not have to examine anymore every single government bill in order to decide
which procedure to adopt.
Therefore, the decision costs vary according to the procedure r, the
actors, the position of the status quo q and the length of the time
horizon. The open rule is very costly for the median voter M in the
Parliament (and the government actors) when the status quo is very
controversial, that is, when the opposition strongly disapproves of the
change.
The change of the rules is costly regardless of where the status quo policy is
located, but when the new rules are in force they can be extremely
convenient for the parliamentary majority. According to a cautious evaluation
I can consider the decision cost of changing the rules equal to the decision
cost of the closed rule.
Therefore, for M, we assume that in the long run:
cc (cost of closed rule) = cn (cost of new rule)= 0 ;
co (cost of open rule) = f (q, Op, VPL, VPR)
The model (4)
• An informal introduction to the implications of this simple
game can be illustrated by a spatial representation of the
legislative change in case of an oversized government. The
cost of the procedure o (co) can be represented spatially as
an additional distance c from the final policy outcome m.
The distance is “added” on the left of m if I consider a leftist
status quo q when the crucial VP is VPL. Without any loose
of generality I will consider the outcomes only when q <
VPL. They are mirrored when q> VPR. When VPLq  VPR
the solution of the game is trivially q.
i
f
(
V
P
L

q

O
p
)
o
r
(
V
P
L

O
p

q
)
Oversized government
(in
bold the final outcome)
i
f
(
V
P
L

q

O
p
)
o
r
(
V
P
L

O
p

q
)
Oversized government
(in
bold the final outcome)
In Fig. 2a, the status quo q is outside the
government's Pareto set, namely the line
connecting VPL and VPR. Both the
government actors could easily agree to
change it. However, VPL will not propose any
bill, lest the parliament (m) should choose an
open rule leading to m+co as the final policy
outcome. This result would be much worse for
VPL than the initial status quo q.
i
f
(
V
P
L

q

O
p
)
o
r
(
V
P
L

O
p

q
)
Oversized government
(in
bold the final outcome)
The policy change and the adoption of a closed rule becomes
possible in the scenario of Fig. 2b.
In this case, the status quo q is far from VPL and near enough to
Op to make it convenient for VPL to propose g. Given the cost co
of the open rule, the parliament will find it marginally better to
adopt such a proposal with a closed rule rather than allow
amendments by adopting an open rule.
i
f
(
V
P
L

q

O
p
)
o
r
(
V
P
L

O
p

q
)
Oversized government
(in
bold the final outcome)
Figure 2c presents a similar scenario to that of Fig. 2b, but here
VPL is much closer to M. In this case the Parliament is indifferent
between the adoption of a closed rule and the introduction of a
new rule that allows the government to propose a bill under a
take-it-or leave-it option from the onset. When a government party
has been enjoying a closed rule since the beginning of the
legislative process, it can take advantage of its position as agenda
setter independently from the decision costs of the open rule. In
other words, it can obtain more than what the parliament can offer
if the latter could still choose between a closed rule and an open
rule.
Which are the concrete political circumstances
that drive to the scenarios b ? (1)
•
•
1.
2.
Government alternation is the most promising candidate among the
concrete political circumstances driving towards the scenario b.
The status quo must be not only far but also controversial. The
most systematic source of these shifts comes from government
alternation in two ways:
The decisions of the previous government are likely to be a
status quo far from those of the present government and
controversial if the previous opposition wins office.
The perspective of the alternation can move the “reversion
point” in case of no decision farther than the present status
quo and in a controversial area. In other words, the real status
quo that the government parties take in consideration can be the
potential legislative outcome if the present opposition becomes the
next government. Such a crucial change in the political calculus of
the government parties takes place when the government
alternation has already become a real and experienced possibility.
if (
O
pV
P
L
q
)
(in
bold the final outcome)
if (
O
pV
P
L
q
)
(in
bold the final outcome)
In the Figure 2d the status quo is no longer controversial as the
opposition and the government agree on the direction of change. The
change is still blocked by VPL. However, when a shift of the status quo
makes the change possible (Fig. 2e), though not certainly by the
government alternation as in Fig. 2b or Fig 2c., the procedure adopted
will be always open rule and the final outcome will be m. As the
opposition Op agrees with the government in changing the status quo,
open rule will be always the most convenient procedure for M.
Summary of model’s implications and hypotheses
Government alternation crucially affects the position of the status quo and the
perception of its stability. When alternation is rare, the status quo in different
policy areas is less likely to be between the government and the opposition. It is
likely to be in the present government’s range or, at the most, marginally on its
left or right. In this case, the status quo is mostly the outcome of decisions taken
by the previous government that is ideologically very similar to the present one.
In many policy sectors, no real change is possible. In others, the change of
status quo is so uncontroversial (as in Fig. 2e) that open rule does not imply
higher decision costs and the whole parliament prefers the parliamentary
median party position to the status quo.
When the alternation is a stable feature of the party system, a decrease of
the government’s ideological heterogeneity (or the closeness of one VP to the
parliamentary median voter as in the case of minority governments) increases
the probability of a change of the formal rules in favor of the government (fig.
2c).
Therefore the empirical implication of the model can be summarized in the
following two hypotheses:
H1) a high level of government alternation strengthens the agenda-setting power of
the government. Government alternation is a necessary and sufficient condition
for a less frequent use of the amendment power from the parliament (the
“closed rule”).
H2) Government alternation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the
creation of new rules that increase formally and permanently the agenda setting
power of the government . An increase of the government ideological
homogeneity is the other necessary condition.
Operationalization independent variables:direct
I consider
a) the party positions identified by the expert surveys
(Laver and Hunt 1989) regarding the issue of “raising
taxes to increase public services” (score 1) versus “
cutting public services to cut taxes” (score 20) .
b) Party positions on left-right dimension identified by
Huber&Gabel using Party Manifestos with the so
called Vanilla tecnique
Knowing these party positions I can calculate for each
data source (LH and PM)
• Spatial hetereogeneity of the government-parliament
system (Parliament median party-Government
distance): Government range when the median party is
in the government ; distance between median party and
farthest VP when the median party position is not in the
government range.
• 2. Different measures of alternations (see below).
Operationalization independent variables:indirect
•
•
•
•
Government heterogenity: The number of
government parties (Vpnum)
Alternation:
The proportion of days spent by the
government party (government party
predominance) that has been longer in office
as an estimation of the level of alternation. The
smaller the proportion is , the larger the
alternation is.
The probability that two cabinets taken
randomly in time include the party that has
been longer in office (government party
concentration).
Operationalization independent variables:
expectation of alternation
Gallagher index of disproportionality:
an electoral system very disproportional
amplifies in the parliament the changes that
took place among voters: more
disproportionality more expectation of
alternation.
Operationalization dependent variable
(Government legislative agenda setting)
• The government agenda setting power scores
identified by Doering (1995) and re-elaborated
by Tsebelis (2002) (Doering-Tsebelis Agenda
Setting index) . Doering identifies seven
variables that contribute to the agenda setting
powers of governments when producing ordinary
legislation. Tsebelis used principal components
and the first factor loadings to weigh each one of
these variables and normalized the weighted
sum.
Operationalization (direct) of alternation
• Tsebelis Alternation: is the difference between the mid
range position of the left-right dimension of two
successive “merged” governments. Successive
governments with the same ideological range are
considered to constitute one single government.
• Median party alternation:is the difference between two
parliamentary median parties positions in
correspondence “of” two successive
“merged”governments.
• Corrected Tsebelis alternation and Corrected
median party alternation, allow for the previous
differences only when the midrange measure of the
previous government or the parliamentary median party
position during the previous government, are not
included in the present government Pareto set .
The logic of the corrected measures:
General statistics
Correlations
Legislative Agenda Setting (Doering-Tsebelis scores) OLS models with robust standard errors
Constant
Vpnum
Government Party
Predominance
Government Party
concentration
Mod.1
1.035***
[.3494]
(0.010)
-.0832
[.0912]
0.377
-.0105*
[.0053]
0.067)
Mod.2
.6318***
[.2104]
(0.010)
-.0848
.0888
(0.356)
Mod.3
.0194
[.1856]
(0.918)
Mod.4
.0501
[.1975]
(0.803)
Mod. 5
.0606
[.1783137]
(0.739)
Mod.6
.0289
[.1891]
(0.881)
-.0528*
[.0286]
(0.086)
.0475**
[.0208]
(0.039)
-.0498
[.0316]
(0.137)
-.0446
[.0271]
(0.122)
-.0335
[.0328]
(0.325)
Mod.8
-.1888
[.1812]
(0.315)
Mod.9
-.0924
[.1670]
(0.589)
Mod.10
-.1556
[.1639]
(0.359)
-.1795*
[.1020]
(0.100)
.4235***
[.1142]
(0.002)
-.1019
[.1295]
(0.445)
-.2166*
[.1199]
(0.093)
-.1078
[.1208]
(0.387)
-.6601*
[.3220]
(0.060)
Parliament median partyGovernment distance
Tsebelis alternation (LH)
.0418*
[.0238]
(0.100)
Corrected Tsebelis
alternation(LH)
.0453*
[.0213]
(0.052)
Median Party alternation(LH)
.0510**
[.0229]
(0.043)
Corrected median party
alternation(LH)
Parliament median partyGovernment distance (PM)
Tsebelis Alternation (PM)
.4252***
[.1326]
(0.006)
Corrected Tsebelis alternation
(PM)
.4657**
[.1852]
(0.025)
Median party alternation (PM)
Corrected median party
alternation (PM)
N.
R2
Mod.7
-.1775
[.1587]
(0.282)
17
17
17
0.4362
0.4332
0.4967
* p<0.1 level; **p<0.05 ;***p<0.01 ;****p<0.001
17
17
0.4750
0.5256
17
0.5339
.5748***
[.1640]
(0.004)
17
17
17
17
0.4718
0.4582
0.4154
0.4777
Legislativa agenda setting power and
index of disproportionality
Mod.1
Mod.2
Constant
-.1215433
[.2075958]
(0.568)
-.21927
-.2327166
[.1776401] [.1370686]
(0.237)
(0.112)
Vpnum
-.0827
[.0556465]
0.159
Disproportionality
.0678204***
[.017414]
(0.002)
Parliament median party- Government distance
(LH)
.0666413** .0711045***
[.02298]
[.0162823]
(0.012)
(0.001)
-.02426
[.02216]
(0.292)
Parliament median party-Government distance
(PM)
N.
R2
Mod.3
-.1192734
[.0782676]
(0.150)
17
17
0.6953
17
0.6695
0.686
Discussion (1)
• All measures of alternation are linked significantly
with the legislative agenda setting power of the
government. The models with the indirect measures
of both the alternation and the government
heterogeneity perform worse than the others.
• The measures of ideological heterogeneity (VPnum,
Parliament median party –government distance)
have always the right sign but they are non
significant or marginally significant..
• The “best” models are the models where :
1) Alternation is measured as difference between the
ideological position of two parliamentary median
parties in succession.
2) Alternation is in fact “possibility of alternation”
operationalized by Gallagher disproportionality
index.
Discussion (2)
• The measures of ideological heterogeneity (VPnum,
parliament median party–government distance)
have always a negative sign, as expected in the
hypothesis 2, but they are non significant or
marginally significant. It is not surprising...
• The proximity of the agenda setter in the
government with the parliamentary median voter
allows the change in the formal rules. However it
does not have to be constant to keep the new rules
stable. In other terms while a certain level of
homogeneity in the government is necessary for the
institutional change in favour of the government, a
possible subsequent increase of heterogeneity does
not allow the government parties to come back to
the original situation. The parties that mostly play an
agenda setter role would not have any advantage to
reinstate the previous conditions.
Alternation and agenda setting power: which
comes first ? The Italian case.
• Causal sequence in this paper:
the lack of alternation and the associated centrism of
government ==> the weak degree of governmental
agenda-setting power
• Causal sequence in Tsebelis paper (2008):
weak government agenda-setting power ==> the
existence of centrist governments and the lack of
government alternation associated therewith.
• The analysis of the recent development of de facto
legislative agenda-setting powers in Italy lends some
support to the causal sequence
Italian example
(change in party system dynamics and ...increase
of government agenda setting power)
40%
DC
1983
35%
1987 PCI
= CP
30%
25%
20%
PSI
15%
10%
MSI
5%
PR
DP
FM
87
Greens
PSDI
FM
83
PRI
PLI
0%
.0
2.0
4.0
6.0
8.0
10.0
12.0
14.0
16.0
18.0
20.0
Italian example
(change in party system dynamics and ...increase
of government agenda setting power)
40%
35%
FI
DS
1996
30%
2001
25%
20%
Margherita
AN
15%
LN
PPI+RI
10%
CCD-CDU
FM
96
RC
5%
Greens
CI
UCD
FM
01
SDI
0%
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
14
60
12
50
40
30
6
20
4
2
10
0
0
07
20 06
20 05
20 04
20 03
20 02
20 01
20 00
20 99
19 98
19 97
19 96
19 95
19 94
19 93
19 92
19 91
19 90
19 89
19 88
19 87
19 86
19 85
19 84
19 83
19 82
19 81
19 80
19 79
19 78
19 77
19 76
19 75
19 74
19 73
19 72
19 71
19 70
19 69
19 68
19 67
19 66
19 65
19 64
19 63
19 ni
An
years
Delegating laws
Deleghe
delegating laws
8
deleghe
Italian example
(change in party system dynamics and ...increase
of de facto government agenda setting power)
"Domestic" Delegating laws and deleghe (1963-2007)*
10
Informal changes and
Italian government heterogeneity
The Italian recent changes in the legislative practices is a perfect illustration of
an increase of the government agenda setting power that does not imply any
new rule (in terms of the model a “closed rule” is adopted). According to the
model such a circumstance takes place more likely when the government
alternation is not coupled with a decrease of the government heterogeneity.
The study of recent Italian politics seems to confirm this implication.
The presidents of the chambers are crucial actors in the procedure for
changing parliamentary standing orders. They chair the rules committees that
have the exclusive right to propose amendments to the existing standing
orders on the floor. The present standing orders give to the presidents many
prerogatives and it is unlikely that they have a strong interest in increasing the
power of the executive to the detriment of their power. Moreover the
presidencies of the chambers are part of the post-electoral bargaining process
among winning coalition parties for the allocation of the relevant offices.
In the last four legislatures the president of one chamber has never been a
member of the prime minister’s party. The president of a chamber can
increase the legislative bargaining power of his/her party, balancing the role
played by the Prime Minister’s party. Therefore the political heterogeneity
of the Italian government coalition seems to have prevented the creation
of new rules, without affecting the strengthening of the government in
practice
Conclusions
•The central hypothesis of this paper is the following: by affecting the
relative position of the status quo, both real and expected
government alternation affects the legislative agenda-setting power
of the government in parliamentary democracies. In a competitive
party system characterized by a large alternation, government
parties and the majority in parliament are better off relying on those
procedures that limit the debate and preclude the legislative
assembly from amending government proposals.
• The causal mechanism behind this hypothesis follows the
argument recently proposed by Cox (2006) to explain the evolution
of rules and procedures in the legislatures: “All busy legislatures will
evolve rules that create inequalities in member’s access to plenary
time and diminish ordinary members’ ability to delay”. However, the
parliaments are not all equally busy and the cabinets are not
always the beneficiary in the agenda-setting power distribution.
Opportunities for policy change make parliaments busier, but
only their controversial nature makes the government stronger.
•The study of the Italian case supports also the causal direction
implicitly hypothesized in model: Level of alternation and level of
“centrism” of government ==> degree of governmental agendasetting power
Table 1
Summary of the outcomes with q<VPL
Government Position of the main Rules when VPL is the agenda setter
type
actors
O<q<VPL < M
<VPR
Closed rule if
Closed rule if
[(  | m - g |  co )] and [(  | VPL - g |  | VPL  q |)]
[(  | m - g |  co )] and [(  | VPL - g |  | VPL  q |)] Closed rule or New Rule if
Closed rule or New Rule if
Oversized
Government
q<VPL < M
<VPR<O
O<q<M=VPL
<VPR
[(  | VPL - m |  co )]
Otherwise
No change
Open rule if
[
(|

V
P
L
m
|


|V
P
L

q
|
)
]
otherwise
No change
Always closed rule or New Rule
MinimumWinning
Government q<VPL<VPR=M<O Open rule if
[
(|

V
P
L
m
|


|V
P
L

q
|
)
]
O<q<M<VPL
<VPR
Minority
Government
1
q<VPL <VPR<
M<O
Rules when VPR is the agenda setter
[(  | VPR - m |  co )]
Otherwise
No change
Open rule if
[
(|

V
P
L
m
|


|V
P
L

q
|
)
]
otherwise
No change
Closed rule or New Rule if
[(  | VPR - m |  co)]
Otherwise
Closed rule
Open rule if
[
(|

V
P
L
m
|


|V
P
L

q
|
)
]
otherwise
No change
Closed rule or New Rule if
otherwise
No change
Closed rule or New Rule if
[(  | VPL - m |  co)]
Otherwise
Closed rule
Open rule if
[(  | VPR - m |  co)]
Otherwise
Closed rule
Open rule if
otherwise
No change
otherwise
No change
[
(|

V
P
L
m
|


|V
P
L

q
|
)
]
[
(|

V
P
L
m
|


|V
P
L

q
|
)
]