The Government Agenda in Parliamentary Democracies 4 th November 2009 Camilla Mariotto Comparative PoliticsProf. Marco Giuliani AY

Comparative Politics2 Content 1. Introduction – research questions 2. Background 3. Supporting theory 4. Data: 1. Country Selection 2. Sample of Government Bills 3. Measurement of Independent and Dependent Variables 5. Analysis and Findings 6. Conclusions

Comparative Politics3 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).

Comparative Politics4 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

Comparative Politics5 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 Each minister has a crucial role in the definition of the government policy agenda.

Comparative Politics6 Background (3) CABINET MINISTERS Positive agenda control: means of ensuring that their proposal does not face defeat, extensive modification or delay Negative agenda control: capability of keeping unacceptable proposal off the government’s agenda

Comparative Politics7 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.

Comparative Politics8 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.

Comparative Politics9 Supporting theory (2) 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!

Comparative Politics10 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 issue less salient issue  less reneging

Comparative Politics11 Supporting theory (4) “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.

Comparative Politics12 Data_ country selection PROS: Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and Netherlands 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.

Comparative Politics13 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?)

Comparative Politics14 Data_ measurement of dependent and independent variables Dependent variable  timing of bill introduction

Comparative Politics15 Independent variables  issue saliency and divisiveness  Government issue saliency Government issue saliency  Government issue divisiveness Government issue divisiveness  Opposition issue saliency clashes can affect  Opposition issue divisiveness bill timing Data_ measurement of dependent and independent variables

Comparative Politics16 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.

Comparative Politics17 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 bill The 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.

Comparative Politics18 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!

Comparative Politics19 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.

Comparative Politics20 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%.

Comparative Politics21 Analysis and Findings (4) Effect of government issue divisiveness on timing of bills over parliamentary term The 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%

Comparative Politics22 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)

Comparative Politics23 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.