Veto Players in Legislative Games: Fake and Real

Author(s):  
Matti Wiberg
Keyword(s):  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (158) ◽  
pp. 45-76
Author(s):  
Rafał Glajcar
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Francesco Zucchini
Keyword(s):  

Introduzione La maggior parte degli studi sul parlamento italiano durante la prima repubblica, rende conto delle caratteristiche permanenti della produzione legislativa (Di Palma 1978; 1987). Gli studiosi che hanno prestato attenzione al mutamento hanno finito per considerarlo come la manifestazione matura di quei fattori. Sia le spiegazioni delle caratteristiche generali del processo legislativo nel parlamento italiano, sia le spiegazioni della sua evoluzione nel tempo appaiono problematiche. Se per esempio la polarizzazione e la sfiducia reciproca fra le principali forze politiche servono a spiegare l'assenza (o la presunta assenza) di grandi riforme e sostanziali mutamenti di politica (Di Palma 1978; Sartori 1974), perché è proprio quando la polarizzazione, e verosimilmente anche il grado di sfiducia, si attenuano che il governo fatica maggiormente a ottenere per vie ordinarie l'approvazione dei propri disegni di legge, normalmente dal contenuto più ambizioso e indirizzati ad una platea più ampia di quelli di origine parlamentare? Se l'elevato grado di consenso nell'approvazione delle leggi è una conseguenza della peculiare attitudine culturale della nostra classe politica all'accordo, se non addirittura alla collusione (Pizzorno 1993), perché lo stesso fenomeno è presente in altri sistemi politici, come per esempio negli Stati Uniti, della cui somiglianza culturale al caso italiano è lecito dubitare?


Author(s):  
Karolina Borońska-Hryniewiecka ◽  
Jan Grinc

This article offers the first ever comparative analysis of the involvement of V4 parliaments in the sphere of European Union (EU) affairs. Its underlying research objective is to determine what conditions V4’s parliamentary participation in various EU-oriented activities such as domestic scrutiny of the government’s EU policy, the political dialogue with the Commission, the Early Warning System for subsidiarity control, and the green card initiative. Based on the actual scrutiny output, parliamentary minutes, and data from questionnaires, we address the questions: (1) To what extent domestic legislatures act as autonomous as opposed to government-supporting actors in these arenas? (2) Do they mostly act as EU veto players, or try to contribute constructively to the EU policy-making process by bringing alternative policy ideas? (3) What are their motivations for engaging in direct dialogue with EU institutions in addition to domestic scrutiny? and (4) How MPs envisage their own EU-oriented roles? While the article reveals that V4 parliaments mostly act as gatekeepers in the sphere of EU affairs, it also casts a new light on the previous literature findings related to the EU-oriented performance of the Czech and Polish lower chambers. We conclude that, generally, V4 parliaments refrain from fully exploiting their relatively strong formal prerogatives in EU affairs—a fact that can be partly explained by the composition of their ruling majorities.


2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 575-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
IAIN McLEAN ◽  
JENNIFER NOU

Recent veto player work argues that majoritarian regimes such as the United Kingdom have better fiscal discipline and smaller welfare states than proportional regimes with more veto players. An analytic narrative of the failure of land value taxation in the United Kingdom between 1909 and 1914 shows, however, that it failed not because of previously advanced reasons, but because the number of veto players in British politics was sharply increased. This increase in veto player numbers prevented a tax increase. All seven of the conventional reasons for characterizing the United Kingdom as a low-n veto player regime failed to hold between 1906 and 1914. Observable implications discussed include the need to review the entire history of British politics in this period in the light of the temporary increase in veto players; and the ambiguous implications of number of veto players for fiscal discipline.


1995 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Tsebelis

The article compares different political systems with respect to one property: their capacity to produce policy change. I define the basic concept of the article, the ‘veto player’: veto players are individual or collective actors whose agreement (by majority rule for collective actors) is required for a change of the status quo. Two categories of veto players are identified in the article: institutional and partisan. Institutional veto players (president, chambers) exist in presidential systems while partisan veto players (parties) exist at least in parliamentary systems. Westminster systems, dominant party systems and single-party minority governments have only one veto player, while coalitions in parliamentary systems, presidential or federal systems have multiple veto players. The potential for policy change decreases with the number of veto players, the lack of congruence (dissimilarity of policy positions among veto players) and the cohesion (similarity of policy positions among the constituent units of each veto player) of these players. The veto player framework produces results different from existing theories in comparative politics, but congruent with existing empirical studies. In addition, it permits comparisons across different political and party systems. Finally, the veto player framework enables predictions about government instability (in parliamentary systems) or regime instability (in presidential systems); these predictions are supported by available evidence.


2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 635-663 ◽  
Author(s):  
James C. Schopf

Abstract Democratisation has brought a new, riskier pattern of corruption to Korea. More groups and institutions have secured a role in a more inclusive democratic policy making process. As a result, corruption schemes now require the consent of a wide and diverse set of veto players, often including the political opposition, producing expansive democratic ‘corruption webs’. The key democratic element of competition for votes rewards opposition members in the web for blowing the whistle. Increased likelihood of exposure and punishment deter many from corruption, which has subsequently declined in Korea under democracy, as measured by perception polls, experience surveys and objective measures of elite rent exchange. The Roh Moo-hyeon NACF scandals demonstrate that democratic corruption webs also mitigate damage from scandals — forcing participants to limit rent exchange to minimise exposure to clean veto players. Democratic oversight ensures that even bribe-taking officials implement policy according to publicly-declared objectives. Finally, competition for votes encourages timely exposure of democratic corruption rackets.


2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (61) ◽  
pp. 145
Author(s):  
Henrique Rangel ◽  
Carlos Bolonha ◽  
Fabrício Faroni
Keyword(s):  

O presente artigo parte do problema ora intitulado distorção majoritária, caracterizado, basicamente, pelo domínio de instituições representativas por elites ou grupos minoritários da sociedade devido a sua capacidade de organização política. Nesta lógica, o objeto especificado pela pesquisa é a bancada empresarial presente no Congresso Nacional brasileiro. A hipótese formulada questiona se esta bancada teria assumido papel de veto player no sistema político brasileiro. Partindo-se da teoria de George Tsebelis (teoria dos veto players) e criticando-a por não vislumbrar a possibilidade de preferências ou atores políticos diversos emergirem diante de situações concretas, alguns casos emblemáticos são investigados a fim de comprovar a atuação desta forma suprapartidária de organização, sobretudo destacando o caráter conservador de seu comportamento. O objetivo desta pesquisa é demonstrar como elites ou grupos minoritários podem causar impacto na política em detrimento dos interesses de segmentos mais numerosos da sociedade.


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