Ministerial Autonomy or Ministerial Accommodation? Contested Bases of Government Survival in Parliamentary Democracies

1999 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 369-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAUL V. WARWICK
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Portfolio Allocation ◽  
Initial Test ◽  
Simulation Experiments ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Significant Survival ◽  
West European

In this article the ability of Laver and Shepsle's portfolio allocation (PA) theory to account for the survival records of coalition governments in twelve West European parliamentary democracies is examined. The initial test consists of determining whether governments that are in PA equilibrium survive longer than other governments. Simulation experiments are then used to estimate the robustness of these equilibria in order to assess whether robust equilibria have significant survival-enhancing properties. The foil in this investigation is the ideological diversity approach, which sees ministerial accommodation, not ministerial autonomy, as the key to decision making in coalition governments. The evidence favours the latter perspective.

What You See Is Not Always What You Get: Bargaining before an Audience under Multiparty Government

2020 ◽  
Vol 114 (4) ◽  
pp. 1138-1154 ◽  
Author(s):  
LANNY W. MARTIN ◽  
GEORG VANBERG
Keyword(s):  
Original Data ◽  
Portfolio Allocation ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Relative Success ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
Simple Heuristics ◽  
Do So

AbstractParty elites in coalition governments are acutely aware that the deals they strike will be critically evaluated by their supporters, and that they risk losing support if they are perceived as ineffective negotiators. This has a powerful influence on the bargains parties strike. Because most supporters are unaware of the complex aspects of bargains and instead rely on simple heuristics to evaluate their most visible features, parties have incentives to meet supporter expectations primarily on easily observable outcomes. To do so, they make trade-offs on less observable outcomes. This implies that the more visible features of a bargain typically do not accurately reflect the relative success of parties in coalition negotiations. We evaluate our argument using original data on the office rewards and policy risks of portfolio allocation in 16 parliamentary democracies. Our findings support our argument, and they have important implications for the nature of representation under multiparty government.

scholarly journals Professional activists? Party activism among political staffers in parliamentary democracies

2021 ◽  
pp. 135406882110273
Author(s):  
Pieter Moens
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
High Intensity ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Strong Commitment ◽  
Staff Recruitment

Although the position of the party on the ground has been weakened by cartelization, grassroots activists remain an important recruitment pool for political professionals. Based on unique survey data collected among the staff of 14 Belgian and Dutch parties (N = 1009), this article offers an in-depth analysis of party activism among this under-researched population. Introducing a new supply and demand framework, I argue that staff recruitment is shaped by candidate preferences (supply) and party preferences (demand). The findings demonstrate that most political staffers are high-intensity activists with a strong commitment to their party. Moreover, the theoretical model accurately predicts that non-activists are more common among policy and communication experts, ministerial staff, and those working for ideologically moderate parties. These findings show that paid staffers do not necessarily widen the gap between parties and activists. They also raise normative questions about internal congruence within parties in coalition governments.

scholarly journals A signed network perspective on the government formation process in parliamentary democracies

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Fontan ◽  
Claudio Altafini
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Formation Process ◽  
Signed Graph ◽  
Balance Theory ◽  
Collective Decision Making ◽  
Dynamical Models ◽  
Average Correlation ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Signed Network ◽  
The Government

AbstractIn parliamentary democracies, government negotiations talks following a general election can sometimes be a long and laborious process. In order to explain this phenomenon, in this paper we use structural balance theory to represent a multiparty parliament as a signed network, with edge signs representing alliances and rivalries among parties. We show that the notion of frustration, which quantifies the amount of “disorder” encoded in the signed graph, correlates very well with the duration of the government negotiation talks. For the 29 European countries considered in this study, the average correlation between frustration and government negotiation talks ranges between 0.42 and 0.69, depending on what information is included in the edges of the signed network. Dynamical models of collective decision-making over signed networks with varying frustration are proposed to explain this correlation.

Preference–Approval Structures in Group Decision Making: Axiomatic Distance and Aggregation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yucheng Dong ◽  
Yao Li ◽  
Ying He ◽  
Xia Chen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision Making ◽  
Distance Function ◽  
Group Decision ◽  
Simple Majority ◽  
Simulation Experiments ◽  
Group Preference ◽  
Aggregation Model ◽  
Modeling Process ◽  
Ordinal Preference

Preference–approval structure combines the preference information of both ranking and approval, which extends the ordinal preference model by incorporating two categories of choice alternatives, that is, acceptable (good) and unacceptable (bad), in the preference modeling process. In this study, we present some axioms that imply the existence of a unique distance function of preference–approval structures. Based on theoretical analysis and simulation experiments, we further study a preferences aggregation model in the group decision-making context based on the proposed axiomatic distance function. In this model, the group preference is defined as a preference–approval structure that minimizes the sum of its distances to all preference–approval structures of individuals in the group under consideration. Particularly, we show that the group preference defined by the axiomatic distance–based aggregation model has close relationships with the simple majority rule and Cook and Seiford’s ranking.

Romania

2019 ◽  
pp. 388-434
Author(s):  
Laurențiu Ștefan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Party System ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The Right

In Romania, a highly segmented and extremely volatile party system has contributed to a predominance of coalition governments. Alternation in power by coalitions led by either left-wing or right-wing parties used to be a major feature of Romanian governments. Thus, until a short-lived grand coalition in 2009, ideologically homogeneous coalitions were the general practice. Since then, parties from the right and left of the political spectrum have learned to work together in government. Given the semi-presidential nature of the political regime and the exclusive power to nominate the prime minister, the Romanian president plays an important role in coalition formation. The president also plays a pivotal role by shadowing the prime minister and therefore influencing the governance of coalitions. She has the power to veto ministerial appointments and therefore she can also shape the cabinet line-up. Pre-election coalitions are a common feature, more than two-thirds of Romanian coalition governments have been predicated on such agreements. Coalition agreements dealt with both policy issues and coalition decision-making bodies and the governance mechanisms that have been in most cases enforced and complied with—until the break-up of the coalition and the downfall of the respective government. One very common decision-making body is the Coalition Committee, which has been backed on the operational level by an inner cabinet made up of the prime minister and the deputy prime ministers, which usually are the heads of the junior coalition parties.

scholarly journals PORTFOLIO ALLOCATION AS THE PRESIDENT'S CALCULATIONS: LOYALTY, COPARTISANSHIP, AND POLITICAL CONTEXT IN SOUTH KOREA

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don S. Lee
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Portfolio Allocation ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Critical Difference ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Key Policy ◽  
Portfolio Allocations ◽  
Political Leverage ◽  
Ruling Party

AbstractHow do the president's calculations in achieving policy goals shape the allocation of cabinet portfolios? Despite the growing literature on presidential cabinet appointments, this question has barely been addressed. I argue that cabinet appointments are strongly affected not only by presidential incentives to effectively deliver their key policy commitments but also by their interest in having their administration maintain strong political leverage. Through an analysis of portfolio allocations in South Korea after democratization, I demonstrate that the posts wherein ministers can influence the government's overall reputation typically go to nonpartisan professionals ideologically aligned with presidents, while the posts wherein ministers can exert legislators' influence generally go to senior copartisans. My findings highlight a critical difference in presidential portfolio allocation from parliamentary democracies, where key posts tend to be reserved for senior parliamentarians from the ruling party.

Molecular analysis-directed, international, phase III trial in patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer.

2013 ◽  
Vol 31 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 8001-8001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerold Bepler ◽  
Charles C. Williams ◽  
Michael J. Schell ◽  
Wei Chen ◽  
Zhong Zheng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Internal Control ◽  
False Negative ◽  
Gene Analysis ◽  
Phase Iii ◽  
Mrna Levels ◽  
Therapeutic Decision ◽  
Treatment Groups ◽  
Significant Survival ◽  
Therapeutic Decision Making

8001 Background: ERCC1 (E1) and RRM1 (R1) are predictive markers for platinum agents and gemcitabine (G) respectively. In a phase II trial that utilized E1 and R1 mRNA expression levels for therapeutic decision-making, a response rate of 44%, PFS of 6.6 m, and OS of 13.3 m was achieved. Methods: Pts with advanced, chemo-naive NSCLC, PS 0-1, measurable disease, and a FFPE histological or cell block tumor specimen were eligible. E1 and R1 were analyzed by AQUA and categorized as high or low. Pts were randomized 2:1 to arm A, which received G and carboplatin (Cb) for R1/E1 low, docetaxel (D) and Cb for R1 high and E1 low, G and D for R1 low and E1 high, and D and vinorelbine (V) for R1/E1 high, or arm B, which received GC. Pts received up to 6 cycles. Efficacy was assessed every 6-8 weeks until 1 year from treatment initiation. The primary goal was to improve the 6-m PFS from 38% in arm B (median PFS 4.3 m) to 50% in arm A (median PFS 6.0 m). Secondary goals were improvements in OS (8.0 to 12.0 m) and RR (25% to 50%). Results: Of 275 eligible pts, 183 randomized to arm A. 56 were assigned to GCb, 26 to DCb, 37 to GD, and 64 to DV, which was not significantly different (p=.2) from the expected assignment (30%, 20%, 20%, 30%). In arm B, all 92 pts received GCb. Protein analysis was successful in 91% of pts. The median time from consent to completed gene analysis was 11 days. A tumor rebiopsy for the specific purpose of gene analysis was required in 17% of pts. The 6-m PFS rate and median PFS were 52.0% and 6.1 m in arm A and 56.5% and 6.9 m in arm B (p = 0.18). PFS was not significantly different among the treatment groups in arm A (p = 0.1). A significant survival advantage was found for pts with low E1 and low R1 in arm B compared to the same group in arm A (p = 0.02) although both received GCb therapy. OS and RR were not significantly different between both groups. A comparison between protein and mRNA levels for both genes revealed no significant correlation. Conclusions: This demonstrates that gene expression analysis for therapeutic decision making is feasible in newly diagnosed advanced-stage NSCLC pts. A tumor rebiopsy is safe, required in 17%, and acceptable to 89% pts. The survival results are false negative based on the internal control included in the trial. Clinical trial information: NCT00499109.

The Distribution of Ministerial Posts in Parliamentary Systems

2020 ◽  
pp. 313-335
Author(s):  
Hanna Bäck ◽  
Royce Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Portfolio Allocation ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Parliamentary Systems

The distribution of ministerial posts is an important step in the democratic process in parliamentary democracies, as ministers are likely to influence the policy outputs of governments. Several scholars have thus aimed to explain and predict portfolio allocation in parliamentary democracies. Some scholars have focused exclusively on predicting how many portfolios each party gets, whereas others have focused on predicting which party gets which post. There is also a growing field that focuses on understanding why certain individuals are selected to the cabinet, and why some individuals stay longer in their posts whereas others are shuffled out early. Few studies have connected these questions, fully aiming to explain the distribution of posts between and within political parties negotiating to enter government. We suggest that this is an important step for future research

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document