scholarly journals Ministerial Autonomy, Parliamentary Scrutiny and Government Reform Output in Parliamentary Democracies

2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402110243
Author(s):  
Hanna Bäck ◽  
Wolfgang C. Müller ◽  
Mariyana Angelova ◽  
Daniel Strobl
Keyword(s):  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Policy Reform ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Government Reform ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Limited Impact ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Institutional Settings ◽  
The Government

One of the most important decisions coalition partners make when forming a government is the division of ministries. Ministerial portfolios provide the party in charge with considerable informational and agenda-setting advantages, which parties can use to shape policies according to their preferences. Oversight mechanisms in parliaments play a central role in mitigating ministerial policy discretion, allowing coalition partners to control each other even though power has been delegated to individual ministers. However, we know relatively little about how such mechanisms influence the agenda-setting and gatekeeping powers of ministers and how much influence minister parties have on policy output relative to the government as a whole in different institutional settings. We fill this gap by analyzing original data on over 2000 important social and economic policy reform measures adopted in nine Western European countries over 20 years, based on a coding of more than 1200 country reports issued by the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). We find that parliaments with strong oversight powers constrain the agenda-setting capacity of minister parties but have limited impact on their gatekeeping capacity. Our findings have important implications for our understanding of policy-making and democratic accountability.

Unsuccessful Success? Failed No-Confidence Motions, Competence Signals, and Electoral Support

2011 ◽  
Vol 44 (11) ◽  
pp. 1474-1499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laron K. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Formal Model ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Vote Share ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
The Government ◽  
Opposition Parties

If no-confidence motions are primarily motivated by bringing down governments, why do only approximately 5% of no-confidence motions in advanced parliamentary democracies from 1960 result in the termination of government? In this project the author addresses this puzzle by developing a formal model of the electoral benefits of no-confidence motions and tests these hypotheses with the use of an original data set. No-confidence motions represent highly visible opportunities for opposition parties to highlight their strength or ability compared to the government in the hopes of improving their vote shares. The author finds support for the signal-based theory on a sample of 20 advanced parliamentary democracies from 1960 to 2008. Although no-confidence motions result in decreases for the government parties, the opposition parties that propose the motion experience boosts in vote share. This relationship is even stronger when the proposing party is an alternative governing possibility—illustrated by the conditioning impacts of the number of parliamentary parties and the opposition party’s ideological extremism. This provides an explanation as to why opposition parties would continue to challenge the government even though the motions are likely to fail.

Korea’s Government reform in public policy and management

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 256-265
Author(s):  
Jin Park
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Policy Reform ◽  
Government Reform ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Presidential Transition ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Management Reform ◽  
The Government ◽  
Future Direction

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the historical path and the future direction of the government reform initiative in Korea regarding the public policy and management reform. Design/methodology/approach Analysis of National Agenda published by the Presidential Transition Committees of each president for the past 20 years. Findings Public policy reform has been rather slow or even has gone backwards for some periods of time in Korea. The market intervention by the government needs to be reduced whereas its role in the social welfare or people’s quality of life should be expanded. President needs to create a reform-driving agency to design a new paradigm of government role. Originality/value There has been no research that has investigated Korea’s Government reform with the framework of public management and public policy reform.

Opposition Parties and the Timing of Successful No-Confidence Motions

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 533-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laron K. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Formal Model ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Strategic Interactions ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
The Government ◽  
Policy Direction ◽  
Parliamentary Politics ◽  
Opposition Parties

The power to remove the government via no-confidence motion is a powerful tool afforded to the opposition. By triggering the government’s downfall, opposition parties can substantially influence policy direction in parliamentary democracies. Yet, we know surprisingly little about how government and opposition parties interact to determine the occurrence of no-confidence motions and their chance of success. In this project, I develop a simple formal model that identifies the factors influencing when opposition parties propose no-confidence motions and their outcomes. I find support for these expectations by estimating an empirical model that is explicitly derived from the underlying theoretical model. Unlike previous empirical studies of government stability, this project honors the strategic interactions that occur between government and opposition parties. In addition to the possibility of the motion passing, opposition parties are motivated by electoral considerations, which induce different behaviors at various stages of the electoral cycle. This project offers a number of implications for the study of parliamentary politics, including theories of opposition behavior, democratic accountability, and government duration and termination.

Governments, Parliaments and Legislative Activity

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 529-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Bräuninger ◽  
Marc Debus ◽  
Fabian Wüst
Keyword(s):  
Policy Change ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Differential Impact ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Institutional Settings ◽  
Parliamentary Systems ◽  
History Of ◽  
Legislative Activity ◽  
The Government

Various strands of literature in comparative politics suggest that there is a differential impact of the type of government and their supporting legislative coalitions in parliamentary democracies, for example, in terms of their size and ideological heterogeneity, and on their potential to induce policy change. Most studies in this area focus on governments as agenda-setters, possibly neglecting the role of parliaments as a further key actor in policy making. In this article, we address the broader question as to how patterns of conflict within parliament effect legislative activity of governments and parliamentary actors. Through a simultaneous analysis of the success and event history of over 12,000 legislative bills in three parliamentary systems and one semi-presidential system from 1986 until 2003, we show how the interplay of actor motivations and institutional settings has a discriminating impact on the potential of both the government and parliament to induce policy change.

Spatial Models, Legislative Gridlock, and Resource Policy Reform

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-100
Author(s):  
Nathan Chael ◽  
Christophe Crombez ◽  
Pieterjan Vangerven
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Policy Reform ◽  
Spatial Models ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Trading System ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Institutional Settings ◽  
Resource Policy ◽  
The Common

This review evaluates the use of spatial models for the analysis of policy making. First, we examine spatial theory and its applications in a variety of institutional settings. We discuss how the preferences of the actors involved in political processes, the steps in those processes, and the locations of the reversion policies affect the policies that emerge from the processes. To illustrate this and analyze how the rights of political actors determine the extent of policy reform and the occurrence of gridlock, we use a spatial model of European Union (EU) policy making. We apply the model to major EU reforms in two resource policy areas: the Common Agricultural Policy reforms of the past two decades and the recent reforms of the Emissions Trading System.

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.

scholarly journals LIBERALISM, LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM, AND POLITICAL EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN AND BRITISH INDIA, 1880–1886

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
BENJAMIN WEINSTEIN
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Political Education ◽  
Government Reform ◽  
British India ◽  
The Government

AbstractThis article attempts to shed new light on the character of late Victorian Liberalism by investigating its political priorities in British India. It takes as its particular focus the debates which raged between 1881 and 1883 over the Government of India Resolution on Local Self-Government. Along with the Ilbert Bill, the Resolution comprised the centrepiece of the marquis of Ripon's self-consciously Liberal programme for dismantling Lytton's Raj. When analysed in conjunction with contemporaneous Liberal discourse on English local government reform, the debates surrounding the Resolution help to clarify many of the central principles of late Victorian Liberalism. In particular, these debates emphasize the profound importance of local government reform to what one might call the Liberal project. Beyond its utility in effecting retrenchment, efficiency, and ‘sound finance’, local government reform was valued by Liberals as the best and safest means of effecting ‘political education’ among populations, in both Britain and India, with increasingly strong claims to inclusion within the body politic.

Government Officials, Academics, and the Process of Formulating U.S. National Security Policy Toward Africa

1990 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-20
Author(s):  
Larry W. Bowman
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
National Security ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Phone Call ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
The Government ◽  
Research Contract ◽  
The U.S

Relationships between U.S. government officials and academic specialists working on national security and foreign policy issues with respect to Africa are many and complex. They can be as informal as a phone call or passing conversation or as formalized as a consulting arrangement or research contract. Many contacts exist and there is no doubt that many in both government and the academy value these ties. There have been, however, ongoing controversies about what settings and what topics are appropriate to the government/academic interchange. National security and foreign policy-making in the U.S. is an extremely diffuse process.

Discursive Democracy and New Labour: Five Ways in Which Decision-Makers Manage Citizen Agendas in Public Participation Initiatives

2004 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Williams
Keyword(s):  
Public Participation ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Final Analysis ◽  
New Labour ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
The Public ◽  
Labour Policy ◽  
The Government

New Labour's conceptualisation of public participation in local government creates a tension in public participation practice. Government legislation and guidance require local authorities to develop and provide citizen-centred services, engage the public in policy-making and respond to the public's views. Seen in this light, New Labour policy draws from radical democratic discourse. However, local authority staff are also expected to act in accordance with the direction set by their line managers, the Council and the government and to inform, engage and persuade the public of the benefit of their authority's policies. In this respect, New Labour policy draws from the discursive model of civil society, conceptualising public participation as a method for engendering civil ownership of the formal structures of representative democracy. Tension is likely to arise when the ideas, opinions and values of the local authority differ from those expressed by the participating public. This paper uses a local ‘public participation’ initiative to investigate how the tension is managed in practice. The study shows how decision-makers dealt with the tension by using participatory initiatives to supply information, understand the views of the public and encourage public support around pre-existing organisational agendas. Problems occurred when citizens introduced new agendas by breaking or manipulating the rules of participation. Decision-makers responded by using a number of distinctive methods for managing citizens’ agendas, some of which were accompanied by strategies for minimising the injury done to citizens’ motivations for further participation. The paper concludes that New Labour policy fails to deal with the tensions between the radical and discursive models of participation and in the final analysis draws mainly from the discursive model of participation. Furthermore, whilst New Labour policy promotes dialogue between the public and local authority, it does not empower local authority staff to achieve the goal of citizen-centred policy-making.

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