Adaptations, 1991–2015

The 1991–2015 period saw both the diminished importance of the traditional anti-system parties of the left (due to the end of Communist rule in Europe) as well as the rise of new populist radical right-wing parties. As a response to the sharp rise of tactical obstruction by loyal opposition parties, the French National Assembly became a hybrid legislature when committees were empowered under centralized agenda control in 2008. With no similar increase of obstruction in the British House of Commons, no substantial procedural reform occurred. In the two working legislatures (the Riksdag and the Bundestag), legislators maintained their preference for work. This explains the procedural path dependence in both legislatures despite the appearance of a potential anti-system party (the Sweden Democrats) in the Riksdag. Given the absence of sustained obstruction by the Sweden Democrats, followers successfully reversed an attempt to informally centralize agenda control in the Riksdag.

A Dynamic Partisan Perspective on Procedural Reform

This chapter introduces the dynamic partisan perspective on procedural change. Leaders are expected to prefer creating mega-seats in the cabinet (and centralize agenda control), whereas followers prefer (powerful) legislative committees under decentralized agenda control. Leaders’ and followers’ procedural preferences are operationalized by means of the framing of their respective reform proposals. Leaders are expected to emphasize a majoritarian vision of legislative democracy, while followers espouse a proportional vision. All else being equal, followers enjoy a better bargaining position because the proportional vision is more in line with the legislative state of nature. Therefore, the procedural path chosen hypothetically depends on the occurrence of anti-system obstruction which alters followers’ preferences. The chapter closes by discussing the temporal, substantial, and spatial boundaries of the cases selected here. Accordingly, failed and successful procedural reforms in four Western European countries (Britian, France, Sweden, and Germany) will be analysed over the 1866–2015 period.

Introduction: Legislators in the Steel-Hard Casing

This chapter identifies the problem of legislative democracy. As a response to growing pressures to increase procedural efficiency in the wake of the Industrial Revolution and the advent of more inclusive suffrage formulae, legislators face two procedural alternatives: to centralize control over the legislative agenda, to create powerful committees. Talking legislatures combine centralized agenda control and weak committees, working ones decentralized agenda control and powerful committees, and hybrid ones centralized agenda control and powerful committees. According to the dynamic partisan perspective adopted in this book, a centralization of agenda control only occurs as a response to anti-system obstruction. Given legislators’ demand for mega-seats, the creation of powerful committees is the default way to rationalize legislative procedures. If, however, legislators fail to procedurally respond to anti-system obstruction they risk a breakdown of legislative procedures. This is why this book ultimately focuses on legislative democracy rather than legislative organization.

(Non-)Departures from the Legislative State of Nature, 1866–1917

Prior to 1917, a centralization of agenda control was successful in the British House of Commons between 1882 and 1902 but failed in the German Reichstag in 1906. In the House of Commons, followers over time accepted that systematic attempts of Irish nationalists to delay the passage of legislation amounted to anti-system obstruction could only be contained procedurally as advocated by leaders. In contrast, the German Social Democrats, despite being deemed anti-system by conservatives, only obstructed legislative business tactically. This explains why centrist legislators refused to support the procedural changes proposed by the extra-parliamentary government. In the absence of any systematic obstruction, followers successfully called for mega-seats on powerful committees in both the French Chamber of Deputies and the Swedish Riksdag.

Procedural Reforms and their Context

This chapter identifies ninety procedural reforms from the British, French, Swedish, and German legislatures during the years 1866–2015 which will be analysed in Chapters 5–7. For all these reforms, original data have been collected, mostly consisting of parliamentary documents (committee reports and plenary proceedings). The details and sources of all reforms can be found in the Appendix of the book. All legislatures started their procedural development in the legislative state of nature. Only seventeen of the ninety reforms are substantial (eight path changes and nine substantial reforms) while 72 are expressions of institutional conservatism (54 incremental and 18 failed reforms). This chapter also contextualizes these reforms by discussing the evolution of the legislative workload, extra-legislative institutions, and party systems in the four countries under investigation. None of these features systematically covaries with the procedural development of the respective legislatures.

The Analysis of Talking and Working Legislatures

This chapter discusses agenda control and committee power as the most important features of talking and working legislatures. Agenda control is regarded as centralized if governments possess privileges in two or more of its defining dimensions (timetable, positive, and negative control). Correspondingly, legislative committees are regarded as powerful if at least permanence and rewrite authority are present. This chapter also discusses existing explanations for the distribution of agenda control and committee power. From this discussion follows the methodological decision to first develop a theoretical model of procedural change whose hypotheses are examined in a qualitative process-tracing analysis focusing on controlled cross-case comparisons of four types of procedural reforms (path changes plus path-dependent, incremental, and failed reforms).

Conclusion: Maintaining Legislative Democracy

This chapter provides the causal mechanism explaining the emergence of talking, working, and hybrid legislatures. Apart from anti-system obstruction, in order to be established, talking legislatures depend on two additional necessary conditions jointly sufficient for a centralization of agenda control: a critical juncture and followers’ surrender of inherited procedural privileges. Alternatively, followers’ demand for mega-seats on legislative committees triggers a development towards working legislatures. This chapter also emphasizes that legislative obstruction is subject to equifinality and argues that the procedural development of congresses in presidential systems is most likely susceptible to more multiple causation than that of parliaments. In conclusion, it appears that procedural reform in Western European legislatures over the last 150 years was primarily aimed at maintaining legislative democracy. The chapter closes with a discussion of the alleged decline of legislatures and addresses options for countering the dual threats to legislative democracy posed by autocrats and populists.

Pathways to Path-Dependence, 1918–90

During 1918–90 ideological, anti-system communist and fascist parties emerged. Anti-system obstruction and the response to it from establishment parties explain why a centralization of agenda control succeeded in the French National Assembly in 1958 but not during previous reform attempts or in the German Reichstag during the Weimar Republic. The absence of obstruction (in the French case) or legislators’ procedural response to it (in the German case) prevented any substantial reform in the interwar years. Only when anti-system obstruction triggered a procedural response did the centralization of agenda control succeed in France. Once procedural path changes occurred, legislators adapted by developing a preference for talk (in the plenary) or work (in committees). This explains why neither the disappearance of the anti-system threat in the British House of Commons nor the emergence of a Communist party in the Swedish Riksdag affected the respective procedural paths chosen prior to 1917.