Legislative agenda‐setting in parliamentary democracies

Abstract

Various strands of literature in comparative politics regard governments as the only noteworthy initiators and mainsprings of legislative policy making in parliamentary democracies. Opposition activity in policy making is more often associated with the intention to prevent, rather than to shape, policy. Does this perception reflect real‐life politics? To answer this question, this article discusses different arguments that link institutional and policy‐related characteristics to the incentives and constraints of different government and parliamentary actors to initiate or co‐sponsor legislative bills. More specifically, it relates policy‐, office‐ and vote‐related incentives, as well as institutional and resource constraints of legislative actors, to the likelihood that these actors will take the lead in legislative agenda‐setting. These arguments are confronted with original data on the universe of all legislative bills in four parliamentary systems over one and a half decades. The article concludes that opposition and, in particular, bipartisan agenda‐setting is indeed rare. Yet, in contrast to widely held maxims, it is neither absent nor spurious, but related to the allocation of power and the intensity of ideological conflict both within and between the (coalition) government and parliament.

Who Takes the Parliamentary Floor? The Role of Gender in Speech-making in the Swedish Riksdag

“…There are several ways of studying the legislative activity of parliaments and governments. One branch of research focuses on the determinants of introducing and deciding on law proposals, and on the length of time law proposals are in the legislative process, while another prominent line of research directs attention to the determinants and consequences of parliamentary voting behavior in modern democracies by referring to recorded votes (e.g., Bräuninger, Brunner, and Däubler 2012;Bräuninger and Debus 2009;Carey 2007;Hansen 2009;L. W. Martin 2004;Poole and Rosenthal 1997).…”

Parties' Influence during Government Policy Negotiations: Parliamentary Dynamics and Spatial Advantages in the First Italian Republic

“…In particular, our results could be helpful to better understand the bargaining dynamics within political systems characterised by a consensual style of law-making similar to the one that prevailed during the First Italian Republic. This is a far from exceptional scenario among contemporary parliamentary democracies (see Andeweg, De Winter, & Müller, 2008;Christiansen & Damgaard, 2008;Kaiser 2008, Mújica & Sánchez-Cuenca, 2006, and may have a bearing on research dealing with actual (rather than declared) policy outputs (Bräuninger & Debus, 2009;Cusack, 2001;Martin & Vanberg, 2005).…”

The Relationship between Media and Political Agendas: Variations across Decision-Making Phases

“…Whereas parliamentary initiatives allow MPs to introduce their own bill proposals, motions that are supported by a majority of MPs in both chambers force the government to submit a legislative act to the parliament or to take appropriate measures about the issue at stake. Thus, in international comparison, the initiation phase in Switzerland has two peculiarities: it comprises two additional institutional arenas (cantons and citizens), and it is more often launched by the government and its administration than in other Western European countries, where a greater share of bills is introduced by parliamentary actors, although with rather modest success (Bräuninger and Debus 2009).…”