George Tsebelis

Political scientists have long classified systems of government as parliamentary or presidential, two-party or multiparty, and so on. But such distinctions often fail to provide useful insights. For example, how are we to compare the United States, a presidential bicameral regime with two weak parties, to Denmark, a parliamentary unicameral regime with many strong parties? Veto Players advances an important, new understanding of how governments are structured. The real distinctions between political systems, contends George Tsebelis, are to be found in the extent to which they afford political actors veto power over policy choices. Drawing richly on game theory, he develops a scheme by which governments can thus be classified. He shows why an increase in the number of "veto players," or an increase in their ideological distance from each other, increases policy stability, impeding significant departures from the status quo. Policy stability affects a series of other key characteristics of polities, argues the author. For example, it leads to high judicial and bureaucratic independence, as well as high government instability (in parliamentary systems). The propositions derived from the theoretical framework Tsebelis develops in the first part of the book are tested in the second part with various data sets from advanced industrialized countries, as well as analysis of legislation in the European Union. Representing the first consistent and consequential theory of comparative politics, Veto Players will be welcomed by students and scholars as a defining text of the discipline. From the preface to the Italian edition: ? "Tsebelis has produced what is today the most original theory for the understanding of the dynamics of contemporary regimes. . . . This book promises to remain a lasting contribution to political analysis."--Gianfranco Pasquino, Professor of Political Science, University of Bologna

How Political Institutions Work

Veto Players

Marc Debus

Thomas K Nig

Reform Processes and Policy Change

Bjorn Erik Rasch

With a strong comparative framework, this book examines fourteen countries with parliamentary or semi-presidential systems of government to provide a detailed investigation into the mechanisms by which governments determine the agendas of their parliaments.

The Role of Governments in Legislative Agenda Setting

Anatol Rapoport Collegiate Professor of Political Science George Tsebelis

Jeannette Money

George Money Jeannette

This book examines some fifty countries to ascertain how the chambers of bicameral legislatures interact when they produce legislation. An understanding of this interaction is essential because otherwise legislative behaviour in each chamber may be unintelligible or incorrectly interpreted. The book employs cooperative game theoretic models to establish that bicameral legislatures, when compared with unicameral legislatures, increase the stability of the status quo and reduce intercameral differences to one privileged dimension of conflict. Non-cooperative game theoretic models are used to investigate the significance of a series of insitutional devices used to resolve intercameral conflict where a bill is introduced, which chamber has the final word, how many times a bill can shuttle between chambers, and whether conference committees are called. Empirical evidence, mainly from the French Republic, is used to evaluate the arguments.

Bicameralism

Eduardo Alemán

In this volume, twelve experts on Latin American politics investigate the ways in which the interaction between legislative institutions and the policy positions of key actors affects the initiation and passage of legislation, covering seven Latin American Countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay. These seven presidential systems vary widely in terms of their legislative institutions and the position of relevant actors. The introduction provides a framework to understand the interaction of legislative majorities, political institutions, and policy position, and each chapter begins with a description of the constitutional and congressional rules that allocate powers to propose, amend, and veto legislation. The authors then identify the political actors who have these prerogatives and apply the framework to show how their policy positions and relative strengths influence legislative decision-making. The findings are consistent with the basic argument of the book that presidents with extensive legislative powers may be constrained by the positions of their legislative allies, whereas weaker presidents may be well-positioned to build successful coalitions to achieve their legislative goals. The essays in this volume demonstrate that institutional design, which determines the allocation of legislative powers, must be considered along with the policy preferences of key legislative actors in order to construct a full picture of law-making. Oxford Studies in Democratization is a series for scholars and students of comparative politics and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on the comparative study of the democratization process that accompanied the decline and termination of the cold war. The geographical focus of the series is primarily Latin America, the Caribbean, Southern and Eastern Europe, and relevant experiences in Africa and Asia. The series editor is Laurence Whitehead, Senior Research Fellow, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.

Legislative Institutions and Lawmaking in Latin America

Thomas König

George Tsebelis’ veto players approach has become a prominent theory to analyze various research questions in political science. Studies that apply veto player theory deal with the impact of institutions and partisan preferences of legislative activity and policy outcomes. It is used to measure the degree of policy change and, thus, reform capacity in national and international political systems. This volume contains the analysis of leading scholars in the field on these topics and more recent developments regarding theoretical and empirical progress in the area of political reform-making. The contributions come from research areas of political science where veto player theory plays a significant role, including, positive political theory, legislative behavior and legislative decision-making in national and supra-national political systems, policy making and government formation. The contributors to this book add to the current scholarly and public debate on the role of veto players, making it of interest to scholars in political science and policy studies as well as policymakers worldwide.

Veto Players and Decision-Making in Modern Democracies

A Veto Players Analysis

The European Convention and the Rome and Brussels IGCS

Daniel Finke

Sven-Oliver Proksch

For decades the European Union tried changing its institutions, but achieved only unsatisfying political compromises and modest, incremental treaty revisions. In late 2009, however, the EU was successfully reformed through the Treaty of Lisbon. Reforming the European Union examines how political leaders ratified this treaty against all odds and shows how this victory involved all stages of treaty reform negotiations--from the initial proposal to referendums in several European countries. The authors emphasize the strategic role of political leadership and domestic politics, and they use state-of-the-art methodology, applying a comprehensive data set for actors' reform preferences. They look at how political leaders reacted to apparent failures of the process by recreating or changing the rules of the game. While domestic actors played a significant role in the process, their influence over the outcome was limited as leaders ignored negative referendums and plowed ahead with intended reforms. The book's empirical analyses shed light on critical episodes: strategic agenda setting during the European Convention, the choice of ratification instrument, intergovernmental bargaining dynamics, and the reaction of the German Council presidency to the negative referendums in France, the Netherlands, and Ireland.

Realizing the Impossible

Reforming the European Union

Clearly written and easily understood by the nonspecialist, Nested Games provides a systematic, empirically accurate, and theoretically coherent account of apparently irrational political actions.

Rational Choice in Comparative Politics

Nested Games

Setting the agenda for parliament is the most significant institutional weapon for governments to shape policy outcomes, because governments with significant agenda setting powers, like France or the UK, are able to produce the outcomes they prefer, while governments that lack agenda setting powers, such as the Netherlands and Italy in the beginning of the period examined, see their projects significantly altered by their Parliaments. With a strong comparative framework, this coherent volume examines fourteen countries and provides a detailed investigation into the mechanisms by which governments in different countries determine the agendas of their corresponding parliaments. It explores the three different ways that governments can shape legislative outcomes: institutional, partisan and positional, to make an important contribution to legislative politics. It will be of interest to students and scholars of comparative politics, legislative studies/parliamentary research, governments/coalition politics, political economy, and policy studies.

Hannu Nurmi

Peter Brouwer

Klass Staal

Peter Emerson

Christian Klamler

Peter Swann

Sascha Kurz

This volume sets out with a discussion of the Dutch project of improving democracy and ends with a discussion of the Robot revolution. It contains contributions such as Peter Brouwer and Klaas Staal, The Future Viability of the Dutch Democracy; Hannu Nurmi, Remarks on “The Future Viability of the Dutch Democracy;” George Tsebelis and Jesse M. Crosson, Can the Dutch Electoral System be Improved Upon? Ryan Kendall, Decomposing Democracy: A Comment on “The Future Viability of the Dutch Democracy;” Peter Emerson, Can Rights Be Wrong? Towards a Less Majoritarian More Inclusive Democracy; Jan Oreský and Prokop Čech, Alternative Voting, Alternative Outcomes: 2018 Presidential Election in the Czech Republic; G. M. Peter Swann, Stalemate by Design? How Binary Voting Caused the Brexit Impasse of 2019; Florian Follert, Improving the Relationship between Citizens and Politicians; Sascha Kurz, Which Criteria Qualify Power Indices for Applications? - A Comment on “The Story of the Poor Public Good Index;” Matthias Weber, Thoughts on Voting Power and the Public Good Index; Claude Hillinger, The Case of Utilitarian Voting Christian Klamler, Utilitarian Voting - Some Empirical Evidence; Chris Hudson, Robots: Present and Future; and Bruce Morley, Robots Are Coming. Review of “John Hudson, The Robot Revolution: Understanding the Social and Economic Impact”

George Tsebelis

Books

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