Tsebelis G. Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work

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governments receive a score of 1, countries with a mixture of single and up to two parties in

government receive a score of 2, and countries with more than 2 parties in government receive a

score of 3. These scores reflect the situation prevailing in these countries for a substantially

longer period than the 10 years we have been studying so far. The only country requiring

additional explanation is Germany. The number 3 reflects the fact that, while the government

coalitions since the beginning of the 1950s involve only two parties, the Bundesrat has been

controlled by an opposing majority for significant periods of time.

INSERT TABLES 7.4A, B, AND C

Table 7.4 presents the correlation coefficients of the variables included in Table 7.3. The

three versions depend on whether Sweden is included with 375 annual laws (Table 7.4A), with

56 such laws (Table 7.4B), or excluded from the data set altogether (Table 7.4C). The reader can

verify that the correlation between all laws and significant laws is negative in two of the three

versions of the table, most notably the one that excludes Sweden. So, in two out of the three

versions, the expectation of negative correlation between significant and overall legislation is

corroborated.

More interesting, however, are the relationships between veto players and the number of

laws, as well as the relationship between veto players and agenda control by the government.

veto players correlated positively with the number of all laws, and negatively with the number of

significant laws in all three versions of Table 7.4. Similarly, as Doering has convincingly

demonstrated, agenda control by the government is negatively correlated with legislative

inflation (the number is positive in Table 7.4 because higher numbers indicate less control by the

government). Finally, the most interesting finding is that the number of veto players is highly

correlated with (the lack of) agenda control (again, in all versions of Table 7.4).

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How can we interpret these findings? I think the positive correlation of veto players and

(lack of) agenda control with the total number of laws and the negative correlation of the same

variables with the number of significant laws point toward a difference in the very concept of

“law” among countries. “Laws” in countries with many veto players and low government agenda

control produce incremental changes of the status quo, while in countries with few veto players

and significant government agenda control, they produce sweeping changes.

But why is (lack of) agenda setting by the government correlated with the number of veto

players? The reader should refer back to Figure I in the Introduction, where I made the argument

that many veto players lead to the lower significance of agenda setting, because the winset of the

status quo is smaller, and so agenda control loses significance. Are the findings here in support

of this proposition? The answer to this question is negative, because Doering’s (1995a,b, c)

indicators refer to the institutional structure of these countries, not on the frequency specific

governments use such agenda control measures (to the extent they exist).

Is there any different argument for the correlation between veto players and government

control of the agenda? In fact, is it a coincidental relation or a causal one? Several arguments can

be made that it is not a mere correlation. While a causal argument attributing the existence of

veto players to the lack of agenda control is difficult, a strategic argument going from agenda

control to veto players is possible. In countries with strong government agenda control, party

negotiations for coalition governments will end up in a minority government or a government

with few veto players. Conversely, in countries without government agenda control, parties will

form oversized government coalitions in order to control the legislature. On the other hand, a

causal argument going from veto players to agenda control is straightforward: the existence of

many veto players makes them incapable of passing through parliament the many and significant

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pieces of legislation required for agenda control. This argument considers agenda control to be a

collection of significant pieces of legislation. Consequently, we expect not to see it in countries

with many veto players. Finally, a third argument can be made: that veto players and agenda

control have common origins. The same sociological and historical factors that fragment a

country into many competing parties (none of which has a majority) make these parties

sufficiently suspicious of each other, so that they reject the idea of allowing whoever is in

government to have significant control over legislation.

Which one of the three explanations is closer to the truth? This is a major question for

further investigation. In order to address this question, one would have to collect data on the

adoption (and possible repeal) of the different agenda control mechanisms and analyze them in

relation to the governments that produced them. In other words, one would have to replicate this

study with agenda control as the subject matter.

Finally, how about the actual use of agenda control measures by different governments?

The expectation introduced in this book (Figure I) is that more veto players reduce the

significance of agenda control, consequently governments with more veto players would make

less use of such measures. Is there any empirical evidence to support this expectation? Again the

reference is in the work of Doering who more recently expanded his research to the actual use of

agenda control measures. Doering (2001) examining some 500 pieces of legislation from 18

West European countries multiparty governments (whether majority or minority) make less use

of agenda control measures (13.7%) than single party governments (20.7%).

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CONCLUSIONS

118

Recalculations from Doering 2001: table 9.

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I have presented the implications of the veto players theory when parties are located in a

one-dimensional space and analyzed data on significant pieces of legislation in sixteen Western

European countries. All the relevant expectations of the theory presented in the Introduction and

in Chapter 1 were corroborated by the data: The number of significant laws varies inversely with

the range of governments that produce them and in direct proportion to the difference between

ideological positions of the current and previous government. Duration of governments increases

the number of significant laws, but with declining returns. In addition, the residuals of the above

relationship are heteroskedastic and vary inversely with the range of the government coalitions.

The reason for this relationship is that a wide range is a sufficient (but not necessary) condition

for the absence of significant legislation.

The number of veto players is positively correlated with the number of overall pieces of

legislation in a country. This generates the expectation that the very concept of “law” differs

from one country to the next, with countries with a large number of veto players implementing

more incremental legislation. The positive relation between veto players and total pieces of

legislation and the negative relationship between veto players and significant pieces imply an

overall negative relationship between total number of laws and significant pieces of legislation.

The conclusion from this analysis is that now the missing empirical link between veto

players and a series of important features of parliamentary systems has been established. Many

veto players with big ideological distances between them means that legislation can only be

incremental. If an exogenous shock occurs, a government with many veto players with big

ideological distances among them cannot handle the situation and cannot agree on the necessary

policies (except if the public opinion is unanimous on the subject). Finally, the relationship

between veto players and agenda control that we identified here along with the relationship

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between agenda control and executive power identified in Chapter 4 lead to the conclusion that

many veto players affect the relationship between government and parliament in Western

European countries. Many veto players are correlated with lack of institutional agenda control by

the government and lack of agenda control means weaker governments and stronger parliaments.

The reasons for the relationship between veto players and agenda control by the government

have to be more thoroughly investigated in the future. Finally, few veto players lead to the use of

the existing agenda control arsenal more frequently than many veto players, because the

significance of agenda setting declines with the number of veto players since the winset of the

status quo shrinks (policy stability increases).

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FIGURE 7.1

Number of Important Laws by Ideological Range of Coalition

Numbers of Laws

range

Minimum Winning Coalition Minority Government

Oversized Government

-1.5 -.5 .5 1.5

All Governments: [Numbers of Laws = 1.21 –0.54RANGE]

Minimum Winning Coalition: [Numbers of Laws = 1.44 –0.73RANGE]

Minority Government: [Numbers of Laws = 0.93 –0.14RANGE]

Oversized Government [Numbers of Laws = 1.17 –0.56RANGE]

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FIGURE 7.2

Residuals (Absolute Value) of Important Laws by Ideological Range of Coalition

Absolute Value of Residual

range

Minimum Winning Coalition Minority Government

Oversized Government

-1.5 -.5 .5 1.5

All Governments [ |residuals| = 1.26-0.44RANGE]

Minimum Winning Coalition [ |residuals| = 1.14-0.51RANGE]

Minority Government [ |residuals| = 1.44-0.37RANGE]

Oversized Government [ |residuals| = 1.27-0.47RANGE]

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TABLE 7.1

Multiplicative Heteroskedastic Regression model of Significant Legislation

MODEL 1

(includes RANGE)

MODEL 2

(excludes RANGE)

Dependent Variable: Number of Significant Laws

Constant 1.1935***

(.2017)

1.2711***

(.2246)

RANGE -.4837***

(.0133)

Dependent Variable: The Squared Error Term of Number of

Significant Laws

Constant .7110***

(.1852)

1.0910***

(.1841)

RANGE -.7471***

(.1919)

N 59 59

Prob >

0.000 0.000

Likelihood-ratio test:

? = 17.85 Prob >

? = 0.0001

standard errors in ( )

* significant at the .05 level

** significant at the .01 level

*** significant at the .001 level

All tests are one tailed.

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TABLE 7.2

Multivariate Models of Significant Legislation

(linear and ordered probit)

Variable Model 1

Model 2

Neg.

Binom.

Model 2A

MWC

Model

Minority

Model

Oversized

Model 3

Neg.

Binom.

Constant -.18

(.26)

.25

(.24)

-.89***

(.26)

-.27

(.47)

.29

(.85)

.81***

(.36)

.25

(.25)

-.9***

(.27)

Range -.27*

(.17)

-.33**

(.18)

-.20*

(.15)

-.63**

(.33)

-.06

(.50)

-.57*

(.36)

-.35**

(.19)

-.24*

(.17)

Abs(Altern) .54***

(.23)

.65***

(.23)

.23*

(.16)

.85***

(.33)

.73

(.83)

-.08

(.42)

.65***

(.24)

.25*

(.18)

Duration .35***

(.06)

Ln(Duration)

.84***

(.16)

.83***

(.16)

.91***

(.27)

.73*

(.45)

.84***

(.23)

.85***

(.17)

.83***

(.17)

Agenda -.19

(.80)

-.09

(0.69)

Corporatism .01

(.27)

.07

(.24)

Left -.01

(.16)

.01

(.11)

N 59 59 59 23 15 21 59 59

.525 .504 .635 .299 .493 .506

Adjusted R

.499 .477 .577 .108 .404 .449

Pseudo R

0.205 0.207

standard errors in ( )

* significant at the .05 level

** significant at the .01 level

*** significant at the .001 level

MWC: minimum-winning coalition

All tests are one tailed.

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TABLE 7.3

NUMBER OF LAWS, IMPORTANT LAWS, VETO PLAYERS, AND GOVERNMENT

CONTROL OF LEGISLATIVE AGENDA

Country import.

laws

(work.

time)

laws/year veto

players

(qual)

veto

players

(numer)

agenda

control

(qual)

agenda

control

(numer)

Austria 3

121

2 1.79

-4

-.044

Belgium 7

3 4.29

-4

-.170

Denmark 5

165

3 3.57

-5

-.106

Finland 4

343

3 3.89

-5

-.148

France 8

2 1.57

-2

.333

Germany 2

3 2.19

-4

-.126

Greece 10

1 1

-2

.280

Ireland 2

2 1.78

-1

.519

Italy 1

264

3 4.70

-6

-.219

Luxembourg 6

2 2

-3

-.053

Netherlands 1

134

3 2.13

-7

-.527

Portugal 5

2 2.34

-3

.147

Spain 3

1 1

-4

.221

Sweden 9

375

(56 new)

2 1.82

-5

-.427

Switzerland 3

3 4

-3

-.135

UK 6

1 1

-1

.690

numbers important laws from this study;

numbers of laws, qualitative agenda control (with opposite sign) from Doering (1995)

veto players average