Determinants of legislative turnover in Western Europe, 1945–2015

This article explains legislative turnover in eight West European legislatures over 152 general elections in the period 1945–2015. Turnover is measured as the rate of individual membership change in unicameral or lower chambers. It is the outcome of a legislative recruitment process with a supply and a demand side. Decisions made by contenders affect supply, while decisions made by parties and voters influence demand. Such decisions are shaped by four political and institutional factors: the institutional context of political careers, or structure of political career opportunities; political party characteristics; electoral swings; and electoral systems. Ten specific hypotheses are tested within this theoretical framework. The structure of political career opportunities is the most decisive factor explaining variability in turnover rates, followed by electoral swings and political parties. Electoral systems show less substantive effects. Electoral volatility is the predictor with the most substantive effects, followed by duration of legislative term, strength of bicameralism, regional authority, gender quotas, level of legislative income and district magnitude.     

Determinants of success in African local governments: An overview

A potentially useful method for determining how to design viable and competent local government systems is to examine local authorities that function effectively. This paper synthesizes the major findings of seven case studies of ‘successful’ local governments in Sub-saharan Africa, highlighting the principal factors contributing to their success and exploring ways in which they could further improve their performance. The determinants of success identified in the studies include: location in an area with an adequate economic base; well-defined responsibilities in a satisfactory legal framework; capacity to mobilize sufficient resources; supportive central government activities; and appropriate management practices, including development of productive internal and external relations and satisfactory responsiveness to constituents. All of these factors are considered to be necessary, but none is independently sufficient to guarantee success, which is a multidimensional and cumulative process of achievement.     

Determinants of Automobile PAC Contributions to House Incumbents: Own Versus Rival Effects

This paper examines PAC contributions by the Big ThreeU.S. automakers and Japanese auto dealers to Houseincumbents. A regression model is estimated where PACcontributions are a function of a firm's own ties toan incumbent's district (as measured by firmemployment) and those of rivals. For the Big Three,own and U.S. rival effects are positive. Further, theresults do not indicate the presence of a free-ridereffect. Employment by a foreign subsidiary has no neteffect on U.S. contributions. For the Japanesedealers, Japanese plant employment has a positiveimpact on contributions, and that of the Big Three anegative.     

Rational benevolence in small committees

We consider a game in which three committee members must divide up a benefit among themselves. In response to the large literature on sequential procedures in this type of game, we propose an institution that is inspired by auction theory. The (sealed) bids of the players are proposals for a distribution of the benefit and are given simultaneously. If any of the bids is preferred to all others in a pairwise comparison (i.e., a Condorcet winner exists) then this proposal is implemented. If such a bid does not exist then an equal split of the benefit is assumed. An equilibrium of this game is for each player to suggest that one of the opponents should receive the lion’s share of the benefit, even though each player cares only about his own share. We call this phenomenon “rational benevolence”. Although the end that is desired by the players is purely egoistic, the means of achieving it may be perceived as benevolent. Several applications of the game are suggested.     

One-dimensionality and stability in legislative voting

The widespread use in legislative studies of the one-dimensional model and its median-stability consequence raises a question: Do stability and one-dimensionality rest on evidence drawn from observed votes? They do not and cannot. I prove that every possible legislative history is compatible with a transitive majority preference (hence stability), and except in very special circumstances with a cyclic majority preference (hence instability) as well: observed votes can never refute and almost never confirm stability. One-dimensionality fares worse: any legislative history is compatible with the one-dimensional model if it includes no two votes with overlapping pairs of alternatives, but otherwise, I show, it is almost certainly incompatible with the model, even in those rare cases that ensure transitivity. Voting evidence aside, the one-dimensional model is unduly restrictive, and arguments in its defense do not survive scrutiny.     

Maximizing models of legislative choice

A number of recent studies have reported estimates of single equation and simultaneous equations models of the decisions of state legislatures. These investigations have been ‘economic’ ones, in the sense that considerations of the relative costs and benefits to some self-interested person or group capable of affecting legislative outcomes have motivated the choice of explanatory variables. Thus, perhaps implicitly, these studies have assumed utility maximization by some critical agent(s) in the political marketplace. This essay draws attention to the implications of this maximizing assumption for the proper specification and estimation of the associated empirical models.     

Congressional committees as users of analysis

Structural arrangements in the Congress work against the use of analysis, but newer developments, such as growth in staff professionalism and activity of the congressional support agencies, tend to promote it. Interviews with committee staff show that they are aware of much analysis, use it primarily for political advantage, but that they also take it seriously as warning of problems and as guidance on particular issues. Staff value information more when they know and trust its source and understand its political motivations. The use of analysis to reconceptualize problems is not much in evidence, perhaps because such “enlightenment” takes place elsewhere and filters into the Congress through informal channels.     

Policy errors in executive and legislative decision-making

Policy makers get information about the likely outcomes of policy options from experts before they make their decisions. In the executive branch, policy experts tend to reflect the views of the chief executive, whereas in the legislative branch members seek policy advisors whose views reflect their own. The result is a more diverse group of policy advisors in the legislative branch than in the executive branch, which under plausible conditions generates more accurate policy projections. Policy errors will tend to be smaller in legislative than in executive decision-making, providing an argument for making policy decisions in the legislative branch rather than the executive branch.     

The June 2015 legislative election in Turkey

The Republic of Turkey held its first presidential election, which employed a universal suffrage based on popular vote, on 10 August 2014. Unlike most of the countries organizing separate ballots for electing the president and the MPs, Turkey did not hold both elections on the same day. Instead, the subsequent parliamentary election would be held ten months later, i.e. on 7 June 2015. The reason behind this is not only due to the differences of the term lengths between parliament and the President (which are four and five years respectively), but also the peculiarity in the inclusion of a “presidential element” (a president elected by popular vote) into a political regime which must still be seen as a parliamentary system. This oddness arose from the political crisis in 2007.     

Scale economies and rent-seeking in legislative parties

This paper examines equilibrium legislative party size, based upon scale economies in producing political outcomes. Political production — finding policies legislators desire and vote-trading to pass them — has strong scale economies up to, but not far beyond, a majority of the voters. Either one or two parties is efficient, but a larger number is not. A single party's optimal long-run strategy is to benefit a dominant majority by avoiding the creation of an effective second party. But short-term rent-seeking is in legislators' and leaders' interests, which eventually causes a second effective party and a stable two-party equilibrium. Estimates of party size for the U.S. Congress suggest considerable short-term rent-seeking.     

The bargaining range in legislative district apportionment

One of the few laws of political science is the fairly regular relationship in any given plurality electoral system known as thecube law, transforming vote shares into seat shares. In this paper, we develop an altogether different and more robust paradigm relating seats to votes which generates similar results as the cube law. In our model, political parties bargain with each other for an expected number of seats using the ability to gerrymander in determining their bargaining strength. We find that an arbitrated solution to the seat-vote allocation problem generates solutions remarkably similar to the conventional cube-law-based solutions. Thus our model can in some way replace the cube law paradigm. With our model, we are able to evaluate the impact ofBaker v. Carr (1962) on gerrymandering. We also find that proportional representation results can be achieved within our model by allowing non-zero population deviations between districts.I am grateful for the comments and criticism of David Levy, Bernard Grofman, Charles Rowley, William Crain, and Robert Tollison. Responsibility for all errors, of course, remains mine alone. This paper does not necessarily reflect the views of the American Association of Retired Persons.     

A constitutional view of legislative pay

The distinction between constitutional rules and post-constitutional laws is often a fine line. However, this analysis suggests that, in the case of state legislative pay, constitutional rules are much more binding than post-constitutional restrictions. Further research in the area of constitutions from an economic point of view may yield fruitful results. As Tullock (1988: 140) has stated, The real importance of such an evaluation could be as a first step toward developing improved constitutional rules. Evaluating other areas of policy from a constitutional point of view might shed light on the path towards the development of optimal rules in a democratic process.Thanks go to Randy Holcombe for helpful comments and suggestions.     

On the stability of legislative outcomes

This paper argues that by arranging vote trades in the face of information costs, legislative committees contribute to the stability of legislative outcomes. A structure of permanent committees and subcommittees facilitates informational specialization and helps legislators acquire experience in their specializations. Committees arrange vote trades by adjusting amounts of recommended spending on separate items in bills that receive majority support. Each legislator is allotted a roughly equal amount of legislative spending that he can influence plus an additional amount that depends on his skill and experience as a committee member.     

Unpacking the politics of legislative debates

Legislative debates are a thriving field in comparative politics. They make representation work by offering legislators the opportunity to take the floor and represent their constituents. In this paper, we review the key theoretical concepts and empirical findings in a maturing field. We begin by addressing what legislative debates are and why we should study them to learn about inter- and intra-party politics. Next, we look at the contributions springing from Proksch and Slapin's ground-breaking model. In so doing, our review suggests that recent work extends the original model to include further dimensions of legislative debates. Third, we examine the role of legislative debates as mechanisms of representation, focusing on gender. Four, we examine the challenges of the comparative analysis of legislative debates. Finally, we map the road ahead by discussing four avenues of future research and some key questions that remain unanswered.     

The strategic determinants of legislative malapportionment in new democracies

When the number of seats to be elected in the districts of an electoral system is not proportional to their population, the cost of seats in raw votes tends to vary across districts. Malapportionment generates partisan bias when some parties do better (worse) in the districts where seats are cheaper (costlier) than in other districts. While existing research has focused on the exogenous determinants of malapportionment, in this article we argue that malapportionment also derives from the strategic decisions of ruling elites to maximize their legislative representation. The degree of malapportionment in newly democratized countries increases when ruling policymakers have reliable ex ante information about the geographical distribution of partisan support, and the authoritarian incumbent, at the moment of democratic transition, is strong. Our arguments are tested with original data from 60 third and fourth-wave democracies at national and district levels.