Intra-party delegation in the Portuguese legislature: assigning committee chairs and party coordination positions

In European parliamentary democracies political parties control candidate selection, maintain cohesion in the legislature and support governments. In addition to these classic functions, parties also organise the legislature delegating power to legislators, specifically as committee chairs and party coordinators. Delegation is inherently dangerous, involving potential agency loss. Parties, however, have ex-ante and ex-post institutional mechanisms to deal with agency problems. In this paper, a case study is made of the Portuguese legislature, arguing that parties make use of their pivotal role in selecting legislators as committee chairs and party coordinators to keep tabs on legislators to thwart shirking from the party line. This paper finds that political parties use incumbency as an ex-ante screening mechanism of committee chairs and party coordinators in looking for reliable signals of past behaviour to decrease uncertainty. Additionally, evidence suggests that extra-parliamentary party structure is used as an institutional arena for ex-post control of party coordinators.     

Delegation and Defensive Legislative Strategies in Brazil

In the course of the legislative process, legislators choose how much policy discretion to delegate to the executive branch. Uncertainty about policy outcomes and bureaucratic intentions weighs heavily in such decisions. In Brazil, executive control over the budget creates uncertainty about the availability of discretionary spending, which results in comparatively high levels of delegation in the legislature's direct‐spending decisions. I demonstrate that sidelining the legislature from the budget in order to insulate government spending from political pressures diminishes the value of legislative work in Brazil and reinforces historical patterns of policymaking centered on the federal executive.     

Do female legislators have different policy priorities than their male colleagues in an undemocratic/semi-democratic legislature? The case of Hong Kong

This article investigates the impacts of democratic transition on gender outcomes in Hong Kong, which has a unique path of transition. The author studies whether democratic transition in Hong Kong since the mid-1980s has brought positive gender outcomes. Specifically, this article examines the extent to which Hong Kong’s female legislators acted for women’s interests from 1970 to 2012. The study finds that after the introduction of legislative elections, female legislators were more likely to represent women’s interests than male legislators. Apart from gender, the study also finds that political orientation of a legislator significantly affected legislator policy priorities and/or gender outcome. Liberal legislators proposed significantly more motions related to women’s interests than conservative legislators. Finally, the study highlights that as the legislature was transited from an undemocratic to a semi-democratic body, legislators were significantly more likely to propose motions related to women’s interests.     

Legislative voting in the pork-dominant parliament: evidence from the Philippine House of Representatives

In this paper I investigate how legislators behave in extremely pork-oriented, or pork-dominant, systems where virtually no party-line voting takes place and politicians strive to deliver individual/local benefits instead of national public policies. I argue that, in the pork-dominant context, most legislators vote with the president, who controls access to the pork pipeline, irrespective of their party affiliations. Thus, the president’s party legislators should have little incentive to vote against the president, regardless of voter demands for pork or policy; however, sometimes opposition-party legislators elected particularly from more-developed districts (where voters often desire policy over pork) should have strong incentives to vote against the president. These arguments are supported with quantitative studies of the post-authoritarian Philippine House of Representatives. It is found that, in the highly homogeneous legislature dominated by pork-seeking politicians, (1) most bills are passed with unanimous or near-unanimous consent, (2) governing-party legislators almost always vote with the majority of the members of the parliament, regardless of voters’ socio-economic conditions, and (3) opposition-party legislators, especially in more-developed areas, tend to vote against the parliamentary majority. These findings indicate that voters’ high socio-economic status promotes programmatic accountability, leading their representatives to undermine voting unity within the extremely cohesive pork-dominant legislature.     

Electoral Strategy,Committee Membership,and Rent Seeking in the Taiwanese Legislature, 1992–2001

While the electoral system undoubtedly influences legislative behavior, it does not necessarily have a uniform effect on all legislators. In this article, I argue that the different strategies that candidates choose in the quest for office result in differing incentives once the candidates have been elected. In the Taiwanese context, candidates who adopt a campaign strategy based on organization will tend to engage in more rent‐seeking activities once in the legislature, in order to offset the heavy financial burden of this strategy. From 1992 to 2001, Taiwanese legislators whose votes were highly concentrated in a small number of precincts tended to serve significantly more time on committees with the most rent‐seeking opportunities than did legislators with far less concentrated support. Legislators whose votes were spread more evenly across the entire electoral district and legislators elected from the party lists tended to serve more time on committees with little rent‐seeking potential.     

Corruption,Party Leaders,and Candidate Selection: Evidence from Italy

Research indicates that voters are not particularly effective at removing corrupt politicians from office, in part because voters make decisions on the basis of many competing factors. Party leaders are much more single-minded than voters and will choose to deselect implicated legislators if it means maintaining a positive party reputation and improving the odds of winning a legislative majority. We examine renominations to Italy’s legislature in two periods marked by corruption. We compare these renomination patterns with those from the prior legislature, when corruption lacked political salience. Our analysis shows that incumbent renominations are negatively associated with the number of press mentions that link the incumbent to corruption—but only when corruption is salient to the public. Our study highlights the importance of party leaders in forcing malfeasant legislators out of office—and reducing corruption—and redirects attention from voters to political elites as a critical channel in enforcing democratic accountability.     

The Perks of Being a Lawmaker: Returns to Office as a Legislative Goal

Extant literature demonstrates that holding public office is financially lucrative. Yet little is known about which sitting legislators profit from office. Relying on original data of members of the Florida legislature, I estimate predictors of income growth among sitting legislators. I find that legislators whose vote share increases by 10 percentage points between elections report income growth of nearly $20,000. This finding is robust to estimation technique and model specification, indicating that electoral safety is tied to income growth. Lawmakers appointed to legislative posts with agenda‐setting power do not obtain additional income. These data demonstrate the market values of electorally dominant legislators.     

The Influence of Governors on Veto Override Attempts: A Test of Pivotal Politics

Abstract Using the “switcher” analysis developed by Krehbiel (1998), we examine the ability of Missouri governors to sway legislators on veto override attempts. Our initial results closely mirror Krehbiel's finding that the chief executive successfully achieves influence at and around the veto pivot, but these results change once we take into account the political party of the legislators. Governors are far more likely to influence legislators from their own party, regardless of legislator ideology. Our study provides a rare systematic analysis of gubernatorial influence in the legislative arena, while also contributing to the current debate over preference‐based versus partisan‐based theories of legislatures.     

Legislators and Administrators: Complex Relationships Complicated by Term Limits

State legislators' relationships with administrators have received scant attention in the literature despite the importance of these relationships for delivery of public services. We explored whether or not the legislator‐administrator relationship in one professional state legislature resembles Congress's oversight of federal agencies. We also assessed whether or not term limits changed this relationship. Our findings indicate that monitoring state agencies was a low priority for this legislature, and it dropped even lower after term limits were implemented. More specifically, we found some institutional roles to be associated with legislators placing a higher priority on monitoring, especially before term limits, whereas some individual motives were associated with a lower priority, especially after term limits. Legislators exhibited more confusion about the process of monitoring after term limits.     

When Voters Pull the Trigger: Can Direct Democracy Restrain Legislative Excesses?

Direct democracy is sometimes described as a “gun behind the door,” but how do legislators react when voters pull the trigger? Leveraging the high‐profile referendum defeat of a controversial law passed by the Ohio legislature, I examine how legislators respond to voter disaffection. Using interest groups to “bridge” votes before and after the election, I show that the measure's defeat induced moderation on the part of the Republican legislative majority, while leaving the behavior of opposition Democrats largely unchanged. The results suggest that direct democracy has the potential to restrain legislative excesses and alleviate polarization in state legislatures.     

Electoral Institutions,the Personal Vote,and Legislative Organization

What is the relationship between electoral institutions and the internal organization of legislatures? Existing research on the U.S. Congress suggests that electoral incentives shaped by the candidate‐centered nature of congressional elections explain the emergence of strong committees in that legislature. Exploring the issue from a comparative perspective, it is argued that the impact of ballot structure on committee system structure is dependent on how legislators cultivate personal votes. Committees will be stronger when legislators supply fiscal legislative particularism (pork), but weaker when legislators cultivate support by delivering extra‐legislative constituency service. Statistical analysis, combining original data on committee design in 39 democratic legislatures with measures of ballot structure and mechanism to cultivate a personal vote (MCPV), confirms the expectation.     

Electoral Rules and Legislative Parties in the Ukrainian Rada

Critics of Ukraine's single‐member district majoritarian and mixed‐member majoritarian electoral systems argue that they undermined the efficiency of the Supreme Rada by permitting nonpartisan single‐member district deputies to enter the legislature in large numbers. Such deputies changed parties and ignored party positions. This article argues that the effect of the differences in how legislators are elected is dependent upon whether legislators are partisans. The statistical analysis of party switching and party cohesion in the Rada from 1998 to 2002 shows that nonpartisan single‐member district deputies were the most likely to switch parties and the least cohesive.     

Production Assets,News Opportunities,and Publicity for Legislators: A Study of Israeli Knesset Members

This study proposes a number of theoretical and methodological innovations in an attempt to better understand how legislators compete for media coverage. We make a distinction between those variables that determine the potential newsworthiness of a legislature (production assets) and those that are related to the political and media environment in which the legislators operate (news opportunities). We then put forth five hypotheses and test them by examining the political standing, charismatic communication skills, and radio exposure of 54 members of the Israeli Knesset. The results confirm that political standing and charismatic communication skills are important predictors of media exposure and that the relative importance of these factors changes during different political seasons.     

Legislative Bellwethers: The Role of Committee Membership in Parliamentary Debate

Political parties and legislators use legislative debates to establish their reputation, challenge rivals, and engage in coalition management, among many other tasks. Yet, existing theories on parliamentary debates have abstracted away from the need for information and expertise, which are costly to acquire. Drawing on the “informational” perspective on legislative organization, we address this problem by arguing that party leaders use committees as training arenas for their backbenchers. They task their assigned members with acquiring specific expertise and then rely heavily on those members during the corresponding debates. We turn to the Portuguese legislature, from 2000 to 2015, to discuss how saliency, government dynamics, and party size affect the use of experts. We test this theory using a novel approach to classify speeches that leverages the texts of legislation as training data for a supervised approach.     

Re-election and political career paths in the Uruguayan Congress, 1985–99

Given the presumed marginal – or at best the ‘rubber-stamp legitimising’ – character of Latin American legislatures, they ‘have escaped careful scrutiny’. Even in cases where legislatures are supposed to play a much more significant role than the continental average, such as Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay, knowledge of legislative politics is still far from conclusive. This article studies re-election patterns of legislators in Uruguay during the four post-authoritarian elections. During these elections in Uruguay, we observed a decreasing but still high rate of turnover of legislators. These high rates of legislative turnover are affected by a significant number of legislators who do not seek re-election. While inter-party electoral volatility strongly influences the rates of incumbent re-election, intra-party volatility does not seem to have an impact on this phenomenon. Lastly, the closed and blocked lists in conjunction with the Uruguayan multiple simultaneous vote, and the fact that a legislator belongs to the Senate, are additional institutional features that help to explain the turnover and incumbent re-election in the legislature.     

Fewer politicians and smaller assemblies: how party elites rationalise reducing the number of seats in a legislature – lessons from Canada

Scholars are unable to rationalise the number of elected representatives in legislative assemblies. This study offers some insights into the political arithmetic by examining the rare event of reducing seats in a legislature. It is hypothesised that a policy of cutting electoral districts occurs during a search for cost efficiencies and a burst of populism. Interviews with party elites involved with seven seat reduction events in Canadian provinces establishes that the primary reason for the policy is its symbolic value. The message of fewer politicians sets an example for belt-tightening across government that will assist the executive branch with its austerity agenda. In these situations, the final number of members of a legislature matters little to a cabinet and most legislators compared with the broader symbolism of a smaller legislative branch.     

The Role of Party: The Legislative Consequences of Partisan Electoral Competition

We examine the proposition that incentives for legislative organization can be explained by the nature of electoral competition. We argue that legislators in environments where parties are competitive for majority status are most likely to have delegated power to their leadership to constrain individualistic behavior within their party, which will in turn increase the spatial predictability of individual voting patterns. Using roll‐call votes and district‐level electoral data from the U.S. state legislatures, we show empirically that increased statewide interparty competition corresponds to more predictable voting behavior overall, while legislators from competitive districts and those in the minority party have less predictable behavior.     

Legislative Effectiveness and Legislative Careers

We studied an underutilized source of data on legislative effectiveness and exploited its panel structure to uncover several interesting patterns. We found that effectiveness rises sharply with tenure, at least for the first few terms, even when we control for legislators' institutional positions, party affiliation, and other factors. Effectiveness never declines with tenure, even out to nine terms. The increase in effectiveness is not simply due to electoral attrition and selective retirement, but to learning‐by‐doing. We also found evidence that a significant amount of “positive sorting” occurs in the legislature, with highly talented legislators moving more quickly into positions of responsibility and power. Finally, effectiveness has a positive impact on incumbents' electoral success and on the probability of legislators moving to higher office. These findings have important implications for arguments about term limits, the incumbency advantage, and seniority rule.     

Spreading Influence Through Weak Ties: Cosponsorship,Legislative Networks,and Bill Success in Fragmented Congresses

Literature on legislative success tends to focus on independent variables of which lawmakers have scarce control. This article analyzes instead how legislators’ strategies affect their success in Congress. I posit that while weak ties between congresspeople are the most useful in increasing success in the chamber of origin under majoritarian settings, they do not raise the likelihood of bill approval in the second chamber or in plurality‐led legislatures. Building on a data set that contains all bills proposed to the Argentine Congress between 1983 and 2007, results support these context‐dependence hypotheses. I then use data from the Uruguayan Congress (1995–2010) to explore how the argument plays out in a Latin American legislature with weaker gatekeeping rules (i.e., an “open sky” legislature). Findings help gain insight into the strategies used in environments different from that of the widely studied U.S. Congress.     

Legislative Dissent without Reprisal? An Alternative View of Speaker Selection

Very little research has been devoted to examining the nature of Speaker selection in legislatures. This article attempts to provide a new perspective in which future research could examine the election of Speakers. A collective action perspective is put forward, which sees three groups of actors execute separate strategies to reach their own ends: the backbench, the executive and the opposition. These factors are tested on the Speaker selection exercises in the Ontario legislature. In the case study, it was found that the executive rarely gets their choice of Speaker, and three factors identified in the legislative dissent literature are utilised to examine these private acts of dissent: party popularity, cabinet size and the percentage of new legislators entering the party at each legislative term. It was found that the Speaker selection process involves three groups, each with their own preference order in decision-making.