Parliamentary and presidential elections in Mongolia, 2012 and 2013

The 2012 Mongolian parliamentary election was historical as a new mixed-member majoritarian system was implemented. Compared with 2008, or even 2004, the 2012 election outcome indicates an at least tentative disruption of the bipolarisation of electoral politics in Mongolia. However, unlike in the past when the fragmentation of the party system was caused by the parties of the so-called “democratic camp”, the latest split occurred within the so-called “post-communist camp”. The presidential election took place on 26 June 2013. Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj of the Democratic Party was elected president and for the first time since the democratic transition of 1990, most executive and legislative powers shifted to the Democratic Party.     

The Institutional Power of Western European Parliaments: A Multidimensional Analysis

Parliaments are more than legislative bodies. However, we lack an adequate understanding of the theoretical relationship between different facets of parliamentary activity or ‘parliamentary functions’. Relying on the principal–agent framework, this article argues theoretically that parliamentary power is a multidimensional concept comprising three distinct mechanisms to ensure policy outputs in line with the collective preferences of parliaments: direct influence on policymaking, the ex ante selection of external officeholders, and the ex post control of the cabinet. These mechanisms mirror the classic legislative, electoral, and control functions of parliaments. Empirically, the paper uses factor analysis of newly developed indicators for electoral powers and established measures of legislative and control resources to show that the institutional powers of 15 Western European parliaments comprise four distinct dimensions. These dimensions match the three theoretically derived mechanisms with committee power as an additional factor. Locating the 15 parliaments in this multidimensional space of parliamentary powers demonstrates that classifications based solely on lawmaking lead to biased assessments of parliamentary strength and weakness. Instead, the paper provides a more nuanced picture of the ways in which Western European parliaments can influence policymaking under the conditions of delegation.     

A Second Republic for Italy?

Radical change in the representative dimension of Italy's political system was expected to bring a transition to a 'Second Republic' in Italy. That has not happened. Nevertheless, after three consultations using the new parliamentary electoral system, studies focusing on the 'input' side of Italian politics are beginning to agree that substantial change has occurred. It is, however, too early to identify the extent of change in public administration and centre–local government relations, whilst even in parliament it is argued that consensual decision-making continued at least into the late 1990s. The impact of party system change on policy-making has thus been shown to be less direct than many expected, providing rich material for research into the relationship between institutional and policy change. Nevertheless, institutional change continues, particularly with regard to the decentralisation of government, and some studies suggest that this is the key to Italy's political transformation, rather than electoral reform or even change in the form of government. Still, the election of Italy's first right-wing majority government in 2001 may yet bring change in parliamentary practice and policy-making more generally.     

Normative Modelle, institutionelle Typen und beobachtbare Verhaltensmuster: Ein Vorschlag zum Vergleich parlamentarischer Demokratien

The article proposes a two-dimensional, institutional determination of types of parliamentary democracy, with respect to the proportionality of the electoral system and (quasi-)legislative veto points. Three basic types of parliamentary democracy are distinguished: pluralitarian, majoritarian and supermajoritarian. The typology has important advantages over the approach of Arend Lijphart. It has a consistent two-dimensional conceptual foundation, it can be directly related to central controversies in normative democratic theory, it can be systematically linked to action theory approaches such as Veto Player Theory, and it highlights the characteristics of democracies with majoritarian constitutions, which are systematically downplayed in Lijphart’s approach. The most important variant of this type uses a proportionality principle in the electoral system and a majoritarian principle in the legislative system. It is shown that in these democracies, legislative majority rule can itself contribute to “consensual” patterns of behavior.     

Institutions and Market Reform in Emerging Economies: A Rent Seeking Perspective

The role of institutions as determinants ofrent seeking success is well established. In this paper, we focus on institutionsthat have received little attention in theliterature, namely electoral institutions. We examine three measures of electoralinstitutional structure that arehypothesized to be instrumental indetermining the level of rent seekingsuccess. These are the type of electoralsystem, pluralistic or proportional; methodof selection of the chief executive,presidential or parliamentary; and thenumber of electoral districts. An index ofeconomic freedom is used as the metric forrent seeking opportunities created bygovernments. Theoretical implications ofvariation in these electoral institutionsare developed. These implications areempirically tested employing data from 29countries classified as having emergingmarket economies. Countries with emergingeconomies are expected to exhibit moreinstitutional flexibility that moredeveloped countries whose property rightsare well established and defended. Theempirical results are controlled fordifferences in a number of demographic andhistorical factors. Plurality electoralsystems are more resistant to the politicaldemands of rent seeking than proportionalsystems. Fewer election districts seem toreduce rent seeking opportunities. However, conditional on the type ofelectoral system, presidential systems arefound to be no more resistant to rentseeking than parliamentary systems. Finally, we find strong control effects. Literacy increases a country's resistanceto rent seeking while military spending andyears of institutional entrenchment reduceit.     

Divided Government: America is Not "Exceptional"

America is thought to be an exceptional political system, and, in many of its particulars, it certainly differs from the institutional arrangements found in most of the world's democracies. Its separation-of-powers regime is thought to have spawned, in recent decades, the phenomenon of divided government in which partisan control of political institutions is divided between the major parties. By implication, it is suggested that this robust regularity in which Democrats control the legislature and Republicans the executive is a consequence of its institutional arrangements and, therefore, distinguishes America from its parliamentary counterparts elsewhere. In this article, the authors suggest that parliamentary regimes, too, experience divided government. Specifically, minority governments, in which the executive is controlled by parties that, between them, control less than a legislative majority, is the closest analogue to divided government in America. In each case, the executive needs to seek support in the legislature beyond its own partisan base. Thus, divided government per se does not distinguish parliamentary and separation-of-powers regimes. What does, however, are the constitutional roots of this phenomenon: divided governments are negotiated in parliamentary regimes whereas they are mandated electorally in separation-of-powers regimes.     

Power Resources of Parliamentary Executives: Policy Advice in the UK and Germany

This article compares the institutionalisation of policy advice inside offices which service chief executives in the UK and Germany. It focuses on the institutionalisation of ‘policy units’ during the early 1970s and late 1990s which reveals different patterns. Whereas British policy units are allowed to interfere in any departmental business and address a variety of issues, German policy units are narrowed to provide administrative support and avoid partisan issues. Applying a new institutionalist perspective and the veto approach, this article argues that institutionalisation processes as strategic interactions of organisational actors are affected by institutional features at the macro-level of parliamentary systems. These features include principles of cabinet decision-making and the electoral system with its effects on parliament and cabinet composition which both set veto positions in the executive and legislative decision arena. Next to these institutional features, the empirical evidence shows how organisational legacies account for the influential role of British policy units as power resource for the PM and the nearly irrelevance of German policy units as power resource for the Chancellor.     

Q&A in legislative oversight: A framework for analysis

Parliamentary questions are an essential tool of legislative oversight. However, the extent to which they are effective in controlling the executive remains underspecified both theoretically and methodologically. This article advances a systematic framework for evaluating the effectiveness of parliamentary questions drawing on principal–agent theory, the public administration literature on accountability and communication research. The framework is called the ‘Q&A approach to legislative oversight’ based on the premise that the study of parliamentary questions (Q) needs to be linked to their respective answers (A) and examined together (Q&A) at the micro-level as an exchange of claims between legislative and executive actors. Methodologically, the Q&A approach to legislative oversight offers a step-by-step guide for qualitative content analysis of Q&A that can be applied to different legislative oversight contexts at different levels of governance. It is argued that the effectiveness of Q&A depends on the strength of the questions asked and the responsiveness of answers provided, which are correspondingly operationalised. To illustrate the merits of the approach, the article includes a systematic case study on the relationship between the European Parliament and the European Central Bank in banking supervision (2013–2018), showing the connection between specific institutional settings and the effectiveness of parliamentary questions.     

Dissolution Threats and Legislative Bargaining

Chief executives in many parliamentary democracies have the power to dissolve the legislature. Despite a well‐developed literature on the endogenous timing of parliamentary elections, political scientists know remarkably little about the strategic use of dissolution power to influence policymaking. To address this gap, we propose and empirically evaluate a theoretical model of legislative bargaining in the shadow of executive dissolution power. The model implies that the chief executive's public support and legislative strength, as well as the time until the next constitutionally mandated election, are important determinants of the use and effectiveness of dissolution threats in policymaking. Analyzing an original time‐series data set from a multiparty parliamentary democracy, we find evidence in line with key empirical implications of the model.     

The 1999 Knesset and prime ministerial elections in Israel

This election note delineates the outcome of the 1999 elections in Israel, in which the Prime Minister was directly elected — for only the second time — concurrently with the parliamentary election. It then analyzes the election results produced by Israel's unique electoral system, and assesses their immediate ramifications.     

The Swedish Election 1998: A Protest Vote and the Birth of a New Political Landscape?

The 1998 Swedish general election was a protest election primarily against the Social Democratic Party. The party was hit by a debate on deceit when the unpopular financial restructuring policy was implemented. Disappointed social democratic voters from the 1994 election flocked to the Left Party. Others did not vote at all. The electoral turnout dropped to 81.4 percent; the lowest level in a parliamentary election since the election of 1958. A turnout of 81.4 percent is not particularly low from an international perspective, but it has received a great deal of attention in the political debate. Certain signs do indicate that there has been a general devaluation of voting as a means of exercising political influence among large groups of voters. Other forms of influence are perceived as being more meaningful. A sense of meaninglessness, of individual and institutional powerlessness, also seems to be spreading to social groups that have traditionally had a fundamental trust in the political system.     

General election forecasting in Britain: A comparison of three simple models

The advent of three-party politics in Britain with the February 1974 general election has introduced an uncertainty into electoral and parliamentary politics unprecedented in the post-war period. In these circumstances, election forecasting has assumed a special interest and significance for academics, politicians, political commentators, and the like. This article presents and assesses the performance of three forecasting instruments, the ‘incremental’, ‘opinion polling’ and ‘economic’ models. They are estimated over the period 1951–1983 and are then used to predict the share of the vote won by the governing, opposition and Alliance parties in the 1987 general election. All are successful in the sense that they forecast the continuation of the Conservative party's electoral dominance. with Labour and the Alliance a poor second and third. Only the economic model, however, generates a reasonable forecast of the gap separating the major parties and it is used to predict the distribution of parliamentary seats between them. It is seen to be substantially more accurate for the government than for the opposition, which is itself a reflection of the uncertainty introduced into British politics by the emergence of a significant third party in recent elections.     

Parliament without Government: The Belgian Parliament and the Government Formation Processes of 2007–2011

Parliamentary systems are characterised by strong links between the executive and the legislature. While the importance of executive–legislative relationships is well-known, the extent to which executive dominance affects parliamentary behaviour is hard to grasp. This study uses the recent institutional crises in Belgium to study parliamentary behaviour in the absence of a government with full powers. Cabinet formation in Belgium has proved to be protracted in recent years, leading to long periods of government formation in both 2007–2008 and 2010–2011. Such circumstances provide a unique comparison between normal situations of parliament in the presence of government, and exceptional situations of prolonged periods of caretaker government. In particular the article looks at three aspects of parliamentary behaviour that are usually linked to executive–legislative relations: legislative initiatives, voting behaviour and party unity. The general hypothesis is that prolonged periods of government formation gave parliamentarians more opportunities to influence the legislative process and more (ideological) freedom. The results show a nuanced picture: parliament became more pro-active, the salience of the government–opposition divide declined, while party unity remained as strong as ever. It is concluded that government formation processes did not lead to drastic changes in the legislative–executive relationship, but rather permitted a modest correction to the extremely weak position of parliament.     

Turnout Across Democracies

World democracies widely differ in legislative, executive, and legal institutions. Different institutional environments induce different mappings from electoral outcomes to the distribution of power. We explore how these mappings affect voters' participation in an election. We show that the effect of such institutional differences on turnout depends on the distribution of voters' preferences. We uncover a novel contest effect: Given the preferences distribution, turnout increases and then decreases when we move from a more proportional to a less proportional power‐sharing system; turnout is maximized for an intermediate degree of power sharing. Moreover, we generalize the competition effect, common to models of endogenous turnout: Given the institutional environment, turnout increases in the ex ante preferences evenness, and more so when the overall system has lower power sharing. These results are robust to a wide range of modeling approaches, including ethical voter models, voter mobilization models, and rational voter models.     

A Danish Party Cohesion Cycle

The aim is to analyze short-term fluctuations in Danish parliamentary party cohesion on the backdrop of an American electoral pattern in party cohesion. A Danish cycle is documented: party cohesion in relation to voting behavior is especially high just after an election, then it drops to rise again as election time approaches. A rational choice re-election model predicts the rise in party cohesion, but an obligation actualization model predicts the full cycle. Elections actualize Danish MPs' moral obligation to their party. Where American party cohesion drops in an election year, Danish party cohesion rises when an election approaches. This may be explained by different preferences in the American and Danish electorates: Danish voters value party cohesion per se , American voters do not.     

The rational timing of parliamentary elections

This paper presents a rational choice model for the timing of parliamentary elections in political systems where the government has the option of calling an early election. The optimal timing of elections involves the government weighing the benefits of calling an election versus the costs and is modelled mathematically as an optimal stopping problem. The model implies that the timing of elections depends upon time left in the government's term, the degree of electoral uncertainty, the volatility of government popularity, the government's time rate of discount, and institutional constraints such as the length of term and whether the government is likely to be forced from power by a vote of no confidence.     

Why Berlusconi’s landslide return? A comment on the 2008 Italian general election

At the Italian parliamentary election of April 2008 the centre-right coalition, led by media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, prevailed with 3.3 million votes over the centre-left coalition, led by Walter Veltroni, former mayor of Rome. This commentary analyzes the electoral results by looking at three factors which affected the vote: the institutional context, the electoral campaigns of both coalitions, and the voters’ behaviour. The article claims that the electoral outcome originated from an asymmetrical abstention of centre-left voters who did not turn out, and from a high-level of swing-voting which favoured the centre-right. It is argued that this election hardly signals a political realignment. Rather than value changes, valence politics and government performance are at the basis of the centre-right victory.      

The council political system: Its concept,historical rooting,and its distinguish from other parliamentary systems

The council's political system (CPS) is based on a basic idea that the legislative authority dominates the executive authority as the sole representative of the people, it authorizes the executive authority to carry out executive activities on its behalf with the latter remaining subordinate to the former and operating under its supervision and direction. CPS is considered one of the few systems of Parliament in application compared to other parliamentary systems and was often used by countries in times of crises experienced by them in an attempt to overcome those crises, given that this system limits the power of actual decision‐making to the legislative authority. CPS can be distinguished from other parliamentary political systems both presidential and parliamentary through several things, the most prominent of which is based on the idea of the relationship between its powers being included in favor of the legislative authority, and not on the basis of cooperation as is the case in the parliamentary system, or on the basis of complete separation as it is the situation in the presidential system. The results indicated that the success of the implementation of the council system depends on the nature of the ruling system that will be adopted and the philosophy that is based on it, in addition to the necessity of a high degree of political awareness. Through these results, we recommend the application of the CPS in light of the outbreak of the COVID‐19 and the subsequent political and societal changes.     

Sub-National Election Campaigns: The Danish Local Elections of November 1989*

Electoral campaigning is studied almost without exception at the national level. This article has chosen another road, claiming that electoral campaigning can also be studied at the local election level. Campaigning before the Danish local elections of 21 November 1989 is studied. The design permits comparisons between the two levels (national/local) as well as between different units at the local level. It furthermore provides an opportunity for studying the influence of local party systems as well as local mass media on election campaigning. A substantial part of the article discusses the institutional frameworks surrounding electoral campaigning in the municipalities studied and in general. It is maintained that the electoral system, the mass media structure, and the (local) party system are important contextual factors or frameworks. Given this, it is argued that organization, past performance, and campaign focus as a mix of policy proposals and leader image are paramount in affecting the local election vote. The main conclusions are: local election campaigning differs from national election campaigning; local election campaigning matters, i.e. it has a direct effect on the vote; and the functions of local party organizations in connection with local elections and local performance make them less vulnerable to organizational decline, which most mass membership political parties are experiencing at the national level.     

Politics Can Limit Policy Opportunism in Fiscal Institutions: Evidence from Official General Fund Revenue Forecasts in the American States

Governments make policy decisions in the same areas in quite different institutions. Some assign policymaking responsibility to institutions designed to be insulated from myopic partisan and electoral pressures and others do not. In this study, we claim that differences in political context and institutional design constrain the policy choices governments make. Testable propositions based on an analysis of varying electoral incentives and time horizons created by these different contexts are empirically tested using panel data on official general fund revenue forecasts in the American states, 1987 to 2008. The empirical evidence reveals that executive branch agencies and independent commissions produce more conservative forecasts than legislatures with one important exception. Executive branch revenue forecasts in states with gubernatorial term limits are indistinguishable from legislative branch forecasts. Further, we find that legislative branch forecasts are more conservative in the presence of divided partisan legislatures than unified party government. In turn, this implies that entrusting policymaking authority to either the executive branch or an independent commission may only be consequential when the political system itself fails to check legislative excesses or executive myopia.