320 Politikwissenschaft
Refine
Year of publication
- 2022 (4) (remove)
Document Type
- Article (2)
- Monograph/Edited Volume (1)
- Postprint (1)
Language
- English (4)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (4) (remove)
Keywords
- Legislative organisation (2)
- parliamentary opposition (2)
- policy-making (2)
- power (2)
Institute
Voting for Votes
(2022)
Scholars frequently expect parties to act strategically in parliament, hoping to affect their electoral fortunes. Voters assumingly assess parties by their activity and vote accordingly. However, the retrospective voting literature looks mostly at the government's outcomes, leaving the opposition understudied. We argue that, for opposition parties, legislative voting constitutes an effective vote-seeking activity as a signaling tool of their attitude toward the government. We suggest that conflictual voting behavior affects voters through two mechanisms: as a signal of opposition valence and as means of ideological differentiation from the government. We present both aggregate- and individual-level analyses, leveraging a dataset of 169 party observations from 10 democracies and linking it to the CSES survey data of 27,371 respondents. The findings provide support for the existence of both mechanisms. Parliamentary conflict on legislative votes has a general positive effect on opposition parties' electoral performance, conditional on systemic and party-specific factors.
The organisation of legislative chambers and the consequences of parliamentary procedures have been among the most prominent research questions in legislative studies. Even though democratic elections not only lead to the formation of a government but also result in an opposition, the literature has mostly neglected oppositions and their role in legislative chambers. This paper proposes to fill this gap by looking at the legislative organisation from the perspective of opposition players. The paper focuses on the potential influence of opposition players in the policy-making process and presents data on more than 50 legislative chambers. The paper shows considerable variance of the formal power granted to opposition players. Furthermore, the degree of institutionalisation of opposition rights is connected to electoral systems and not necessarily correlated with other institutional characteristics such as regime type or the size of legislative chambers.
The organisation of legislative chambers and the consequences of parliamentary procedures have been among the most prominent research questions in legislative studies. Even though democratic elections not only lead to the formation of a government but also result in an opposition, the literature has mostly neglected oppositions and their role in legislative chambers. This paper proposes to fill this gap by looking at the legislative organisation from the perspective of opposition players. The paper focuses on the potential influence of opposition players in the policy-making process and presents data on more than 50 legislative chambers. The paper shows considerable variance of the formal power granted to opposition players. Furthermore, the degree of institutionalisation of opposition rights is connected to electoral systems and not necessarily correlated with other institutional characteristics such as regime type or the size of legislative chambers.
The power of opposition
(2022)
Proposing a novel way to look at the consolidation of democratic regimes, this book presents important theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of democratic consolidation, legislative organization, and public opinion.
Theoretically, Simone Wegmann brings legislatures into focus as the main body representing both winners and losers of democratic elections. Empirically, Wegmann shows that the degree of policy-making power of opposition players varies considerably between countries. Using survey data from the CSES, the ESS, and the LAPOP and systematically analyzing more than 50 legislatures across the world and the specific rights they grant to opposition players during the policy-making process, Wegmann demonstrates that neglecting the curial role of the legislature in a democratic setting can only lead to an incomplete assessment of the importance of institutions for democratic consolidation.
The Power of Opposition will be of great interest to scholars of comparative politics, especially those working on questions related to legislative organization, democratic consolidation, and/or public opinion.