The media, interest groups, and Veto Players

1
The media, interest groups, and Veto Players
Lecture 8
2
Objectives

• Objectives
• to understand the importance of veto players
• to grasp the influence of media, interest groups
  and public opinion

3
Introduction

• Modern politics new players, new strategies, new
  approaches
• The media the fourth estate/power?
• Interest group representation and lobbying how
  democratic is it?
• Veto players a new (mid-1990s) approach in
  comparative politics

4
Media and Democracy

• Democracy relies on communication 
• Mass literacy as a function, achievement and
  affirmation of the modern state
• Media democracy
• Media as link between politicians, parties and
  electorate
• Influence of the media through agenda setting,
  opinion polls, investigative journalism and news
  filtering
• Media as part of the game not independent
• Political control over mass communication
  sensitive issue

5
Mediatization of Politics

• Professionalization of politics towards media
• Media training for politicians
• Political statements fit media formats
• Spin doctors
• Media as main tool for campaigns
• Elections are to be won on TV
• Visibility more important than manifestos
• TV duels
• Presidentialization
• Personalization of politics
• Political management replaces ideology
• Focus on charismatic leadership

6
Media and politics in WE

• Considerable variations between countries in
  media use, ownership and regulation
• However, all combine commercial systems with more
  or less independent public broadcasting
• Politicians and the media mutually dependent
  and antagonistic (clash of interests)
• Imbalances
• Berlusconi dominates Italian media sector
• Kirch and Murdoch as international media traders

7
Media environment has changed

• increasingly fragmented and commercialized
• Public vs private ownership struggle
• Emergence of multinational consortiums
• Threat of Monopolization

All over the continent, stories have much more a
chance of seeing the light if they are visual,
emotive, conflictual, intense, unambiguous, of
majority relevance, unpredictable and apparently
capable of common-sense solution. Bale, 2005,
p. 160
8
Are these entirely new phenomena?
9
Influence of the Media

• TV the primary medium politicians care most about
  (biggest reach and effect)
• Like radio, it is generally a more trusted source
  than the press
• Evidence for media influence on election outcomes
  is thin
• Media (and campaigning more generally) could
  become more important as voting becomes more
  volatile
• Role in setting agendas and enhancing the
  salience of some concerns over others is probably
  more important than any direct effect

10
Limitations of Media Influence

• New Information technologies not much impact on
  conventional politics
• General decline of political interest
• Number of newspaper readers shrinking
• Young adults increasingly ignorant of political
  debates
• Regulation through governments and EU
• Importance of public sector
• Part of political culture and education
• Market regulation through the EU
• Media may be influential as short-term causes for
  voting
• But rather reinforces than changes party
  preferences

11
Public opinion

• Tools of Representative and direct democracy
• Allows immediate assessment of popularity
• (of decisions)
• Keeps the politicians in contact with electorate
• Represents public interest in decision-making
• Problem
• Public lacks knowledge and can evade trade-offs
• Limits on detailed and complex issues
• US-style Politics-by-Polls imported to Europe
• Politicians become obsessed with surveys
• Neglects inaccuracy of empirical and statistical
  methods

12
INTEREST GROUPS 

• Highly organized groups within society with a
  particular interest (industrialists, farmers,
  workers, environmentalists, churches etc.)
• Functional rather than electoral representation
• Become increasingly internationalized (esp. EU)

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INTEREST GROUPS 

• Influence through lobbying,, provision of
  arguments and material, publicity, political
  action
• Decision-making in pluralist democracies
• Needs to take into account divergent interests
  within society
• Needs to reflect preferences of main economic
  sectors and players
• cannot neglect minority positions
• The state as a referee of group competition or as
  the executive of major group interests?

14
Rules of Lobbying

• Develop good advance intelligence (helps you
  prepare response)
• Watch domestic agendas
• Lobby early (80 too late)
• Stay in the whole race
• Maintain good links
• with government officials
• with national officials in international
  organizations and the EU
• with the parliament
• Present rational, technical arguments (rather
  than emotional ones)
• Be co-operative, positive and trustworthy

15
Trade Union membership, organization and power in
WE

16
Tsebelis, Decision Making in Political Systems

• Compare democratic political systems in terms of
  policy stability/change
• Regime type (presidentialism vs. parliamentarism)
  and party systems (two vs. many parties) are the
  crucial ways by which democratic political
  systems matter.
• However, how do you compare multivariate
  political systems (eg. USA presidential,
  two-party system with Denmark parliamentary,
  multi-party system)?

17
Tsebelis, Decision-Making

• Focus on legislative status quo (current
  policies)
• Veto players (person or group whose assent is
  necessary to change the legislative status quo)
  are central
• Each veto player can
• Prevent changes (status quo persists)
• Demand a price for assent
• Institutional vetoers (e.g., president, chamber)
  and parties (partisan vetoers) are the crucial
  veto players

18
Policy Space in WE
L
SPD
Status Quo
C
S
CDU
A
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Tsebelis, Decision-Making

• Each political system has its own veto-player
  configuration
• Change is less likely as
• The number of veto players increases
• Congruence of policy preferences among veto
  players decreases
• Cohesion (internal policy agreement) decreases
• Win set
• Set of points that could replace status quo
• Size of win set is key to stability

20
Tsebelis, Decision-Making

• As number of players increases, the winset of the
  status quo does not increase.
• As distance among veto players increases along
  the same line, the winset does not increase.
• Policy stability ? government regime stability
• If we know the preferences of veto players, the
  position of the status quo, and the identity of
  the agenda setter (the sequence of moves of the
  different actors), we can predict the outcome of
  the policymaking

http//www.pupress.princeton.edu/chapters/i7419.ht
ml
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Tsebelis, Decision-Making

• Number of veto players
• Two vs. multi-party systems
• Parliamentary vs. presidential systems
• Unitary vs. Federal systems
• Powerful interest groups / public opinion
  (referenda)
• Countries with many veto players Italy high
  policy stability (low government stability)
• Countries with few veto players Greece low
  policy stability (high government stability)

http//www.pupress.princeton.edu/chapters/i7419.ht
ml
22
Tsebelis, Veto Players and Law Production in
Parliamentary Democracies

• Empirical tests of the following hypotheses
• Increase in the number of parties in government
  reduces the ability to produce significant
  legislation.
• Increase in ideological distance reduces the
  ability to produce significant legislation.
• Number of sig. laws increase with government
  duration.
• Number of sig. laws increases with increasing
  distance between the current and preceding
  governments.

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Summary

• Politics is not just about parliaments,
  governments, parties and voters
• In liberal democracies, interest groups and the
  media play an important and legitimate role
• Political actors may be influential
• Not because they can singlehandedly achieve their
  goals
• But because they can veto changes to the status
  quo
• Veto play analysis important new tool for
  comparative politics