Title: Veto Players and Referendums
1Veto Players and Referendums
The mere possibility of the referendum introduces
the preferences of the population in the policy
making process. What are the main
characteristics? ? introduction of the new
veto player ? policy stability in principle
increases ? outcomes that prevail approximate
better the preferences of the public ?
agenda control
2Agenda Control
- ? who asks the question
- ? who triggers the referendum
- If both parts of the agenda are controlled by the
same player, this player will use referendums in
order to eliminate all other veto players. - If agenda setting process is delegated through a
competitive process, then the preferences of the
public will be better approximated
3Direct and Representative Democracy (1)
- What difference does it make if outcomes are
selected by the people or indirectly by the
peoples representatives in parliament? -
- Rousseau Outcomes selected by a referendum are
real laws as they are the content of the general
will - Tsebelis
- a)Outcomes selected by Parliament are preferred
over the status quo by a majority in parliament - b)Outcomes selected by a referendum are preferred
over the status quo by a majority of the
population -
-
4(a) Median voter preferences in referendums
- winset of the SQ is located between two circles
(Y, d2r and Y, d-2r) - since the yolk is decreasing with the number of
people that go to vote ? the winset of SQ is
located between two cricles that differ little
from each other - for a large population the median voter may not
exist but all median lines pass through very
small area (of radius r) so an as if median can
be very well approximated by the center Y of the
yolk of the population)
5Direct and Mediated Democracy
- A,B,C,D,E parliamentary actors
- Ycentroid (center od the yolk) in parliamentary
arena Y centroid in population - Y ? Y
- difference between direct (W(SQ)) and mediated
(W(SQ)) democracy - no guarantee that the two processes will lead to
the same outcome ? - How can we locate these two different
outcomes?
6Advantages and disadvantages of the referendums
- PROPONENTS
- - the outcomes fit more closely with
peoples preferences - - education of citizens to democratic
values - CRITICS
- - does the average citizen have information
and expertise to - judge what best advances collective
interests ? - Tsebelis what are the effects of differences for
decision making? the outcome has to be located
in the intersection of the parliamentary and the
popular winsets ? referendums create an
additional veto player the people
7Institutions regulating referendums (1)
- CLASSIFICATION OF REFERENDUMS BY DIFFERENT
AUTHORS - Smith (1975) two criteria to elaborate
referendums control and - hegemonic effect
- Butler and Ranney (1978) government controlled
referendums, - b) constitutionally required referendums, c)
referendums by - popular petition, d) popular initiatives
- recently the strategic aspects of referendums
(agenda control)
8Institutions regulating referendums (2)
- Tsebelis uses the classification similar to the
one used by - Hug (1999)
- Are the referendums required?
- Are they active or passive (initiative by the
people or not)? - Who controls the agenda (the government or the
opposition)? - Tsebelis upgrades Hugs classification
- whether or not there will be a referendum or not
triggering - the exact wording of the question
9Institutions regulating referendums (3)
10Institutions regulating referendums (4)
- Required referendums
- - the government is obliged to submit a
policy to the voters - - no referendum initiative is undertaken
- - a particular document has to be
ratified by the people in - order to be enacted (often applies to
constitutional changes) - Veto player referendums
- - referendum is not required
- - decision belongs to one of the
existing VP - Popular veto
- - existing VP formulates the question,
BUT - - the triggering is prerogative of a
different agent - (e.g. Population)
- Popular initiative
- - initiative does not come from the
existing VP - - initiative derives from e.g. political
group that collected the - required signatures (state level in the
USA, Switzerland) -
11Veto Players Referendums (1)
- Decision making
- Under which conditions
- possible an A.S. would call for
referendum? - stable coalition of A,B,C (parliamentary
government) - any possible coalition between A,B,C,D,E is
possible (presidential system) - two possible agenda setters A and E
12Veto Players Referendums (1)
- Decision making
- Under which conditions
- possible an A.S. would call for
referendum? - stable coalition of A,B,C (parliamentary
government) - any possible coalition between A,B,C,D,E is
possible (presidential system) - two possible agenda setters A and E
- A and E the best outcomes the two A.S. can
achieve by referendums
A
A
E
13Veto Players Referendum (2)
- A as the agenda setter
- winset of A instead of W (SQ) player A can
introduce referendum and obtain A as an outcome - ? presidential system only coalition A,D,E can
approve points inside (A,AA) circle A has to
select this outcome in order to get the preferred
outcome - parliamentary system coalition A,B,C (but
there is no point that all three prefer to A
because A is in the unanimity core of A,B,C
SQ
14Veto Players Referendums (3)
- E as the agenda setter
- winset of E instead of W (SQ) player E can
introduce the referendum and obtain E as a
result - three possible coalitions ABE, ADE, CDE
- presidential system E will select ADE
- parliamentary system E ? the advantage of
referendum A.S. to negotiate different government
(if the parties want to stick together ? E
triggers referendum ? government looses
15Popular initiatives, Popular veto
- Required referendums and Veto players referendums
- are the referendums where the agenda setter
enjoys - monopoly power while
- Popular initiatives and Popular
veto - are different kinds of
referendums - (the triggering not in their
domain).
16? Popular initiatives
- if different groups can become agenda setters in
a referendum by winning the right to present
their question to the electorate (signature
collection), the legislative outcome will depend
on how competitive the process is - we should focus on the process of selection of
the agenda setter (e.g. volunteers,
professionals).
17? Popular vetoes
- non VP will select a referendum if the government
proposed result is not inside the winset of the
median voter - BUT it can happen that a triggering actor can
force the referendum without real success since
the existing VP can postpone it so the balance of
force will be in their power or modify the SQ so
that the referendum will be either cancelled or
postponed further (Italian divorce example).
18Conclusions
- referendums significantly alter the rules and the
outcomes of the legislative process - introduction of additional VP the median voter
of the population - if the same VP is able to trigger the referendum
and ask the question ? traditional VPs are
eliminated - the differences among referendums depend on WHO
controls the agenda - existing VP strengthens him at the expense of
others - popular initiative it favors the groups that can
affect the agenda - competitive agenda setting process benefits the
median voter - Median voter preferences results will be better
approximated in the following order - Popular initiative
- Popular veto
- VP referundum or mandatory referendum
19Federalism, Bicameralism and Qualified
Majorities
- Definition of the term federal by Riker (1964)
- Two levels of government rule the same land and
people - Each level has at least one area of jurisdiction
in which it is autonomous - There is some guarantee of the autonomy of each
government in its own sphere - Tsebelis observes two different features of
federal governments - - bicameralism (with the second chamber
having an effective veto) - - use of qualified majorities in policy
making -
- Tsebelis argues that each one of these
structures generates more VPs ? - federal countries have ceteris paribus more
VPs than unitary ones
20Federalism (1)
- FISCAL FEDERALISM
- Two important differences between federal and
unitary countries - Hayek (1939) local governments and consumers
have better - information about local conditions and
preferences therefore they will make better
decisions than national governments - Tiebout (1956) focused on the effects of the
competition among jurisdictions since people can
vote with their feet and argues that federalism
provide people with the choice among different
menus of public good.
21- Previous two approaches ignored the question of
incentives of politicians to provide PUBLIC GOODS
and PRESERVE MARKETS - Weingast (1995) focused on the fact that markets
need protection and government strong enough to
be able to resist the threats state strong
enough to protect private markets is strong
enough to confiscate the wealth of its citizens - DIFFERENT MECHANISMS enabling strong but limited
governments by different authors - Przeworski stable democracy
- Weingast the rule of law
22Federalism (2)
- (2) THE INSTITUTIONS OF FEDERALISM
- Hicks (1978) upgrades Rikers definition of
federalism in order to - point out the importance of the study of the
institutions of - federalism.
- ? federal system has the dual purpose of creating
a nation and preserving the identity of its units - The Constitution in a federal system will
provide for - a probably large Assembly representative of all
citizens and chosen from the units (or States),
most likely in proportion to their relative
populations - a House of States or Senate, considerably
smaller but normally - providing strictly equal representation of
all States.
23Federalism (3)
- six players form two groups (upper and lower
chamber) - ? U1,U2,U3 and L1,L2,L3
- the requirement for the replacement of the SQ is
congruent majority in the two houses ( which
means that some of the previous majorities (like
L3, U1, U2, U3) are now invalidated, because they
do not represent majorities in both houses) -
24Federalism (4)
- for QM similar argument as for bicameralism
- let us consider the case of a 5/6 qualified
majority - winset of the SQ is empty (there is no coalition
including 5/6 players that agrees to a
replacement of the SQ)
25Bicameralism (1)
- BICAMERAL AND MULTICAMERAL DIVERSITY
- the power of the second chamber varies (sometimes
the agreement of the upper chamber is necessary
for the adoption of legislation, sometimes not) - the chambers may have a different policy position
(elected from different constituencies ? one
represents the population and the other the
states or with different electoral system or
they may simply have different decisionmaking
rules ? Senates filibuster rule which does not
exist in the House) BUT even when the two
chambers are almost the same, it does not follow
that differences are eliminated (e.g. Italian
case violenza sessuale) - bicameral legislatures may therefore introduce a
second institutional VP (if the second chamber
has the possibility to veto legislation) ? what
Tsebelis focuses on
26Bicameralism (2)
- HOWEVER, while we are speaking of bicameralism
from Tsebelis point of view, it is easy to
generalize to any number of chambers - For example
- the American political system requires the
agreement of three VPs (president, House, Senate) - EU (European Commission, European Parliament,
Council of Ministers)
27(2) Strong bicameralism with weak parties
- the two chambers are drawn in two dimensions
(away from each other) ? any coalition in each
one of them is possible (congruent majorities) - bicameral core LU (it cannot be defeated by this
decision-making rule) - position of SQ (calculation performed in two
different ways exactly and by approximation) - ? the closer the SQ to the bicameral core,
the smaller the winset of SQ (policy stability
increases)
28Bicameralism (3)
- addresses the issue of agenda setting process
- usually if one chamber makes a proposal to the
other, they select the point closest to them from
the W (SQ) - most countries adopted more complicated system
called navette system (the bill shuttles from
one chamber to the other until agreement is
reached or until some other stopping rule is
applied) - Tsebelis and Money impatience of each chamber
as an additional variable
29Bicameralism (4)
- (3) QUALIFIED MAJORITIES
- How can qualified majorities increase policy
stability? - How pervasive qualified majorities are even if
not explicitly specified by formal institutions?
30(1) Core and winset of qualified majorities
- consider the pentagon composed of any 5 points
(the unanimity core) ? any point inside this area
cannot be defeated by a unanimous agreement of
the 5 players - select all possible combinations of 5 players,
with the intersection of their unanimity cores ?
any point in this area cannot be defeated by any
5/7 QM - ? unanimity core more frequent than the bicameral
core
31Bicameralism (4)
- Joseph Greenberg (1979)
- such a core always exists if q gt n / (n1) where
q is the required majority and n is the
dimensionality of the policy space - unanimity core always exists (n points define at
most (n-1) dimensional space - for points outside the core the winset of the SQ
is not empty - IF the QM core exists and the SQ approaches it,
the winset of the SQ shrinks (policy stability
increases) - a comparison indicates that the bicameral core is
a single dimensional object and QM is in general
in n dimensions (the shape of the core, affects
the size of the winset of SQ political
stability)
32Bicameralism (5)
- (2) PERVASIVNESS OF QUALIFIED MAJORITIES
- as already seen QM impose additional restrictions
on the W (SQ) - as the required QM threshold increases, the W
(SQ) shrinks - unlike the majority W (SQ) which is almost never
empty, the - QM W (SQ) may be empty
- q-cohesion of the collective player is of an
extreme - importance for the size of the QM winset of
(SQ) (policy stability - decreases when q-cohesion increases)
33Bicameralism (6)
- (4) BICAMERALISM AND QUALIFIED MAJORITIES
COMBINED - What happens if bicameralism is combined with
qualified majorities such that one chamber
decides by simple majority but the other decides
by qualified majority?
34Bicameralism (7)
- upper chamber unanimity
- consequences a) policy stability increases
(W(SQ)) shrinks, b) outcomes shift in the favor
of the less flexible chamber (only one point L
U survives) - in one dimensional space the core of the
bicameral system expands ? more difficult to
upset the SQ (points between U1 and U3 that
could be modified under congruent majority are
now invulnerable
35Bicameralism (8)
- Keith Krehbiel (1998) in Pivotal Politics
- for pivotal politics the policy space is one
dimensional
36Bicameralism (9)
- Tsebelis adds another dimension
- Depending on where the alternative proposal is,
the pivotal player might change (PA?A) - If one increases the dimensions and the
alternatives to the SQ almost anyone of a
particular group of players will become pivotal
37Conclusion II
- there is no direct way of translating existing
institutions into the number and distances of VPs - some institutions have similar effects
(federalism increases the number of VPs), while
others alter their effect on VPs on the basis of
specific institutional provisions (who controls
the agenda of referendums) - results of VP analysis depend on the ideological
positions of VPs some of them may be absorbed
(even if they are not absorbed they may converge
or diverge which will have serious implications
on policy stability)