Transcript Bicameralism ( VP.chap.6) Student`s presentation

PIERCARLO BONETTI
FEBRUARY 7TH 2013
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Federalism (fiscal federalism, the institution
of federalism).
Bicameralism (bicameral and multicameral
diversity).
Qualified majorities (core and winset of
qualified majorities, pervasiveness).
Bicameralism and qualified majorities
combined.
Conclusions
Analysis of bicameralism
+
Analysis of qualified majorities
=
Federal countries have more veto players than
unitary countries
FEDERAL COUNTRIES HAVE HIGHER POLICY
STABILITY THAN UNITARY ONES
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Two level of government rules the same land
and people.
Each level is autonomous in at least one area
of jurisdiction.
The autonomy of each government in its
sphere has to be guaranteed.
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Hayen and Tiebout: federalism is generally
seen as a positive feature for economy and
finance within the country (local consumers
have better information and make better
choices).
Weingast (1995) says that in order to make
federalism a good model for economy, it has
to be MARKET PRESERVING FEDERALISM.
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Market governments have primary regulatory
responsibility over the economy.
Existence of a common market in order to
forbid local governments to erect trade
barriers.
Hard budget constraints for local
governments so they cannot print money…
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India, Argentina and Brazil are federal
countries but they don’t use market
preserving federalism.
low economic performance.
USA was a market preserving federalism until
1930s.
Contemporary China has a market preserving
federalism but is not federal.
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Market preserving federalism is a theory
which is not applied in practice in federal
countries
We know if federalism would be applied in
that way in terms of attention to the economy
we could infer positive outcomes.
Treisman (2000) made a study with
data among 154 countries and proved that
countries with an high level of decentralization
have an high level of corruption.
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Riker’s definition
Representation regard to the population
Representation regardless to the population
of each “state”.
Independent judiciary.
Party fragmentation.
Bicameralism.
Qualified majorities.
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The two chambers are different in terms of
rules.
The two chambers are different in terms of
composition (elected by different
constituencies and also because of party
composition within the chamber).
the discussion between
the chambers is reduced
to the line connecting
the 2 yolks of the
chambers.
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when the distance
between the yolks becomes larger, the possibility of change decreases.
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The outcomes will be closer to the chamber
that is the agenda setter.
It happens in some countries that bills
shuttles from one chamber to the other
(navette system).
the chambers want to reach an
agreement and in order to do so they’re willing
to make some concessions.
(sometimes there is a conference committee in
charge to find the agreement)
• When the chambers
make the offers they
choose the point
closest to them from
the winset of the SQ.
• Depending on the
rounds of negotiation,
both the chambers will
converge to the center
in order to avoid
rejections.
To have a small SQ winset, in a bicameral
system, the SQ has to be close to one
particular line.
 Under qualified majority rule, if the SQ is
located centrally within the collective veto
player, its winset will be small or empty (high
policy stability).
 Differences:
1. Qualified majorities leave centrally located
policies unchanged.
2. Bicameralism has more random outcomes.
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• The graph shows the
5/7 majority core.
• When the qualified
majority threshold
increases the winset
of the SQ shrinks and
so do policy stability.
Tsebelis says “per se” qualified majority
systems are difficult to find, while qualified
majority equivalents are more frequent:
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Non-constitutional requirements: the
filibuster of the Senate in the US modifies the
rule of the simple majority. When a filibuster
occurs it is required a 3/5 (40 senators)
majority.
It is necessary an agreement of the minority
party to override the filibuster, and so
Tsebelis says the US Senate is a qualified
majority institution.
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Absolute majorities and abstensions: in
France, Germany and EU work with absolute
majorities.
if all the members are present and nobody
abstains, absolute majority=simple majority
When someone abstains or is absent, then it
is equivalent to have a qualified majority
requirement of the member who participate
to the vote.
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Unwilling or undesirable allies and simple
majorities: (especially in the past) there exist
“anti-system” parties which are not taken into
account by the majority party (the communist
party in France 4th Republic), or they refuse to
support the government.
they transform simple majority
requirements into qualified majorities.
Ex: oversized government in parliamentary
systems are qualified majority equivalents.
when qualified majorities are the
decision-making rules, policy
stability should increase, and
outcomes are expected to be
centrally located towards the
centre of the location of VPs.
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Bicameralism.
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1st chamber decides by simple majority.
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2nd chamber decides by qualified majority.
Policy stability increases
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Examples: USA, EU..
• Policy stability increases
since the winset of the SQ
shrinks.
• The outcomes are closer to
the less flexible chamber (U
decides by unanimity).
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Tsebelis says in his analysis it is fundamental
to make generalizations in order to make a
theory consistent.
If we take the example of the US where 3
players are altogether it doesn’t make any
sense to make a single dimension analysis.
VPs theory holds in any number of
dimensions and regardless of whether the
VPs are individual or collective.
Federalism
bicameralism
Policy
stability
Qualified majorities
Multiple VPs
Independent
judiciary
Independent
bureaucracies
Government
instability