Coalition agreement and party mandate: how coalition agreements constrain the ministers

WOS:000289715000006 (Nº de Acesso Web of Science)“Prémio Científico ISCTE-IUL 2012”In coalition government, the relationship between parties and ministers is one of double delegation: from the party to the minister and from the coalition of parties to the individual minister. On the basis of principal—agent theory, I argue that a coalition agreement is a tool used by coalition parties to reduce agency loss when delegating to ministers. In six governments in Belgium, Italy and The Netherlands, I show that: a majority of the pledges were transferred into cabinet decisions, a majority of cabinet decisions were effectively constrained by the coalition agreement and that one-third of cabinet decisions had been precisely defined beforehand in the document. Interestingly, the length of the coalition agreement, the entry of party leaders to government and the number of ministers participating in the negotiations do not seem to have had a significant influence on the above two measurements

Introduction: Conflict and consensus in Parliament during the economic crisis

Since the onset of the economic crisis, parties in parliament (especially those in opposi-tion) have found themselves faced with a dilemma: choosing between the need to cooperatewith the government in order to overcome the crisis and the opportunity provided by aweakened government to stress their adversarial position so as to be more easily re-elected and possibly get into power. What have they decided to do? The present contri-bution introduces a collection of works exploring this dilemma in southern Europeancountries, by examining the opposition behaviour in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain;and in the European Parliament

Planning the ‘government of change’: the 2018 Italian coalition agreement in comparative perspective

Coalition agreements in the Italian Second Republic have traditionally been pre-electoral, often long, compre-hensive but vague documents serving also as electoral manifestos for centre-right or centre-left coalitions. In this article, we analyse the 2018 post-electoral coalition agreement between the Movimento Cinque Stelle and Lega in comparative perspective, contrasting this agreement with former coalition programmes enforced since the mid-1990s in Italy and the pre-election manifestos published by these two political parties. The analysis reported here allow us to conclude that the first post-electoral coalition agreement in Italy is shorter than most centre-left documents, as vague as previous agreements and constitutes a compromise committing the Lega to less right-wing positions, the grillini to less progressive stances and both political forces to tone down their Eu-roscepticism. The extent by which these commitments are solid and longstanding is unknown.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Conclusions: Great recession, great cooperation?

Contributions to this study clearly support our initial hypotheses. It is observed, as expected, that the economic crisis has considerably decreased consensual behaviour in parliament. However, the nature of parties constitutes a crucial variable in order to explain the conduct of the opposition in the legislative arena better: since the outbreak of the crisis, radical parties have turned even more adversarial than before; whereas mainstream parties \u2013 who want to appear as a credible alternative to the government in office \u2013 have drifted towards more cooperative behaviour. Given the growing influence of the European Union on the legislation approved in response to the crisis, it was also expected (and demonstrated) that the traditionally pro-European parties would be more likely to cooperate on socio-economic issues than Eurosceptic parties. Finally, it has also been shown that timing also plays an important role in the opposition's decision either to support or to oppose the government: with opposition parties more inclined to contest the government's proposals when their chances of getting into power are higher, and vice versa

Incumbents, opposition and international lenders: governing Portugal in times of crisis

The Portuguese case provides a unique opportunity to study the opposition's behaviour in a variety of political conditions. It offers an insight into the impact of the financial crisis on the opposition's behaviour in both majority and minority political settings. It allows the comparison of the opposition's relationship with a minority government, during which non-collaboration could have dramatic consequences, and also with a majority government, when such a choice does not have major political or policy implications. Moreover, it enables us to study the effect of an additional veto player (the so-called troika composed of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund), which not only constrains both majority and opposition parties, but also gives political entrepreneurs a unique opportunity to push ahead with liberal measures \u2013 in this case, clearly in disagreement with the moderate and radical left programmes. Relying on quantitative data on the legislative behaviour of the parliamentary party groups in the period 1995\u20132012, and on qualitative process-tracking of the opposition's positions on key economic issues \u2013 such as the decision to vote against Prime Minister S\uf3crates' last austerity package after a series of approvals \u2013 this article aims to determine whether, and if yes how, the financial crisis has affected the behaviour of the Portuguese opposition parties in parliament, by examining and comparing their behaviour in hard and in normal times

Beyond Conditionality: Policy Reversals in Southern Europe in the Aftermath of the Eurozone Crisis

This article proposes a framework to understand and explain the occurrence of policy reversals. We argue that the occurrence and absence of policy reversals is shaped by the constraints of responsiveness (to voters) and responsibility (vis-à-vis creditors, international institutions and financial markets). We review the literature on reversals and their implications for Southern Europe. We finally summarise the main findings of the contributions in the volume, that address when and why governments prioritise responsiveness or responsibility, as well as the economic consequences of these choices.The politics and administration of institutional chang

2005 French Salmonella Network data on antimicrobial resistance in the swine channels

The Salmonella Network is gathering, on a voluntary participation scheme, from approximately 150 public and private laboratories dissemmated throughout France, Salmonella strains and/or epidemiological information. Those non-human Salmonella strains are isolated either from animal health and production or food, feed and the environment sectors. Thus, in 2005, a total of 527 isolations from the swine channels were reported. The top 5 prevalent serotypes were : Typhimurium, Derby, Manhattan, lnfantis and Kedougou. Two-hundred and ninety five strains were received at the laboratory and, after double clearance, 185 strains were tested for their antimicrobial resistance against 16 antibiotics by the disk diffusion method. Twenty-one strains were associated to the animal health and production sector and 164 to the food sector

Development of Molecular Markers Tightly Linked to Pvr4 Gene in Pepper Using Next-Generation Sequencing

It is imperative to identify highly polymorphic and tightly linked markers of a known trait for molecular marker-assisted selection. Potyvirus resistance 4 (Pvr4) locus in pepper confers resistance to three pathotypes of potato virus Y and to pepper mottle virus. We describe the use of next-generation sequencing technology to generate molecular markers tightly linked to Pvr4. Initially, comparative genomics was carried out, and a syntenic region of tomato on chromosome ten was used to generate PCR-based markers and map Pvr4. Subsequently, the genomic sequence of pepper was used, and more than 5000 single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) were identified within the interval. In addition, we identified nucleotide binding site–leucine-rich repeat-type disease resistance genes within the interval. Several of these SNVs were converted to molecular markers desirable for large-scale molecular breeding programmes

Phylogeography and Molecular Evolution of Potato virus Y

Potato virus Y (PVY) is an important plant pathogen, whose host range includes economically important crops such as potato, tobacco, tomato, and pepper. PVY presents three main strains (PVYO, PVYN and PVYC) and several recombinant forms. PVY has a worldwide distribution, yet the mechanisms that promote and maintain its population structure and genetic diversity are still unclear. In this study, we used a pool of 77 complete PVY genomes from isolates collected worldwide. After removing the effect of recombination in our data set, we used Bayesian techniques to study the influence of geography and host species in both PVY population structure and dynamics. We have also performed selection and covariation analyses to identify evolutionarily relevant amino acid residues. Our results show that both geographic and host-driven adaptations explain PVY diversification. Furthermore, purifying selection is the main force driving PVY evolution, although some indications of positive selection accounted for the diversification of the different strains. Interestingly, the analysis of P3N-PIPO, a recently described gene in potyviruses, seems to show a variable length among the isolates analyzed, and this variability is explained, in part, by host-driven adaptation