Coalition Government and Party Mandate: Explaining ministerial room of manoeuvre vis-à-vis the coalition agreement

Neste artigo, analiso a relação entre os partidos e o governo, procurando perceber a extensão da vinculação dos ministros a acordos de coligação. Primeiro observo que considerar os acordos de coligação como um contrato escrito entre partidos em proveito do governo com intuito de evitar “perdas agenciais” é uma banalização. Na maioria dos casos, os principais ministros participam nas negociações, a par, ou enquanto líderes de partido. Observo também que o governo cumpre em larga medida os acordos de coligação na Bélgica e na Holanda. Em Itália também, embora com menor expressão, sendo de mencionar que neste país a redacção dos acordos de coligação se faz antes das eleições. Não é de menosprezar, em caso de cumprimento do acordo de coligação por parte dos ministros, que esta será encadeada se os mesmos participarem activamente na sua redacção. Atransferência do programa revela apenas uma parte do vínculo dos ministros ao acordo de coligação: é igualmente significativo medir a proporção da decisão ministerial com base nos acordos de coligação. Os resultados obtidos a partir dessa análise esclarecem uma vez mais a importância dos acordos de coligação, para os ministros e atendo ao facto deumterço (até dois terços) das contas públicas e propostas governamentais derivarem de acordos de coligação. Deparamo-nos com variações muito mais acentuadas nesta segunda dimensão, assim como as variáveis cruciais que explicam amaior proporção de decisões com base em acordos se deve à ausência de líderes de partido no governo. Deste modo, os resultados sugerem que os líderes partidários revelam maior tendência a não adoptar iniciativas ministeriais com base em acordos, quando são eles próprios ministros.In this article, I look at the dialectic between parties and government to understand the extent to which ministers are bound by the coalition agreement. I first observe that considering the coalition agreement as a contract written by the parties for the government to avoid “agency losses” is an oversimplification. In almost all cases the main ministers have participated in the negotiations, with, or as, party leaders. I also observe that the government follows to a large extent the coalition agreement in Belgium and in the Netherlands and also, although to a lesser extent in Italy, in where the coalition agreement are drafted before the elections. Moreover, if ministers have to fulfil the coalition agreement, they will do it better if they have participated in its draft. The transfer of the program only tells one part of the extent to which ministers are bound by the coalition agreement: measuring the proportion of ministerial decision based on the coalition agreement is also significant. The results of this measurement enlighten once more the importance of the coalition agreement for ministers, as at least one third (and up to two thirds) of the governmental bills originate in the coalition agreement. We observe much more variation on this second dimension and the crucial variable explaining a high proportion of agreement-based decisions is the absence of party leaders in the government. This finding suggests that party leaders will tend to accept more non agreement-based ministerial initiatives when they are themselves ministers.Cet article analyse les rapports entre les partis et le gouvernement, afin de comprendre à quel point les ministres sont liés par les accords de coalition. Il commence par observer qu’il est banal de considérer les accords de coalition comme un contrat écrit entre partis au profit du gouvernement dans le but d’éviter les “pertes agentielles”. Dans la plupart des cas, les principaux ministres participent aux négociations avec les leaders des partis ou en tant que leaders eux-mêmes. L’auteur constate également que le gouvernement respecte en grande partie les accords de coalition en Belgique et aux Pays-Bas, ainsi qu’en Italie, même si c’est un peu moins (dans ce pays, les accords de coalition sont rédigés avant les élections). Il ne faut pas négliger le fait qu’en cas d’exécution de l’accord de coalition par les ministres, celle-ci sera mise en oeuvre s’ils ont participé activement à sa rédaction. Le transfert du programme révèle seulement une partie de l’engagement des ministres par l’accord de coalition: il est aussi important de mesurer le pourcentage de décisions ministérielles fondées sur les accords de coalition. Les résultats obtenus à partir de cette analyse révèlent une fois de plus l’importance des accords de coalition pour les ministres, dans la mesure où un tiers (voire deux tiers) des comptes publics et des projets gouvernementaux dérivent d’accords de coalition. On observe des variations beaucoup plus accentuées dans cette seconde dimension et les variables cruciales relevées expliquent le plus grand pourcentage de décisions fondées sur ces accords, lorsque les leaders des partis ne sont pas au gouvernement. Les résultats suggèrent que les leaders des partis ont tendance à ne pas prendre d’initiatives ministérielles fondées sur les accords lorsqu’ils sont eux-mêmes ministres.En este artículo analizo la relación entre los partidos y el gobierno, procurando entender la extensión de la vinculación de los ministros y acuerdos de coligación. En primer lugar, se observa que la consideración de los acuerdos de coligación como un contrato escrito entre partidos en provecho del gobierno con la intención de evitar “pérdidas en la capacidad de acción” es una banalización. En la mayoría de los casos, los principales ministros participan en las negociaciones, a la par, o mientras son líderes del partido. Observo también que el gobierno cumple en gran medida los acuerdos de coligación en Bélgica y Holanda. En Italia también, pero con menor expresión, siendo importante mencionar que en este país la redacción de los acuerdos de coligación se hace antes de las elecciones. Es importante mencionar que en caso de cumplimiento del acuerdo de coligación por parte de los ministros que esta será inter-ligada si los mismos participaran activamente en su redacción. La transferencia del programa revela sólo una parte del vínculo de los ministros al acuerdo de coligación: es igualmente significativo medir la proporción de la decisión ministerial con base en los acuerdos de coligación. Los resultados obtenidos a partir de este análisis esclarecen una vez más la importancia de los acuerdos de coligación, para los ministros y entendiendo el hecho de que un tercio (hasta dos tercios) de las cuentas públicas y propuestas gubernamentales se derivan de los acuerdos de coligación. Nos encontramos con variaciones más acentuadas en esta segunda dimensión, así como las variables cruciales que explican la mayor proporción de decisiones con base en acuerdos, se debe a la ausencia de líderes de partido en el gobierno. De este modo, los resultados sugieren que los líderes partidarios revelan una mayor tendencia a adoptar iniciativas ministeriales con base en acuerdos, cuando son ministros

How Portugal’s leaders exploited the bail out to pass measures they already supported

During the Eurozone crisis, states receiving a bailout were required to implement spending cuts and other reforms in return for financial assistance. But to what extent did the governments of these states use the opportunity to advance their own policy agendas? Drawing on interviews with Portuguese politicians, Catherine Moury and Adam Standring argue that both the crisis and the bailout strengthened the hands of Portuguese government ministers in relation to other domestic actors. And when ministers favoured policies which were in line with those backed by international actors, they were able to use the situation to push for policies they already supported

Government law-making in Italy. The important role of the recently created coalition agreements

The drafting of a coalition agreement does represent a crucial arena for partners in parliamentary governments: it allows them to reach, even before the executive is in place, the necessary compromise (and eventually “package deals”) over a set of policies to implement, and on the content of the main laws to promote. The coalition agreement could also be more than a programmatic platform: defining, for instance, special rules to solve future intra-coalitional conflicts. A coalition agreement, thus, could play an extremely important role in limiting the transaction costs intrinsically related to the formation and implementation of important government (legislative) decisions. Being of exploratory nature, this paper wants to analyze the role of coalition agreements recently implemented by the Italian governments. In the first part, the literature about coalition agreements as a decision-making arena is presented. In the second part, the characteristics of the coalition agreements drafted by the Prodi I government (in 1996) and by the Berlusconi II government (in 2001) are then analyzed. In a final part, we present some empirical evidences on to what extent the coalition agreements drafted by these two governments have functioned as point of reference for the process of government decision making: to what extent the bills the Council of Ministers has approved and presented to the parliament are linked to the goals of the coalition agreement? And conversely: to what extent the pledges included in coalition agreements have been transferred into governmental decisions. And again, incidentally: does the drafting of a coalition agreement facilitate the adoption of significant legislation by the executive? And is this legislation also relatively more conflictual in parliament

Contested delegation: the Impact of co-decision on comitology

WOS:000285150800007 (Nº de Acesso Web of Science)“Prémio Científico ISCTE-IUL 2012”This article shows that, for the area of environmental policy, the Commission and the Council have been more willing to rely on extensive delegation after the introduction of co-decision. It also shows that the tendency of these two actors to delegate has followed the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty – which indicates that the Council and Commission had anticipated their relative loss of power to the EP and rushed to delegate as much as possible before the effective introduction of co-decision. However, the Council was only willing to delegate more to the Commission on condition that it could exert as much control as possible over the procedure by using regulatory committees. These empirical findings confirm a distributive institutionalist argument according to which the Council and the Commission, seeking to maximise their institutional power, would try to circumvent the EP through delegation when the latter's competences in legislation increase. The expectation, also based on this argument, that the EP would react to this behaviour by opposing delegation altogether was not confirmed: the EP, rather than opposing delegation as such, has systematically tried to restrict its scope

The European Parliament and Delegation to Comitology

In this article we argue that that the delegation of implementing power to the Commission changes due to the fact that, under co-decision, two legislators (the Council and the EP) must agree to delegate. We first show that, with the introduction of co-decision in environmental policy, the legislators have relied more extensively on delegation. This indicates that the EP and the Council sought to save the political transaction costs associated with detailed legislation.. Moreover, the finding that increased delegation preceded the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty shows that the Council – anticipating its relative loss of power by having to share legislative power with the EP - was in a rush to delegate as much as possible to the Commission before the entry into force of co-decision. This is in accordance with a redistributive power-based bargaining argument according to which the Council prefers to delegate to the Commission, over which it has some control through comitology rather than sharing the legislative power with the EP. We also claimed that with increasing formal powers in comitology the EP will less oppose delegation. Our results support this hypothesis, but call for some qualification: the EP opposes delegation less, if the increase in competences is important. If, however, it is only minor, it does not lead to less opposition to comitology. Quite the contrary, the EP appears to be prompted to systematically introduce amendments to restrict the scope of delegation. Which in turn may be used as a leverage in future negotiations over the revising of the rules governing comitology

Comparing deputies' and voters' support for Europe: The case of Portugal

In this article, we compared and tried to explain deputies' and voters' perceptions about various dimensions of European integration. The general assertion that the political elite's perceptions tend to be more pro-integration finds some support in our analysis, but the results indicate this difference ? in the Portuguese case ? is smaller than has been suggested in the mainstream literature. The data also showed citizens are more in favour of enlargement than their representatives are. We also observe these assertions hold true only for the deputies of the three parties with experience of government. Finally, we try to explain the divide between a voter and their deputy's position on European integration, and we observed that the main explanatory variable for a narrow divide is political interest and information (which also explains the voters' probability of having an opinion)

Scattered Clouds in the Horizon of Consensus: Attitudes of Portuguese Parliamentary Elites Towards Europe Before and After the Crisis

In this article we analyze the evolution of the attitudes towards Europe of Portuguese parliamentary elites in the context of the sovereign debt crisis. Our analysis relies on interviews to a total of 227 MPs in the context of the ENEC project in 2014 and of the Intune Project in 2009 and 2007. Our principal finding is that an important gap has risen between the attitudes of the MPs and of the masses. Indeed, while the Portuguese are becoming increasingly less pro-European, this is not the case of their deputies. We show that, in 2014, the percentage of deputies that believed that EU membership benefited the country has decreased a little, but it stays as high as 89%. Our data, however, show that MPs now exhibit lower levels of trust towards the European institutions. Interestingly, the drop in the levels of trust towards EU institutions does not affect all institutions equally: trust towards the European Parliament remains constant regarding 2007, whereas the levels of trust in the remaining two institutions decrease. Finally, we show that it is in the Socialist Party (PS) that there is the steepest decline in the level of overall trust, which is rooted in declining levels of confidence in the European Commission. Given that PS has traditionally portrayed itself as the most pro-Europe of the Portuguese parties, this is solid evidence of a growing discontent with the European Commission

os países periféricos da Europa do sul (Grécia, Portugal e Espanha) numa perspetiva comparada

UID/CPO/04627/2013Relying on data from the Eurobarometer and the intune project, the present paper studies the effects of the 2008 economic crisis on the support to the European Union, both among citizens and their representatives, in Greece, Portugal and Spain, and comparatively, in the remaining EU countries (EU27 or EU17). The paper discloses the fact that the financial crisis entailed a significant decrease in the confidence levels of the citizens towards the EU, although this effect is not immediate. After controlling for a variety of explanations, it has been made plain that the effect of the economic crisis between 2007 and 2009 is visible only among the political elites and only as regard Recorrendo a dados do Euro-barómetro e do projeto intune, este artigo estuda os efeitos da crise económica de 2008 no apoio à União Europeia (UE), quer entre os cidadãos, quer entre os seus representantes, na Grécia, Portugal e Espanha, em comparação com o resto da União Europeia (UE27 ou UE17). O artigo revela que a crise financeira diminuiu profundamente o nível de confiança que os cidadãos da UE depositam nesta, mas o seu efeito não é imediato. Ao fazer o controlo de uma série de explicações, o efeito da crise económica no período 2007-2009 é só aparente entre as elites políticas e apenas na ligação à UE.publishersversionpublishe

The European Parliament as a driving force of constitutionalisation

Study for the AFCO CommiteeThis report analyses the increasing role played by the European Parliament (EP) in the EU decision-making process. In the first part (Sections 2, 3, 4 and 5), it describes how the EP acquired more power in legislation, comitology, in the appointment of the European Commission and in the budgetary field. In the second part (Sections 6 and 7), the report illustrates the EP’s role in two relevant policy fields: economic governance and external trade agreements. The report demonstrates that EP’s formal and informal powers in legislation, comitology, Commission investiture, the budgetary process, economic governance and international agreements have increased strikingly since the Treaty of Rome. This empowerment is partially explained by the concern for democratic legitimacy on the part of some member states’ (and the Commission). To another important part the empowerment may be explained by the fact that treaties frequently contain ambiguous provisions and thus allow room for informal rules to emerge through bargaining specifying the details of treaty provisions

La compression embarquée d'images pour les systèmes optiques d'observation spatiale

La compression embarquée est devenue une étape indispensable pour optimiser les ressources nécessaires à l'enregistrement et à la transmission des images vers les stations de réception. Les performances, en amélioration constante, des algorithmes de compression et les progrès rapides des technologies micro-électroniques embarquables permettent de disposer à bord de techniques de compression très efficaces. Nous décrivons dans cet article les différents algorithmes de compression, utilisés ou en cours d'étude pour des missions spatiales ainsi que les résultats obtenus