The fulfillment of parties' election pledges : a comparative study on the impact of power sharing

Why are some parties more likely than others to keep the promises they made during previous election campaigns? This study provides the first comparative analysis that addresses this question with common definitions of pledges and fulfillment. We study the fulfillment of 18,743 pledges made in 54 election campaigns in 12 countries. We find high levels of pledge fulfillment for most parties that enter the government executive, and substantially lower levels for parties that do not. The findings challenge the common view of parties as promise breakers. The degree to which governing parties share power affects pledge fulfillment, with parties in single-party executives, both with and without legislative majorities, having the highest fulfillment rates. Within coalition governments, the likelihood of pledge fulfillment depends on whether the party receives the chief executive post and whether another governing party made a similar pledge, but not on the ideological range of the coalition

Two sword lengths apart: Credible commitment problems and physical violence in democratic national legislatures

Ideally, national legislatures in democracies should be venues for peacefully resolving conflicts between opposing groups. However, they can become places of physical violence. Such violence can be an indication that countries’ legislative institutions are functioning far from the democratic ideal of being venues for peaceful conflict reconciliation. In some cases, such as Ukraine prior to the 2014 outbreak of armed conflict in the country’s east and south, violence can indicate and possibly fuel deeper political divisions. In this first global study of legislative violence, I show that brawls are more likely when legislators find it difficult to credibly commit to follow peaceful bargains. Credible commitment problems are more acute in countries with new democracies and disproportionate electoral outcomes – that is, when electoral votes for parties do not closely correspond to the legislative seats they are given. I find robust support for this argument by first examining a case study of legislative violence in the antebellum United States Senate. Pro- and anti-slavery senators became increasingly unable to maintain credible commitments in the lead-up to the 1856 caning of Senator Charles Sumner as the allocation of seats in the legislative body became more disproportional. Second, I find further support for my argument in a new global dataset of contemporary instances of violence in national legislatures. In addition, I find strong evidence that violence is more likely in legislatures with small minority governments. Despite reasonable expectations, civil wars are not associated with more legislative violence

MPs’ principals and the substantive representation of disadvantaged immigrant groups

This article provides an alternative understanding of the substantive representation of immigrant-origin citizens compared to previous work in the ‘politics of presence’ tradition. Rather than assuming that the representational activities of members of parliaments (MPs) are underpinned by intrinsic motivations, it highlights extrinsic motives. Drawing on principal–agent theory, the article conceptualises MPs as delegates who are to act on behalf of their main principals, constituents and party bodies. This approach permits the rigorous analysis of the impact of electoral rules, candidate selection methods and legislative organisation on substantive representation. Based on an analysis of more than 20,000 written parliamentary questions tabled in the 17th German Bundestag (2009–2013), empirical findings suggest that electoral rules do not influence the relationship between MPs and their principals in relation to the substantive representation of disadvantaged immigrant groups; however, results indicate that candidate selection methods as well as powerful parliamentary party group leaderships do

Beyond Committees: Parliamentary Oversight of Coalition Government in Britain

A legislature's ability to engage in oversight of the executive is believed to derive largely from its committee system. For example, powerful parliamentary committees are considered a necessary condition for the legislature to help police policy compromises between parties in multiparty government. But can other parliamentary instruments perform this role? This paper suggests parliamentary questions as an alternative parliamentary vehicle for coalition parties to monitor their partners. Questions force ministers to reveal information concerning their legislative and extra-legislative activities, providing coalition members unique insights into their partners’ behaviour. To test our argument, we build and analyse a new dataset of parliamentary questions in the British House of Commons covering the 2010-15 coalition. As expected, government MPs ask more questions as the divisiveness of a policy area increases. Legislatures conventionally considered weak due to the lack of strong committees may nevertheless play an important oversight role through other parliamentary devices, including helping to police the implementation of coalition agreements

The Comparative Parliamentary Democracy Data Archive

The Comparative Parliamentary Democracy Data Archive data set consist of cabinet-level data of 17 Western European democracies for post-WWII cabinets through January 1, 1999. All together, a total of 424 coalitions, single party and non-partisan cabinets are included. Data for Greece, Portugal and Spain exist only after their democratizations in the 1970s, while data on France is limited to the Fifth Republic beginning in 1959. For the purposes of our data set, it can be said that the world "froze" on January 1, 1999. The last observation in each country is coded on the basis on the information that was available on that day. Purpose: The Comparative Parliamentary Democracy project examines West European parliamentary politics from a principal–agent perspective. The ZIP file consist sav files (for SPSS) and documentation in pdf format (codebooks).Datasetet i "The Comparative Parliamentary Democracy Data Archive" består av data på regeringsnivå för 17 västeuropeiska demokratier från 1945 till och med 1 januari 1999. Totalt ingår 424 olika koalitions-, enpartis- och partiobundna regeringar. Data från Grekland, Portugal och Spanien finns enbart från tiden efter demokratiseringen av dessa länderna under 1970-talet, medan data från Frankrike är begränsad till den femte republiken med start 1959. För detta dataset kan man säga att världen "frös" den 1 januari 1999. De sista observationerna för varje land är kodad på grundval av den information som fanns tillgänglig detta datum. Syfte: Syftet med projektet är att studera västeuropeisk politik utifrån ett "principal-agent"-perspektiv. Zip-filen innehåller data, på engelska, i sav-format (för SPSS). Filen innehåller även SND-kodböcker (metadata på svenska respektive på engelska) samt två kodböcker producerade av primärforskarna. Samtliga kodböcker i pdf-format. Önskas annat format av datamaterialet (ex. sas elller stata) kontakta SND