Does changing electoral rules affect legislators’ productivity?

There have been numerous reforms to the electoral rules and candidate selection processes for the Israel parliament (Knesset) in recent years, making it an interesting case study for testing the hypothesis that such changes affect legislators’ productivity. Using a model that acknowledges there are many facets to legislators’ roles Osnat Akirav demonstrates that legislators’ productivity is affected changes to these rules – but that this does not in turn make it more likely that they will be re-elected

The skills needed to be re-elected are different to those needed to be an effective legislator

Osnat Akirav summarises a journal article which examines the ability of legislators to get re-elected by their fulfilling their three roles: legislation, oversight and representation. She also re-examines the claim that most legislators are motivated by a desire to be re-elected, and that this desire determines the utility of their legislative activity toward this end by advertising, credit claiming and position taking. She further argues that different skills are required to be selected as a party’s choice and be re-elected, and to enact legislation. Thus, she distinguishes between two types of legislators—those who are electable and those who are successful in the legislature

Legislators use of One-Minute Speeches

This study examines how legislators use one-minute speeches OMS in a venue never before considered the Israeli parliament the Knesset The study considers two research questions First do legislators use OMSs to set their agenda and make policy If so in what way Second what are the characteristics of the legislators who make extensive use of OMSs We consider these questions in light of the global economic crisis of 2007-2010 The findings show that legislators made very limited use of OMSs as tool for making policy about the economic crisis We found the same trend in the finance committee meetings and motions for the agenda Furthermore while opposition MKs junior MKs and Arab MKs used OMSs more extensively than other MKs they still rarely used them as a policy-making too

Legislators' Patterns of Cooperation

This study attempts to identify the patterns of cooperation between legislators. We argue that if legislators decide to cooperate, they prefer to do so first with their colleagues who share similar affiliations and then across affiliations. In order to examine this hypothesis, we devised a unique cooperation scale and tested it using a sample of the private member bills that were initiated in the 18th Knesset (Israel’s parliament) between 2009 and 2013. We then looked at each bill with regard to its initiators and co-sponsors to see if they were members of the same party, members of the opposition or coalition, or members of a minority group. Based on the quantitative analysis, we found that of all of the factors, only being a minority was significant.  Based on the qualitative analysis, we determined that intra-party cooperation does exist. In three parties – Hadash, Meretz and Israel Beitenu -- legislators tended to cooperate with each other. Finally, with regard to inter-party cooperation, Jewish and Arab MKs tended to cooperate, and Russian Jewish legislators tended to cooperate regardless of party affiliation. Our study is innovative in its creation of a cooperation scale that can be used in other legislatures and that is based on measures of co-sponsorship instead of analyses of dyadic or social networks used in previous studies

The inflated measures of governmental instability

Most analyzes of government instability in parliamentary democracies rests on a standard definition of what counts as a new government. Three criteria are used. A new government exists whenever there is a new Prime Minister, after the occurrence of a general election, and whenever the partisan composition of the government changes. Obviously fruitful in many respects, the definition is problematic if we are interested in the political phenomenon of government stability and instability; governmental durability based on the standard definition of governments is not a valid and useful measure of stability in many parliamentary systems. We argue that this measure from one perspective is too inclusive (not any change in government's partisan composition signifies instability), and from another angle too narrow (focusing almost exclusively on a government as a whole.) We investigate how changes in conceptualization of what constitute new governments, affects the degree of instability in parliamentary democracies. Clearly, definitions make a difference and we demonstrate that countries might be characterized as unstable from one perspective, yet stable from another. Clearly, the commonly used definition of government used to measure government duration inflates instability, at least for some countries. We demonstrate that using more precise definitions of government longevity - ones that do not equate any changes in government's partisan composition as a sign of instability - yield important ramifications for the rank-order of countries' governments instability

Replication Data for: "The formateur's bonus in European constitutional monarchies, 1901-1999"

The readme file and replication data for "The formateur's bonus in European constitutional monarchies, 1901-1999".In this paper, we examine bonuses garnered by government formateurs in all European democracies that began the 20th century as constitutional monarchies. Using a new dataset on how portfolios were allocated in each democratic coalition cabinet formed 1901-1999, we show that formateurs’ bonuses were positive and significant when the monarch still exercised discretion in choosing them but declined after the monarch’s role was constrained. Relatedly, Gamson’s Law was more strongly violated when monarchs played a larger role. After identifying the dates at which monarchs were constrained, we conduct a difference-in-differences analysis, comparing formateurs’ bonuses in each reformed country with those in otherwise similar countries that did not reform at the same time. The results support the hypothesis that greater royal discretion engendered larger formateurs’ bonuses

Termination of parliamentary governments: revised definitions and implications

The literature on government coalitions uses a common definition of when governments terminate and new ones form. This terminology is convenient and has served empirical coalitions studies quite well. This article challenges this terminology on the ground that it risks inflating the number of governments and, at least in some countries, severely distorts scholarly understanding of government duration and durability. Specifically, this article criticises the definitional condition that any partisan change in the composition of a government signifies its termination. The article demonstrates how using more precise definitions affects government duration considerably in a number of countries. In some cases, countries experience short-lived governments because minor partisan changes take place within a surplus coalition. Given these observations, the article re-visits the finding that minimum winning governments survive longer than oversized governments. When applying the modified definitions, differences in duration between these two types of majority coalitions almost disappear