Veto Players

Veto Players PDF Author: George Tsebelis
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400831458
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Political scientists have long classified systems of government as parliamentary or presidential, two-party or multiparty, and so on. But such distinctions often fail to provide useful insights. For example, how are we to compare the United States, a presidential bicameral regime with two weak parties, to Denmark, a parliamentary unicameral regime with many strong parties? Veto Players advances an important, new understanding of how governments are structured. The real distinctions between political systems, contends George Tsebelis, are to be found in the extent to which they afford political actors veto power over policy choices. Drawing richly on game theory, he develops a scheme by which governments can thus be classified. He shows why an increase in the number of "veto players," or an increase in their ideological distance from each other, increases policy stability, impeding significant departures from the status quo. Policy stability affects a series of other key characteristics of polities, argues the author. For example, it leads to high judicial and bureaucratic independence, as well as high government instability (in parliamentary systems). The propositions derived from the theoretical framework Tsebelis develops in the first part of the book are tested in the second part with various data sets from advanced industrialized countries, as well as analysis of legislation in the European Union. Representing the first consistent and consequential theory of comparative politics, Veto Players will be welcomed by students and scholars as a defining text of the discipline. From the preface to the Italian edition: ? "Tsebelis has produced what is today the most original theory for the understanding of the dynamics of contemporary regimes. . . . This book promises to remain a lasting contribution to political analysis."--Gianfranco Pasquino, Professor of Political Science, University of Bologna

Veto Players

Veto Players PDF Author: George Tsebelis
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400831458
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Get Book Here

Book Description
Political scientists have long classified systems of government as parliamentary or presidential, two-party or multiparty, and so on. But such distinctions often fail to provide useful insights. For example, how are we to compare the United States, a presidential bicameral regime with two weak parties, to Denmark, a parliamentary unicameral regime with many strong parties? Veto Players advances an important, new understanding of how governments are structured. The real distinctions between political systems, contends George Tsebelis, are to be found in the extent to which they afford political actors veto power over policy choices. Drawing richly on game theory, he develops a scheme by which governments can thus be classified. He shows why an increase in the number of "veto players," or an increase in their ideological distance from each other, increases policy stability, impeding significant departures from the status quo. Policy stability affects a series of other key characteristics of polities, argues the author. For example, it leads to high judicial and bureaucratic independence, as well as high government instability (in parliamentary systems). The propositions derived from the theoretical framework Tsebelis develops in the first part of the book are tested in the second part with various data sets from advanced industrialized countries, as well as analysis of legislation in the European Union. Representing the first consistent and consequential theory of comparative politics, Veto Players will be welcomed by students and scholars as a defining text of the discipline. From the preface to the Italian edition: ? "Tsebelis has produced what is today the most original theory for the understanding of the dynamics of contemporary regimes. . . . This book promises to remain a lasting contribution to political analysis."--Gianfranco Pasquino, Professor of Political Science, University of Bologna

Reform Processes and Policy Change

Reform Processes and Policy Change PDF Author: Thomas König
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1441958096
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
George Tsebelis’ veto players approach has become a prominent theory to analyze various research questions in political science. Studies that apply veto player theory deal with the impact of institutions and partisan preferences of legislative activity and policy outcomes. It is used to measure the degree of policy change and, thus, reform capacity in national and international political systems. This volume contains the analysis of leading scholars in the field on these topics and more recent developments regarding theoretical and empirical progress in the area of political reform-making. The contributions come from research areas of political science where veto player theory plays a significant role, including, positive political theory, legislative behavior and legislative decision-making in national and supra-national political systems, policy making and government formation. The contributors to this book add to the current scholarly and public debate on the role of veto players, making it of interest to scholars in political science and policy studies as well as policymakers worldwide.

Formal Models of Domestic Politics

Formal Models of Domestic Politics PDF Author: Scott Gehlbach
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108482066
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
An accessible treatment of important formal models of domestic politics, fully updated and now including a chapter on nondemocracy.

Dictators and Democracy in African Development

Dictators and Democracy in African Development PDF Author: A. Carl LeVan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107081149
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
This book argues that the structure of the policy-making process in Nigeria explains variations in government performance better than other commonly cited factors.

Principles of Comparative Politics

Principles of Comparative Politics PDF Author: William Roberts Clark
Publisher: CQ Press
ISBN: 1506318142
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 704

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Book Description
Principles of Comparative Politics offers the most comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to comparative inquiry, research, and scholarship. In this thoroughly revised Third Edition, students now have an even better guide to cross-national comparison and why it matters. The new edition retains a focus on the enduring questions with which scholars grapple, the issues about which consensus has started to emerge, and the tools comparativists use to get at the complex problems in the field. Among other things, the updates to this edition include a thoroughly-revised chapter on dictatorships that incorporates a discussion of the two fundamental problems of authoritarian rule: authoritarian power-sharing and authoritarian control; a revised chapter on culture and democracy that includes a more extensive examination of cultural modernization theory and a new overview of survey methods for addressing sensitive topics; a new section on issues related to electoral integrity; an expanded assessment of different forms of representation; and a new intuitive take on statistical analyses that provides a clearer explanation of how to interpret regression results. Examples from the gender and politics literature have been incorporated into various chapters, the Problems sections at the end of each chapter have been expanded, a! nd the empirical examples and data on various types of institutions have been updated. Online videos and tutorials are available to address some of the more methodological components discussed in the book. The authors have thoughtfully streamlined chapters to better focus attention on key topics.

Checking Presidential Power

Checking Presidential Power PDF Author: Valeria Palanza
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108427626
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
Provides the first comparative look into executive decree authority. It explains why presidents issue decrees and why checks and balances sometimes fail.

Votes, Vetoes, and the Political Economy of International Trade Agreements

Votes, Vetoes, and the Political Economy of International Trade Agreements PDF Author: Edward D. Mansfield
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691135304
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
Preferential trading arrangements (PTAs) play an increasingly prominent role in the global political economy, two notable examples being the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement. These agreements foster economic integration among member states by enhancing their access to one another's markets. Yet despite the importance of PTAs to international trade and world politics, until now little attention has been focused on why governments choose to join them and how governments design them. This book offers valuable new insights into the political economy of PTA formation. Many economists have argued that the roots of these agreements lie in the promise they hold for improving the welfare of member states. Others have posited that trade agreements are a response to global political conditions. Edward Mansfield and Helen Milner argue that domestic politics provide a crucial impetus to the decision by governments to enter trade pacts. Drawing on this argument, they explain why democracies are more likely to enter PTAs than nondemocratic regimes, and why as the number of veto players--interest groups with the power to block policy change--increases in a prospective member state, the likelihood of the state entering a trade agreement is reduced. The book provides a novel view of the political foundations of trade agreements.

Quagmire in Civil War

Quagmire in Civil War PDF Author: Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108486762
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Rebuts the pervasive 'folk' notion that quagmire is intrinsic to a country or civil war. Shows that quagmire is made, not found.

Barriers to Peace in Civil War

Barriers to Peace in Civil War PDF Author: David E. Cunningham
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139499408
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Civil wars vary greatly in their duration. This book argues that conflicts are longer when they involve more actors who can block agreement (veto players) and identifies specific problems that arise in multi-party bargaining. Quantitative analysis of over 200 civil wars since World War II reveals that conflicts with more of these actors last much longer than those with fewer. Detailed comparison of negotiations in Rwanda and Burundi demonstrates that multi-party negotiations present additional barriers to peace not found in two party conflicts. In addition, conflicts with more veto players produce more casualties, are more likely to involve genocide and are followed by shorter periods of peace. Because they present many barriers to peace, the international community has a poor track record of resolving multi-party conflicts. David Cunningham shows that resolution is possible in these wars if peace processes are designed to address the barriers that emerge in multi-party conflicts.

The Nature of Legislative Intent

The Nature of Legislative Intent PDF Author: Richard Ekins
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191645931
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Are legislatures able to form and act on intentions? The question matters because the interpretation of statutes is often thought to centre on the intention of the legislature and because the way in which the legislature acts is relevant to the authority it does or should enjoy. Many scholars argue that legislative intent is a fiction: the legislative assembly is a large, diverse group rather than a single person and it seems a mystery how the intentions of the individual legislators might somehow add up to a coherent group intention. This book argues that in enacting a statute the well-formed legislature forms and acts on a detailed intention, which is the legislative intent. The foundation of the argument is an analysis of how the members of purposive groups act together by way of common plans, sometimes forming complex group agents. The book extends this analysis to the legislature, considering what it is to legislate and how members of the assembly cooperate to legislate. The book argues that to legislate is to choose to change the law for some reason: the well-formed legislature has the capacity to consider what should be done and to act to that end. This argument is supported by reflection on the centrality of intention to the nature of language use. The book then explains in detail how members of the assembly form and act on joint intentions, which do not reduce to the intentions of each member, before outlining some implications of this account for the practice of statutory interpretation. Developing a robust account of the nature and importance of legislative intention, the book represents a significant contribution to the literature on deliberative democracy that will be of interest to all those thinking about legal interpretation and constitutional theory.