Veto Players George Tsebelis

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Veto PlayersGeorge Tsebelis
Positive Political Theory Prof. Francesco
Zucchini

• Chapter 5 Referendums
• Chapter 6 Federalism, Bicameralism, Qualified
  Majorities

Marta Osojnik
17th November 2009
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Referendums (1)

• The mere possibility of the referendum introduces
  the preferences of the population in the policy
  making process.
• What are the main characteristics?
• ? introduction of the new veto player
• ? policy stability in principle increases
• ? outcomes that prevail approximate better the
• preferences of the public
• ? agenda control

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Referendums (2)

• AGENDA CONTROL
• ? who asks the question
• ? who triggers the referendum
• If both parts of the agenda are controlled by the
  same player, VP will use referendums in order to
  eliminate all other veto players.
• If agenda setting process is delegated through a
  competitive process, then the preferences of the
  public will be better approximated

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Direct and Representative Democracy (1)

• What difference does it make if outcomes are
  selected by the people or indirectly by the
  peoples representatives in parliament?
• Rousseau
  (1947 85)

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(a) Median voter preferences in referendums

• winset of the SQ is located between two circles
  (Y, d2r and Y, d-2r)
• since the yolk is decreasing with the number of
  people that go to vote ? the winset of SQ is
  located between two cricles that differ little
  from each other
• for a large population the median voter may not
  exist but all median lines pass through very
  small area (of radius r) so an as if median can
  be very well approximated by the center Y of the
  yolk of the population)

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(b) Direct and Mediated Democracy

• difference between direct (W(SQ)) and mediated
  (W(SQ)) democracy
• no guarantee that the two processes will lead to
  the same outcome ?
• How can we locate these two different
  outcomes?

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Direct and Mediated Democracy

• Advantages and disadvantages of the referendums
• PROPONENTS
• - the outcomes fit more closely with
  peoples preferences
• - education of citizens to democratic
  values
• CRITICS
• - does the average citizen have information
  and expertise to
• judge what best advances collective
  interests
• Tsebelis what are the effects of differences for
  decision making?
• (the outcome has to be located in the
  intersection of the parliamentary and the popular
  winsets ? referendums create an additional veto
  player the people)

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Institutions regulating referendums (1)

• CLASSIFICATION OF REFERENDUMS BY DIFFERENT
  AUTHORS
• Smith (1975) two criteria to elaborate
  referendums control and
• hegemonic effect
• Butler and Ranney (1978) government controlled
  referendums,
• b) constitutionally required referendums, c)
  referendums by
• popular petition, d) popular initiatives
• recently the strategic aspects of referendums
  (agenda control)

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Institutions regulating referendums (2)

• Tsebelis uses the classification similar to the
  one used by
• Hug (1999)
• Are the referendums required?
• Are they active or passive (initiative by the
  people or not)?
• Who controls the agenda (the government or the
  opposition)?
• Tsebelis upgrades Hugs classification
• whether or not there will be a referendum or not
  triggering
• the exact wording of the question

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Institutions regulating referendums (3)

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Institutions regulating referendums (4)

• Required referendums
• - the government is obliged to submit a
  policy to the voters
• - no referendum initiative is undertaken
• - a particular document has to be
  ratified by the people in
• order to be enacted (often applies to
  constitutional changes)
• Veto player referendums
• - referendum is not required
• - decision belongs to one of the
  existing VP

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• Popular veto
• - existing VP formulates the question,
  BUT
• - the triggering is prerogative of a
  different agent
• (e.g. population)
• Popular initiative
• - initiative does not come from the
  existing VP
• - initiative derives from e.g. political
  group that collected the
• required signatures (state level in the
  USA, Switzerland)

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Veto Players Referendums (1)

• Decision making
• Under which conditions
• possible AS would call for
• referendum?
• stable coalition of A,B,C (parliamentary
  government)
• any possible coalition between A,B,C,D,E is
  possible (presidential system)
• two possible agenda setters
• A and E

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Veto Players Referendum (2)

• A as the agenda setter
• winset of A instead of W (SQ) player A can
  introduce referendum and obtain A as an outcome
• ? presidential system only coalition A,D,E can
  approve points inside (A,AA) circle A has to
  select this outcome in order to get the preferred
  outcome
• parliamentary system coalition A,B,C (but
  there is no point that all three prefer to A
  because A is in the unanimity core of A,B,C

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Veto Players Referendums (3)

• E as the agenda setter
• winset of E instead of W (SQ) player E can
  introduce the referendum and obtain E as a
  result
• three possible coalitions ABE, ADE, CDE
• presidential system E will select ADE
• parliamentary system E ? the advantage of
  referendum AS to negotiate different government
  (if the parties want to stick together ? E
  triggers referendum ? government looses

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Popular initiatives, Popular veto

• Required referendums and Veto players referendums
• are the referendums where the agenda setter
  enjoys
• monopoly power while
• Popular initiatives and Popular
  veto
• are different kinds of
  referendums
• (the triggering not in their
  domain).

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? Popular initiatives

• if different groups can become agenda setters in
  a referendum by winning the right to present
  their question to the electorate (signature
  collection), the legislative outcome will depend
  on how competitive the process is)
• we should focus on the process of selection of
  the agenda setter (e.g. volunteers,
  professionals).

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? Popular vetoes

• triggered by existing VPs when they want to
  cancell other VP
• non VP will select a referendum if the government
  proposed result is not inside the winset of the
  median voter
• BUT it can happen that a triggering actor can
  force the referendum without real success since
  the existing VP can postpone it so the balance of
  force will be in their power or modify the SQ so
  that the referendum will be either cancelled or
  postponed further (Italian divorce example).

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Conclusion I

• referendums significantly alter the rules and the
  outcomes of the legislative process
• introduction of additional VP the median voter
  of the population
• if the same VP is able to trigger the referendum
  and ask the question ? traditional VPs are
  eliminated
• the differences among referendums depend on WHO
  controls the agenda
• existing VP strengthens him at the expense of
  others
• popular initiative it favors the groups that can
  affect the agenda
• competitive agenda setting process benefits the
  median voter
• advantages and disadvantages

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Chapter 6 Federalism, Bicameralism and
Qualified Majorities

• Definition of the term federal by Riker (1964)
  
• Two levels of government rule the same land and
  people
• Each level has at least one area of jurisdiction
  in which it is autonomous
• There is some guarantee of the autonomy of each
  government in its own sphere
• Tsebelis observes two different features of
  federal governments
• - bicameralism (with the second chamber
  having an effective veto)
• - use of qualified majorities in policy
  making
• Tsebelis argues that each one of these
  structures generates more VPs ?
• federal countries have ceteris paribus more
  VPs than unitary ones

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Federalism (1)

• FISCAL FEDERALISM
• Two important differences between federal and
  unitary countries
• Hayek (1939) local governments and consumers
  have better
• information about local conditions and
  preferences therefore they will make better
  decisions than national governments
• Tiebout (1956) focused on the effects of the
  competition among jurisdictions since people can
  vote with their feet and argues that federalism
  provide people with the choice among different
  menus of public good.

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• previous two approaches ignored the question of
  incentives of politicians to provide PUBLIC GOODS
  and PRESERVE MARKETS
• Weingast (1995) focused on the fact that markets
  need protection and government strong enough to
  be able to resist the threats state strong
  enough to protect private markets is strong
  enough to confiscate the wealth of its citizens
• DIFFERENT MECHANISMS enabling strong but limited
  governments by different authors
• Przeworski stable democracy
• Weingast the rule of law

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Federalism (2)

• (2) THE INSTITUTIONS OF FEDERALISM
• Hicks (1978) upgrades Rikers definition of
  federalism in order to
• point out the importance of the study of the
  institutions of
• federalism.
• ? federal system has the dual purpose of creating
  a nation and preserving the identity of its units
• The Constitution in a federal system will
  provide for
• a probably large Assembly representative of all
  citizens and chosen from the units (or States),
  most likely in proportion to their relative
  populations
• a House of States or Senate, considerably
  smaller but normally
• providing strictly equal representation of
  all States.

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Federalism (3)

• six players form two groups (upper and lower
  chamber)
• ? U1,U2,U3 and L1,L2,L3
• the requirement for the replacement of the SQ is
  congruent majority in the two houses ( which
  means that some of the previous majorities (like
  L3, U1, U2, U3) are now invalidated, because they
  do not represent majorities in both houses)

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Federalism (4)

• for QM similar argument as for bicameralism
• let us consider the case of a 5/6 qualified
  majority
• winset of the SQ is empty (there is no coalition
  including 5/6 players that agrees to a
  replacement of the SQ)

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Bicameralism (1)

• BICAMERAL AND MULTICAMERAL DIVERSITY
• the power of the second chamber varies (sometimes
  the agreement of the upper chamber is necessary
  for the adoption of legislation, sometimes not)
• the chambers may have a different policy position
  (elected from different constituencies ? one
  represents the population and the other the
  states or with different electoral system or
  they may simply have different decisionmaking
  rules ? Senates filibuster rule which does not
  exist in the House) BUT even when the two
  chambers are almost the same, it does not follow
  that differences are eliminated (e.g. Italian
  case violenza sessuale)
• bicameral legislatures may therefore introduce a
  second institutional VP (if the second chamber
  has the possibility to veto legislation) ? what
  Tsebelis focuses on

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Bicameralism (2)

• HOWEVER, while we are speaking of bicameralism
  from Tsebelis point of view, it is easy to
  generalize to any number of chambers
• For example
• the American political system requires the
  agreement of three VPs (president, legislature,
  federalism)
• EU (European Commission, European Parliament,
  Council of Ministers)

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(2) Strong bicameralism with weak parties

• the two chambers are drawn in two dimensions
  (away from each other) ? any coalition in each
  one of them is possible (congruent majorities)
• bicameral core LU (it cannot be defeated by this
  decision-making rule)
• position of SQ (calculation performed in two
  different ways exactly and by approximation)
• ? the closer the SQ to the bicameral core,
  the smaller the winset of SQ (policy stability
  increases)

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Bicameralism (3)

• addresses the issue of agenda setting process
• usually if one chamber makes a proposal to the
  other, they select the point closest to them from
  the W (SQ)
• most countries adopted more complicated system
  called navette system (the bill shuttles from
  one chamber to the other until agreement is
  reached or until some other stopping rule is
  applied)
• Tsebelis and Money impatience of each chamber
  as an additional variable

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Bicameralism (4)

• (3) QUALIFIED MAJORITIES
• How can qualified majorities increase policy
  stability?
• How pervasive qualified majorities are even if
  not explicitly specified by formal institutions?

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(1) Core and winset of qualified majorities

• consider the pentagon composed of any 5 points
  (the unanimity core) ? any point inside this area
  cannot be defeated by a unanimous agreement of
  the 5 players
• select all possible combinations of 5 players,
  with the intersection of their unanimity cores ?
  any point in this area cannot be defeated by any
  5/7 QM
• ? unanimity core more frequent than the bicameral
  core

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Bicameralism (4)

• Joseph Greenberg (1979)
• such a core always exists if q gt n / (n1) where
  q is the required majority and n is the
  dimensionality of the policy space
• unanimity core always exists (n points define at
  most (n-1) dimensional space
• for points outside the core the winset of the SQ
  is not empty
• IF the the QM core exists and the SQ approaches
  it, the winset of the SQ shrinks (policy
  stability increases)
• a comparison indicates that the bicameral core is
  a single dimensional object and QM is in general
  in n dimensions (the shape of the core, affects
  the size of the winset of SQ political
  stability)

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Bicameralism (5)

• (2) PERVASIVNESS OF QUALIFIED MAJORITIES
• as already seen QM impose additional restrictions
  on the W (SQ)
• as the required QM threshold increases, the W
  (SQ) shrinks
• unlike the majority W (SQ) which is almost never
  empty, the
• QM W (SQ) may be empty
• q-cohesion of the collective player is of an
  extreme
• importance for the size of the QM winset of
  (SQ) (policy stability
• decreases when q-cohesion increases)

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Bicameralism (6)

• (4) BICAMERALISM AND QUALIFIED MAJORITIES
  COMBINED
• What happens if bicameralism is combined with
  qualified majorities such that one chamber
  decides by simple majority but the other decides
  by qualified majority?

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Bicameralism (7)

• upper chamber unanimity
• consequences a) policy stability increases
  (W(SQ)) shrinks, b) outcomes shift in the favor
  of the less flexible chamber (only one point L
  U survives)
• in one dimensional space the core of the
  bicameral system expands ? more dificult to upset
  the SQ (points between U1 and U3 that could be
  modified under congruent majority are now
  invulnerable

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Bicameralism (8)

• Keith Krehbiel (1998) in Pivotal Politics
• for pivotal politics the policy space is one
  dimensional

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Bicameralism (9)

• Tsebelis adds another dimension
• Depending on where the alternative proposal is,
  the pivotal player might change (PA?A)
• If one increases the dimensions and the
  alternatives to the SQ almost anyone of a
  particular group of players will become pivotal

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Conclusion II

• there is no direct way of translating existing
  institutions into the number and distances of VPs
• some institutions have similar effects
  (federalism increases the number of VPs), while
  others alter their effect on VPs on the basis of
  specific institutional provisions (who controls
  the agenda of referendums)
• results of VP analysis depend on the ideological
  positions of VPs some of them may be absorbed
  (even if they are not absorbed they may converge
  or diverge which will have serious implications
  on policy stability)