Tsebelis G. Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work

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of government are veto players in a multiparty system. Why is it easier to pass government

decrees than parliamentary legislation of the veto players are the same? Kreppel’s answer is that

the members of the government are ideologically closer to each other than the leadership of the

corresponding parties, so policy stability decreases. Proposition 1.4 and Figure 1.7 make the

same point in the most general case: if the decisionmakers are closer to each other, the winset of

the status quo expands, and policy stability is reduced.

In conclusion, while veto players theory comes sometimes to similar conclusions with

existing literature there are also lots of disagreements. But most important, there is no direct way

of translating existing institutions into the number and distances of veto players. Some

institutions have similar effects (federalism increases the number of veto players), others alter

their impact on veto players on the basis of specific institutional provisions (who controls the

agenda on referendums, executive decrees). Most important however is the fact that the results of

veto player analysis depend on the ideological positions of veto players: some of them may be

absorbed; even if they are not absorbed they may converge or diverge and this will have serious

implications on policy stability.

I want to conclude by underlying the consistency of the veto players approach. I

discussed different influential approaches in each chapter: regime types, party systems,

ministerial influence, executive dominance, fiscal federalism, pivotal politics, to mention but a

few. Each one of them was based on different assumptions and led to conclusions relevant to the

subject matter it was developed for. By contrast, veto players is based on the same set of

principles developed in Part I and it is these principles that led us to all the agreements or

disagreements with the literature, as well as all the conditional or qualified statements on

institutions.

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Bicameral outcomes under the navette system (alternating offers)

U3L1

FIGURE 6.3

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FIGURE 6.4

1 2

5/7 Majority core in two dimensions

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FIGURE 6.6B

P V

F’

V’M

FIGURE 6.6A

Pivotal voters in one dimension (two filibuster (F,F’) and two veto (V,V’) pivots)

Almost any voter can be pivotal in multiple dimensions

(Assuming three voters (A,B, C) in two dimensionsand decision under majority rule

A is pivotal if the proposal is PA, B is pivotal if the proposal is PB, and C if the proposal is PC)

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PART III: POLICY EFFECTS OF VETO PLAYERS

The basic set of propositions introduced in Part I use policy stability as the dependent

variable and the number and distances among veto players as the independent variables. I have

explained why increasing the number of veto players (Proposition 1.1) and the unanimity core of

them (Proposition 1.4) leads to higher policy stability. This Part will test these propositions.

There are several problems with empirical tests of these expectations. They stem from the

relationship between legislative policies and legislative outcomes. The crux of the problem is

that legislators have to design policies, but have preferences over outcomes. Let me be more

specific. When the legislators of a country passes legislation on a specific issue they take a series

of steps: they define the problem they want to resolve; they define the conditions under which it

occurs, or the specific set of conditions that they will address; they define the means by which

they will interfere, and the extent by which they will use these means. As a result a series of

policy related outcomes occurs. In terms of unemployment legislation for example, some people,

but not others, receive unemployment compensation; select individuals receive healthcare even if

they are not employed; a certain number of administrators, and medical personnel are used to

address these problems; and they cost a certain amount of money to be found in the budget. All

these outcomes are the issues legislators care about, and they had in mind when they were

designing the unemployment policy.

However, it is possible that some of these results were not anticipated when the

legislation was introduced: the definition of unemployment may have been so inclusive as to

permit to a series of private citizens to ask for unemployment compensation while they had some

kind of employment, or may have provided exactly the same amount of healthcare coverage so

that the number of required doctors increases, or unemployment may have increased for reasons

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not considered by the legislature. As a result of any of these conditions, the number of

administrative personnel, or of medical personnel, or the amount of money required may be

different than the preferences of the legislators. In this case the legislators may decide to

introduce new legislation amending the policies specified in the past, so that they will

approximate the preferred outcomes better.

This may be a more or less accurate description of how policymaking works, but how are

we going to introduce in this picture the variable of policy stability we are interested in? Are we

going to focus on the act of legislating, and producing new laws and see whether these laws

differ from the previous ones even if the outcomes do not, or are we going to focus on outcomes

regardless of whether they were produced by legislation or by exogenous shocks? Suppose that

the legislature changes the definition of unemployment, but because unemployment is so low it

makes little difference on the budget. Is this a significant policy change or an insignificant one?

Alternatively, suppose that unemployment increases while legislation has remained exactly the

same. Is this an indication of policy stability or of policy change?

In the two chapters that follow I will use both interpretations and try to focus on each one

of them controlling for the other. In addition, the two chapters present models with different

number of dimensions of the underlying policy space. In Chapter 7 the dependent variable maps

well on the Left-Right policy axis, so I estimate a single dimensional model. In Chapter 8 the

dependent variable is clearly multidimensional, so the model I discuss uses multiple dimensions.

Chapter 7 deals with working time and working conditions legislation and focuses on

significant legislative changes. I will define how I assess such significant pieces of legislation

and use an intersubjectively testable measure for this definition. I have taken every possible step

The distinction I am making here between legislation and outcomes is very similar to the one made in the

political economy literature between instruments and outcomes (Alt and Crystal (1985)).

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to define significant policy changes in a way that will be persuasive, and will certainly not

depend on my own measurements. However, no matter how accurate this measure is, it is

completely possible that two countries start from and arrive at the same policy outcomes, one by

using significant policy changes and the other not. For example, if one country introduces a

comprehensive piece of legislation on unemployment compensation it is likely that any observer

would consider this a significant piece of legislation. On the other hand, if the second country

introduces several dozen legislative pieces for different social groups (agricultural workers,

public sector, industry etc.) on specific aspects of unemployment benefits (duration, conditions,

amounts, healthcare etc.) chances are that none of these pieces of legislation will be considered

important. Chapter 7 will be open to the “outcomes” criticism of policy stability. While I will

demonstrate that one country produces significant legislation and the other does not, it is possible

that there is no difference in the outcomes over a long period of time.

Chapter 8 addresses macroeconomic policies and focuses on outcomes, without

addressing the issue of policies directly. The outcomes considered are budget deficits, inflation,

and the composition of budget of different countries. There is no way to see directly whether

these outcomes were due to direct government design, or to other government policies (like

deterioration of trade because of foreign policy reasons), or to random events (changes in

unemployment because of international conditions), or to a high or low sensitivity of the budget

to outside factors. I will try to control for some of these possibilities by introducing dummy

variables for each country, so that whatever the policy reason affecting the budget structure it is

controlled for. However, this analysis is not immune to a “policies” objection to policy stability

argument. It is possible that these changes in budget outcomes do not reflect changes in budget

policies.