Do party system parameters explain differences in legislative organization? : Fragmentation, polarization, and the density of regulation in European parliaments, 1945–2009

The article studies whether the party system characteristics fragmentation and ideological polarization increase the density of institutional regulation in parliaments. It introduces a comprehensive time-series-cross-sectional dataset of standing orders in 15 Western European parliaments that allows studying how densely various fields of legislative activity such as lawmaking, controlling the government, and creating publicity were regulated over a period of more than 60 years. Descriptively, the data show increased regulation in all areas but also some variation between countries. Dynamic panel regression analyses for non-stationary time series find no systematic effect of fragmentation or polarization on the density of regulation indicating that large parts of legislative organization change for reasons unrelated to party system dynamics. We identify changes in the environment of legislatures such as increasing complexity and professionalization of politics, technological change, and Europeanization as potential drivers of such Pareto-efficient reforms

Die stabilisierende Wirkung politischen Wettbewerbs : warum parlamentarische Mehrheiten Minderheitenrechte kaum fundamental beschneiden und teils sogar ausbauen

Entscheidungen von politischen Akteuren „in eigener Sache“ werden in Öffentlichkeit und Wissenschaft zu Recht kritisch betrachtet. Führen diese nicht zwangsläufig dazu, dass politische Parteien eigene Interessen verfolgen und damit Gemeinwohlüberlegungen auf der Strecke bleiben? Diese Frage stellt sich besonders bei Themen wie der Parteienfinanzierung, in denen Parteien gemeinsame Interessen haben und diese im Sinne einer Kartelllogik auf Kosten der Gesamtgesellschaft durchsetzen können. Ohne die Relevanz dieser Problematik abzustreiten, argumentiert dieser Beitrag, dass Entscheidungen in eigener Sache weniger problematisch sein können, wenn sie dem politischen Wettbewerb unterworfen sind und illustriert diese Logik am Fall parlamentarischer Geschäftsordnungsreformen, die Minderheitenrechte im Parlament verändern

Machtgewinnung oder Bauer auf dem Schachbrett? : Der Effekt von Ministerienreorganisation auf die Arbeitsmotivation von Spitzenbeamten

Regierungen schneiden häufig die Zuständigkeiten und Struktur von Ministerien neu zu, um die Ämter- und Policy-Ziele der Regierungsparteien umzusetzen oder die politische Kontrolle über die Bürokratie zu erhöhen. Aber welche Auswirkungen haben derartige Reformen auf die Arbeitsmotivation und Performanz in der Ministerialbürokratie? Auf Basis der Selbstbestimmungstheorie („self-determination theory“) ist zu erwarten, dass Reformen die Möglichkeit von Bürokrat*innen reduzieren, ihre grundlegenden psychologischen Bedürfnisse nach Kompetenz, Autonomie und sozialer Eingebundenheit zu befriedigen, was ihre Arbeitsmotivation reduzieren sollte. Dieser negative Effekt sollte schwächer ausfallen, wenn Bürokrat*innen die Reform als substanziell gerechtfertigt und langfristig vorteilhaft ansehen im Vergleich zu Reformen, die als ausschließlich machtpolitisch motiviert wahrgenommen werden. Diese theoretischen Erwartungen bestätigen sich in Interviews mit deutschen Spitzenbeamt*innen in zwei Politikfeldern (Bauwesen und Verbraucherschutz), die in jüngerer Vergangenheit wiederholt zwischen Ministerien verschoben wurden. Der Aufsatz zeigt, dass organisatorischer Wandel selbst bei Spitzenbeamt*innen Auswirkungen auf die Arbeitsmotivation hat. Diese Befunde haben weiterreichende Implikationen für unser Verständnis der Motivation und Performanz von Bürokrat*innen sowie der unbeabsichtigten Nebenwirkungen von Verwaltungsreformen.Governments often reallocate administrative units among ministries to meet parties’ office and policy demands or to increase political control over the bureaucracy. How do such reforms affect the work motivation and performance of ministerial bureaucrats? Based on self-determination theory, this paper expects detrimental effects on bureaucrats’ ability to meet the basic psychological needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness, which should reduce work motivation. This negative effect should be weaker when bureaucrats perceive a substantive rationale and long-term benefits of the reform compared to changes perceived as driven solely by party-political goals. We find support for these expectations in interviews with top-level ministerial bureaucrats in Germany working in two policy areas (public construction and consumer protection) that were frequently reallocated between ministries. The study shows that organizational change also affects work motivation among top-level bureaucrats and has broader implications for understanding civil servants’ motivations and performance as well as unintended consequences of public sector reforms

Recorded votes as attention booster : how opposition parties use roll calls and nonrecorded votes for position taking in the German Bundestag, 2017–21

The article investigates roll-call request and its effects on opposition-voting behavior. It argues that parties use roll-call votes (RCVs) as a position-taking instrument to boost public attention for issues they care about. This argument implies that RCVs are requested strategically but opposition behavior should not differ systematically between recorded and nonrecorded votes. Studying all voting activities of the 19th German Bundestag (2017–21), the analysis shows that RCVs are more likely on high-salience issues, more important motion types, and to some extent opposition motions. Voting conforms to the position-taking model as opposition parties are less likely to vote with the government on their own motions and more important motion types. However, opposition behavior does not differ systematically between recorded and nonrecorded votes suggesting that parties act consistently across all votes. Thus, RCVs provide valid measures for studying interparty competition in parliament despite their selective sampling properties

Colleagues or adversaries: Ministerial coordination across party lines

In multiparty governments, policymaking is a collaborative effort among the different incumbent parties. Often hidden by public debates about broader government policy, the necessary coordination routinely happens at the ministerial level, where ministries of different parties jointly devise viable and equitable policy solutions. However, since coordination involves substantial transaction costs, governments must carefully gauge the potential benefits. We study the political rationales that motivate governments to make this investment. We argue that coordination during the process of ministerial policy design hinges on both a conducive ministerial structure and sufficient authority. Once these conditions are met, cross‐party coordination is more likely in policy areas where the implementation of government policy cannot be taken for granted. We investigate these claims, drawing on two new datasets. The first contains information about ministerial collaborations on all legislative projects sponsored by German governments, while the second maps the distribution of policy responsibilities among German ministries from 1976 until 2013, based on data about the policy briefs of all individual working units within the top‐level federal executive. Given that ministries imprint their own perspective on legislation, our results are beyond administrative pedantries, but have substantial implications for the type and content of policies coalition governments formulate

Rebuilding the coalition ship at sea : how uncertainty and complexity drive the reform of portfolio design in coalition cabinets

In the government formation process, coalition partners make decisions about the inner workings of their future government. However, whether the initial allocation of competencies has the desired effects is uncertain, and deals may therefore be subject to change when the government is in office. This study analyses the frequency of changes in portfolio design (i.e. the distribution of competencies among government ministries and office holders) for 112 coalition governments in eight West European democracies (1970–2015). Its central argument is that in uncertain and complex bargaining situations, coalition partners have greater difficulty finding mutually beneficial deals, and changes to the initial allocation of payoffs are therefore more likely. The results indicate that preference divergence and strenuous coalition negotiations make portfolio design reforms more likely, but show no consistent effect of the familiarity among government parties. These findings show how the bargaining context during government formation foreshadows coalition governance over the cabinet’s life-cycle

COVID-19 in parliamentary debates: opposition sentiment started out relatively positive towards the government but increasingly became more negative

Or Tuttnauer, Tom Louwerse, Rudy Andeweg, and Ulrich Sieberer analyse opposition party sentiment in relation to government actions and policies during the first six months of 2020. Drawing on parliamentary debates in four countries, including the UK, they observe an initial positive opposition sentiment which turned more negative as the first wave abated

Insights into the consensus machine of parliament: The conference of presidents in the Austrian National Council

Parliaments are arenas of political dispute, but at the same time they require a generally accepted basic consensus and its concrete implementation in organisational issues such as the design of the parliamentary agenda and the handling of procedural conflicts. To resolve such conflicts, many parliaments use coordination committees, consisting of members of the presidium and representatives of the parliamentary groups. The article at hand analyses the Presiding Conference (PK) in the Austrian National Council as such a coordination committee on the basis of detailed interviews with its members. What role does the PK play in setting the agenda in the National Council and what mechanisms does it use to establish and reproduce a basic procedural consensus? The analysis shows that the PK and the preparatory informal round of club directors primarily determine the National Council\u27s timetable agenda and serve as a coordinating body for a wide range of procedural and organisational issues. The highly consensual interaction in the PK can be explained by six institutional mechanisms - personality-oriented or interaction-based - including the strict separation of procedural and political decisions, the orientation towards precedents, the anticipation of obstruction possibilities, a consensus-oriented understanding of members\u27 roles and the repeated interaction in a small, confidential and highly professionalised group. These theoretical mechanisms can be generalised beyond the National Council and show how parliamentary organisation can promote stable and fair parliamentarianism even under conditions of political polarisation.Parlamente sind Arenen des politischen Streits, bedürfen aber gleichzeitig eines allgemein akzeptierten Grundkonsenses und dessen konkreter Umsetzung in organisatorischen Fragen wie der Gestaltung der Tagesordnung und dem Umgang mit prozeduralen Konflikten. Zur Lösung solcher Konflikte nutzen viele Parlamente Koordinationsausschüsse bestehend aus Mitgliedern des Präsidiums und Vertretern der Parlamentsfraktionen. Dieser Aufsatz untersucht die Präsidialkonferenz (PK) im österreichischen Nationalrats als ein solches Gremium auf Grundlage detaillierter Interviews mit seinen Mitgliedern. Welche Rolle spielt die PK bei der Agendasetzung im Nationalrat und über welche Mechanismen es ihr gelingt, einen prozeduralen Grundkonsens herzustellen und zu reproduzieren? Die Analyse zeigt, dass die PK und die vorbereitende informelle Runde der Klubdirektor:innen vor allem die Zeitplanagenda des Nationalrats bestimmt und als Koordinationsgremium für verschiedenste prozedurale und organisatorische Themen dient. Die hochgradig konsensuelle Interaktion in der PK erklärt sich durch sechs institutionelle, persönlichkeitsorientierte und interaktionsbasierte Mechanismen, darunter die strikte Trennung von prozeduralen und politisch-inhaltlichen Entscheidungen, die Orientierung an Präzedenzfällen, die Antizipation von Obstruktionsmöglichkeiten, ein konsensorientiertes Rollenverständnis der Mitglieder und die wiederholte Interaktion in einer kleinen, vertraulichen und hochgradig professionalisierten Gruppe. Diese theoretischen Mechanismen sind über den Nationalrat hinaus generalisierbar und zeigen, wie parlamentarische Organisation auch unter Bedingungen politischer Polarisierung einen stabilen und fairen Parlamentarismus fördern kann