Veto Players, Political Institutions a. Institutional Constraints- 3rd dec. Data-set 1, Veto Players In: „Comparative Politics“/ Prof. Giuliani/ 1st trim./ 2009

General Information  Data-set in ms excel files available on George Tsebelis‘ section of the website of the University of Michigan  Author is Tsebelis, the creator of Veto player theory, who used it to calculate the number of veto players… Contains: Government compositions in advanced industrialized countries, as well as the ideological positions of the parties involved.-starting from 1945 until

Variables 6 general variables (values):  Government number- CN  Dates of government formation/ coded in year, month, day  Dates of government dissolution/ -  Government duration / in days  Numbers of seats in parliament for each party  Government participation for each party/ 1=yes, missing value =no (parties called p1 to p24 are noted in the code sheet)

Ideological Variables:  Ideological score for each party, measured by 4 different models…  Warwick (1994): index created from 40 different measures, containing experts, expert surveys and party manifestos, 1 dimensional (on a left-right scale)  Castles a. Mair (1984): also based on expert judgments of 115 political scientist placing the parties on a left-right scale from 0 to 10, a party‘s value was the average of given responses  Huber a. Inglehart (1995): also based on expert surveys  Laver a. Hunt (1992): 20 point scale, based on expert opinions, for party score Tsebelis used Laver a. Hunt s 1st dimension („raising taxes to increase public serices“ and the opposite)

New variables based on the 4 indices:  Tsebelis calculated for each government the difference between the 2 extremist parties, regardless of how many being part of it -this he did with all 4 indices (e.g.: LHRANGE, CMRANGE,..) Underlying assumption: according to veto player theory, the ideological range between parties in government has a strong effect, for example it strongly affects the ability to enact significant legislature. But it is of no importance how many parties are in between, they are not counted as veto players.  Tsebelis calculated the mid-range ideological level of a government concerning policies, in oder to be able to compare each government (except the 1st in the DS) with ist preceding one. Because: „The greater the difference between……….

two succeeding governments is, the higher the probability that the 2nd passes significant laws.“ –again related to the question of „policy stability“ Finally 3 variables regarding the composition of government: Minority Party government / 1=yes, 0=no Oversize government/ - Minimum winning coalition (also single party MWC‘s) / -

Direct outcome of the Data-set: the number of veto players… In the narrow sense, a Veto Players can only be a political institution. In the comparison (from ´45 onward) of Western Europe, the Veto players have almost always been the political parties in government. European exceptions: If a Player can prevent the passing of a law, he is considered a Veto Player. For example, a president‘s or a 2nd chamber‘s effective Veto (Portugal, Germany). In these cases Tsebelis adds 1 Veto Player. Note: Also in cases of Minority government Tsebelis does not see the parliament as VP over the governing party, because the latter can defend with confidence vote and has the advantage to be centrally located.

Research: Veto player theory can for example be applied to examine the budget/ public spending on a national or international level and over time. However, seemingly, it is most frequently tested upon the concept of „policy stability“- defined as the inability or limited ability to pass significant laws. If the system is unable to react to „exogenous shocks“, due to no or not enough significant laws, this might become visible with an increase of the judiciary‘s or bureaucracy‘s role. Policy stability can affect coalition stability (duration) or even regime stability (in presidential systems).