Agenda Power in Democratic Legislatures

民主立法机构的议程权力

• 批准号: 9905224
• 负责人: Gary Cox
• 金额: $ 18.84万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-07-01 至 2003-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9905224&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Agenda; Power; Democratic; Legislatures

In this proposal, we describe research into the nature and consequences of agenda power in democratic legislatures. We focus in particular on two (sets of) questions. The first set asks: is agenda power a "natural monopoly" that one should expect routinely to see in the hands of the government or majority?; should we generally expect a group of legislators to act as a "legislative cartel" that concentrates agenda power in the hands of their chosen leaders and excludes those not in the group?; or do the positional advantages of the median legislator or group trump procedural powers, so that policy outcomes are centrist, regardless of which party or coalition is in government? The second set asks: what would the observable consequences be if agenda power is cartelized by a governing (government or majority) coalition?; how would agendas constructed by governing coalitions differ from agendas constructed directly on the floor by majority votes and what would be the effect on public policy? We believe that the cartelization of agenda power is generally to be expected in democracies around the world. We show that the consequences of cartelizing agenda power are far more striking on the negative side (keeping things off the legislative agenda) than they are on the positive side (pushing bills through to final passage). We expect little variation in governing coalitions' success at preventing bills that majorities of those coalitions dislike from appearing on the floor agenda, and we find little variation empirically in the cases that we survey. Homogeneous coalitions, heterogeneous coalitions, and in-between coalitions all compile near-perfect records in terms of negative agenda control. In contrast, the heterogeneity of the governing coalition should theoretically and does empirically seem to covary with the size of the coalitions' positive agenda: more homogeneous coalitions attempt to pass, and succeed in passing, more bills. To put this conclusion in another way, party governing is not "conditoinal" when it comes to negative agenda control, only when it comes to positive agenda control. To complete this project, we plan to assemble a multi-chamber cross-national dataset on legislative organization and decisionmaking. The primary data in which we are interested are (1) votes (or other pertinent information, such as committee dissents) that bear on the setting of the floor agenda: and (2) votes on final passage of bills. Of secondary interest are (3) use of party resources in pursuing the agenda of the government or majority party, (4) intermediate votes, either those setting the terms and rules of debate on the floor or those concerning substantive amendments, and (5) identification of the reversionary policy, if any.

在这项提案中，我们描述了对民主立法机构中议程权力的性质和后果的研究。我们特别关注两个(组)问题。第一组问题是：议程权力是一种“自然垄断”，人们应该经常看到它掌握在政府或多数派手中吗？我们是否应该普遍认为，一群立法者会充当一个“立法卡特尔”，将议程权力集中在他们选择的领导人手中，并将那些不在该集团中的人排除在外？还是说，中间立法者或团体的地位优势胜过程序权力，这样无论哪个政党或联合政府执政，政策结果都是中间派的？第二组问题是：如果议程权力由执政(政府或多数派)联盟卡特尔，将会有什么可观察到的后果？由执政联盟构建的议程与通过多数投票直接在议会构建的议程有何不同？对公共政策有什么影响？我们认为，议程权力的卡特尔化在世界各地的民主国家中是普遍可预期的。我们表明，卡特尔议程权力的负面影响(将事情排除在立法议程之外)远比积极方面(推动法案通过最终通过)更令人震惊。我们预计，执政联盟在阻止大多数联盟不喜欢的法案出现在议事日程上的成功方面几乎没有变化，我们在我们调查的案例中发现，经验上几乎没有变化。同质联盟、异质联盟和中间联盟在负面议程控制方面都积累了近乎完美的记录。相比之下，执政联盟的异质性在理论上和经验上似乎与联合政府的积极议程的规模是一致的：更多同质化的联盟试图通过更多法案，并成功通过更多法案。换句话说，当涉及到消极的议程控制时，政党执政并不是“无条件的”，只有当涉及到积极的议程控制时才是“无条件的”。为了完成这个项目，我们计划汇编一个关于立法组织和决策的多议院跨国数据集。我们感兴趣的主要数据是(1)与发言议程设置有关的投票(或其他相关信息，如委员会的异议)：和(2)对法案最终通过的投票。次要的利益是：(3)利用政党资源推动政府或多数党的议程；(4)中间投票，即制定发言辩论条款和规则的投票，或与实质性修正案有关的投票；以及(5)确定复归政策(如果有的话)。