Doctoral Dissertation in Political Science: Evaluating the Determinants of Upper House Assertion

政治学博士论文：评估上议院主张的决定因素

• 批准号: 0418503
• 负责人: William Chandler
• 金额: $ 1.28万
• 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: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-09-01 至 2005-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0418503&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Political; Science; Evaluating

All upper chambers possess constitutional standing, suggesting that they should have influence within the legislative process. The literature on parliaments until recently has disregarded the role of upper chambers in parliamentary democracies as practically non-existent. These arguments have centered on both the composition and the institutional weakness of the upper chamber vis-a- vis the lower chamber. Recent work in the area of formal modeling has suggested, however, that policy outcomes are different under bicameral institutions than under unicameral institutions, despite the variations in bicameral institutional arrangements. Yet the circumstances under which upper chambers use their authority, and its ultimate effect on policy outcomes remains understudied, as current research either, does not test their models against the empirical record, or relies primarily on one case. This project expands on current research by examining not only institutional factors which may explain upper house assertion in the legislative process, but also the impact of party factors (such as party discipline) and policy preferences of the median legislator in the upper chamber in four parliamentary democracies (Belgium, Ireland, Germany, and the United Kingdom). NSF support will be used to travel to each capital for one month to access parliamentary debate records, archival information, and interviews where necessary. Investigation based on these sources is essential to understanding the circumstances under which upper chambers use their authority to intervene in the policy making process. The presence of an upper chamber has been hypothesized to affect not only policy outcomes in stable democracies, but has also been a significant area of debate within developing democracies and the literature on how deeply divided societies should be governed. In addition to their effect on policy outcomes, it has been noted that even those upper chambers that are viewed as institutionally weak, have recently become more assertive in dealing with governments in the lower house. In many cases, this increase in upper chamber assertion has required governments to amend or drop bills altogether, which suggests that blanket rejections of upper house influence are misleading. This project expands on current research in comparative parliamentary studies to examine how institutional effects can shape the costs of overriding the upper chamber, as well as examine the role of party discipline and policy preferences of the upper chamber in determining when to use institutional authority strategically to obtain their desired outcome. Existing data and newly collected and operationalized data will be used in this analysis. Broader Impact NSF funding for this research project will provide the co-PI the resources to collect and code relevant data on upper chamber assertion within the legislative process in a more systematic manner and for a wider range of cases than is currently offered by the literature. Data collected by this project will be made publicly available for academic, research, and noncommercial purposes, and will be of useful for scholarship in the area of comparative legislative studies, as well as the affects of bicameral institutional structures on parliamentary systems, and institutional engineering in developing democracies.

所有上议院都拥有宪法地位，这表明它们应该在立法过程中发挥影响力。直到最近，有关议会的文献都忽视了议会民主制中上议院的作用，认为实际上根本不存在。 这些争论集中在上议院相对于下议院的组成和制度弱点。然而，形式模型领域最近的工作表明，尽管两院制制度安排存在差异，但两院制制度下的政策结果与一院制制度下是不同的。然而，上议院在何种情况下使用其权力及其对政策结果的最终影响仍未得到充分研究，因为当前的研究也没有根据经验记录来检验他们的模型，或者主要依赖于一个案例。 该项目扩展了当前的研究，不仅研究了可以解释立法过程中上议院主张的制度因素，还研究了四个议会民主国家（比利时、爱尔兰、德国和英国）的政党因素（例如政党纪律）和上议院中间立法者的政策偏好的影响。 NSF 的支持将用于前往每个首都一个月，以获取议会辩论记录、档案信息，并在必要时进行采访。 基于这些来源的调查对于了解上议院利用其权力干预政策制定过程的情况至关重要。 据推测，上议院的存在不仅会影响稳定民主国家的政策结果，而且也是发展中民主国家争论的一个重要领域，也是有关如何治理分裂严重的社会的文献。除了对政策结果的影响之外，人们还注意到，即使是那些被视为制度薄弱的上议院，最近在与下议院政府打交道时也变得更加自信。在许多情况下，上议院主张的增加要求政府完全修改或放弃法案，这表明全面拒绝上议院的影响力具有误导性。该项目扩展了当前比较议会研究的研究，以研究制度效应如何影响凌驾于上议院的成本，并研究政党纪律和上议院政策偏好在确定何时战略性地使用制度权威以获得其预期结果方面的作用。现有数据以及新收集和操作的数据将用于此分析。 更广泛的影响 NSF对该研究项目的资助将为共同PI提供资源，以比目前文献提供的更系统的方式和更广泛的案例收集和编码立法过程中上议院主张的相关数据。该项目收集的数据将公开用于学术、研究和非商业目的，并将有助于比较立法研究领域的学术研究，以及两院制制度结构对议会制度的影响，以及发展中民主国家的制度工程。