Characterizing Party Influence in Legislatures: A Cross-National Analysis

这项研究从一个关于立法机构的基本问题开始：政党和政党制度何时对立法结果产生影响？传统观点认为，在议会制中，控制哪些提案被考虑、哪些修正案被允许以及投票如何进行的多数党或联盟可以确保其想要的结果。然而，虽然议程权力很重要，但它并不是决定性的。有一些众所周知的例子，政党或联盟似乎控制了他们的议院，但却无法确保他们想要的结果。这些例子表明，多数党或联合政府所能取得的成就存在根本性的限制。这些限制是什么？它们为什么会出现？研究人员从立法机构影响结果的假设出发，但关注一个更基本的约束：政党偏好对立法行动的限制。这项研究的前提是，议程权力的潜力是由政党制度塑造的——立法机构中政党的数量、规模和意识形态分布，包括少数政党的偏好。分析的目的是理解偏好、规则和结果之间的关系。例如，如果议程控制传达了一种优势，那么即使偏好保持不变，掌握这种权力的人的变化也会改变结果。如果议程控制无关紧要，那么议程权力的变化对立法结果的影响很小或没有影响。相反，结果对政党偏好的变化很敏感。因此，解释立法结果的尝试必须区分制度的影响和政党和联盟中变化的作用。这项研究的智力价值源于理论、假设检验和现实世界数据的紧密联系。在研究人员之前的工作（SES-0241778）的基础上，他们提出了一种统一的分析方法，重点关注所有立法机构共有的一件事：多数决定原则。问题的关键不在于美国众议院与英国议会或俄罗斯杜马一样。相反，研究人员的目的是理解为什么这些立法机构的运作方式如此不同，为什么政党和联盟在一些立法机构中似乎很强大，而在其他立法机构中却没有，以及为什么政党或联盟在一些国家的影响力随着时间的推移而变化。这项工作的更广泛影响在于它关注民主和多数人统治的基本问题。无论是作为学者还是作为公民，当一个人观察民主的运作时，关于过程公平性的结论，以及对事情发生的原因的评估，都是基于对政党、机构和战略在创造这些结果中的作用的假设。这个项目的目标是发展一套更好的期望和见解，以指导学者和公民在民主进程中作为观察员和参与者发挥作用。

This research begins with a fundamental question about legislatures: when do parties and party systems matter for legislative outcomes? The conventional wisdom is that in a parliamentary system, a majority party or coalition that controls which proposals are considered, what amendments are allowed, and how voting proceeds can secure whichever outcomes it wants. However, while agenda power is important, it is not decisive. There are well-known cases where parties or coalitions appear to control their chamber, but could not secure their desired outcomes. These examples suggest there are fundamental limits on what a majority party or coalition can achieve. What are these limits, and why do they arise?The researchers start from the assumption that legislative institutions shape outcomes, but focus on a more fundamental constraint: the limits on legislative action created by party preferences. The premise of this research is that the potential for agenda power is shaped by the party system - the number, size, and ideological distribution of parties in the legislature, including the preferences of minority parties. The analysis aims at understanding the relationship between preferences, rules, and outcomes. For example, if agenda control conveys an advantage, changes in who holds this power alters outcomes, even if preferences stay the same. If agenda control is irrelevant, then changes in agenda power have little or no effect on legislative outcomes. Outcomes instead are sensitive to changes in party preferences. Thus, attempts to explain legislative outcomes must distinguish between the impact of institutions and the role of variation in parties and coalitions. The intellectual merit of this research stems from a tight linkage of theory, hypothesis tests, and real-world data. Building on the researchers' previous work (SES-0241778), they propose a unified analytic approach, focusing on the one thing shared by all legislatures: majority rule. The point is not that the U.S. House is the same as the British Parliament or the Russian Duma. Rather, the researchers aim at understanding why these legislatures operate so differently, why parties and coalitions are seemingly powerful in some legislatures but not others, and why party or coalition influence in some countries varies over time. The broader impact of this work lies in its focus on fundamental questions of democracy and majority rule. When one observes democracy in action, whether as scholars or as citizens, the conclusions about the fairness of the process as well as the evaluations of why things happened as they did are based on assumptions about the role of parties, institutions, and strategies in creating these outcomes. The goal in this project is to develop a better set of expectations and insights to guide both scholars and citizens in their roles as observers and as participants in the democratic process.