Restrictive Legislative Procedures, Party Bargaining and Political Performance in Advanced Industrial Democracies

9321089胡贝尔这项调查考察了议会程序对先进工业民主国家决策过程的影响。该项目特别侧重于限制民选代表通过修正进程形成最终政策成果的程序。这些程序包括信任投票、授权立法、一揽子投票和断头台(或时间表程序)。这项研究的一个显著特点是它具有真正的可比性。这一点很重要，因为尽管现有的议会程序理论得出的预测应该可以在不同国家进行实证检验，但之前的实证研究几乎完全集中在美国国会。因此，学者们很难为关于立法规则和程序的可比性的主张辩护，也很难指出可以指导特定制度安排选择的一般理论。第二个重要特点是，该研究探讨了议会程序与政治表现的两个重要方面之间的联系：政策成果的性质和内阁的稳定程度。关于政策结果，研究将特别侧重于解释各种体制结构如何影响政治家采取新政策的能力(即改变现状)，并解释特定的体制结构是否鼓励相对于立法机构中位数成员的偏好系统地温和或系统地极端的政策结果。通过将重点放在真正比较的背景下的立法规则和政治表现上，这项研究将澄清政治家在设计其议会程序规则时所作的选择。最后一点与新兴民主国家的个人尤其相关，他们必须首次设计程序，使立法机构能够在决策过程中扮演更多象征性的角色。***

9321089 Huber This investigation examines the impact of parliamentary procedures on policy-making processes in advanced industrial democracies. The project focuses in particular on procedures that restrict the opportunities for elected representatives to shape final policy outcomes through the amendment process. Such procedures include confidence votes, delegated legislation, package votes, and guillotines (or timetable procedures). One significant feature of the study is that it is genuinely comparative. This is important because although existing theories of parliamentary procedures yield predictions that should be empirically testable across countries, previous empirical research focuses almost exclusively on the U.S. Congress. Consequently, it is difficult for scholars to defend claims about the comparative properties of legislative rules and procedures, or to point to general theories that can guide the choice of particular institutional arrangements. A second significant feature is that the study explores linkages between parliamentary procedures and two important aspects of political performance: the nature of policy outcomes and levels of cabinet stability. With respect to policy outcomes, the research will focus in particular on explaining how various institutional structures influence the ability of politicians to adopt new policies (i.e., move away from the status quo), and on explaining whether particular institutional structures encourage policy outcomes that are systematically moderate or systematically extreme relative to the preferences of the median member of the legislature. By focusing on legislative rules and political performance in a genuinely comparative context, the study will clarify choices that politicians make in designing their rules of parliamentary procedure. This final point is especially relevant for individuals in nascent democracies ho for the first time must design procedures that will enable legislatures to pla y more than a symbolic role in the policy-making process. ***