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会对立法结果产生影响？传统的看法是，在议会制中，一个多数党或联盟控制着哪些提案被考虑，哪些修正案被允许，以及投票如何进行，可以确保任何它想要的结果。然而，尽管议程权力很重要，但它并不是决定性的。有一些众所周知的案例，政党或联盟似乎控制了他们的议院，但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限制。这些限制是什么？为什么会出现这些限制？研究人员从立法机构塑造结果的假设出发，但关注一个更根本的限制：由政党偏好造成的对立法行动的限制。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，包括少数党的偏好。分析的目的是了解偏好、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，那么谁拥有这种权力的变化就会改变结果，即使偏好保持不变。如果议程控制无关紧要，那么议程权力的变化对立法结果几乎没有影响。相反，选举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体制的影响和政党和联盟中的差异所起的作用。这项研究的学术价值来自于理论、假设检验和现实世界数据的紧密联系。在研究人员先前工作(SES-0241778)的基础上，他们提出了一种统一的分析方法，专注于所有立法机构共有的一件事：多数原则。问题的关键并不是美国众议院与英国议会或俄罗斯杜马相同。相反，研究人员的目的是了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似乎很强大，但在另一些立法机构却不是，为什么一些国家的政党或联盟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侧重于民主和多数统治的基本问题。当人们观察民主的行动时，无论是作为学者还是作为公民，关于这一过程的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方面的作用的假设。该项目的目标是制定一套更好的期望和见解，以指导学者和公民作为观察员和民主进程参与者的作用。

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.