Negative Decision Powers and Institutional Equilibrium: Experiments On Blocking Coalitions

Abstract

VER the past decade an important strand of political science research has turned to studying actors' behavioral strategies within political institutions. This new institutionalism has focused largely on legislative processes, with the approaches to that study varying from the historical to the analytical (see the discussion by Shepsle 1986). The principal question asked by these researchers is: In what ways do institutions affect the actions of political agents? The study carried out here relies on analytic methods and empirical testing to demonstrate one general institutional procedure that changes the behavior of political actors. We do not offer a general theory characterizing all institutional effects on behavior. Instead, we concentrate on agenda which impede political decision making. This focus provides insight into the effects of disparate negative agenda powers such as executive vetoes, bureaucratic intransigence, pigeon-holing legislation by committees, and filibustering. The study of agenda processes has dominated much of the analytic work on political institutions. Largely this is due to the importance of agendas for translating individual preferences into collective choices. Agenda procedures are not dictated by happenstance. They are endogenous to political institutions and are defined by detailed rules and precedents. For example, the House of Representatives adheres to strict procedures for the introduction, discussion, and passage of general legislation. Bills placed in the legislative hopper are typically routed to a committee of jurisdiction, legislation is returned to the committee-of-the-whole under well-defined rules, and the processes governing voting on the legislation are well-understood (see Oleszek 1984). Two major points have emerged from the formal study of agenda processes. The first is that the structure of an agenda matters for political choices. Plott and Levine (1978) demonstrate, both theoretically and empirically, that the order of an agenda dictates the outcomes selected by