Institutional Veto Research Articles

Legislative powers, veto players, and the emergence of delegative democracy: A comparison of presidentialism in the Philippines and South Korea

This article integrates institutional and rational choice approaches to policy making to explain the emergence of delegative democracy in presidential systems. Delegative democracy, in essence, is a polyarchy which violates the rules and norms that secure the checks on the effective political power of democratically elected presidents at the horizontal level of the relations of the executive, legislature and judiciary. The article argues that delegative democracy is the result of the interaction of two variables: the strength and types of presidents' legislative powers and the configuration of institutional and partisan veto players. Strong, proactive legislative powers and weak veto players permit presidents to establish a delegative democracy; weak, reactive legislative powers and strong veto players hamper the emergence of delegative democracy. This general assumption explains why presidentialism in South Korea and in the Philippines developed in different directions in the 1980s and 1990s. The analysis shows that in case of moderate legislative powers of the president, the number, coherence and ideological distance of partisan veto players becomes particularly important. It suggests that studies of democratic regimes should give special emphasis to the rules regulating the distribution of legislative powers between presidents and parliaments and the configuration of veto players.

National adaptation to European integration: institutional vetoes and goodness-of-fit

Despite extensive research examining the implications of European integration, the determinants of national adaptation to EU legislation remain poorly understood. There is particular debate as to whether successful adaptation is determined by the compatibility of national and European procedures and practices ('goodness-of-fit'), or domestic institutional veto points. When implementing the Packaging Waste Directive, Britain introduced new legislation swiftly despite severe mismatches between European and national standards and regulatory styles. However, the German government encountered prolonged difficulties negotiating domestic veto points despite making only incremental changes to existing legislation. Whilst this contradicts 'goodness-of-fit' explanations of integration, the situation was reversed for implementation of the Directive's environmental objectives, with Germany exceeding European requirements but Britain struggling to achieve compliance. It is argued that although institutional vetoes are important during transposition, national resistance is often prompted by poor policy fit during both legal and practical implementation.