Majority Coalition Research Articles

Position-taking in the Euro crisis

ABSTRACT The decisions faced by members of the European Union (EU) during the sovereign debt crisis focused on fiscal policies in the Eurozone and structural reforms in the countries that experienced fiscal problems. Who sided with whom in these decision processes and why? We posit that states in strong economic positions will minimize the expense of supporting weaker economies because those economically strong states do not see austerity measures for themselves in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, less competitive states seek to avoid austerity measures because, even if an austerity outcome that imposes heavy costs on their state is inevitable, vocal opposition to the measures will minimize the electoral costs incurred by the government. States that are neither competitive nor uncompetitive should avoid taking an open position and simply support a majority coalition. Empirically, we show that the competiveness of a given state’s national economy is the major explanatory factor for the position it ultimately takes.

Holding versus Dicta

Who controls the content of the majority opinion on the U.S. Supreme Court? Previous research offers conflicting views; however, these studies assume that a single justice exerts primary influence over the entire opinion. In contrast, we argue that different justices control holding (the legal determination that sets binding precedent) and dicta (unnecessary comments that lack precedential value). We argue that the bargaining process enables the median justice in the majority coalition to control holding, while the opinion author controls dicta. We test the empirical expectations of our theory on the concurrence behavior of Supreme Court justices: special concurrences reflect disagreement with holding, whereas general concurrences often reflect disagreement with dicta. The results support our theory that the bargaining process divides control over holding and dicta, which can produce ambiguity and confusion in the law.

Teorie her, formování koalic a koncentrace politické moci v zastupitelstvu hlavního města Prahy

The objective of the paper is to study the political development in the Prague City Assembly after three elections in 2006, 2010, and 2014. The theory of voting games, the Shapley-Shubik and Banzhaf power indexes, and theories of coalition formation are used for an analysis of possible majority coalitions. We developed the mayor's power index that measures the probability that the party will be the strongest party in the majority coalition with the right having a mayor. Measures of concentration of political power are used for evaluating the processes of political fragmentation. The increased number of political parties represented in the Prague City Assembly highly increased the number of possible coalitions and the number of political parties needed to form majority coalitions. The process of political fragmentation is probably not limited only to the Prague City Assembly.

The Political Economy of Multilateral Aid Funds

In 2014 over $60 billion was mobilized to help developing nations mitigate climate change, an amount equivalent to the GDP of Kenya. Interestingly, breaking from the traditional model of bilateral aid, donor countries distributed nearly fifty percent of their aid through multilateral aid funds (OECD, 2015). In this paper, we show that by delegating aid spending to an international fund, donor countries mitigate a hold-up problem that occurs when donor countries are tempted to allocate aid based on, say, a regional preference. That is, under bilateral aid, donor-country bias decreases the incentive of recipient countries to invest in measures such as good governance that increase the effectiveness of aid. By delegating allocation decisions to a fund, however, donor countries commit to allocating aid via centralized bargaining, which provides recipient countries with an increased incentive to invest. Additionally, we show that allocating funding by majority rule further increases recipient-country investment, since higher investment increases the probability that a recipient's project will be selected by the endogenous majority coalition, and detail conditions under which majority is the optimal voting rule.

Діяльність єврейських релігійних партій як важливий чинник у створенні коаліційних більшостей у державі Ізраїль у період 1948–1977 років

Діяльність єврейських релігійних партій як важливий чинник у створенні коаліційних більшостей у державі Ізраїль у період 1948–1977 років

Congressional Assertions of the Spending Power: Institutional Conflict and Regulatory Authority

This study seeks to answer a crucial and unexplored question about American regulatory law and policy: How do majority coalitions in Congress use the spending power to circumvent intra-branch conflict and judicial constraints against regulating by finding alternate avenues to regulate states and private actors? This study provides the first large-scale empirical evidence of congressional use of the spending power to assert implementation authority in the face of constraints against more direct legislating. It is through this process of conditioning funds upon regulatory compliance that Congress works toward ideal policy outcomes without inciting institutional conflict with the other branches or from the opposing party. I base my conditional spending analysis on data on statutory specificity and congressional delegation from the 80th to the 110th Congresses provided by Farhang, and include additional measures of institutional conflict. The above argument is supported by the empirical analysis. (JEL K20, K23)

Transgender inclusion in state non-discrimination policies: The democratic deficit and political powerlessness

Transgender people—people whose gender identity or expression is different from their assigned sex at birth—and their allies advocate for the inclusion of gender identity or transgender in state non-discrimination policies. These policies generally proscribe discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. Courts and administrative agencies have determined discrimination against transgender people is a violation of existing statutes, but there remain efforts by advocates to seek policies that explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of transgender status, which are often the result of legislation going through the political process. A pluralist understanding of the political process theorizes that a majority coalition of minorities can offer social groups policies they support. This rests on the presumption that a majority coalition of minorities should rule. Any indication to the contrary may suggest a democratic deficit, whereby more than a majority is necessary for policy introduction. We find that there is a substantial democratic deficit regarding the inclusion of gender identity or transgender in employment non-discrimination policies. On average, state support for the policy must be 81% in order for the state to have a policy reflecting such sentiment. This leaves substantial implications for the political powerlessness of transgender people in the political process.

The Use of Disagreeable Language in Supreme Court Opinions

We explore the factors that lead Supreme Court justices to integrate disagreeable rhetoric into their written, signed opinions. We suggest that deploying disagreeable rhetoric is a costly exercise that is governed by strategic considerations. In particular, we posit that justices will be more willing to pay the costs of disagreeability for issues that are of high personal or legal significance, while they will prove less willing to employ disagreeable rhetoric as they drive to accommodate an ideologically diverse set of colleagues. Examining judicial opinions from 1946-2011 using text-based measures of negative language, we find consistent evidence on both accounts. Moreover, we find that several predictors are robust across majority, dissenting, and concurring opinions. Finally, to explore one consequence of disagreeable rhetoric, we show that it is negatively related to the size of majority coalitions, suggesting important implications for the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

2013 Washington State Budget-Recession and Basic Education as a Constitutional Paramount Duty

The Washington State budget is between a rock and a hard place, challenged by a slowly recovering economy and the State Supreme Court's McCleary decision. A year after three Democrats shocked their Senate colleagues by uniting with Republicans to engineer a floor takeover of legislative business, attention remains fixed on the majority coalition. Each majority caucus in the House and Senate held their ground through the 2013 105-day regular legislative session, which predictably ended in a standstill with no budget agreement. The political maneuvering and power plays that plagued the regular legislative session continued through two 30-day special sessions, right up to the point where only two days remained before a state government shutdown loomed and lay-off notices to state workers were set to go into effect. A budget deal was finally struck just short of a shutdown. In 2013 at long last Washington State experienced, along with the nation, a slow recovery from the recession and state revenues were on the rise. Washington's economic hopes now rest on tax increases, economic recovery, especially in aerospace, and the potential of new revenue from the regulated production and sale of recreational marijuana made possible through the passage of I-502 in 2012.

Party Behavior and the Formation of Minority Governments - Experiences in Denmark

In many modern democracies, the leaders who make important influential political decisions are highly likely to be party politicians or indeed party leaders. Very often they cannot prepare an adequate strategy for their political parties because it is usually impossible to find out all necessary elements for projecting the goals. It is not surprising that political parties are the most important organizations in modern politics and in the contemporary world, only a few states do without them. The reason that political parties are well-nigh ubiquitous is that they perform functions that are valuable to many political actors. Political parties play a major role in the recruitment of top politicians, on whom the momentous and painful political decisions often fall. With very few exceptions, political chief executives are elected on the slate of some established political party, and very often the head of government continues to serve as the head of the political party that propelled him or her into office. Democracy may be conceived as a process by which voters delegate policy-making authority to a set of representatives, and political parties are the main organizational vehicle by which such delegation takes place. The main aim of this article is focus on the minority government, which are especially common in the Scandinavian countries. They can be more easily formed and maintained where the party system makes it difficult to secure support for an alternative majority coalition to be formed, a vote of investiture is not required, and a government can stay in office unless there is an absolute majority against it. In the article will be emphasized some case studies of Denmark minority government formation and durability. General findings will be confronted with empirical data, which will allow to formulate conclusions about the specific of minority cabinet in Denmark. Key words: party leaders, minority government, coalition, Nordic States, Denmark, party behavior, elections, majority, parliamentary members

When Second‐Best is Still a No‐Brainer: Why Labour Should Shoot for a Majority Coalition in May 2015

AbstractThe chances of Labour winning the 2015 general election with a comfortable overall majority are vanishingly small. It could, however, emerge as the largest party or finish just a handful of seats behind the Conservatives. Either scenario would give it at least a chance—and a bigger chance than many realise, we argue—of forming a government. In that event, Labour may be faced with a choice between getting together with another party (or parties) to form a majority coalition or else forming a minority government (either on its own or with one or more partners), which could assemble different majorities for different pieces of legislation or try to negotiate a ‘confidence and supply’ agreement. Given the precedents from the UK and overseas, we argue that, faced with this dilemma, Labour should do all it can to form a majority coalition. We also argue that Labour can learn some useful lessons from the Cameron–Clegg coalition.

Stabilizacja za wszelką cenę? Negocjacje koalicyjne po wyborach parlamen-tarnych w 2005 roku

The article presents the political situation in Poland after the 2005 Polish parliamentary elections and describes key points of the political program of Law and Justice, which was titled “Czwarta Rzeczpospolita”. The elections in 2005 were won by Law and Justice, a conservative party, who were led by Jarosław Kaczyński. Civic Platform occupied second place. Both parties wanted to cooperate in creating a majority coalition in the lower House of Parliament but the victory of Law and Justice and the troubled negotiations along with the triumph of Lech Kaczyński in the presidential election brought an end to the collaboration between these parties. The victorious party had to look for a partners to govern among the remaining parties. Eventually, the chiefs of Law and Justice decided to sign a stabilization pact with League of Polish Families and Self Defense Party. The agreement, signed in February 2006, did not bring about an end to the crisis of politics in Poland, therefore political leaders decided to announce an early election in 2007.

The Theory of Coalition Formation in Constant Sum Games

Agents compete for a reward by forming coalitions through a sequential process. The probability that a coalition wins the reward depends on the relative size of the coalition in the economy. The winning coalition equally divides the reward among all its members. Agents strategically form coalitions to maximize the expected value of their individual reward share. In the most general framework, I show that the coalition structure at the Stationary Perfect Equilibrium contains at least two coalitions. One coalition consists of at least a majority of the agents. I also characterise the size of the coalition. Further, I derive conditions under which the remaining agents form a single coalition. As examples to this theory, agents estimate their winning probability based on the power of their coalition or relative ranks. I show that the size of the majority coalition formed differs greatly based what parameter agents use to estimate the winning probability.

Calhoun’s concurrent majority as a generality norm

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the political philosophy of John C. Calhoun from the perspective of Virginia Political Economy. Specifically, this paper argues that Calhoun’s theory of the concurrent majority offers a way of operationalizing the “generality norm” of Buchanan and Congleton Politics by principle, not interest: towards nondiscriminatory democracy. liberty fund, indianapolis, (2003 [1988]).The analysis of this doctrine, which holds that constitutional democracy can only be preserved from majoritarian absolutism if minority interests have the power to check the power of majority coalitions, is this paper’s main purpose. The paper also discusses the most plausible way Calhoun’s recommendations can be put into practice in the United States by drawing on insights from his Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States, in which he defends the social compact theory of the union and the benefits of federalism.

Voting Fluidity throughout the Decision-Making Process on the U.S. Supreme Court

Judicial scholars have devoted significant effort to analyzing and understanding the implications of justices switching their votes during the opinion drafting stage, known as voting fluidity. Given that justices individually begin their consideration of the merits of cases with their preparation for oral arguments, I argue that these earlier positions in cases are valuable indicators of subsequent behavior, such as voting fluidity. More specifically, I find support for the notion that early fluidity, changing positions from before oral arguments to after, especially when combined with major shifts in the majority coalition, can be a bellwether of traditional fluidity. The analysis suggests that consideration of early fluidity and its motivations furthers our understanding of late fluidity above and beyond known indicators in the literature.

Conference Committee Proposal Rights and Policy Outcomes in the States

Most states and Congress allow only one version of a bill to be reported out of a conference committee. Because of their control over the conference membership, party leaders may use conferences to produce nonmedian outcomes. However, in three states the rules allow a minority to propose its own competing conference report. A formal model demonstrates that this institutional design produces more moderate legislative outcomes despite the preferences of the majority coalition. The model’s predictions are tested using coalition sizes on conference report votes in the states. Controlling for other factors, chambers which allow the minority to propose a competing conference report have larger coalitions, on average, though this effect is mitigated by interchamber distance. Further, rejection of the conference bill is also much less likely because the majority cannot propose extreme bills. The article demonstrates that conference committee proposal rules are an important source of majority coalition power.

Why Does the Left Not Act Left?

When testing impact of ideology on economic policy, the prominent literature usually regards government as one entity. That is why the current literature usually looks at the percentage of left or right in legislature when looking at ideological tendency of government policies. However, this paper argues that one needs to disintegrate government as at least two entities?executive and majority party or coalition government from legislature?because history has shown that executives often times deviate from their own party position and platform. Some have argued that ideology does not matter in developing countries because ideologically defined parties do not follow their ideologically framed preference when they come to power. For example, President Menem’s drastic economic reform was considered a major deviation from his party, and scholars have identified the occasion as an outlier or as an example of how ideology does not matter in developing democracies. This paper shows that it is not because ideology does not matter but because ideologically preferred policy choice often shits in order to reflect the changing cost and benefit calculations once the party comes to power, and I provide evidence using economic crisis and policy implementation in developing countries from 1978 to 2006.

Inequality in democracies: Testing the classic democratic theory of redistribution

The classic democratic theory of redistribution claims that an increase in the mean-to-median (MM) income ratio causes a majority coalition in the electorate to collectively demand more redistribution. The functional dependence of redistribution on the MM income ratio is tested in parametric and nonparametric regression frameworks using an OECD panel dataset. While the parametric regression model is found to be misspecified rendering subsequent inference invalid, the robust nonparametric regression model fails to uncover evidence that the MM income ratio is relevant for predicting redistribution.

O PAPEL INFORMACIONAL DAS COMISSÕES PERMANENTES DA CÂMARA DOS DEPUTADOS – 1991/1994–1995/1999

This article seeks to bring some contribution to the debate about the possibility of the informational role performance executed by the Standard Committee of The Camera of Deputies in the legislatures between 1991/1994 and 1995/1999, assuming that the absence of a pro-government majority coalition leads the parliamentarians, that are supported by their parties, to invest in the quality of information concerning to the legislation generated by the legislature.

Latin Women Take the Helm

Latin Women Take the Helm