Impact of Institutions & Partisan Veto on Policy Change & Stability - Prof. 12113, Apuntes de Ciencia de la administración

¡Descarga Impact of Institutions & Partisan Veto on Policy Change & Stability - Prof. 12113 y más Apuntes en PDF de Ciencia de la administración solo en Docsity! Decision Making in Political Systems: Veto Players in Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, Multicameralism and Multipartyism Author(s): George Tsebelis Source: British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Jul., 1995), pp. 289-325 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/194257 Accessed: 29/09/2010 14:53 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. 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Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to British Journal of Political Science. http://www.jstor.org Printed in Great Britain Decision Making in Political Systems: Veto Players in Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, Multicameralism and Multipartyism GEORGE TSEBELIS* The article compares different political systems with respect to one property: their capacity to produce policy change. I define the basic concept of the article, the 'veto player': veto players are individual or collective actors whose agreement (by majority rule for collective actors) is required for a change of the status quo. Two categories of veto players are identified in the article: institutional and partisan. Institutional veto players (president, chambers) exist in presidential systems while partisan veto players (parties) exist at least in parliamentary systems. Westminster systems, dominant party systems and single-party minority governments have only one veto player, while coalitions in parliamentary systems, presidential or federal systems have multiple veto players. The potential for policy change decreases with the number of veto players, the lack of congruence (dissimilarity of policy positions among veto players) and the cohesion (similarity of policy positions among the constituent units of each veto player) of these players. The veto player framework produces results different from existing theories in comparative politics, but congruent with existing empirical studies. In addition, it permits comparisons across different political and party systems. Finally, the veto player framework enables predictions about government instability (in parliamentary systems) or regime instability (in presidential systems); these predictions are supported by available evidence. There is general agreement in contemporary political science that 'institutions matter'. However, consensus breaks down when analyses focus on the outcomes of specific institutional structures. Several studies exemplify this lack of agreement over what outcomes are produced by which institutions. With respect to regime type (parliamentarism vs. presidentialism), some researchers argue that presidential systems are more likely than parliamentary systems to experience breakdown and be replaced by an authoritarian regime;' others make the opposite argument;2 while still others argue that there is no relationship whatsoever.3 With respect to two-party versus multi-party systems, researchers have argued that two-party systems promote both the moderation of party positions * Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles. I would like to thank the Hoover Institution for financial support. While writing this article I profited from comments from Jeff Frieden, Geoff Garrett, Miriam Golden, Sada Kawato, Peter Lange, Michael Laver, Terry Moe, Bjorn Eric Rasch, Ron Rogowski, Kaare Strom, Sidney Tarrow and Michael Wallerstein. I also thank Albert Weale and two anonymous referees for their suggestions. Juan J. Linz, 'The Perils of Presidentialism', Journal of Democracy, 1 (1990), 51-69. 2 Donald L. Horowitz, 'Comparing Democratic Systems', Journal of Democracy, 1 (1990), 73-9. 3 Matthew Soberg Shugart and John M. Carey, Presidents aindAssenmblies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992). B.J.Pol.S. 25, 289-325 Copyright ? 1995 Cambridge University Press 292 TSEBELIS highlight one point. Recurrent themes in all the theoretical debates include the responsibility of elected representatives, the identifiability of decision makers, and single or dual legitimacies. However, these themes are used exclusively to examine different variables as dichotomous pairs (regime types, legislature types, party systems); they are not used to assess the effects of combinations and hybrids, such as comparing a unicameral presidential multi-party system with a bicameral parliamentary two-party system. This article does not replicate the pairwise structure of these ongoing debates separating regime type (parliamentarism vs. presidentialism), legislature type (unicameral vs. bicameral) and party system (two-party vs. multi-party). In fact, I show that it may be misleading to examine these factors in isolation. I will argue that the logic of decision making in presidential systems is quite similar to the logic of decision making in multi-party parliamentary systems. Similarly, bicameralism and presidentialism share common characteristics of decision making. In addition, I do not aim to discuss the pros and cons of each of the institutional alternatives found in the title. Instead, I compare all of these institutions with respect to one important variable: the capacity for policy change. My goal is to provide a consistent framework for comparisons across regimes, legislatures and party systems. One important contribution of such an approach is that by permitting a simple and conceptually consistent method of making comparisons across systems, it helps to resolve a pervasive problem of comparative politics: small sample size. If comparisons are permitted only across countries with the same regime type - for example, presidential systems - then the sample size is essentially reduced to the Latin American countries. However, these countries also share a host of other characteristics (economic development, party systems, party discipline, administrative structures, etc.), creating a serious problem of multicollinearity. One way of resolving this problem is to expand the sample size by including countries that differ along some of these variables. However, such an expansion requires a theory of comparison across regime types (as well as across party systems and legislature types), which is the purpose of this article. Another purpose, and perhaps the major contribution of this approach, is to help generate hypotheses in several other areas, such as the importance and independence of judiciaries, the independence of bureaucracies, government stability (in parliamentary systems) and regime stability (in presidential systems). Preliminary evidence in favour of the expectations of this model will be presented in the third part of this article. The dependent variable of my study is the potential for policy change in different institutional settings. I will call the absence of such potential policy (F'note continued) see George Tsebelis, 'The Power of the European Parliament as a Conditional Agenda Setter', in D. Ruloff and G. Schneider, eds, Towards a New Europe: Stops and Starts in European Integration (New York: Praeger, forthcoming). Decision Making in Political Systems stability. To paraphrase V. O. Key, a potential for policy change does not guarantee such change, but the absence of this potential precludes it.18 Policy stability is different from both government stability and regime stability. In fact, as I argue in the last part of this article, they are inversely related: policy stability causes government or regime instability. This analysis is based on the concept of the veto player in different institutional settings. A veto player is an individual or collective actor whose agreement is required for a policy decision. I demonstrate that policy stability increases with (i) the number of veto players, (ii) their incongruence (the difference in their political positions) and (iii) the internal cohesion of each one of them. The article is organized into three sections. Section I discusses the dependent variable (policy stability) and how it can be operationalized using the concept of 'winset', a concept taken from collective choice theory. Section II discusses the three independent variables that explain policy stability and relates them to easily observable characteristics like regime types, the number of parties in government, the number of chambers, party cohesion and other important political variables like electoral systems. Section III discusses the model's predictions and compares it with other middle-range theories in comparative politics as well as some available empirical evidence. I. POLICY STABILITY AND ITS PROXY Several studies correlate specific institutions with particular (mainly economic) outcomes. Starting with Bagehot, presidential regimes, with the diffusion of responsibility they entail, have been associated with high deficits.19 Both Katzenstein and Rogowski argue that proportional representation is correlated with, or is conducive to, trade openness and economic growth.20 Alternatively, Grilli et al. associate proportional representation with high debt and inflation, and presidential systems with more responsible fiscal policies.21 Tiebout and, more recently, Weingast associate federalism with high levels of growth because it induces competition among constituent units.22 Political scientists are often interested in the decisiveness of a political system, in other words, its capacity to solve problems when they arise. For I8 V. O. Key Jr, Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups, 5th edn (New York: Crowell, 1964), p. 688. 19 Bagehot, The English Constitution. 20 Peter J. Katzenstein, Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985); and Ronald Rogowski, 'Trade and the Variety of Democratic Institutions', International Organization, 41 (1987), 203-23. 21 Vittorio Grilli, Donato Masciandaro and Guido Tabellini, 'Political and Monetary Institutions and Public Financial Policies in the Industrial Countries', Economic Policy, 13 (1991), 341-92. 22 Charles Tiebout, 'A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures', Journal of Political Economy, 64 (1956), 416-24; and Barry Weingast, 'Federalism and the Political Commitment to Sustain Markets' (mimeo, Hoover Institution, 1993). 293 294 TSEBELIS example, in a thoughtful analysis of the effects of political institutions, Weaver and Rockman distinguish: ten different capabilities that all governments need: to set and maintain priorities among the many conflicting demands made upon them so that they are not overwhelmed and bankrupted; to target resources where they are most effective; to innovate when old policies have failed; to coordinate conflicting objectives into a coherent whole; to be able to impose losses on powerful groups; to represent diffuse, unorganized interests in addition to concentrated, well-organized ones; to ensure effective implementation of government policies once they have been decided upon; to ensure policy stability so that policies have time to work; to make and maintain international commitments in the realms of trade and national defense to ensure their long-term well-being; and, above all, to manage political cleavages to ensure that society does not degenerate into civil war.23 While Weaver and Rockman are interested in the capabilities of governments, a great volume of economic literature is concerned with the credible commitment of the government not to interfere with the economy (starting with Kydland and Prescott).24 Weingast pushes the argument one step further and attempts to design institutions that would produce such a credible commitment. His suggestion is that 'market preserving federalism' combines checks and balances that prevent government interference in the economy, with economic competition among units to assure growth.25 In all these very diverse bodies of literature the flexibility or the stability of policy is considered an important variable. Some scholars consider flexibility a desirable feature (in order to resolve problems faster), whereas others point out that frequent interventions may worsen the situation. I take a more agnostic position with respect to policy stability. It seems reasonable to assume that those who dislike the status quo will prefer a political system with the capacity to make changes quickly, while advocates of the status quo will prefer a system that produces policy stability. Even if majorities are large (in which case the argument can be made that outcomes should conform to the will of these majorities), it may still be the case that institutional structures will respond at a faster or slower pace than desired. It is not clear to me that a consensus exists (or is even possible) over whether a faster or slower pace of institutional response is desirable. Decisiveness in changing the status quo is good when the status quo is undesirable (whether it is because a small minority controls the government as in the French ancien regime or in South Africa recently), or when an exogenous shock disturbs a desirable process. Commitment to non- interference may be preferable when the status quo is desirable (as when civil rights are established), or if an exogenous shock is beneficial (like an increase 23 R. Kent Weaver and Bert Rockman, Do Institutions Matter? Goverment Capabilities in the US and Abroad (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1993), p. 6. 24 Finn E. Kydland and Edward C. Prescott, 'Rules Rather than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans', Journal of Political Economy, 85 (1977), 473-91. 25 Barry Weingast, 'Economic Role of Political Institutions' (mimeo, Hoover Institution, 1993). Decision Making in Political Systems Issue 2 A A1 A2. / //^-- WBCD B C//Y WBC Issue 1 Status quo cannot be changed even if A1 moves to A2. If A1 is replaced by D, then the status quo can be replaced by any point in the WBCD area. Fig. 2. Change of status quo with three individual decision makers Some of these results depend on the number of policy dimensions considered. For presentational purposes I use a two-dimensional space. For example, in Figure 2 we found that a movement of player A from A to A2 did not have any effect on the status quo. This result would not have been the same in more than two dimensions. However, there is one important conclusion that holds true regardless of the number of dimensions. I present this as a proposition to be used throughout the remainder of the article. PROPOSITION 1: As the number of players who are required to agree for a movement of the status quo increases, the winset of the status quo does not increase (i.e., policy stability does not decrease). The argument behind Proposition 1 is simple: the winset of the status quo of n + 1 players is a subset of the winset of the status quo of n players. For this reason, adding one or more veto players will never increase the size of the winset of the status quo. Consider now two individual players having to agree on a movement of the status quo SQ, as in Figure 3. If player B is close to player A (position B1 in the figure), the winset of the status quo is WAB1. If, however, player B is further 297 298 TSEBELIS Issue 2 WAB1 SQ WAB p Pi2 B1 PB2 B2 Issue 1 WAB2 c WAB1iff B1is between B2 and A Fig. 3. Change of status quo as a function of the distance of individual decision makers away from A on the same line the size of the winset of the status quo is reduced. As we can see, WAB2 is a subset of WAB,. We know this to be true because the side B2SQ of the triangle BIB2SQ is smaller than the sum of the other two sides, and consequently, the distance B2P2 is smaller than the distance B2P1. This is another general property which I shall single out for subsequent use. PROPOSITION 2: As the distance of players who are required to agree for a movement of the status quo increases along the same line, the winset of the status quo does not increase (i.e., policy stability increases). In the previous examples, players were considered single individuals (or some other entity that could reasonably be assimilated to an individual). What happens if players are collections of individuals without identical positions? I now turn to this point. I will assume collective players are composed of individuals with Decision Making in Political Systems circular indifference curves who decide by simple majority rule. This discussion will permit us to transpose the findings of the previous discussion to more realistic situations with collective, rather than individual players. Social choice theory has demonstrated that within every collective actor there is a centrally located sphere which is called the 'yolk'.27 The size r of the radius of the yolk is usually very small, and on the average it decreases with the number of individual voters with distinct positions.28 If one calls C the centre of the yolk of a collective actor and d the distance of the status quo (SQ) from C, the winset of SQ for this actor is included in a sphere of centre C and radius d + 2r. This is an important social choice finding for our purposes because it permits us to replace the individual players in the previous figures with collective players. Issue 2 A Radius of yolk = r C, SQ=d Issue 1 W (SQ) is included in a circle with centre at the centre of the yolk and radius d+ 2r Fig. 4. Yolk and winset of SQ of a collective decision maker 27 The yolk is defined as the smallest sphere that intersects all median hyperplanes. Hyperplanes are planes in more than two dimensions. A median hyperplane is a hyperplane that divides the individual voters into three groups so that those voters on the hyperplane or on one side of it can form a majority, as can those on it or on the other side of it. For a more complete discussion, see John A. Ferejohn, Richard D. McKelvey and Edward W. Packell, 'Limiting Distributions for Continuous State Markov Voting Models', Social Choice and Welfare, 1 (1984), 45-67. For a non-technical discussion of the yolk and the calculation of winsets, see Nicholas R. Miller, Bernard Grofman and Scott L. Feld, 'The Geometry of Majority Rule', Journal of Theoretical Politics, 4 (1989), 379-406. 28 D. H. Koehler, 'The Size of the Yolk: Computations for Odd and Even-Numbered Committees', Social Choice and Welfare, 7 (1990), 231-45. 299 302 TSEBELIS Therefore, the part they have in legislation should be in proportion to the other advantages they have in the state, which will happen if they form a body that has the right to check the enterprises of the people, as the people have the right to check theirs.31 Similarly, Madison, in Federalist No. 51, defends the separation of powers in the following way: 'contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places'.32 These texts both discuss veto players specified by the Constitution. I shall call these institutional veto players. There is, however, another category of veto players that exists in multi-party parliamentary systems, and possibly in presidential systems as well: the parties that are members of a government coalition. I will call these coalition members partisan veto players. To simplify matters, I assume that a government proposal has to be approved by a majority of the relevant actors within each party of the government coalition.33 This is only a first approximation. It assumes that there is no difference between the approval of a policy by the majorities in the upper and lower chambers of a bicameral system (institutional veto players), and the approval of a policy by the majorities of the two partners of a government coalition (partisan veto players). Of course, there is one important difference between institutional and partisan veto players: according to the constitution, the agreement of institutional veto players is a necessary and sufficient condition for policy change, while the agreement of partisan veto players is, strictly speaking, neither necessary nor sufficient. Agreement of partisan veto players is not sufficient for policy change because a proposal which is approved by all partners in a government coalition may be defeated in parliament, in which case no law is adopted. This is a case of a non-enforceable coalition agreement. The parties participating in government lack the resources to prevent their own MPs from defecting on parliamentary votes. Examples of such cases include the French Fourth Republic and post-war Italy. It is ironic that what General de Gaulle sneeringly referred to as the 'regime des partis' was suffering precisely from the opposite: a lack of parties. The differences were not over policies, but over personalities and the distribution of government portfolios. Similarly, in Italy, franchi tiratori were taking advan- tage of the system of secret ballots to embarrass the government with defeats 31 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, A. M. Cohler, B. C. Miller, and H. S. Stone, trans. and eds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), part 2, bk. 11, chap. 6 (emphasis added). 32 Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison, The Federalist (any edition: emphasis added). 33 Here is how Maor reports the position of a leader of the liberal party, member of the government coalition in Denmark: 'We could stop everything we did not like. That is a problem with a coalition government between two parties of very different principles. If you cannot reach a compromise, then such a government has to stay away from legislation in such areas.' See Moshe Maor, 'Intra-Party Conflict and Coalitional Behavior in Denmark and Norway: The Case of "Highly Institutionalized" Parties', Scandinavian Political Studies, 15 (1992), 99-116. Decision Making in Political Systems in Parliament.34 In both of these cases, the stability of policy making increases because the government is unable to modify the legislation that it intends to abolish. Below we see how we can take into account such increased stability inside the framework of veto players. Agreement of partisan veto players is not necessary for policy change because coalition partners may be bypassed or played off against each other. There are two situations in which this can occur: minority governments, and oversized majority governments. Minority governments may have their proposals approved by Parliament. Strom has analysed minority governments and finds that they are common in multi-party systems (around one-third of the governments in his sample).35 Moreover, most of them (79 out of 125) are single-party governments which resemble single-party majority governments. Further, Laver and Schofield have argued that there is a difference between a governmental and a legislative majority, and that the party forming the minority government is usually located centrally in space. For this reason, it can lean slightly towards one or another possible partner in order to have its policies approved by parliament.36 Consequently, from a policy-making point of view, a single-party minority government, as long as it stays in power, resembles a single-party majority government. There are two reasons for this. First, when the minority party occupies a centrally located area in space (technically speaking, the core), it needs no formal allies, as Laver and Schofield, Strom and many others have indicated.37 Secondly, regardless of the location of the party in government, several constitutions provide ruling governments with a series of agenda-setting powers, such as the giving of priority to government bills, the possibility of closed or restricted rules, the practice of counting abstentions in favour of government bills, the possibility of introducing amendments at any point of the debate (including before the final vote), and others. The most frequent and serious of all these agenda-setting measures is the threat of government resignation followed by the dissolution of parliament. This measure exists in all parliamentary systems with the exception of Norway.38 Oversized majority governments are almost as common as minority governments in Western Europe. Laver and Schofield calculate that 4 per cent of the time (of the 218 governments they examine), a party which forms a majority alone will ask another party to join the government; and 21 per cent 34 The government introduced open votes in 1988 and did away with the problem. 35 Strom, Minority Government and Majority Rule, p. 61. 36 Michael J. Laver and Norman Schofield, Multiparty Government: The Politics of Coalition in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). 37 Laver and Schofield, Multiparty Government; and Strom, Minority Government and Majority Rule. This idea originated with Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper & Row, 1957). 38 For a systematic discussion of positional and institutional advantages of governments in parliamentary democracies, see George Tsebelis, 'Veto Players and Law Production in Parliamentary Democracies' in Herber Doering, ed. Parliaments and Majority Rule in Western Europe (New York: St Martin's Press, forthcoming). 303 304 TSEBELIS of the time, while there is no majority party, the coalition formed contains one or more parties more than necessary.39 In these cases, some of the coalition partners can be disregarded, and policies will still be passed by a majority in parliament. Such a situation occurs frequently in Italy, where five parties participated in the governments of the 1980s. The Christian Democrats and the Socialists together had a majority of seats, making the other three partners numerically unnecessary. However, ignoring coalition partners, while numeric- ally possible, imposes political costs. If the disagreement is serious the small partner can resign, and the government formation process must begin over again. Simple arithmetic disregards the fact that there are political factors which necessitate oversized coalitions. Regardless of what these reasons might be, for the coalition to remain intact, the will of the different partners must be respected. For this reason, each partner in the coalition is a veto player. Consequently, while the arithmetic of the legislative process may be different from the arithmetic of government, a departure from the status quo must usually be approved by the government before it is introduced to parliament and, at that stage, the participants in a government coalition are veto players. In general, either constitutionally, or through the coalition bargaining process, the government is given extraordinary agenda-setting powers. An example of the former is the extraordinary legal arsenal of which the French government disposes (particularly Article 49.3 of the Constitution) allowing it to avoid amendments and even final votes on the floor of Parliament.40 An example of the latter is the following statement from the Norwegian Prime Minister Kare Willoch regarding his coalition government: 'I wanted their leading personalities in the government. It was my demand that their party leaders should be in government because I did not want to strengthen the other centres which would be in parliament. That was my absolute condition for having three parties in government'.41 The outcome of all these agenda-setting procedures is that in more than 50 per cent of all countries, governments introduce more than 90 per cent of the bills. Moreover, the probability of success for these bills is very high: over 60 per cent pass with probability greater than 0.9, and over 85 per cent pass with probability greater than 0.8.42 In sum, one can say that whereas the number of institutional veto players is specified by the Constitution, the number of partisan veto players is specified 39 Laver and Schofield, Multiparty Government, p. 70. 40 See John D. Huber, 'Restrictive Legislative Procedures in France and the US', American Political Science Review, 86 (1992), 675-87; and George Tsebelis, Nested Games (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), chap. 7. 41 Quoted in Maor, 'Intra-Party Conflict and Coalitional Behavior in Denmark and Norway', p. 108. 42 What these numbers do not specify, however, is how many amendments were made to the bills or, how many times the government may have altered the bill in anticipation of amendments. For data see Inter-Parliamentary Union, Parliaments of the World, 2nd edn (Aldershot, Surrey: Gower, 1986), Table 29. Decision Making in Political Systems additional veto players. For example, in corporatist countries decisions over wages (which carry broad economic consequences) are made by the govern- ment, but only in agreement with two additional veto players, representatives of workers and of firms. Conversely, political systems with many veto players may delegate decision making to a few veto players. For example, certain instruments of monetary policy may be delegated to a central bank that will be able to react more quickly and decisively than the political system. In addition, individuals in particularly sensitive positions may operate as de facto veto players. For example, the chair of the armed services committee in the US Senate has demonstrated his capacity to block nominations and policies by both President Bush (the Tower nomination) and President Clinton (gays in the military). However, the existence of such veto players is quite idiosyncratic. It varies with the policy area (such as farmers on agriculture), with some specific balance of forces (the strength of the army in some societies), or with the personality of the occupant of a position. Additional veto players that are more institutionalized include the courts, constitutionally required super majorities, and referendums. Requiring the agreement of the courts for certain legislation is equivalent to adding another chamber to the legislative process. For example, after the victory of the left in France in 1981, the Constitutional Council became the only veto player acting on behalf of the previous majority. Most important government decisions were challenged in front of the Constitutional Council. The fear of constitutional review became so serious that parliamentary majorities included the language of previous court decisions in legislation in an attempt to prevent the court from overruling their decisions.5' With the exception of the veto override, constitutionally required super majorities are rare. However, whenever and wherever they exist, they give veto powers to particular coalitions of players and consequently increase the stability of the status quo. Belgium - which, among other things requires two-third majorities in each chamber for constitutional reform - had an incomplete constitution for a long period because of the multiplicity of veto players.52 Finally, referendums play an ambiguous role depending on who controls the agenda. If they can be ordered by popular initiative, they are one additional constraint that the usual veto players must anticipate and diffuse (in which case policy stability increases). If they are controlled by one veto player (usually the president), they can be equivalent to a veto override of all other players in the system (much like legislatures overrule presidential vetoes). Generally speaking, the number of veto players varies by issue. Consider a policy area where the speed of adjustment is of paramount importance, such as monetary policy. A system, like that in the United States, with multiple incongruent and incoherent veto players would be completely inappropriate to 51 See Alec Stone, The Birth of Judicial Politics in France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). 52 Tsebelis, Nested Games, chap. 6. 307 308 TSEBELIS handle adjustments of interest rates. Consequently, the different political actors have agreed to delegate these decisions to one independent authority. These independent banks decide by a simple majority of their members rather than giving veto powers to different groups of representatives.53 Conversely, a country with a decisive political system, like the one-party governments of Sweden and Norway, may want to increase policy stability by including additional veto players in a particular decision-making process such as wage bargaining. Corporatist structures of interest representation provide veto powers to the different actors involved, so that the final outcome is guaranteed to meet their approval, and thus to be more stable. Luebbert argues that this method of corporatist decision making takes pressure off the political system and places it on interest groups.54 Most countries with bicameral legislatures use different procedures for the adoption of financial versus other kinds of bills, giving more power to lower chambers (as well as to the government) in financial matters.55 Similarly, other important policy-making decisions may incorporate a bias in favour of the status quo: modification of constitutions requires super majorities, laws regarding federalism in Germany require the agreement of both chambers, laws require more scrutiny than executive decrees, etc. Because the purpose of this article is broadly comparative, from here on I focus only on those actors that I have called institutional and partisan veto players, ignoring other - less frequent - veto players. The assumption is that while the number of veto players may vary by issue or over time, these variations will cancel each other out when applied across several issues for sufficiently long periods of time. However, in case studies one must identify all the relevant veto players. The second question concerning counting rules is how to count in the presence of both institutional and partisan veto players. The answer to this question requires discussion of the second independent variable: the distance between veto players. Distance Between Veto Players According to Proposition 2, the size of the winset of the status quo decreases with the distance between veto players. I shall call this distance the congruence of the veto players, in which case congruence increases as the distance decreases. On what do these distances depend? Let me summarize some arguments presented in the literature. First of all, partisan players are distinct 53 I am focusing here on the internal organization of the Federal Reserve, not on its independence. Several countries have created independent central banks to isolate them from political pressures and assure independence of decisions from pressures of interest groups or the government. 54 Gregory Luebbert, Comparative Democracy: Policy Making and Governing Coalitions in Europe and Israel (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). 55 Money and Tsebelis, 'Cicero's Puzzle'. Decision Making in Political Systems from each other, because parties have, in general, different policy positions. Cases in which nearly identical policy positions are advocated by two different parties are rare.56 The reason is that in proportional representation, if two parties are similar along a series of dimensions, they will stress the differences that they have along other policy dimensions as a means of winning votes. Consecfuently, for all practical purposes, different parties should be counted as different veto players. A major factor that affects the policy congruence of parties is the electoral system. Downs has argued that a two-party system promotes convergence and party moderation.57 Sartori has expanded this argument by claiming that 'polarization' increases with the number of parties.58 Recently, Cox has proved that in electoral competition for a single seat, regardless of the electoral system, parties converge to the median voter.59 However, a necessary assumption for Downs's and Cox's results is that there is no abstention, or that abstentions are not correlated with the policy positions of parties. This assumption makes moves towards the centre of the political spectrum rewarding for political parties, while they suffer no negative consequences from moving away from the strongest ideological elements of their constituency. Empirical cases that seem counter to these expectations (the elections of Reagan, Thatcher and Mitterrand), along with the lack of realism of the assumption of the absence of policy-related abstentions, have led some researchers to claim that plurality systems are compatible with polarized parties.60 Moreover, it is possible to find polarization in proportional systems (Allende's Chile, the Weimar Republic, Spain before the civil war, Austria between the wars), so the argument cannot be settled on the basis of the selective use of data (indeed, I am not sure that it can be settled even if all relevant data are collected (see fn. 3)). While there is a widespread belief that congruence depends on the electoral system, the direction of this relationship is less clear. On the one hand, there are theoretical proofs of convergence in single-member districts (including presidential races), but they are based on highly restrictive assumptions. On the other hand, the empirical evidence is (to say the least) incomplete. One remaining issue is the distance of institutional veto players, that is, chambers and presidents. This distance can vary from one election to another. Two institutional veto players with different political compositions should be counted as two distinct players. Again, the distance varies as a function of the composition of the chambers. If this composition is identical, the two veto 56 And, as we shall see below, are restricted to countries with single-member plurality electoral systems. 57 A. Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper and Row, 1957), chaps 4 and 8. 58 Giovanni Sartori, Parties and Party Systems (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976). 59 Gary W. Cox, 'Electoral Equilibrium under Alternative Voting Institutions', Journal of Political Science, 31 (1987), 82-108. 60 Rogowski, 'Trade and the Variety of Democratic Institutions'. 309 312 TSEBELIS agreement without referring back to their parties (or going back for formal ratification); the second is for each party to discuss the issues first, agree on a party platform (an ideal point for the whole party) and then negotiate an agreement with the other parties; the third is for the leaders of the different parties to meet, come to an agreement, and then submit it as a whole to their own parties. In the first two cases, each party (with or without a discussion and a vote) is represented by a unique ideal point, and the radius of the yolk is zero. Thus the policy stability of the system increases. In the third case, however, the outcome of the negotiations will be less restricted. It is possible that leaders will select the sequence of negotiations that best suits their own ideal positions. For example, centrist leaders (leaders closer than their followers to the ideal positions of the other parties) will prefer the third method of negotiations because it gives them more leeway.62 Extremist leaders (leaders who are further away than their own party from their coalition partners) will prefer to 'tie their hands' and have a party vote that restricts their freedom of movement. However, such manoeuvring may become complicated when one considers the behaviour of the other players as well. For example, even centrist leaders may prefer to 'tie their hands' so that they will not make important concessions initially. No matter which procedure is selected, a precommitment, along with party discipline, reduces the number of dimensions of the negotiations and restricts the winset of the status quo. This also means that as long as the parties continue to have the same ideal points, the agreement cannot be upset (see Figure 4). Alternatively, if no precommitment is made, or if it is not credible (due to a lack of discipline), the winset of the status quo will be larger and small movements made possible even if no individual actor changes his position. Which factors affect cohesion? First of all, the size of the veto player has an effect on cohesion. A single person player (like a president or a party with a charismatic leader) has the highest cohesion. However, if we exclude the case of the individual player, as I argued in Section I, cohesion is likely to increase with the number of distinct individuals comprising a veto player. Everything else being equal, a veto player with more members will be more cohesive than a veto player with less members. Another factor that may increase the cohesion of veto players is the electoral system. Some have argued that single-member plurality districts promote the personal vote,63 while list proportional representation promotes strong parties.64 It is not clear whether these arguments deal with party discipline (the ability of 62 For two interesting cases in which centrist leaders were able to put together a compromise only to see it break down when submitted to their parties, see Tsebelis, Nested Games, chap. 6; and Kaare Strom, 'The Presthus Debacle: Interparty Politics and Bargaining Failure in Norway', in American Political Science Review, 88 (1994), 112-27. 63 Bruce Cain, John Ferejohn and Morris P. Fiorina, The Personal Vote (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987). 64 Shugart and Carey, Presidents and Assemblies. Decision Making in Political Systems parties to eliminate dissent after a decision is made) or cohesion (the size of differences before the discussion). It is possible, however, that the electoral system affects both for different reasons: plurality systems promote wide coalitions, which means that their cohesion is reduced; while list proportional electoral systems give the party leadership control over nominations, and consequently increase party discipline. The final factor that may affect cohesion is the institutional structure. Mainwaring, summarizing the relevant literature, has argued that presidential regimes promote a lack of cohesion because the president constantly tries to exploit differences among MPs to build coalitions to promote his programmes. On the other hand, parliamentarism promotes party discipline because voting against one' s own government can bring the government down and result in new elections.65 Although both the institutional structure and the electoral system seem to affect cohesion independently of one another, it is not clear which has the greater impact. It is also not clear whether there are still other factors affecting cohesion, and what a multivariate regression would produce. For this reason, in this model I use cohesion as an independent variable. In conclusion, according to Propositions 1, 2 and 3, the policy stability of a political system increases with the number of veto players, decreases with their congruence (in fact, if two actors are completely congruent, they can be counted as one), and increases with the cohesion of each of them. III. CONSEQUENCES In this section I discuss the implications of my analysis. I focus on three different issues: the conditions under which change is likely to occur; differences in predictions made by the veto player analysis presented here and the standard classifications found in political science; and preliminary evidence that empirical analyses corroborate my model rather than existing theories. Predictions of Policy Change Let us consider comparisons across time in a more systematic way. If a change in the identity or the positions of a veto player occurs, it is likely that it will be reflected in policy. In this case, as I have shown, the larger the number of veto players, the less significant the marginal impact of the change of one of them. Movements of veto players may or may not be associated with elections, and they may or may not be associated with changes in the identity of the veto players. It is possible to have elections that do not change the incumbents, to have a change in incumbents without a change in policy and, lastly, to have "5 Scott Mainwaring, 'Presidentialism in Latin America: A Review Essay', Latin American Research Review, 25 (1989), 157-79; and 'Politicians, Parties and Electoral Systems: Brazil in Comparative Perspective', Comparative Politics, 23 (1991), 21-43. 313 314 TSEBELIS changes in policy that are the result of neither changes in electoral outcomes nor changes in incumbents. Let me provide some examples. Consider a country like Japan, which has been dominated by the Liberal Democratic Party since the Second World War. Elections in Japan do not result in a change of veto players. If we ignore the factionalization of the party, there is only one veto player and, even if we do not, the veto players have still remained the same. Consequently, any policy changes which occur are the result of neither elections nor of a change in the identity of the veto player, but rather a modification in the policy position of the ruling party. Consider a country like the United Kingdom with a two-party system in which the parties alternate in government. If the differences between the programmes of the two parties are large, one would expect important policy changes. This is an important conditional statement because there have been periods in British history when the two parties have held similar positions. For example, during the 1950s and 1960s the term Butskellism was coined from the names of Rab Butler (a Conservative) and Hugh Gaitskell (the Labour leader) to indicate that the two parties had no real policy differences (a position which was not tested since only one party held power). For this reason, convergence of policies may lead to policy stability, despite a change of veto players. Consider a coalition government with several veto players, like Italy. Elections modify the composition of the Parliament slightly, but they rarely change the government coalition (in fact, throughout the post-war period Italy has had very few changes in the ruling coalition).66 This is the source of policy stability in Italy. By contrast, if a veto player with significant differences enters or leaves the government coalition, important policy changes will follow. This characterizes the period 1976-79 when the Communist party participated (without portfolios) in the ruling coalition.67 Finally, consider a presidential system like the United States, where changes in the two chambers over time are small, but changes in the White House may be of more significance. Again, while replacement of legislators will not greatly affect policy stability, replacement of the president may make a difference if the new president has a different agenda (Reagan), but it may be of little impact if the new president has a policy agenda similar to that of his predecessor (Carter). Differences with Existing Theories in Comparative Politics It may seem to the reader that the arguments presented in this article lead to extremely variable expectations, both by issue and by time period. In a more pessimistic vein, it might be argued that there is no need for theory because a theory makes assumptions that are not true, and when these assumptions are replaced by conditions prevailing in real countries the results collapse. 66 Carol Mershon, 'Expectations and Informal Rules in Coalition Formation', Comparati've Political Studies, forthcoming. 67 Peter Lange and Marino Regini, State, Market and Social Regulation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). Decision Making in Political Systems ministers exercise 'primary influence over individual policy areas',73 this influence is under constraints imposed by the partners of the government coalition and cannot be equated with exclusive jurisdiction. If ministers have to respect the vetoes of their coalition partners, they will select the best (from their point of view) policy inside the intersection of the winsets of the veto players, not their own ideal point.74 In its extreme version of exclusive jurisdictions, this argument predicts a high probability of changes in policies with changes of ministers. For example, in a country like Italy, where the reshuffling of government ministers is frequent, the exclusive jurisdiction model would predict constant policy shifts rather than policy stability. However, it is possible to reconcile the two models if we assume that the most important issues are decided by the whole coalition, while minor issues are delegated to individual ministers. In this case, stability at the macro level could be combined with an instability of secondary issues (those in the exclusive jurisdiction of the minister). If one adds the minority socialist governments of Sweden, Norway or France to the comparison set, my model would classify them as close to Britain and distinct from Italy or the United States, with one qualification: the socialists in Sweden and Norway have been in power for a long period of time, and consequently they may not have wanted to modify their previous policies. However, my argument is that had they wanted to modify them, they would have been able to, like their French counterparts. Again, the expectation that minority single-party governments will have similar features to majority single-party governments is congruent with some, but not all, of the literature.75 In the most general form, according to my argument, systems with multiple incongruent and cohesive veto players will present higher levels of stability in policy making than systems with one veto player or a small number of incohesive and congruent veto players. This is a dichotomous (and very crude) way to summarize the argument presented in this article. For the time being, existing data make more subtle distinctions non-testable. According to this crude summary, coalition governments in parliamentary systems, like Italy, will present features of stability in their decision making similar to those of bicameral presidential systems like the United States. Similarly, a one veto player system - whether in a two-party system like the United Kingdom, a dominant party regime like Japan, a semipresidential system like France or a minority government like Sweden - is more susceptible to change. Below is some empirical evidence to support this statement. 73 Eric Browne and Mark Franklin, 'Aspects of Coalition Payoffs in European Parliamentary Democracies', American Political Science Review, 67 (1973), 453-69, p. 445. 74 Unless, of course, their ideal point is included in the intersection of the winsets of the status quo. 75 For a similar position, see Strom, Minority Government and Majority Rule; for a different position, see Laver and Shepsle, 'Coalitions and Cabinet Governments', who argue that minority governments are like presidential regimes because they separate legislative from executive power. According to the Laver and Shepsle's point of view, Sweden and Norway should be classified with the United States. 317 318 TSEBELIS Empirical Evidence Feigenbaum et al. examine energy policy in five countries (the United States, Canada, France, Germany and Japan) after the oil shocks (more precisely, in the period 1970-90).76 They summarize their findings in scores for the five countries along three dimensions: innovation, co-ordination of conflicting objectives and implementation. The scores range from very high to low. Constructing an aggregate index from these scores, and giving 5 points for 'very high', 4 for 'high', 3 for 'fairly high', 2 for 'mixed' or 'moderate', and 1 for 'low,' the five countries receive the following scores: United States = 5, Canada= 9, France = 10, Germany = 7, Japan = 12. Obviously, this is a very crude measure, but it is interesting to note that the countries below average (8.6) have multiple veto players (the presidential system of the United States has three institutional veto players, and the coalition government of Germany ranges between two and three veto players throughout this period, depending on whether the coalition that controlled the Bundestag also controlled the Bundesrat). The countries above average have either a single veto player (a party government which has a majority in Japan, and a minority in Canada), or two congruent veto players (France was ruled for most of the period by a coalition of two very similar right-wing parties, or a minority Socialist government, and only for three years in this period included two non-congruent parties, Socialists and Communists, in government). Feigenbaum et al. argue that 'policy and resource inheritances are more important in determining policy choices than are government capabilities or specific institutional arrangements'.77 According to this argument, resources are major variables that distinguish the energy-rich North American countries from the rest. Again, the United States, with three veto players, scores low in policy innovation and implementation (5), compared to the one veto player Canada (9) (single-party government); similarly, the two or three veto player coalition government in Bonn scores lower (7) than the more congruent party governments in Paris (10) or Tokyo (12). So the expectations of my model are corroborated. These conclusions jibe with Eneloe, who pioneered comparative environ- mental policy studies: 'Among the countries here surveyed (the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the Soviet Union) the United States is perhaps the most severely underdeveloped in terms of planning and coordinating capacity.'78 Regarding reduction of the budget deficit, Schick compares the United States, 76 Harvey Feigenbaum, Richard Samuels and R. Kent Weaver, 'Innovation, Coordination, and Implementation in Energy Policy', in Weaver and Rockman, Do Institutions Matter?, pp. 42-109. 77 Feigenbaum et al., 'Innovation, Coordination, and Implementation', p. 99. 78 Cynthia Eneloe, The Politics of Pollution in a Comparative Perspective: Ecology and Power in Four Nations (New York: D. McKay, 1975), p. 326. Decision Making in Political Systems the Netherlands and Sweden in the 1980s.79 The multiple veto player systems of the United States (presidential) and the Netherlands (coalition) produced similar patterns of high deficits; these patterns were very different from Sweden which is a single veto player system (party government). It is interesting to note that the period of a coalition of bourgeois parties in government (1980-82) produced the same lack of priorities and inability to act as in the other two countries.80 However, while Schick argues that both divided party control of executive and legislative branches in the United States, and coalition governments, as in the Netherlands, have reduced capacities for setting priorities,8' it is not clear that an increase in the sample size would confirm the findings for these three countries. The reason is that deficit reduction is part of a bigger trade-off, and assuming that all governments would equally prefer deficit reduction is inaccurate. Pierson and Weaver introduce government preferences when they compare Britain, the United States, and Canada with respect to the reduction of pension entitlements.82 They point out that there are several indicators of reduction (each with particular deficiencies), which lead to different conclusions. However, the most reasonable classification would place Britain first, the United States second and Canada third in terms of pension reductions. Pierson and Weaver explain the difference between Britain and Canada by the difference in government preferences: the Canadian Conservatives were afraid to take unpopular measures for fear of losing their majority. Consequently, controlling for government preferences is an important part of determining the impact of institutions on policy change.83 These examples are three of the ten empirical studies included in a detailed and careful volume edited by Weaver and Rockman.84 Not all studies are relevant for my purposes. However, in their conclusions, Weaver and Rockman present a table scoring four different types of regimes - separation of powers, coalitional, party government, and single-party dominant - along ten different dimensions which assess their levels of risk and of opportunity.85 The similarities between separation of powers and coalitional governments, on the one hand, and party governments and single-party dominance, on the other, are impressive. Here is how Weaver and Rockman summarize their findings: 79 Allen Schick, 'Governments versus Budget Deficits', in Weaver and Rockman, Do Institutions Matter?, pp. 187-236. x) Schick, 'Governments versus Budget Deficits', p. 217. SX Schick, 'Governments versus Budget Deficits', p. 228-9. 82 Paul D. Pierson and R. Kent Weaver, 'Imposing Losses in Pension Policy', in Weaver and Rockman, Do Institutions Matter?, pp. 100-50. 83 Garrett uses fear of electoral defeat as his major explanatory variable when he compares the structural changes introduced in Sweden in 1930s and in Britain in the 1980s. See Geoffrey Garrett, 'The Politics of Structural Change: Swedish Social Democracy and Thatcherism in Comparative Perspective', Comparative Political Studies, 25 (1993), 521-47. 84 Weaver and Rockman, Do Institutions Matter? 85 Weaver and Rockman, Do Institutions Matter?, p. 448. 319 322 TSEBELIS coalition between Socialists and Communists in France broke down in 1984 when Mitterrand decided to apply austerity policies in order to stay inside the European Monetary System, while the Communists refused to 'manage the crisis of capitalism'. Similarly, strained economic conditions led the coalition between SPD and FDP in Germany to break down in 1982 and to be replaced by the more congruent coalition between FDP and CDU-CSU. The argument that policy stability leads to instability of the veto players can also be extended to presidential systems. In presidential systems, the only possible changes of veto players are through elections or other exogenous changes (like military coups or violations of the constitutional order by one actor like Fuzimori's dissolution of Parliament in Peru). My theory predicts that the variables associated with policy stability will also be associated with regime instability. There is existing evidence on this issue as well. Shugart and Carey find that strong presidential powers (both legislative and non-legislative) are more likely to lead to breakdown.92 According to their data (which includes presidential and semi-presidential regimes since the beginning of the century), regimes where the president had weak legislative powers broke down 23.5 per cent of the time (4 out of 17), while the probability of a breakdown was almost double (40 per cent of the time (6 out of 15)) in regimes with legislatively strong presidents. Their finding is consistent with the theory of veto players presented here. In my terminology, regimes with legislatively weak presidents have one veto player less, so they are more stable. CONCLUSIONS I have introduced a model permitting comparisons across different political systems, such as presidentialism and parliamentarism, unicameralism and bicameralism, and two-party and multi-party systems. This model is based on the veto player concept introduced by constitutional writers centuries ago, and directly or indirectly used in the comparative literature since. I have divided veto players into two categories, institutional and partisan, which has enabled me to compare parliamentary and presidential regimes. My analysis led to the conclusions that the policy stability of a political system increases when the number of veto players increases, when their congruence decreases and when their cohesion increases. The basic macro-political results of the analysis are that none of the standard independent variables used in comparative analysis, such as regime type, party system or number of chambers in the legislature, produce the same results independently of the others. In particular, presidential systems (with multiple institutional veto players) present characteristics of policy-making stability similar to coalition governments in parliamentary systems (with multiple partisan veto players). These common characteristics of presidential and multi-party parliamentary systems contrast 92 Shugart and Carey, Presidents andl Assemblies, pp. 154-8. Decision Making in Political Systems with two-party systems, dominant parties and minority governments in parliamentary democracies (which have single veto players). Empirical studies of policy making produce results congruent with the expectations of the model. Similarly, empirical studies of government and regime instability provide indirect evidence in favour of it. The veto players framework can be expanded to include courts, super majorities, referendums, corporatist structures of decision making, local governments and other institutional devices. It can also be used to generate predictions about judicial and administrative importance and independence. If courts and bureaucracies are interested in seeing their decisions stand, and not being overruled by the political actors, they will be more important and independent in systems with multiple incongruent and cohesive veto players. With respect to the independence of bureaucracies, two seemingly opposing arguments have been presented in the literature. Hammond and Knott93 use a two-dimensional model and argue that the size of the 'core' (i.e. the set of points with empty winsets) increases with multiple principals of the bureaucracy, providing bureaucrats with the opportunity to select any point inside the core without fear of being overruled. Their argument includes congressional committees, floors and the presidency. In essence, their approach is similar to the one adopted here.94 Both Moe, and Moe and Caldwell,95 however, start with similar premises but reach seemingly opposite conclusions. They argue that parliamentary regimes will have fewer bureaucratic rules and more independent bureaucracies than presidential regimes; and presidential regimes will have extremely detailed laws and procedures reducing the autonomy of bureaucrats. The empirical examples come almost exclusively from the United Kingdom and the United States (which are considered the prototypes of parliamentary and presidential systems). There is an important difference in the arguments here. I believe that for bureaucracies as well, the dividing line is not between parliamentary and presidential systems as Moe argues, but between single and multiple veto players (Italy would be a perfect test case, because according to my argument its bureaucracy would be 93 See Thomas H. Hammond and Jack H. Knott, 'Presidential Power, Congressional Dominance, and Bureaucratic Autonomy in a Model of Multi-Institutional Policy Making' (paper presented at Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, 1993). This expectation is consistent with Lohmann's finding that in periods of divided government in Germany the Bundesbank is more independent (see Susanne Lohmann, 'Federalism and Central Bank Autonomy: The Politics of German Monetary Policy, 1960-89' (mimeo, UCLA, 1993)). 94 Notable differences between the Hammond and Knott model and my approach is that they are interested in the special case when the winset of the status quo is empty (while I am interested in the size of the winset), and they use two dimensions (that can be generalized up to four; see Tsebelis, 'The Core, the Uncovered Set and Conference Committees in Bicameral Legislatures'), while my approach holds for any number of dimensions. 95 See Terry M. Moe, 'Political Institutions: The Neglected Side of the Story', Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, 6 (1993), 213-53, and Terry M. Moe and Michael Caldwell, 'The Institutional Foundations of Democratic Government'. 323 324 TSEBELIS more similar to that of the United States than that of the United Kingdom, while Moe's expectation would be the opposite). Setting this difference aside, I agree with Moe's arguments. Single veto players do not need detailed descriptions of bureaucratic procedures written into law. The party in power can decide how the bureaucracy is going to work, and for the bureaucracy it makes no difference if rules are written into law or come from a ministerial decision. In addition, crystallizing procedures into laws for the next government makes no sense, because the new government can write new laws with equal ease, or issue new ministerial instructions. For these reasons, single veto players have no need to restrict bureaucracies through legal procedures. Multiple veto players, on the other hand, will try to crystallize the balance of forces at the time they write a law, in order to restrict bureaucracies as much as they can. How restrictive the procedures will be depends on the level of agreement among these veto players. For example, their disagreements may not be only political but also institutional and procedural. In this case, if there is a law it will be quite general, giving leeway to the bureaucrats. So, the existence of multiple veto players does not guarantee that detailed procedural descriptions get written into law. Now we can synthesize the different arguments into one. On average, systems with multiple veto players are more likely to have cumbersome bureaucratic procedures than single veto player settings, as Moe argues. However, cumbersome bureaucratic procedures should not be confounded with lack of independence; in fact, they might be a weapon of bureaucrats against political interference in their tasks. Bureaucracies are more likely to be independent when they have multiple principals (multiple veto players) than when they have a single principal. Focusing on thejudiciary, my model generates the expectation that courts will be important in federal countries, as well as in countries where they adjudicate between veto players (presidential systems). Within parliamentary systems, the judiciary will be more important in countries with multiple veto players like Germany or Italy, than in countries with single veto players like the United Kingdom or Sweden. Similarly, supreme courts will be more important in federal than in unitary countries.96 Finally, the same framework accounts for government stability in parliamen- tary systems and regime stability in presidential systems. The connection is simple: policy stability leads to the inability of governments to change the status quo, even when such changes are necessary or desirable. Consequently, a government with multiple, incongruent and cohesive players gets replaced by 96 One variable that is missing from this account, and should be included in a comparative study of courts, is who has standing in front of the court. For example, the condition for the increase of importance of the Constitutional Court in France was the introduction of the reform (at the time it was called 'reformette' because of lack of understanding of its significance) that the Court could be asked to deliberate by sixty Members of Parliament.