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Parties, Coalitions, and the Internal Organization of Legislatures

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  • DIERMEIER, DANIEL
  • VLAICU, RAZVAN

Abstract

We present a theory of parties-in-legislatures that can generate partisan policy outcomes despite the absence of any party-imposed voting discipline. Legislators choose all procedures and policies through majority-rule bargaining and cannot commit to vote against their preferences on either. Yet, off-median policy bias occurs in equilibrium because a majority of legislators with correlated preferences has policy-driven incentives to adopt partisan agenda-setting rules—as a consequence, bills reach the floor disproportionately from one side of the ideological spectrum. The model recovers, as special cases, the claims of both partisan and nonpartisan theories in the ongoing debate over the nature of party influence in the U.S. Congress. We show that (1) party influence increases in polarization, and (2) the legislative median controls policy making only when there are no bargaining frictions and no polarization. We discuss the implications of our findings for the theoretical and empirical study of legislatures.

Suggested Citation

  • Diermeier, Daniel & Vlaicu, Razvan, 2011. "Parties, Coalitions, and the Internal Organization of Legislatures," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(2), pages 359-380, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:105:y:2011:i:02:p:359-380_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Dotti, Valerio, 2019. "Political Parties and Policy Outcomes. Do Parties Block Reforms?," MPRA Paper 100227, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Razvan Vlaicu, 2018. "Inequality, participation, and polarization," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 50(4), pages 597-624, April.
    3. Diermeier, Daniel & Fong, Pohan, 2012. "Characterization of the von Neumann–Morgenstern stable set in a non-cooperative model of dynamic policy-making with a persistent agenda setter," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 349-353.
    4. Enzo Lenine, 2020. "Modelling Coalitions: From Concept Formation to Tailoring Empirical Explanations," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-12, November.
    5. Manav Raj, 2021. "A house divided: Legislative competition and young firm survival in the United States," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(13), pages 2389-2419, December.
    6. Jon X. Eguia, 2013. "The Origin of Parties: The United States Congress in 1789–1797 as a Test Case," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 313-334, November.
    7. Thomas Choate & John A Weymark & Alan E Wiseman, 2020. "Legislative bargaining and partisan delegation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 32(2), pages 289-311, April.
    8. Jon Eguia, 2012. "A spatial theory of party formation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 49(3), pages 549-570, April.
    9. Pech, Gerald, 2012. "Intra-party decision making, party formation, and moderation in multiparty systems," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 14-22.
    10. Lynch Catherine & O’Malley Eoin & Suiter Jane & Reidy Theresa & Farrell David M., 2017. "Dáil reforms since 2011: Pathway to power for the ‘puny’ parliament?," Administration, Sciendo, vol. 65(2), pages 37-57, May.
    11. Torun Dewan & Andrea Galeotti & Christian Ghiglino & Francesco Squintani, 2015. "Information aggregation and optimal structure of the executive," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 59632, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Valerio Dotti, 2021. "Reaching across the aisle to block reforms," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(2), pages 533-578, September.

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