Post on 26-Mar-2015
Agenda Control in Denmark1971-2003
Gary W. Cox, Mathew D. McCubbins, and Asbjorn
Skjaeveland
• In all national assemblies of which we are aware, there are certain offices to which extraordinary agenda powers attach.
• We define an agenda cartel as a set of agents possessing two key properties. – First, they collectively hold a controlling share of the agenda-
setting offices relevant to a given assembly. – Second, the cartel establishes a procedure for agreeing on
which proposals will be allowed access to the plenary session. Whether decentralized or centralized, formal or informal, Whether decentralized or centralized, formal or informal, this procedure amounts to investing k groups within the this procedure amounts to investing k groups within the cartel, C 1,...,Ck, with vetoes over the placement of cartel, C 1,...,Ck, with vetoes over the placement of proposals upon the plenary agendaproposals upon the plenary agenda.
Two subspecies of agenda cartel
• First, in parliamentary systems, it is often said that each pivotal party in a multi-party majority coalition wields an agenda veto. We call this a We call this a parliamentaryparliamentary agenda cartel. agenda cartel.
• Second, Cox and McCubbins (2002, 2005) suggest that any majority of the majority party can veto the placement of items on the floor agenda in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Agenda Power
• When a parliamentary agenda cartel exists, it is as if the legislative agenda were set as follows. – (1) Whoever wishes may introduce bills. – (2) In order for a bill to advance to the plenary session under the
current government, however, it must be acceptable to each veto player, or gatekeeper, C1,...,Ck.
– (3) Bills that are not vetoed ex ante are decide in plenary session under open rules with germaneness restrictions. The outcome of which, in a one-dimensional policy game, is that the enacted bill will be located at the location of the median voter’s ideal point (Black, Downs).
• In this model, the veto players should never lose In this model, the veto players should never lose (i.e., have an unwanted policy change forced upon (i.e., have an unwanted policy change forced upon them).them).
The cartel thesis
• The cartel thesis is that, if a majority government forms, then it will also constitute an agenda cartel.
Rolls and Roll Rates
• Operationally, if a majority of a party votes against a bill that nonetheless passes, we say that the party has been rolled. – Prior to the final passage stage, there are also sometimes clear
agenda-setting votes—that is, votes to determine whether the legislature will or will not consider in plenary session a particular bill. We also speak of parties being rolled on these initial agenda-setting motions, when they vote against them but the motion nonetheless passes. Under conditions of complete Under conditions of complete and perfect information and with costless action, if a party and perfect information and with costless action, if a party wields a veto, it should wields a veto, it should nevernever be rolled. be rolled.
• Roll rates are just the proportion of total votes on which a party was rolled. In what follows we examine only final passage votes or FPVs.
Floor Agenda (Median Voter) Model
• What if there is no agenda cartel and no party wields a veto?
• If we assume that all parties can be placed along a traditional left-right scale, so that successful bills necessarily propose to move policy toward the median legislator’s ideal point, then we have a very simple expectation: The median party is never rolled, while roll The median party is never rolled, while roll rates increase monotonically both to the left and to the rates increase monotonically both to the left and to the rightright..– The intuition behind this result is straightforward. The median
party cannot be rolled because it is not possible to form a majority that wants to move policy away from the median in a unidimensional model.
Cartel Agenda Model: Hypotheses H1) Under complete and perfect information, and with
costless gatekeeping, the roll rate of governmental parties will be zero.
H2) The roll rate of opposition parties should be higher than the roll rate of governmental parties, all else constant.
H3) The roll rates of opposition parties should increase the farther is their median ideal point from the floor median. That is, the greater is, the greater an opposition party’s roll rate will be, all else constant. Government Party roll rates, by contrast, should not be affected by distance from the assembly median.
Denmark Average roll rates
1971-2003
• In government parties: .0123 – Range: 0 to .068
• Opposition parties: .208– Range: 0 to .80
Effect of Distance (in absolute value) on roll rates
Cartel Agenda Model
Floor Agenda Model
Majority Party 0 +
Minority Party + +
Relationship between Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates, in government parties
1971-2003(Is it positive or zero?)
0.0
2.0
4.0
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates, government parties
Coefficient (z score)
Distance (in absolute value)
1.69(0.75)
Constant -1.89 (-6.06) ***
Log Likelihood -805.25491
Psuedo R2 .14
N 91
Estimated using Extended Beta Binomial
*** - significant at .001 level
Relationship between Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates, opposition parties
1971-2003(Is it positive or zero?)
0.2
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0 .5 1 1.5distance
Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates,
opposition partiesCoefficient (z score)
Distance (in absolute value)
1.68 (10.73)***
Constant -2.08 (-21.20) ***
Log Likelihood - 16633.614
Psuedo R2 .11
N 223Estimated using Extended Beta Binomial
*** - significant at .001 level
O-L G-L G-M O-M O-R
Cartel Agenda Model PredictionsFloor Agenda Model Predictions
Legend: (1) O-L, Left Opposition Party; (2) O-M, ModerateOpposition Party; (3) O-R, Right Opposition Party; (4) G-L, Left
Government Party; (5) G-M, Median Government Party
Comparing Predictions of the Relationship Between Roll Rates and Distance for
the Floor Agenda Model and Cartel Agenda Model
Distance (in absolute value) and roll rate1971-1972
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rate1972-1973
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rate1973-1974
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rate1974-1975
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1975-1976
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1976-1977, session 1
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
1 0
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1976-1977, session 2
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1977-1978
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1978-1979
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1980-1981
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0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1distance
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1981-1982
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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0 0
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1982-1983
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1983-1984, session 1
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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ate
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1983-1984, session 2
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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110
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ate
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1984-1985
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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1 1
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1985-1986
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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11 0
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1986-1987
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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11 0
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1987-1988, session 1
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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0 .1 .2 .3 .4distance
Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1987-1988, session 2
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1988-1989
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1989-1990
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1990-1991, session 2
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1993 -1994
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1994-1995
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1995-1996
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1997-1998, session 1
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1997-1998, session 2
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1998-1999
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates1999 - 2000
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates2001-2002, second session
Labels indicate govt. status: 1=in government; 0 = in opposition
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Distance (in absolute value) and roll rates2002-2003
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