Thomas Saalfeld

Deliberate delegation or abdication? Government backbenchers, ministers and European Union legislation

This paper analyses how key structural characteristics of the relationship between ministers and government backbenchers influence the extent to which national parliaments of European Union Member States are able to scrutinise and influence EU law-making. Two theoretical perspectives – a ‘parliamentary abdication’ and a ‘delegation’ perspective – will be used to test contrasting hypotheses. The empirical evidence presented is not unequivocal, but more in line with the ‘delegation’ than the ‘abdication perspective’: The extent to which national parliaments have institutional opportunities to scrutinise and influence the national governments position in EU affairs can indeed be shown to co-vary (a) with key structural characteristics of the relationship between government backbenchers and ministers and (b) with the electoral saliency of EU affairs in the respective country.

Parliamentary Questions as Instruments of Substantive Representation: Visible Minorities in the UK House of Commons, 2005–10

Does the growing descriptive representation of minority-ethnic legislators in the British House of Commons have any implications for the substantive representation of minority-related issues in the UK Parliament? This study is based on a data set of over 16,000 parliamentary questions tabled by 50 British backbench Members of Parliament (MPs) in the 2005–10 Parliament, including the 16 immigrant-origin MPs with a ‘visible-minority’ background. Based on a series of multivariate models, it is found that all British MPs sampled for this study – irrespective of their ethnic status – respond to electoral incentives arising from the socio-demographic composition of their constituencies: minority and non-minority MPs alike ask more questions relating to minority concerns, if they represent constituencies with a high share of non-White residents. Controlling for that general effect, however, MPs with a visible-minority status do tend to ask significantly more questions about ethnic diversity and equality issues.

Economic and Political Reactions to the World Economic Crisis of the 1930s in Six European Countries

In this article economic and political responses to the Depression in Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Britain are analyzed. Each country applied a specific mixture of deflationary policies coupled with import restrictions, subventions and—later on—some active employment measures. At best these measures contributed to the recovery of the economy when it was already on its way back. Like the measures of economic crisis, electoral volatility, and government stability previously examined, economic policy did not introduce sufficient variation between the six countries to “account for” the collapse or survival of the polity under the impact of the Depression. In our view, the processes of national consensus formation provide the distinguishing variable for understanding on a comparative base the courses and mechanisms of polity survival or collapse. The political, economic, and societal cleavages separating major actors such as labor, business, agriculture, and the state from each other and the strategies pursued in forging a compromise along different class lines are of particular importance here.

Professionalisation of parliamentary roles in germany: An aggregate‐level analysis, 1949–94

The professionalisation of parliamentary politics and the rise of the career politician is one of the most important changes in post‐war German parliamentarism. In the first part of this article, aggregate data are used to describe the nature and extent of this trend over time (1949–94). In the second part, Robert K. Mertons concept of ‘role‐set’ is used to examine how professionalisation affects the strategies to reduce disturbances within role‐sets. First results, which are only tentative at this stage, suggest that the great emphasis on committee work in the Bundestag is consistent with Mertons strategy of ‘abridging role‐sets’ and ‘insulating role activities from observability’, while the high degree of voting cohesion and party solidarity could be explained with Mertons strategies of mutual ‘social support’ and ‘differences in power’.

The German Party System: Continuity and Change

This article assesses continuity and change in the German party system since unification in 1990. From a methodological point of view, this presents a challenge, because there are at least three kinds of trends which are difficult to disentangle: (1) the direct effects of unification, (2) general longer-term trends independent of, but coinciding with, unification and, (3) indirect effects of unification (that is, for example, general trends accelerated or delayed by unification). In the absence of suitable statistical controls, it is not possible to determine the ‘net contribution’ of these different effects. Nevertheless, party and party system change in Germany since unification must be assessed against the backdrop of developments in comparable political systems in Western Europe in order to avoid conclusions based on spurious covariation.

The politics of national‐populism: Ideology and policies of the German Republikaner party

In this article, the Republikaner partys ideology and policies are explored on the basis of programmes and other public statements. There will be an emphasis on economic policies and issues of national and ethnic identity. It will be argued that the Republikaner party is targeting a broader electoral coalition than its main competitors and predecessors on the extreme right. In its attempt to mobilise a broad and heterogeneous protest coalition and to attract voters beyond the narrow confines of traditional right‐wing extremism the party makes contradictory promises to various sectional groups without being able to integrate them into a consistent framework of economic policy. These contradictions are covered up by the partys radical nationalism, extreme xenophobia and populist propaganda.

Rational‐choice theory in legislative studies: Models of politics without romanticism

Rational‐choice theory, especially in its neo‐institutionalist variants, is a useful tool for the explanation of legislative behaviour. It allows to generate testable hypotheses about the link between the motives of individual parliamentarians, institutional structures and policies. Based on a general theory of action, rational‐choice explanations are deductive and reductionist making them particularly useful for the comparative study of parliaments. Many criticisms of rational‐choice theory do not apply in the well‐structured, competitive context of democratic parliamentary politics. Analytical tools like the concept of the ‘legislative firm’ or the ‘interest‐group approach of government’ help to generate explanations of the link between institutions and policy outputs that are not ad hoc and can be tested against a broad array of empirical data.

The "Bundestag" and German Citizens: More Communication, Growing Distance

This contribution examines how links between citizens and members of the Bundestag have evolved since 1949. The focus is on institutional incentives relating to the electoral system and the rules of procedure in the Bundestag. In addition, new incentives arising from technological developments (especially internet and Web 2.0 applications) are explored regarding their effect on individual parliamentary behaviour vis-à-vis citizens and the Bundestags ‘corporate’ links with citizens (links not based on electoral incentives in the constituencies and the chamber). In particular, the development of petitions and electronic petitions are assessed. While the evidence presented suggests that Bundestag members have enhanced communication with citizens, this has not halted the decline in popular support for the House. In line with other advanced liberal democracies, trust in parliament is declining as a result of a more critical, less deferential citizenry.

Parteiensystem und Kabinettsstabilität in Westeuropa 1945–1999

„In der Demokratie“, so ein erfahrener Praktiker der deutschen Politik, „kommt das dicke Ende fur jeden. Fruher oder spater. Aber so sicher wie das Amen in der Kirche“ (Mettes 2001: 80). Dass demokratisches Regieren „Herrschaft auf Zeit“ sei, ist ein Gemeinplatz der Politik. So ist die Lebenserwartung von Regierungen in parlamentarischen und semiprasidentiellen Regierungssystemen normalerweise schon formal durch Verfassungsnormen begrenzt. Parlamente mussen regelmasig neu gewahlt werden, und die Amtszeit von Regierungen ist an die Legislaturperiode des Parlaments gekoppelt. „Technische“ Regierungsauflosungen infolge solcher Verfassungsnormen sind fur die verhaltenswissenschaftlich orientierte Politikforschung nur von begrenztem Interesse1. Auch Regierungsauflosungen infolge „exogener Zufallsereignisse“ — Todesfalle von Regierungschefs, Skandale, Wirtschaftskrisen, Kriegsausbruche oder Naturkatastrophen — bleiben aus der Sicht politikwissenschaftlicher Theoriebildung naturgemas weit gehend unvorhersehbar.

Economic Performance, Political Institutions and Cabinet Durability in 28 European Parliamentary Democracies, 1945–2011

After reviewing the literature on cabinet terminations and demonstrating the progress from early explanations based on the structural attributes of cabinets and their political environment to increasingly sophisticated ‘unified’ models of strategic responses to exogenous shocks, this chapter will (a) discuss ways of using existing datasets to operationalize one of these unified models, Lupia and Strom’s influential model of strategic cabinet termination (focusing on the conditions of political institutions to influence the costs of governing under the impact of exogenous shocks such as economic crises); and (b) test a version of it empirically by using a competing-risk design and a new set of political and economic data covering 28 European democracies over a period of more than 60 years. It is found that strong increases in unemployment were particularly destructive for European cabinets, whereas the impact of inflation seems to be mitigated by political and strategic factors. Duration-dependent effects—unemployment increasing the risk of early elections towards the end of a parliamentary term and increasing the risk of non-electoral cabinet replacements at its beginning—are small but significant, corroborating some of the observable implications of the Lupia–Strom model.