About the project
With this in mind, our goal is to develop fully the distinction between negative and positive parliamentarism and clarify its institutional implications; to trace the origins of the institutions associated with negative and positive parliamentarism; and to study their consequences for the way parliamentary governments operate in an ever more demanding, complex, and global policy environment.
The project will provide the first truly intertemporal comparative study of the design and consequences of varieties of parliamentarism.
The notion of positive and negative parliamentarism has been invoked primarily to account for differences in the government formation process and the type of government (minority or majority) that results from it. We reject the simplicity of this usage, instead arguing that the distinction between positive and negative parliamentarism is systemic and matters not only for the process of government formation and termination, but also for several important aspects of the operation of the government during its existence.
Schematically, we propose that there are two sets of instruments of positive parliamentarism: those that refer to the existence of the government, and those that pertain to the government’s ability to control parliament (agenda setting powers), which affect its ability to pass legislation and govern. The first set of instruments includes formation rules (investiture) and non-confidence procedures. The second set of instruments includes the confidence vote, decree powers, parliamentary dissolution and instruments, such as the “guillotine” and the block vote, which place limits on the parliament’s ability to amend bills and allow the government to “package” a bill for a legislative floor vote in the way it sees fit. All these institutions are considered to matter for the type of government that is observed in parliamentary democracies (majority versus minority), for the duration and overall stability of the government, and for the government’s legislative and governing capacity.
Our view of positive parliamentarism differs with the usage we find in the literature, in that we also consider instruments that are relevant for the government’s governing capacity once the government is formed. In this sense, our thinking about parliamentary systems rejects the implicit assumption of the vast majority of studies of government formation and termination in these systems, according to which the way the government functions during its time in office is mostly determined by the way it is formed.
The two sets of institutions of positive parliamentarism – those related to government formation and those related to the government’s agenda setting powers – yield four theoretical possibilities for the characterization of existing systems:
- Those that have no institutions of positive parliamentarism.
- Those that adopt institutions of positive parliamentarism when it comes to government formation and termination, but not when it comes to the government’s agenda setting capacity.
- Those that adopt institutions of positive parliamentarism when it comes to the government’s agenda setting capacity, but not when it comes to government formation and termination.
- Those that adopt both sets of institutions of positive parliamentarism.
All four options are theoretically possible, but their frequency among historical and existing parliamentary democracies is not known. Thus, it is central to the project to develop theoretically the four types of parliamentary democracies and to document their empirical existence, even before we begin to consider the consequences of such varieties of parliamentarism.
Publications
- Election Campaigns, Issue Focus and Voting Intentions: Survey Experiments of Norwegian Voters by Audun Beyer, Carl Henrik Knutsen and Bjørn Erik Rasch.
- Débats législatifs et délibération démocratique dans les systèmes parlementaires. Bjørn Erik Rasch. Pp. 151-170 in Claire De Galembert, Olivier Rozenberg et Cécile Vigour (dir.), 2013: Faire parler le Parlement. Méthodes et enjeux de l'analyse des débats parlementaires pour les sciences sociales.
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Hvor gammel er Grunnloven? Grunnlovsendringer gjennom 200 år. Bjørn Erik Rasch og Iris Nguyen-Duy. Kapittel 6 (pp. 95-113) i Harald Baldersheim og Øyvind Østerud, red. Det norske demokratiet i det 21. århundre.
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Political Parties and Constitutional Change by Shane Martin and Bjørn Erik Rasch. Chapter 11 (pp. 205-229) in Wolfgang C. Müller and Hanne Marthe Narud, eds. 2013. Party Governance and Party Democracy. New York: Springer.
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Parliaments and Government Formation: Unpacking Investiture Rules. Parliaments and Government Formation: Unpacking Investiture Rules. Edited by Bjørn Erik Rasch, Shane Martin and Jose Antonio Cheibub. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Nov. 2015.)
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Presidential Partisanship in Government Formation: Do Presidents Favor Their Parties When They Appoint the Prime Minister? By Cristina Bucur, José Antonio Cheibub. This article was published in July 2017 in Political Research Quarterly and can be found here.
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A mould-breaking cabinet? Changes and continuities in the formation of the 2017 French government. By Cristina Bucur. French Politics; Volume 15, Issue 3, pp 340–359
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Cabinet payoffs in coalition governments: A time-varying measure of portfolio importance by Cristina Bucur. First published April 29, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068816644789
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Proximity, Candidates, and Presidential Power: How Directly Elected Presidents Shape the Legislative Party System. By Robert Elgie, Cristina Bucur, Bernard Dolez and Annie Laurent. Political Research Quarterly vol. 67 (3): 467-477.
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Cabinet ministers under competing pressures: Presidents, prime ministers, and political parties in semi-presidential systems by Cristina Bucur. Comparative European Politics, advance online publication, doi:10.1057/cep.2015.1.
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The Constitutional Foundations of Democratic Consolidation by José Antonio Cheibub. Comparative Democratization Newsletter, vol. 12, no. 2, May 2014. Also published in Presidential Power: Presidents and Presidential Politics Around the World, June 18 and 19, 2014.
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The Structure of Legislative-Executive Relations: Asia in Comparative Perspective by José Antonio Cheibub and Fernando Limongi. Chapter 6 (pp. 123-162) in Rosalind Dixon and Tom Ginsburg, eds 2014. Comparative Constitutional Law in Asia. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
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Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism by Jose Antonio Cheibub, Zachary Elkins and Tom Ginsburg. British Jounal of Political Science vol. 44 (3): 515-544.
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Unity in Diversity? The Development of Political Parties in the Parliament of Canada, 1867–2011 by Jean-François Godbout and Bjørn Høyland. British Journal of Political Science
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Career Ambitions and Legislative Participation: The Moderating Effect of Electoral Institutions by Bjørn Høyland, Sara B. Hobolt and Simon Hix. British Journal of Political Science, published online 21 March 2017.
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The Emergence of Parties in the Canadian House of Commons (1867-1908) by Jean-Francois Godbout and Bjørn Høyland. Canadian Journal of Political Science 2013, vol. 46(4): 773-797.
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Insincere voting under the successive procedure by Bjørn Erik Rasch. Public Choice vol. 158 (March 2014), issue 3-4, pp. 499-511 (online from January 2013).
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Government Selection and Executive Powers: Constitutional Design in Parliamentary Democracies by José Antonio Cheibub, Shane Martin & Bjørn Erik Rasch. West European Politics; Vol. 38, issue 5, 2015.
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Demokrati. Historien og ideene. Bjørn Erik Rasch: Regjeringsformer i demokratier: Parlamentarisme og presidentstyre (pp. 494-506). Bjørn Erik Rasch: Flertallets kår i voterende forsamlinger (pp. 520-537). Demokrati. Historien og ideene. Redigert av Raino Malnes og Dag Einar Thorsen. (Oslo: Dreyer forlag, 2015.)
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Policy, Office and Votes: The Electoral Value of Ministerial Office by Shane Martin. British Journal of Political Science DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0007123414000258
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Is All Politics Local? The Role-Orientation of Irish Parliamentarians toward Foreign Policy by Shane Martin. Irish Political Studies, vol. 28 (1): 114-129.
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Why Electoral Systems Don't Always Matter: The Impact of "Mega-seats" on Legislative Behavior in Ireland by Shane Martin. Party Politics, vol. 20 (3): 467-479.
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The Oxford Handbook of Legislative Studies. Simon Hix and Bjørn Høyland: Political Behaviour in the European Parliament (Chapter 28, pp. 591-608). Bjørn Erik Rasch: Institutional Foundations of Legislative Agenda Setting (Chapter 22, pp. 455-480). Shane Martin: Committees (Chapter 17, pp. 352-368)This book is published on Oxford University Press
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International Negotiations in the Shadow of National Elections. By Stephanie J. Rickard and Teri L. Caraway. International Organization vol. 68 (3): 701-720.
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Think globally, buy locally: International agreements and government procurement by Stephanie J. Rickard and Daniel Y. Kono. The Review of International Organizations vol. 9 (3): 333-352.
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Intra-Party Politics and Public Opinion: How Candidate Selection Processes Affect Citizens’ Satisfaction with Democracy by Yael Shomer, Gert-Jan Put and Einat Gedalya-Lavy. Political Behavior, September 2016, Volume 38, Issue 3, pp 509–534.
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Det konstitusjonelle demokratiet: Grunnlovens betydning for politisk praksis by Eivind Smith.
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Survival of the Ministers: On Ministerial Durability in Postwar Norway by Martin G. Søyland. Scandinavian Political Studies, vol. 40 (2), 2017.
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Stortingets historie 1964-2014. Bjørn Erik Rasch: "Fagkomiteene - politiske verksteder?" Pp. 384-398. Bjørn Erik Rasch: "Opposisjonen", pp. 439-454. Hanne Marthe Narud, Knut Heidar og Tore Grønlie, red. Stortingets historie 1964-2014 (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2014).
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Velkommen til statsvitenskap. Bjørn Erik Rasch: "Politiske valg, maktspredning og folkevilje" (kap. 12) Bjørn Erik Rasch: "Valg og politikk i Israel" (kap. 27). Raino Malnes, red. Velkommen til statsvitenskap (Oslo: Gyldendal Akademisk 2016)
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No News Is News: Nonignorable Nonresponse in Roll-Call Data Analysis by Guillermo Rosas, Yael Shomer and Stephen R. Haptonstahl. American Journal of Political Science
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Institutional reforms and their effect on legislators' behavior. The Israeli experience, 1992-2011. By Yael Shomer. Party Politics, vol. 23(3), 2017.
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The Conditional Effect of Electoral Systems and Intraparty Candidate Selection Processes on Parties' Behavior by Yael Shomer. Legislative Studies Quarterly, publishe online 11 May 2016.
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Electoral Incentives and Individual Parliament Members’ Rights by Yael Shomer. West European Politics; Vol. 38, issue 5, 2015
Seminars
Perspectives on Constituent Assemblies
Date: April 1, 2016
The aim of this conference is to promote a comparative, interdisciplinary dialogue on methodological and substantive issues in the study of constituent assemblies between scholars from different parts of the world, featuring historians, political theorists, legal scholars, sociologists and politicians working on constitution-making in Europe, Asia, South America, Africa and North America.
Institutional Determinants of Legislative Coalition Management
Date: Nov16, 2015
This workshop examines how parliaments organize to maximize governmental efficiency as well as their ability to keep coalition governments together. What are the internal and external institutional determinants that shape legislative coalition management and help increase the coalition's legislative capacity? Does this institutional structure vary across countries?
Historical Parliamentarism: Early Instances, Evolution, and Constitutional Design
Date: June 8, 2015
The “negative” archetype of parliamentarism, where the government remains in power as long as the majority chooses not to remove it, is today based on the experience of only a few countries (for example, the Scandinavian countries), where the principle of assembly confidence took roots over a relatively long period of time and under restricted political competition.
Parliaments, Policy and Crisis
Date: Sep 11, 2014
This workshop examines how parliamentarians respond to economic crises. Do policy responses vary across countries? Does the institutional context in which policy is made influence governments’ reaction to economic crises?
The Importance of Constitutions II: Parliamentarism, Representation and Voting Rights
Date: June 16, 2014
We are pleased to announce an international workshop on The Importance of Constitutions in Uppsala 16-17 June 2014, a few days before the Swedish midsummer celebrations. A first meeting on the topic was arranged in Istanbul in October 2013. This time too, we invite papers discussing parliamentarism, representation and voting rights from a constitutional perspective. We expect some of the participants from the Istanbul event to join with revised or entirely new papers, but we like to invite other participants as well. We plan for a total number of around 20 participants each day.
The Evolution of Parliamentarism and Its Political Consequences (June 2014)
Date: June 9, 2014
Project meeting at the University of Oslo with core participants: Bjørn Erik Rasch, Bjørn Høyland, José Antonio Cheibub, Shane Martin, Cristina Bucur and Stephanie Rickard.
ECPR Workshop on The Evolution of Parliamentarism and Its Political Consequences
Date: April 10, 2014
The number of democracies in the world today is higher than in any other time. The majority of these democracies adopt a parliamentary constitution, that is, one that is based on assembly confidence. Assembly confidence regimes are those in which governments, in order to come to and stay in power, must be at least tolerated by a legislative majority. They can be divided into positive and negative parliamentarism. The aim of the workshop is to examine the origins and consequences of the mechanisms of positive and negative parliamentarism.
The Importance of Constitutions: Parliamentarism, Representation and Voting Rights
Date: Oct 23, 2014
The Research Programme on Democracy at the University of Oslo and Uppsala University are organizing a workshop at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, Turkey. The event is multi-disciplinary (social sciences, humanities and constitutional law) and paper-based. Participants should arrive at the conference hotel on the evening of Tuesday October 22. The workshop ends with lunch on Friday October 25.
The Evolution of Parliamentarism and Its Political Consequences (May 2013)
Date: May 7, 2013
Project kick-off meeting at the University of Oslo with core participants of the project: Bjørn Erik Rasch, Bjørn Høyland, José Antonio Cheibub, Shane Martin, Stephanie Rickard, Natalia Ajenjo, Eivind Smith and Yael Shomer. RA: Haakon Gjerløw. Guest (Tuesday): Kaare Strøm.
