Veto Players: How Political Institutions WorkPrinceton University Press, 2002 M09 15 - 317 pages Political scientists have long classified systems of government as parliamentary or presidential, two-party or multiparty, and so on. But such distinctions often fail to provide useful insights. For example, how are we to compare the United States, a presidential bicameral regime with two weak parties, to Denmark, a parliamentary unicameral regime with many strong parties? Veto Players advances an important, new understanding of how governments are structured. The real distinctions between political systems, contends George Tsebelis, are to be found in the extent to which they afford political actors veto power over policy choices. Drawing richly on game theory, he develops a scheme by which governments can thus be classified. He shows why an increase in the number of "veto players," or an increase in their ideological distance from each other, increases policy stability, impeding significant departures from the status quo. |
Contents
VETO PLAYERS THEORY | 17 |
Individual Veto Players | 19 |
Collective Veto Players | 38 |
VETO PLAYERS AND INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS | 65 |
Regimes Nondemocratic Presidential and Parliamentary | 67 |
Governments and Parliaments | 91 |
Referendums | 116 |
Federalism Bicameralism and Qualified Majorities | 136 |
Macroeconomic Policies | 187 |
SYSTEMIC EFFECTS OF VETO PLAYERS | 207 |
Government Stability | 209 |
Judiciary and Bureaucracies | 222 |
Veto Players Analysis of European Union Institutions | 248 |
Conclusion | 283 |
291 | |
309 | |
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Institutional Theory in Political Science: The 'new Institutionalism' B. Guy Peters No preview available - 2005 |
Democratic Politics in the European Parliament Simon Hix,Abdul G. Noury,Gérard Roland Limited preview - 2007 |