Veto Players and Law Production in Parliamentary Democracies: An Empirical Analysis

TLDR

The veto‑players theory predicts that more parties and greater ideological distance in parliamentary systems lower the capacity to enact major laws, while longer governments and larger shifts from previous administrations raise the number of significant laws. This study tests the hypotheses derived from the veto‑players theory. The authors analyze working‑time and working‑condition legislation from NATLEX and Blanpain’s encyclopedia for fifteen Western European countries between 1981 and 1991. The empirical results confirm the theory’s predictions.

Abstract

This article investigates hypotheses generated by the veto players' theory. The fundamental insight of this theory is that an increase in the number of veto players (for all practical purposes, in parliamentary systems the number of parties in government) and their ideological distance from one another will reduce the ability of both government and parliament to produce significant laws. In addition, the number of significant laws increases with the duration of a government and with an increase in the ideological difference between current and previous government. These propositions are tested with legislative data (both laws and government decrees) on working time and working conditions identified in two legislative sources: the NATLEX computerized database in Geneva (produced by the International Labour organization) and Blanpain's International Encyclopedia for Labour Law and Industrial Relations. The data cover fifteen West European countries for the period 1981–91. The evidence corroborates the proposed hypotheses.