Parties and institutions: empirical evidence on veto players and the growth of government

TY - JOUR

T1 - Parties and institutions

T2 - empirical evidence on veto players and the growth of government

AU - Dahl, Casper Hunnerup

PY - 2014/6

Y1 - 2014/6

N2 - Does the effective number of veto players in a political system explain the rate of government growth? Panel data analyses are conducted in order to test several measures of veto players against each other, and these results are compared with similar analyses of government fractionalization. The analyses indicate that veto players and especially government fractionalization exert a constraining effect on changes in the size of government, but also that the effect is not consistent over time: neither veto players in general nor fractionalization of government in particular exerted any constraining effect during the decades of rapid government growth due to welfare state creation and expansion in the 1960s and 1970s. The strength of government fractionalization vis-a-vis the veto player measures in explaining changes in the size of government suggest that the constellation of partisan veto players within coalition governments matters, while the effect of institutional veto players remains uncertain.

AB - Does the effective number of veto players in a political system explain the rate of government growth? Panel data analyses are conducted in order to test several measures of veto players against each other, and these results are compared with similar analyses of government fractionalization. The analyses indicate that veto players and especially government fractionalization exert a constraining effect on changes in the size of government, but also that the effect is not consistent over time: neither veto players in general nor fractionalization of government in particular exerted any constraining effect during the decades of rapid government growth due to welfare state creation and expansion in the 1960s and 1970s. The strength of government fractionalization vis-a-vis the veto player measures in explaining changes in the size of government suggest that the constellation of partisan veto players within coalition governments matters, while the effect of institutional veto players remains uncertain.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - Veto players

KW - Size of government

KW - Government fractionalization

KW - Public spending

KW - Coalition governments

U2 - 10.1007/s11127-013-0104-8

DO - 10.1007/s11127-013-0104-8

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0048-5829

VL - 159

SP - 415

EP - 433

JO - Public Choice

JF - Public Choice

IS - 3-4

ER -