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Politics, Policy, and Organizations of preference pro files, one system’s bureaucracy will have more autonomy than the second system’s, while for some other pair of preference pro files the second system’s bureaucracy will have more autonomy than the first. This would mean that we cannot rank the six systems in decreasing order of bureaucratic autonomy. Hence, it would not be clear, for hypothesis- testing purposes, what our theoretical expectations should be. So the question is: To which of these two conclusions do our models lead? To answer this question, we will make three different kinds of comparisons. Variations in the Size of Each System’s Core Observe in figures 2 through 7 that the core of each system can take on a wide range of sizes. In particular, the core of each system can contain either a single policy or multiple policies. 1. The Majority Party Unicameral Core (with perfect discipline) can contain either a single policy ( figs. 2A, 2B, and 2C) or multiple policies ( fig. 2D). 2. The Majority Party Unicameral Core (without perfect discipline) can contain either a single policy ( fig. 3C) or multiple policies ( figs. 3A and 3B). 3. The Party Coalition Unicameral Core (with perfect discipline) can contain either a single policy ( fig. 4D) or multiple policies ( figs. 4A, 4B, 4C, and 4E). 4. The Party Coalition Unicameral Core (without perfect discipline) can contain either a single policy ( fig. 5D) or multiple policies ( figs. 5A, 5B, and 5C). 5. The Party-Free Bicameral Core can contain either a single policy ( fig. 6C) or multiple policies (figs. 6A and 6B). 6. The Party-Free Bicameral Executive Veto Core can contain either a single policy ( fig. 7E) or multiple policies (figs. 7A through 7G). For each system, then, the core can vary in size from a single policy to a range of policies. Empirically, this has two implications. First, since the policy prefer- ences of the elected of ficials in a system may vary from issue area to issue area, the size of the system’s core may vary from issue area to issue area. This suggests that bureaucratic autonomy in this system can thus be ex- 96
pected to vary from agency to agency. Second, since the policy prefer- ences of the elected of ficials in a system may vary over time (which could happen for a variety of reasons) the size of the system’s core may vary over time as well. Hence, bureaucratic autonomy in the system can also be ex- pected to vary over time. Comparing the Sizes of the Cores for Any Two Systems The possible variation in size for each system’s core has direct implica- tions for what we might expect from comparisons of bureaucratic au- tonomy across pairs of systems. With six systems, one can make a total of ( 6 2 ) ϭ 15 pairwise compar- isons of the sizes of two systems’ cores. Fortunately, it is not necessary for our purposes to make all fifteen comparisons. The reason stems from the fact, noted earlier, that every system can have a core with just a single policy or a core with multiple policies. Thus, to compare system i (for i ϭ 1,2, . . . ,6) with system j (for j ϭ 1,2, . . . ,6) we need only consider four possible situations (for i j). 1. If the core of system i contains a single policy and the core of system j contains multiple policies, then the core of system i will be smaller than the core of system j. 2. If the core of system i contains a single policy and the core of system j contains a single policy, then the core of system i will be the same size as the core of system j. 3. If the core of system i contains multiple policies and the core of system j contains a single policy, then the core of system i will be larger than the core of system j. 4. If the core of system i and the core of system j both contain mul- tiple policies, the core of system i can be smaller than, the same size, or larger than the core of system j. Because each system could have a single policy or multiple policies in its core (as noted in the previous section), it follows that virtually any-
system i could be smaller than the core of system j, or the core of system i could be the same size as the core of system j, or the core of system i could be larger than the core of system j. In other words, the two sets of rules de fining any pair of systems do not necessarily lead to systematic differences in the extent of bureaucratic autonomy. Veto Points in Democratic Systems 97
Politics, Policy, and Organizations Rank Ordering the Core Sizes for All Six Systems This “anything can happen” result has a further implication. If we are conducting an empirical study of bureaucratic autonomy in all six sys- tems, we might wish to develop some prior theoretical expectations, for hypothesis-testing purposes, about how to rank these six systems in terms of their bureaucratic autonomy. With six different systems in our study, there are 6! ϭ 720 possible rank orderings of the sizes of their cores (ignoring the possibility of ties). However, since for any pair of systems one system can have a larger core than the second system, and the second system can have a larger core than the first, it follows that each of these 720 possible rankings could possibly occur. That is, there is no logically necessary rank ordering of bu- reaucratic autonomy across our six systems. Discussion These three sets of results—on the possible size of any one core, on the pairwise comparison of the sizes of any two systems’ cores, and on the rank ordering of the sizes of the cores of all six systems—suggest that there does not exist a logically necessary relationship between the policy- making rules de fining a particular system and the size of the system’s core. This means that knowing just the systems’ policy-making rules does not allow us to develop any logically valid expectations about which sys- tems will have bureaucracies with more autonomy and which will have bureaucracies with less. And if it is not clear what the expectations should be it is not clear what testable hypotheses can be derived. Hence, it is not clear what could be learned from the empirical research. If any- thing could happen theoretically, then empirical research that focuses only on the impact of the systems’ policy-making rules on bureaucratic autonomy will not be theoretically informative. The key implication is that we cannot rely just on the institutional variables—that is, on the number and variety of veto points and the other policy-making rules—to structure and inform our cross-national research on bureaucratic autonomy. Because results from any empirical study will always be due to the interaction among veto points and pref- erence pro files, if the preference profile variable is omitted from the em- pirical analysis these empirical results will be ascribed, erroneously, to just the impact of the institutional variables. 98
Of course, an identical argument can be made about the hazards of relying just on the beliefs and preferences of the elected politicians—that is, on the characteristics of the preference pro file—to structure and in- form our empirical research. Note that some comparative politics re- search uses results from public opinion surveys as indicators of various kinds of national cultures and then attempts to explain trends in national policy-making on the basis of these changes in cultures (see, e.g., Ingle- hart 1990). However, such studies rarely integrate their preference pro file
data with any institutional variables. Unfortunately, if the institutional variables are omitted from an empirical analysis of policy trends any re- sults that are due to the interaction among the veto points and the pref- erence pro files will be ascribed, erroneously, just to the preference profile variable. So if we wish to empirically examine bureaucratic autonomy in a comparative perspective it is imperative that measures of both the insti- tutional and preference pro file variables be included. Unfortunately, this will greatly complicate cross-system empirical research. It is a dif ficult
though manageable task to gather cross-system data on the institutional variables. However, gathering data on each system’s preference pro file is likely to be much more dif ficult (as well as time consuming and expen- sive). For this reason, it will be dif ficult to conduct meaningful cross- national empirical research on bureaucratic autonomy. Possible Criticisms A number of criticisms might be aimed at the approach from which these conclusions have been derived. In reviewing these criticisms, what must be considered is whether the two broad conclusions—the “any- thing can happen” results and the necessity of including both preference pro
file and institutional variables in our theoretical and empirical re- search—would have to be modi fied if any one criticism is valid. In gen- eral, even where there is some basis for the criticisms it is not apparent that either of the two central conclusions is signi ficantly undermined. More Complex Sets of Rules for Each System The set of rules characterizing each of our six systems is undoubtedly far simpler than the full set of rules actually characterizing any real world country. Inclusion of a wider range of institutional variables could be ex- pected to change the size, shape, and location of each system’s core. Veto Points in Democratic Systems 99
Politics, Policy, and Organizations For example, committees with gatekeeping authority could be in- cluded (especially in presidential systems) along with a veto override, the nomination and con firmation process for bureaucratic leaders, procedures for their dismissal or removal, and the courts (see Hammond and Knott 1996 for details on how these all might be included in a spatial model of bureaucratic autonomy in a presidential system). Agency budgets and the appropriations process could be included as well. For coalition govern- ments in parliamentary systems, how cabinet seats are allocated to various parties might affect the extent of autonomy for the bureaucracies in- volved. And if bureaucratic autonomy also stems from informational asymmetries between the bureaucrats and the elected of ficials, as Weber hypothesized, then these asymmetries could also be included. Changes in any of these factors may well change the size, shape, and location of the resulting cores, given some preference pro file. However, it is unclear what the net impact of these additional factors would be: in- clusion of some variables might increase the size of a system’s core (e.g., if more veto points are added, as with legislative committees or multi- party coalition governments), whereas the inclusion of other variables (e.g., the appropriations process and the chief executive’s ability to dis- miss the agency head) would seem likely to decrease the size of the sys- tem’s core. Moreover, it could be argued that some aspects of our mod- els, such as the number of political parties, should be endogenized and treated as a product of the systems’ electoral rules (which would also have to be included in our models). Nonetheless, the key issue is not whether these models are suf ficiently
descriptive of real world countries but whether our central conclusions would change if more complete rules were developed for each system. In part because it is not clear what the net effect of including all these ad- ditional variables would be, it is not clear that these conclusions would be undermined. The Unidimensionality Assumption It could be asserted, with some plausibility, that policy-making in many political systems is usually multidimensional and not unidimensional. Nonetheless, even with a multidimensional representation of policy- making in each of our systems it seems likely that the anything can hap- pen results would emerge from a theoretical multidimensional analysis. The reason is that, even in a multidimensional setting, for each pair of 100
systems there probably exist pairs of preference pro files that would pro- duce sets of equilibrium policies that vary greatly in size, thereby repro- ducing the anything can happen result. Of course, for any one system preference pro files that produce any cores at all may be less common in higher dimensional issue spaces than in lower dimensional spaces. The implication is that bureaucratic auton- omy would be less likely in multidimensional settings: for any policy the bureaucracy might adopt, the absence of a core means that there exists some other policy that some decisive coalition of elected of ficials would prefer. Hence, the bureaucracy would not be in a position to play a “di- vide and conquer” game with these of ficials. However, Humphreys (2001) presents formal and simulation results indicating that cores are not completely improbable in higher dimen- sional spaces. Moreover, a different line of work—see, for example, Baron and Ferejohn 1989—indicates that even in multidimensional spa- tial settings policy stability may exist if elected of ficials find the unend- ing decision making implied by policy disequilibrium to be costly. In ei- ther case, policy equilibrium may be maintained, with the result that some bureaucratic autonomy may still be possible. The Empirical Improbability of Particular Preference Profiles Several of the core sizes generated by our models stem from preference pro files that may seem empirically improbable. If these empirically im- probable pro files are eliminated from consideration, this might place at least some constraints on what we should expect theoretically when com- paring two or more systems. Nonetheless, while it may be possible to rule out some preference pro
files as empirically improbable for particular systems it remains un- clear whether as a result any one system, given the restricted range of pro files, will necessarily produce a core that is always larger than, or al- ways smaller than, the core of some other system. Hence, it is unclear that these restrictions would undermine our central conclusions. Conclusion The major conclusions thus remain the same. First, even with all the modi fications just proposed, different preference profiles can still be ex- pected to change the size of a system’s core, holding constant whatever set of policy-making rules is attributed to this system. And, second, this Veto Points in Democratic Systems 101
Politics, Policy, and Organizations means that any effort to empirically investigate the impact of policy-mak- ing rules on bureaucratic autonomy (either within or across systems) should incorporate the preference pro files as a variable. As a general rule, then, policy choices by a system must be seen as the product of an inter- action between the policy-making rules and the preferences of the actors in the system. Hence, empirical efforts to explain variations in the extent of bureaucratic autonomy within and across democratic systems must take both sets of factors into account. Notes 1. Tsebelis (1995) does explicitly talk about the impact of the preference pro file on policy stability (see, e.g., his proposition 2, p. 298, and also pp. 308– 11), and his empirical work (see, e.g., Tsebelis 1999) takes into account the ide- ological range of governing coalitions. However, the general nature of the inter- action between the number of veto points and the preference pro files in various kinds of systems remains underexplored. 2. A “decisive coalition” is one that, by the system’s policy-making rules, is empowered to select some new policy. Thus, in the United States there are two possible decisive coalitions in the policy-making process: (1) a coalition of the president, a House majority, and a Senate majority; and (2) a coalition of two- thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate. In a unicameral parliament, a decisive coalition would be simply a majority of the single chamber. 3. This is slightly nonstandard terminology, for if some legislators comprise a minority they cannot generate a win set. Instead, I am using the term win set to indicate the area where several preferred-to sets overlap and then modifying the term to indicate whether it is generated by a minority or a majority. 4. If the minority party does not automatically vote against the proposal of the majority party but each of its members instead simply votes in terms of whether the majority party’s proposal is better or worse for him or her than the status quo, then the Majority Party Unicameral Core could again be different. To illustrate, consider a case in which SQ lies just to the right of C 3 in
figure 3A. A majority party proposal to replace this SQ with a policy at C 3 would be re- jected by C 4 and C 5 but would be supported by the other party members—C 1 ,
2 , and C
3 —as well as all four Labor Party members. Hence, points to the right of C 3
1 and C
3 a majority party proposal to replace it with a policy at C 3 would be supported at most only 102 by C 3 , C 4 , and C
5 (and possibly C 2 , depending on the location of SQ); it would be rejected at least by C 1 and all four Labor Party members, who collectively comprise a parliamentary majority. Hence, the Core would span the ideal points from C
1 to C
3 . 5. If the minority party members here do not automatically vote against the majority party proposal but instead vote on the basis of the utility of the pro- posal to them, then the Majority Party Unicameral Core here spans just the C 3 and C
4 ideal points. Consider a case in which SQ lies to the right of C 4 . A party proposal to replace this SQ with a policy at C 4 would be approved by four Conservative Party members— C 1 , C 2 , C
3 , and C
4 —as well as L 1 and L
2 , for a
total of six votes; these six votes comprise a parliamentary majority. Hence, sta- tus quo policies to the right of C 4 cannot be in equilibrium. Similarly, SQ poli- cies to the left of C 3 are not in equilibrium. However, if SQ lies between C 3 and
C 4 any proposal to replace this SQ with a policy to its left would be opposed by C 4 , C 5 , C
6 , and C
7 , who comprise a majority of the Conservative Party. While a majority of the parliament would support this proposal (i.e., C 1 , C 2 , C 3 , L
1 , and L
2 ), since a majority of the majority party (the Conservative Party) opposes the proposal it would never be sent to the floor. And if SQ lies between C 3
4 any proposal to replace this SQ with a policy to its right would be opposed by C 1 , C 2 , and C
3 as well as L 1 and L
2 . Hence, the Core here spans just the C 3
4 interval. 6. If the members of the opposition party vote simply on the basis of their own individual valuation of SQ and the policy proposal, the Core here will also span just the ideal points of the median members of the coalition. 7. The creation of a veto override will never increase the size of the core but can decrease it. Veto Points in Democratic Systems 103 Yüklə 0,59 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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