Moderated Parliamentarism, Effective Governments and Legislative Gridlock

Sergio Verdugo

Universidad del Desarrollo

Tarunabh Khaitan’s new article is an important addition to the rare constitutional literature combining the key factors that explain the optimal functioning of the political system, i.e., political parties, legislative-executive relations, and electoral rules. As Professor Khaitan states, scholars combining these three dimensions typically use political science or economics approaches. Legal and normative studies in the field tend to be descriptive or practical and do not necessarily combine all the critical factors. In light of the fact that the current literature needs more studies focusing on the normative tradeoffs of the design choices taken in each of the three dimensions,  Khaitan’s article helps advance the field in the right direction. While the model has limitations, i.e., it is not contextualized, it does not discuss the existing evidence, and there are too many confounding factors to consider in many of the empirical implications that it assumes, Khaitan indicates an awareness of these limitations. Khaitan’s article is important not only because of its (modest) prescriptive claim but because it sets a compelling (though challenging) research agenda. Constitutional scholars should see that agenda as an invitation to continue developing this theory, provide empirical evidence, make contextual examinations, and examine alternative design choices.  

In this comment, I argue that the research agenda should pay closer attention to the existing mechanisms available to prevent legislative gridlocks and stimulate legislative cooperation among competing parties. Khaitan recognizes that his model makes legislative deadlocks possible (27) and he offers a solution based on the German conference committee model (28). Khaitan recognizes that a level of gridlock may still be expected in his model but argues that they should not become a “persistent feature of the polity” (28). Nevertheless, to assess whether legislative stalemate can become persistent we need to further understand  whether the electoral incentives of his model may favor gridlock. To understand this, we need to first examine how the electoral incentives that symmetrical but incongruent legislative chambers may have to play blame electoral games, and how those games may even take place within the procedures aimed at solving legislative impasses. It may be helpful to expand the analysis beyond the three critical dimensions—parties, political regimes, and electoral systems—to consider other democratic mechanisms that may broaden the institutional designer’s toolkit for overcoming gridlock in the future.  

Before developing my argument, I need to say a few words about Khaitan’s model. Khaitan’s proposal includes a bicameral parliament that is incongruent — i.e., both chambers are diverse in their composition — and symmetrical — i.e., both have equivalent legislative powers. The “confidence and opposition chamber” (the lower house) has a majoritarian composition and it forms the government. The lower house members are elected periodically and serve short electoral terms (four to six years). The “checking and appointing chamber” (the upper chamber) is elected through a proportional electoral method that has a relatively high threshold. It maximizes the representation of every relevant voter type, but it does not produce a working majority. The upper chamber members serve for long tenures (six to ten years) and have a staggered electoral schedule. Further, their mandate exceeds the terms of the government and the lower chamber members, they can be reelected and they cannot occupy other public offices during their mandates and after retiring. The upper chamber has legislative powers and it appoints constitutional officers using a voting method that requires sufficient consensus among the largest parties.  

This design has many advantages. The first chamber is designed to have a majority that can sustain the government, and the second house is designed to maximize political representation and prevent a party to become hegemonic. One could argue that this model may add to the justifications of bicameralism. Some scholars doubt that bicameral parliaments are useful in non-federal republican states that repudiate the aristocratic nature of the high chambers. Still, a model like Khaitan’s shows good reasons to have bicameral parliaments in unitary democratic states and enhances some of the benefits that the literature recognizes in bicameral systems. Those benefits generally require symmetrical and incongruent parliaments (e.g., McCarty & Cutrone), and Khaitan’s model fits with this recommendation. Further, it is likely that Khaitan’s model enhances the stability of the policies approved by both chambers. Congleton argues that bicameral parliaments tend to reflect better long-term voters’ preferences and make policies more predictable. It is likely that Khaitan’s model can also fit with this advantage.  

However, incongruent bicameralism might be subject to legislative gridlock. The issue is whether their policies can actually be passed. Gridlock should not be persistent, the political process should be responsive to voters’ demands and the parties should succeed to be an intermediary between the people and the state by shaping their policies accordingly. Any political system that is unable to perform this functions might put representative institutions into question. Thus, a model like Khaitan’s should also be evaluated based on the incentives it triggers for legislative productivity. 

Even though there is no academic consensus on what causes legislative gridlock, the literature provides many insights. Many scholars associate legislative stalemate with divided government. After all, if diverse veto players have conflicting approaches, it is likely that they will veto each other. Although this assumption has been challenged by Mayhew’s work — which shows evidence comparing unified and divided governments in the US to argue that, at least in landmark legislative bills, there is no important difference —empirical evidence can be found to the contrary. Indeed, it seems that decision-making processes that include separate institutions that opposing parties can control can stimulate gridlock. Binder, for example, shows that inter-branch conflicts in the US, including the distribution of policy preferences between the legislative chambers, are a critical factor. Howell et al show that periods of divided government reduce legislative productivity of landmark statutes by 30% but that the approval of trivial laws is positively correlated with divided government. Hughes and Carlson demonstrate that important legislation tends to be delayed when a divided government exists and the president’s party is weak in Congress. However, suppose there is relevant public pressure on a certain issue. In that case, parties might have less influence over individual legislators because they may prefer to maximize their chances of being re-elected over their parties’ positions. We can expect party discipline to be stronger in cases where electors care less. For this reason, studies focusing on the salience of the legislative bills could be beneficial. Lee, for example, provides some evidence by showing that periods of divided government do not seem to negatively impact the approval of legislation when issues are too salient and that the party influence is stronger when issues are less salient.  

These studies have limitations. The first limitation is that they tend to focus on policy preferences and ignore some contextually important factors such as interest group influence. We know that many rules might affect how interest groups behave and their impact, e.g., transparency rules, lobbying rules, and campaign funding rules. We also know that different countries have distinct types and quantities of interest groups. Despite this discussion, one thing is probably certain: the more veto players a system has, the more opportunities lobbyists will possess to prevent unfavorable legislation from passing. We also know that interest groups compete among themselves, and they may fight to keep the status quo when existing legislation favors them, and others may push for social reform. Incipient literature has provided some valuable insights regarding the influence of interest groups on policy-making. Gray and Lowery, for example, compare states in the US to show that the greater a group diversity is, the more gridlock may be expected. Another example is Holyoke, who connects conflict among lobbyists to add to the context of explaining gridlock and suggests that it has a negative effect on passing legislation. Unfortunately, we know little how Khaitan’s model shapes interest group regulations, as much of those regulations will depend, in the end, on second order regulations. 

Another limitation that the studies on gridlock tend to have is that they have largely — albeit not exclusively —focused on the US political system, and the American Madisonian structure makes the existence of divided government and minority presidents likely. Thus, gridlock might be expected in this type of regime but not necessarily in parliamentary regimes. However, many have oversimplified the problem by assuming that parliamentary democracies tend to have more legislative productivity because, in those regimes, the individual preferences of legislators are less relevant than the ruling party’s preferences. This argument presumes that parliamentary regimes stimulate party discipline and discourage scenarios of divided government or where incongruent institutions have veto powers. Nevertheless, if different veto players exist and electoral incentives are disperse, then persistent levels of legislative gridlock are also possible in parliamentary regimes. Thus, a critical discussion for evaluating Khaitan’s model should ask whether it does not disperse political responsibilities and electoral incentives sufficiently. If so, the risk of persistent gridlock may be high. 

The existence of incongruent chambers with symmetrical legislative powers, in which the upper house operates independently without clear majorities and legislators are allowed to be reelected, may strengthen party discipline in the first chamber but not in the second. Legislators in the upper chamber have fewer incentives to cooperate with their party and build larger political alliances, as they do not benefit directly from forming government, they are not allowed to occupy other public offices in the future, and their tenures are longer than the government’s electoral cycle. Within this design, we can expect the upper house members to focus more on their chances to be reelected and be inclined to play blame games if they benefit from them. If necessary, they will even oppose policies that are ideologically close to their platforms. 

It is not uncommon that legislators reject proposals that are closer to their ideologies than the existing status quo, as this seems to happen more often in divided governments (e.g., Fernández-Albertos & Lapuente). Even though legislative stalemate initially appears to be rare in countries like Germany, at least compared to the US, and while the German second chamber typically approves bills proposed by the first chamber, legislative failures still exist. Manow and Burkhart have argued that the effects of divided government cannot always be tested with direct evidence of legislative failure and legislative delay. Instead, they use evidence from Germany to show that anticipating a veto can produce self-restraint leading to legislative inaction or compromises in shaping the bills before presenting them. It may be true that open conflict may be less visible in this case, but the effect of not passing legislation can be equivalent to legislative vetoes. Further, as Lehnert et al claim, existing and measurable legislative failures may be explained by problems of incomplete information or legislative blame games pushed by electoral incentives. Other authors have argued that the conference committee may be used as a last resort measure for governments that are generally more interested in passing the bills in a timely manner. They may prefer to protect their policy experts from publicity, as well as giving “early signals about the likely success of its legislation.”  

A key question that Khaitan’s model needs to address is whether it encourages blame games. As the electoral incentives are different in both chambers and the cabinet is subject to relatively short terms (associated with the electoral calendar of the lower house), the opposition may prefer to boycott the approval or legislation to show that the government has failed. Accordingly, it may increase its chances to defeat the government’s supporting parties in the next elections, making blame games a possibility. A defender of Khaitan’s model may respond by saying that the opposition may not have enough seats in the lower chamber to stop legislation, and that the opposition is not expected to be unified nor disciplined in the upper chamber. If this is accurate the government-sponsored bills should be approved easily. The only requirement is to convince a fraction of a fragmented opposition (34). While the opposing parties won’t have a majority in the lower chamber, the fact that opposing parties may be fragmented and undisciplined in the upper house cannot be taken for granted. It could be argued that opposition parties may form negative majorities because they have incentives to play blame games and be easily united against a common enemy: the government.  

Temporary negative majorities — i.e., a majority that purely rejects a bill — might be typically easier to form than positive majorities because their transaction costs are lower. What incentives do opposition parties have to collaborate with the government? Are they better-off by showing that the government has failed its purposes? Furthermore, we should not necessarily expect that legislators that are members of the government’s supporting coalition behave in a disciplined way. As they are independent individually (remember that they are prevented from serving in cabinet positions and holding other public offices) and the proportional system tends to produce a fragmented upper house where several voter types can be represented, legislators in the upper chamber may lack sufficient incentives to behave loyally and support every government-sponsored legislation. Of course, a debate on whether the upper house will behave in one way or another requires further empirical evidence. The point here is that an assumption stating that the legislative procedure will be effective is not entirely persuasive. As Khaitan seems to be aware of this problem, we need to discuss his method to solve legislative impasses. 

Khaitan suggests the establishment of a conference committee composed of representatives of the major parties of both chambers. The purpose of that committee is to propose a solution modifying the bill to be acceptable for the required majorities in both chambers. The committee does not need to achieve a consensus. Its purpose is to persuade or compromise with the parties that are needed to achieve the required legislative majority. Khaitan suggests that, if necessary, the secrecy of the deliberations can be guaranteed temporarily to facilitate the negotiations. Even though this mechanism can work in specific scenarios where it may appear particularly costly for a party not to be available to achieve a multi-partisan agreement in a case which attracts strong voter concern, the committee may be insufficient to resolve the gridlock. It is unclear whether the committee members and other legislators may continue to play blame games and target the committee.  

For example, some parties may prefer to advocate for solutions that their rivals will never accept, and argue that secrecy is an undemocratic mechanism that should not be tolerated. Members of the committee might be subject to the same incentives as members of both chambers, and thus the possible moral hazard is not necessarily reduced. Moreover, the committee mechanism may raise the stakes for a legislative failure and strengthen divisions by making the differences more visible to the public. It may also help parties in opposition to provide an opportunity to promote an alternative policy proposal that will be used in the next electoral cycle. As the lower chamber’s electoral cycles are relatively short, electoral pressure is expected. Of course, we need more evidence to understand how this mechanism works and the appropriate incentives. Unfortunately, it seems that the political science literature on this type of mechanism is still underdeveloped. 

There are other gridlock solving methods that may help supplement Khaitan’s model. Perhaps a form of navette or promoting omnibus bills to building widespread support and distracting from controversial items (Krutz) may be helpful. Both options have shortcomings though, due to the necessary logrolling that these types of techniques encourage. High levels of logrolling may work to undermine the quality of legislation and make necessary reforms too costly to consider passing. Resolving deadlocks appealing to other institutional mechanisms such as the Irish type of citizens’ assemblies, can serve to reach agreements on highly controversial issues. It would be helpful to incorporate this type of mechanism into the analysis.   

Khaitan is correct in saying that the different dimensions of the problem need to be examined simultaneously. There may be good reasons for the research agenda that Khaitan opened, to expand the scope of analysis beyond the party-regime-elections perspective and incorporate studies of interest groups, legislative blame games and alternative gridlocking solving-mechanism.  

Sergio Verdugo is Associate Professor of Law and Director of the ‘Centro de Justicia Constitucional’, Universidad del Desarrollo, Chile. 

Suggested Citation: Sergio Verdugo, ‘Moderated Parliamentarism, Effective Governments, and Legislative Gridlock’ IACL-AIDC Blog (11 May 2021) https://blog-iacl-aidc.org/workshop-my-paper/2021/05/011-moderated-parliamentarism-effective-governments-and-legislative-gridlock