Lawmaking in Divided Parliaments: A Comparative Study of Parliamentary Democracies with Strong Bicameralism

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25780102
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Politics
• Research Institution: Kobe University (2014-2015); Waseda University (2013)
• Principal Investigator: Yanai Yuki 神戸大学, 法学(政治学)研究科(研究院), 講師 (50580693)
• Research Collaborator: THIES Michael F. カリフォルニア大学ロサンゼルス校, 政治学部, 准教授
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 政治学 / 比較政治学 / 政治制度論 / 議会研究 / 立法過程 / 二院制 / 日本政治

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research has investigated how strong bicameralism affects the governments' lawmaking in parliamentary democracies. By the seat share of the governing parties in the upper house, we classify the bicameral parliaments into three types. First, a parliament is "unified" if both houses are controlled by the government. Second, a parliament is "divided" if the main opposition controls the upper house. Lastly, we call a parliament "majority-minority" if the government behaves as a minority government in the upper house. With this typology, we found that the divided parliaments constrain the governments' agenda while the majority-minority parliaments are not significantly different from the unified parliaments. In the divided parliaments, the cabinets submit fewer bills than in the unified or majority-minority parliaments. Furthermore, more bills are killed or substantively amended in the divided parliaments. The governments are forced to make compromises in the divided parliaments.

Free Research Field

政治学