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Veto Players and Institutional Analysis
Author(s) -
Tsebelis George
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
governance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.46
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1468-0491
pISSN - 0952-1895
DOI - 10.1111/0952-1895.00141
Subject(s) - veto , presidential system , parliament , independence (probability theory) , politics , political science , bureaucracy , government (linguistics) , law and economics , political system , economics , political economy , law , democracy , linguistics , statistics , philosophy , mathematics
The veto players theory can be used to analyze all political systems regardless of regime (presidential or parliamentary), party system (one‐, two‐, or multiparty), and type of parliament (unicameral or multicameral). This paper develops the veto players theory to account for a series of important political phenomena: the difference between majoritarian and supermajoritarian institutions; the importance of absenteeism, or of political marginalization; the importance of agenda control and referendums; the reasons for government stability (parliamentary systems) and regime stability (presidential systems); the reasons for independence of bureaucracies, and judicial independence. All these phenomena are analyzed in a coherent way, on the basis of the same framework. Empirical evidence from existing literature corroborating the theory is provided.