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A Response to Desposato
Author(s) -
FISH M. STEVEN,
KROENIG MATTHEW
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
legislative studies quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.728
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1939-9162
pISSN - 0362-9805
DOI - 10.1111/j.1939-9162.2012.00054.x
Subject(s) - citation , fish <actinopterygii> , library science , legislature , media studies , computer science , sociology , political science , law , fishery , biology
We are grateful to Scott Desposato for his thoughtful review of The Handbook of National Legislatures and the comments he offers on the Parliamentary Powers Index (PPI), the tool that we developed to measure the strength of the national legislature for every country in the world. We agree with many of Desposato’s points, but would also like to respond to some of the criticisms. In his review, Desposato flags the mixing of formal and informal powers in the Legislative Powers Survey (LPS, on which the PPI is based). We also grappled with the distinction between de jure and de facto powers. Where the letter of the constitution and actual practice diverge, we coded the legislature’s de facto powers. Desposato notes that “mixing of formal and informal institutions closes a potentially interesting and important line of research on the interaction between formal and informal institutions.” We acknowledge that a study of de facto powers alone would have this shortcoming.Yet, by noting in the text where formal and informal powers diverge, we provide ample information for scholars who wish to investigate this matter. For example, in our answer to the question about whether the “legislature can conduct independent investigations of the chief executive” in Russia, we write, “No. Formally, the legislature can establish commissions to investigate the government. In practice, however, investigations are rare and subject to executive influence” (561). We take Desposato’s point that a divergence index, which registers the gap between actual and legal legislative powers, would be of great interest in its own right. We did not construct such an index, but our decision to present full information on every survey item for every country makes it possible for scholars interested in studying the discrepancy between de facto and de jure to pursue this line of investigation. Continuing with his critique of mingling formal and informal powers in the survey, Desposato argues that the relationship between the legislature’s strength and democracy may be partly endogenous because factors that make a country less democratic might also reduce Book Review 397