Political Uncertainty and the Vote‐of‐Confidence Procedure. Issue 4 (5th November 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Spater, Jeremy
• Is Part Of: Legislative studies quarterly. Volume 46:Issue 4(2021)
• Page Start: 1031
• Page End: 1058
• Publication Date: 2020-11-05
• Subjects: institutions -- Parliamentary procedure -- confidence vote -- formal model; Legislative bodies -- Periodicals; Parlement; Procédure législative; Système parlementaire; Étude comparée (Descripteur de forme); Périodique électronique (Descripteur de forme); Ressource Internet (Descripteur de forme); 328
• DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12312
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0362-9805

Abstract

Abstract : I develop a model to study the effects of political uncertainty on a prime minister's ability to use a vote‐of‐confidence procedure to determine policy outcomes. In contrast to previous studies, I model political uncertainty as an area in policy space in which the probability of the prime minister's proposal being accepted varies continuously and find that under certain circumstances the presence of political uncertainty can increase the ability of the prime min‐ ister to extract policy rents. This novel result corresponds to an interpretation of political uncertainty as a result of an intraparty bargaining problem within the legislature and allows the model to explain certain cases that sit oddly with previous work.