Strategic behavior in the Swiss parliament 1

Sarah Bütikofer2 and Simon Hug3
CIS and IPZ, Universität Zürich
Département de science politique, Université de Genève

First version: August 2008, this version: Jul 12, 2009

Abstract

Most research on roll call votes considers each voting decision by members of parliaments (MPs) as an independent observation. Only recently have scholars started to assess how knowledge about the sequence of votes may help us to understand the legislative process more in detail. Many of these analyses are, however, predicated on quite important assumptions regarding the forward-looking capacities of MPs.

In this paper we draw on this more recent literature and bring it to bear in an analysis of two bills adopted in the Swiss parliament. Having available detailed information on the MPs preferences over various options voted on we are able to test whether MPs behave strategically and to what degree they are capable of anticipating the way forward through the agenda tree. We find evidence that MPs behave strategically, however, their foresight is not as perfect as we would expect from theoretical models.

Footnotes:

1  An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in Boston (August 28-31, 2008), a seminar at the University of Mannheim and at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association in Chicago (April 2-5, 2009). Thanks are due to the participants at these events, especially Kenneth Shepsle and David Hugh-Jones, as well as to the Swiss Parlamentsdienste and especially Ernst Firschknecht and Andreas Sidler, who provided the main bulk of the empirical data used here and helped us using it. Tobias Schulz provided excellent research assistance, Stefanie Bailer, Michael Cemerin, Flavia Fossati, were an invaluable help in carrying out our MP-survey and Stefanie Bailer also provided helpful comments. The Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant No 100012-111909) provided generous funding.

2  Institut für Politikwissenschaft; Universität Zürich; Hirschengraben 56; 8001 Zürich; Switzerland; email: sarah.buetikofer@ipz.uzh.ch

3  Département de science politique, Faculté des sciences économiques et sociales; Université de Genève; 40 Bd du Pont d'Arve; 1211 Genève 4; Switzerland; phone ++41 22 379 83 78; email: simon.hug@politic.unige.ch



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On 12 Jul 2009, 17:36.