Presidential VS Parliamentary Elections Accountability, Divided Government and Presidential Coattails. Accountability Presidential Coattails The coattail effect is the tendency for a popular political party leader to attract votes for other candidates of the same party in an election. For example, in the United States, the party of a victorious presidential candidate will often win many seats in Congress as well; these congressmen are voted into office on the coattails of the president. Since 1868 two methods are used to measure presidential coattails in the House elections Direct model: House votes are determined directly by presidential votes plus unrelated and local effects. The simultaneous determination model votes for both offices are simultaneous results of national issues, while factors specific to the presidential campaign enter presidential voting directly and congressional voting in directly. Coattails what this means for government Presidents can exploit the fact that most congressmen wish for re election or advancement to higher office- those leaders who have convinced legislators to support them have been those who convince them that the leaders program must be a successes to improve their chances of winning again. This is dependent on the anticipated behaviour of the electorate.
Voters base their voting decisions for Congress upon the same criteria they use in deciding between presidential candidates, or base their congressional votes directly on their presidential votes. They tie the interests of the member of Congress to those of the president. Extensive coattail voting thus enables the president to assemble relatively durable legislative coalitions. Coattail voting helps the president to obtain legislative cooperation in two ways. 1) Direct effect of replacement of opposition party legislators with new members from the president s own party. A president with long coattails is likely to have a large legislative contingent to work with. 2) There is the incentive effect that accompanies a popular president with substantial coattails. If a member of Congress is convinced that the president is popular back in the district and that his constituent s congressional votes are likely to be tied to their presidential votes, then that member will want to be known as a supporter of the president. This may even transcend party lines, but should be accompanied by extensive coattail vote. This is increasingly important for freshman legislators who enter Congress on the presidents coattails. Entering power on the back of presidents coattails leads to cooperation Presidential leadership is the key to executive/ legislative cooperation. The President must make his wishes their wishes and provide incentives. Brady and Lynn 1973 demonstrated that the representatives most faithful to their parties in Congress are freshmen of the president s party who have just been elected, accompanied by a presidential landslide, to replace reps of the opposite party. Evidence for coattails is with Lyndon Johnson success. Some of his success was possible in part because his landslide victory in many congressional
districts signalled to their representatives that his program was popular and perhaps that the president himself was a prominent issue among voters. The resulting support in the House for the president s programme is the most visible among northern Democrats in whose districts he did well and who ran behind the president in their districts voting. Johnson s coattails also brought in a new, large liberal Democrat majority, and he combined the replacement and incentive effects by bringing in 44 freshman Democrats from formally Republican districts, who were especially inclined to support the president. When the president s program no longer commanded the popular attention and support that could sway the voters preferences for lower offices, legislative cooperation evaporated. Overall the extent of coattail voting has declined steadily and drastically over the past decades. House members have less fear of national electoral tides associated with a presidential race than they have ever had before. Evidence suggests that this process has advanced so far that incoming president cannot routinely expect to have a majority of his own party in both the House and Senate or that members of his own party will believe that their electoral fates depend very much on his success in office. Divided Government Under this model, the state is divided into branches, and each branch of the state has separate and independent powers and areas of responsibility. The normal division of branches is into the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial Proponents of separation of powers believe that it protects democracy. Opponents of separation of powers, have pointed out that it also slows down the process of governing, promotes executive dictatorship and unaccountability, and tends to marginalize the legislature To prevent one branch from becoming supreme, and to induce the branches to cooperate, governance systems employing a separation of powers typically are created with a system of "checks and balances", Checks and
balances refers to the various procedural rules that allow one branch to limit another, such as the authority of the president to veto legislation passed by Congress, or the power of Congress to alter the composition and jurisdiction of the federal courts. Lincon I have been told that I am on the road to hell, but I had no idea that it was just a mile down the road with a Dome on it. From 1946to 1992, divided party control of the federal government has occurred 67 percent of the time (or 30 out of 45 years). The opposing interests of the legislature and the executive guarantees that the president and Congress do not share the same policy or ideological preferences. The separation of powers and divided government thus frustrate those who would have government pass laws in a more timely manner. However, separation of powers of Congress and the executive and divided party government both check dictatorship and allow for the protection of representation. The federal government is built upon a purposeful fragmentation of power, a method of representing diverse local interests against the concentration of power The lack of partisan consensus between the president and the Congress stems from several electoral factors. The different nature of congressional and presidential constituencies and elections makes it probable that the president and the Congress will have divergent policy preferences, and these are the foundations for divided government. The president is said to have a national constituency and must appeal to voters on national issues. Members of Congress, on the other hand, have more
homogeneous constituencies and appeal to voters on more provincial issues. The battle over the 1991 highway bill is a classic example of this conflict between presidential (national) and congressional (local) constituencies The issue of why government is divided will now be discussed. In greater detail click PARTIES Alesina and Rosenthal argue that when there is a Republican President Congress pulls legislation to the left and vice versa, thus demonstrating the importance of the party. However: By any measure, party organizations have lost power from 1946 to present. For example, with the expansion of primaries rather than conventions, parties have lost control over candidate recruitment and the election process in many states. The parties have lost control of how candidates run under their label. Federal campaign funding of presidential campaigns has allowed candidates to be independent of most party organizations as well as leading to an increase in candidate-oriented campaigns. These circumstances have led to presidential and congressional candidates running as "outsiders" to their own parties Many survey studies also show that the public may hold ideological views, but that these views are not consistent with what parties they support (Flanigan and Zingale 1991). Most people could not say what Bush's, Reagan's or Carter's policies actually are. Pivotal voter theorem is one of the most important theoretical results from the reading. In legislative elections we have pivotal voters who corresponds to a cut point one voter who separates the D voter s (those on the left) from the R voters (those on the right) and policy outcome equals the bliss point of this pivotal voter. Since extremists always vote for their more preferred party, the
cutpoint voter is always between the two parties cut points. The cutpoint when R is president is to the right of cutpoint when D is president. Furthermore, policy is most conservative under R president. The pivotal voter is dependant during the midterm elections on whom the president is. The pivotal voter when it is not mid term elections is dependent on who we believe will win the presidency. Davidson (1991) has revealed in a careful analysis of legislative productivity that divided government and legislative activity are not closely linked. He argues that, at best, "... party control is an incomplete guide to legislative activity and productivity. Overall, unified party control of the federal government, as opposed to divided control, made little or no difference in the frequency of passage of major laws or major investigations Bond and Fleisher (1990) show that support is not solely dependent upon unified or divided government. Party is important, but so are presidential leadership skills, public opinion, and the ideological make-up of Congress INCUMBANTS Some scholars (Ansolabehere, Brady, and Fiorina 1990) argue that Democrats may be re-elected at higher rates than Republicans because they are able to dominate redistricting and produce gerrymandered districts, get more campaign funds, and have the built-in advantages of name recognition and the visibility and resources of occupying the office. The high incumbency rate for Democrats thus insulates them from national trends PERSONALITY Presidential leadership is the key to executive/ legislative cooperation. The President must make his wishes their wishes, provide incentives.
Not many have been able to but those who have include Wilson in his first year, Johnson during the pre Vietnam period and Regan s first year. President Carter had unified government, yet experienced serious opposition in Congress because it is argued of his lack of leadership skill, unpopularity in the polls, and ideological incompatibility with a significant part of Congress. He also ran against his own party to get the nomination, which left him without a strong ruling coalition in Congress after the election. On the other hand, divided government during the Nixon and Ford presidencies produced some of the most important domestic legislation since World War 11. These laws included Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. The administration of Roosevelt, Truman, and Carter testify to the fact that party control of both branches is no guarantee of legislative productivity. By the same token, the Nixon-Ford period and the first year of the Reagan administration saw productivity far beyond what would be expected from divided government There are no guarantees that reforms leading to unified party government and giving the president more power would provide more representative, accountable, and efficient lawmaking. In summery: Constitutional structure of government (separation of powers); electoral behavior and the political party system (different constituency bases, ticket splitting, candidate individualism, political recruitment, the Power of incumbency, and the weaknesses of American political parties); and public opinion (the preference of American voters to want divided government in principle). A synthesis of these varying explanations is necessary in order to understand the reasons why they have divided government, Other factors involved in affecting cohesive policy making American government involve, the
transformation of the party system, changes in the swing ratio, and unusually high or low cooperation between the president and Congress DO VOTERS PURPOSEFULLY ACT TO ATTRACT DIVIDED GOVERNMENT? Divided government is more likely when voters are sophisticated and conditionally sincerer rather than naive or unconditionally sincere (book) Voters are unable to force a union between the two pillars of power with regard to policy. The voter can t push policy away from the president and past the ideal point of the pivotal voter in the legislative elections: the pivotal voter, not the median voter determines policy MIDTERM COMPARED TO FULL TERM ELECTIONS.- HOW THESE EFFECT DIVIDED GOVERNMENT In American politics, it is a well-established that the party controlling the White House almost always loses votes in congressional midterm elections. In presidential election years, when both the president and Congress are elected simultaneously, voters will be uncertain about the final election outcome and the identity of the president. Given their policy preferences, some voters will have made a mistake when voting for Congress. Expecting to get a Democratic president, for example, they might have voted for a Republican House candidate in order to balance the president with a more conservative Congress. Surprised by the Republicans capturing the White House, these voters are now confronted with policy outcomes that are much more conservative than those they hoped for. Two years later, at the point of congressional midterm elections, these voters will have an incentive to switch their vote to the Democrats in order to balance the president with a more liberal Congress. So midterm losses can be explained by strategic voting on the part of voters fuelled by uncertainty about the outcome of presidential elections. More recent explanations for midterm loss focus on electoral balancing on the part of voters. According to this view, moderate or middle-of-the-road voters take advantage of the checks and balances implicit in the interaction between Congress
and the president. Since policy outcomes reflect compromises between the executive and legislative branch, voters can moderate the president by handing control of Congress to the opposing party. When a Republican president is forced to bargain with a Democratic Congress, for example, he will have to accept policy outcomes that are more liberal than those he prefers. Giving control over the two branches of government to opposing parties thus enables moderate voters, even when faced with quite polarised party positions, to get moderated policies. Divided government occurs because middle-of-the-road voters like it; it is not an accident but the result of some voters preference for moderate policies. Many explanations have been proposed for the midterm loss of incumbents in US congressional elections. According to the presidential coat tails view, midterm losses are a negative function of the vote share received in the preceding election. As Campbell aptly summarised it, the bigger they are, the harder they fall Midterm losses are also common in other presidential and parliamentary democracies. Germany is an interesting case study when assessing this point. Owing to the federal structure of the German political system, federal policy outcomes are a compromise between the policy preferences of the parties controlling the Bundestag (the lower chamber) and the parties controlling the Bundesrat (the upper chamber). The federal government is largely unconstrained in the implementation of its ideal policies if the parties supporting it in the Bundestag also possess a majority in the Bundesrat. If, on the other hand, the Bundesrat is controlled by opposition parties, federal policies are moderated because of the opposition s veto power. Since the Bundesrat is composed of representatives of state governments, voters who dislike the policy preferences of the federal government might vote for federal opposition parties in state elections to balance against the federal
government. Midterm losses as well as recurring periods of divided government would be the consequence Because of a five per cent threshold set by election laws, parties that gain only a minor share of the popular vote are not represented in the Bundestag at all. With rare exceptions, all parties compete in both federal and state elections. The chancellor is elected by the party coalition that controls a majority of seats in the Bundestag. He or she is wholly dependent on maintaining a parliamentary majority. If a new majority coalition should emerge between federal elections, it can present a candidate to the Bundestag and request a vote of no confidence. If the chancellor loses the vote, the candidate immediately becomes the new chancellor. In Germany, one therefore never observes the kind of divided government so common in the USA, with the executive controlled by one party and the House controlled by the other. Click But with the German political system structured according to federal principles, a different form of divided government can be observed on a regular basis. State governments have exclusive legislative competence in policy areas such as law enforcement, education, and local and state-level administration. For most other policy areas, the federal government and the states share responsibility. At the federal level, states have the ability to influence federal legislation through the upper chamber of the legislature, the Bundesrat. In contrast to the American Senate, the Bundesrat is not elected by the people, but composed of the representatives of state governments. Zustimmungsgesetze passed by the Bundestag require the consent of the Bundesrat in order to become law. Einspruchsgesetze can be vetoed by the Bundesrat, but its veto can be overridden by the Bundestag. Approximately 55 per cent of all bills, including virtually all major bills, are Zustimmungsgesetze and thus require the consent of the upper chamber. The Bundesrat therefore plays an important role in German federal politics. When the Bundestag and Bundesrat are controlled by different party coalitions, policy outcomes tend to represent a compromise between the preferences of the
federal government and the opposition parties controlling the Bundesrat. Scharpf famously called this institutional constellation the joint-decision trap. The ability of the federal government to implement its policy preferences depends strongly on control of the Bundesrat. Under conditions of unified government, with the federal government in control of both chambers of the legislature, it is largely unconstrained in its ability to implement policies close to its partisan preferences. In this case, middle-of-the-road voters will have an incentive to use state elections to balance against the federal government by voting for parties that, at the federal level, are part of the legislative opposition. Such electoral balancing will, in time, lead to a switch in the Bundesrat majority, and divided government. Moderate policy outcomes will be the consequence. The central observable implication of this argument is that under unified Government, we expect strong midterm losses for the party coalition controlling the Bundestag. Under divided government, in contrast, voters will have little incentive to engage in electoral balancing. Federal policy outcomes will already be moderated; we therefore do not expect to see systematic midterm losses. State election results will instead be driven by motives unrelated to electoral balancing, such as dissatisfaction with the achievements of the state government or partisan preferences Lohmann, Brady and Rivers they found that parties controlling the federal government on average lose between six and eight percentage points in state elections simply by virtue of holding power at the federal level. These losses can be seen as a result of voters balancing behaviour. The graph clearly shows the impact of unified and divided government on midterm losses. Under divided government (lower panel), we do not witness any systematic midterm loss. Over the federal election cycle, the conditional distribution of changes in vote shares of parties in control of the federal government is almost exactly centred on zero. In other words, under conditions of divided government, parties that are members of the federal coalition government on average neither win nor lose
votes in state elections compared with the previous state election, regardless of when the state election takes place in the federal election cycle. Only under conditions of unified government (upper panel) do we observe a systematic midterm loss. The conditional distribution of the changes in party vote shares shifts to the left of zero over the whole course of the federal election cycle, indicating (substantial) losses for the parties that are members of the federal coalition government. The graph suggests that such parties face a median midterm loss of about three to four percentage points (again, compared to the last state election). If we assume that voters engage strategically in electoral balancing, periods of unified government should be uncommon and relatively short lived; and this is indeed what we observe. Between 1949 and 2004, there have been only 16 years of unified government, but 35 years of divided government. Systematic midterm losses occur only when the Bundestag and Bundesrat (the lower and upper chamber of the federal legislature) are both controlled by the same party coalition. Under such conditions of unified government, midterm losses reach considerable proportions, making unified government in Germany unsustainable in the medium- to long-run. QUESTIONS Should we be worried about the effects of divided government? Does it cause deadlock and stalemate? What are the consequences of divided government, are they significant, and in what way? How do we measure the consequences of divided government that is causing large deficits, late budgets, contentious investigations, and a deadlock in law making? Does divided government make any difference? Is there evidence that divided party control of the Congress and White House hinders budgeting, lawmaking and congressional investigations are weak. To kick off answers say:
Critics of split party control of government such as Sundquist 1986 assert that an important, negative effect of divided government is the failure of the federal government to pass a budget on time and to make reductions in the deficit Question: Is the inefficiency and non-accountability that critics have associated with divided party control of the presidency and the Congress so severe that America is undergoing a crisis of governance? NO-. Mayhew, Davidson and others have shown that divided government is not the guilty party. The central question related to the debate over the causes and the consequences of divided party control of government. Is the price of increasing presidential accountability and power worth the cost of weakening representation of diverse interests and the protection of minorities in government decision-making?