Legislative Autolimitation under Divided Government: Evidence from the German Case, 1976-2002

Philip Manow and Simone Burkhart

No 04/11, MPIfG Discussion Paper from Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies

Abstract: Most efforts to detect the consequences of divided government in German federalism by analyzing legislative statistics have been unsuccessful. Therefore, there is still much debate in Germany about the gridlock potential of divided government, as there is in the United States. Using a game-theoretic model, this paper investigates the impact of divided government on the strategic choices of government and opposition. The main conclusion of our model is that a strong opposition dominance in the Bundesrat usually does not lead to open party-political conflict, but rather to legislative autolimitation of the government which anticipates the opposition?s veto potential. However, if majorities in the Bundesrat are narrow, both government and opposition opt for less moderate policy positions, and as a result legislation is characterized by intense partypolitical conflict. The hypotheses following from the model are tested on a detailed data set comprising all legislative activity in Germany between 1976 and 2002. The results confirm the thesis that the main effect of divided government is that it induces 'legislative autolimitation' on the part of the government. We conclude that when majorities in the Bundestag and Bundesrat diverge, the impact on legislation is substantial.

Date: 2004
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