Constraining a Shadowy Future: Enacting APAs in Parliamentary Systems

• Date: 01 May 2016
• Author: Jeeyang Rhee Baum,Christian B. Jensen,Robert J. McGrath
• Published date: 01 May 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12121

JEEYANG RHEE BAUM

Harvard University

CHRISTIAN B. JENSEN

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

ROBERT J. MCGRATH

George Mason University

Constraining a Shadowy Future:

Enacting APAs in Parliamentary

Systems

Single-party parliamentary governments often have no institutional checks on

their authority. Such governments can pass and implement policies constrained only by

the need to maintain party loyalty and win elections. Literature on delegation suggests

that such governments would never adopt reforms such as Administrative Procedures

Acts (APAs) that are designed to constrain this freedom. Nevertheless, such govern-

ments do pass APAs: Greece, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Sweden have all done so

in the past 30 years. We argue that the possibility of losing power motivates parliamen-

tary governments, both single-party and coalition, to trade current policy loss for future

gain with APAs.

Single-party governments in parliamentary systems often have no

domestic institutional checks on their authority. Such governments can

pass and implement policies constrained only by the need to maintain

party loyalty and win elections. Why then would such a government

ever adopt administrative reforms such as Administrative Procedure

Acts (APAs) that limit their ability to do so?

1

Both presidential and par-

liamentary systems have implemented APAs that constrain the ability of

bureaucrats to implement public policy. These laws establish procedural

f‌loors that must be met across policy areas and thus reduce the ease and

pace of policy implementation. As previous work on APAs has argued

(Baum 2007; Ginsburg 2002; Jensen and McGrath 2011; McCubbins,

Noll, and Weingast 1987; Moe 1989), these laws also constrain the con-

tent of policy. By stipulating rules that govern the quasi-legislative

(rulemaking) or quasi-judicial (adjudication) behavior of bureaucrats,

APAs limit the discretion of administrative actors.

2

They can act as

mechanisms through which politicians establish structures and

LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 41, 2, May 2016 471

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12121

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C2016 Washington University in St. Louis

guidelines for administrative behavior and the extant literature has done

a comprehensive job cataloguing the incentives that exist for parties to

pass APAs in separation-of-powers systems. Because APAs affect the

content of public policy, explaining their adoption is not only theoreti-

cally important but also practically signif‌icant. Relying on existing

research on delegation and oversight, one would expect that single-party

governments (especially single-party majority governments) would

never implement omnibus administrative reforms. APA passage would

only serve to constrain the dominant party’s ability to implement its pre-

ferred policies. Even if such a party did pass an APA, subsequent single-

party governments could amend, repeal, or ignore it. Nevertheless,

single-party governments do sometimes pass APAs—single-party gov-

ernments in Greece, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Sweden have all

done so in the past 30 years. In this article, we identify systematic factors

that have led to these previously puzzling adoptions of omnibus adminis-

trative reform. We seek to explain not only the adoption of APAs, but

also the timing of these adoptions. In addition, we also examine why

other systems where single-party governments are the norm (e.g., the

United Kingdom) have not yet passed such a broadly applicable

administrative law.

Our theory builds on and amends de Figueiredo Jr.’s (2002) argu-

ment about the adoption of constraints in presidential systems. We argue

that the possibility of losing power in the near future motivates single-

party parliamentary governments to pass APAs. We contend that this

intuition can shed light on the above-mentioned cases. We then extend

the argument to parliamentary governments more generally (including

coalition governments) and f‌ind that seat-share losses in subsequent elec-

tions are statistically signif‌icantly associated with the probability of

parliamentary governments enacting an APA. Contrary to the prevailing

view, we demonstrate that governments in parliamentary systems have

similar incentives to insulate policymaking with APAs as their counter-

parts in separation-of-powers systems. Examining the initiation of APAs

in parliamentary countries is interesting as a replication and generaliza-

tion of existing research from the United States. It is also intrinsically

important to understanding the evolution of parliamentary governance.

Much of the research on governance in parliamentary democracies

examines institutional constraints on the dominance of cabinet ministers

over their corresponding policy portfolios (Greene and Jensen forthcom-

ing; Jensen and McGrath 2011; Kim and Loewenberg 2005; Lipsmeyer

and Pierce 2011; Martin and Vanberg 2004, 2005; Thies 2001). We con-

tribute to this growing research agenda by adding APAs to the

472 Jeeyang Rhee Baum, Christian B. Jensen, and Robert J. McGrath