A new index of bicameralism: taking legitimacy seriously

ABSTRACT

Second chambers frequently form part of national institutional configurations, but their impact on policy making can vary from negligible to all-important veto players. The standard approach is to assess their importance via two dimensions: formal powers and compositional differences vis-à-vis the first chamber. In this paper, we conceptualise a third dimension: the legitimacy of second chambers. We subsequently measure the strength of second chambers in 14 countries and develop a new index of bicameralism. Running several quantitative analyses with a total sample of 29 OECD countries, we show how this index is significantly correlated to lower state intervention in the economy and greater regional autonomy.

KEYWORDS:

• Bicameralism
• second chambers
• legitimacy
• index
• policy effects

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This point is acknowledged also by Lijphart (2012, p. 109), although in the discussion of ‘horizontal’, not ‘vertical’ power sharing: ‘a legislative vote of no confidence in a popularly elected executive would be seen as defiance of the popular will and of democratic legitimacy.’ On federalism and democracy more generally, see Benz and Sonnicksen (2021).

2 For instance, the Afrobarometer merely asks whether respondents ‘trust the parliament/national assembly’ (Round 7, Q43B). The same is true of the Eurobarometer (e.g. of Summer 2020, QA6a), the Latinobarometro (e.g. wave of 2018, P15STGBSC.D: ‘confidence in National Congress/Parliament’), the European Social Survey (e.g. Wave 9, 2018, B6-12), and the World Values Survey (e.g. Wave 7, 2017–2020, Q73: ‘confidence in national parliament’)

3 Note that it is beyond the scope of this paper to assess why the deliberative quality of some second chambers is higher than in others – whether that is due to particular party constellations or a specific committee system, for instance (cf. Bächtiger, 2014).

4 Bächtiger et al. (2005, p. 234) summarise the most important empirical findings on the favourable conditions for a high quality of deliberation in parliamentary debates as follows: ‘consensus institutions, presidential regimes, second chambers, non-publicity, and low-issue polarization further respectful exchanges among participants’.

5 One advantage of (binding) referendums over surveys is that the opinions expressed therein matter politically. A disadvantage, however, is that choices can be driven by factors other than those linked to the institution as such, e.g. dissatisfaction with the government in Italy in 2016 (Vercesi 2019, p. 10).

6 Iceland and New Zealand have missing data on the share of public employees.

7 The consolidated revenue of each level of government is defined as total revenue minus the intergovernmental transfer revenue of that government level; in turn, the consolidated expenditure of each level of government is defined as total spending minus the inter-governmental transfer spending of that government level.

8 In other words, as composed of electoral disproportionality, the effective number of parties, power sharing in cabinets and the power of the parliament vis-à-vis the executive branch; we use the mean values for the entire period studied by Bernauer and Vatter (2019), namely from 1990 to 2015.

9 Using his uncorrected index (first column of Table 2) results in virtual identical numbers (not shown).

10 We thank an anonymous reviewer for highlighting that aspect.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation [grant number PCEFP1_186897].

Notes on contributors

Sean Mueller

Sean Mueller is SNSF Assistant Professor at the Institute of Political Studies, University of Lausanne. His main areas of research are Swiss and comparative federalism, direct democracy, and local government studies.

Adrian Vatter

Adrian Vatter holds the Chair of Swiss Politics at the Institute of Political Science, University of Bern. His main areas of research are Swiss politics, federalism, direct democracy, and comparative politics.

Sereina Dick

Sereina Dick holds an MA in Swiss Politics from the University of Bern and currently works in the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment.