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Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work
Authors and Contributors      By (author) George Tsebelis
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:344
Dimensions(mm): Height 235,Width 152
ISBN/Barcode 9780691099897
ClassificationsDewey:328
Audience
Professional & Vocational
Tertiary Education (US: College)
Illustrations 44 line illus. 16 tables.

Publishing Details

Publisher Princeton University Press
Imprint Princeton University Press
Publication Date 15 September 2002
Publication Country United States

Description

Political scientists have long classified systems of government as parliamentary or presidential, two-party or multiparty, and so on. But such distinctions often fail to provide useful insights. For example, how are we to compare the United States, a presidential bicameral regime with two weak parties, to Denmark, a parliamentary unicameral regime with many strong parties? Veto Players advances an important, new understanding of how governments are structured. The real distinctions between political systems, contends George Tsebelis, are to be found in the extent to which they afford political actors veto power over policy choices. Drawing richly on game theory, he develops a scheme by which governments can thus be classified. He shows why an increase in the number of "veto players," or an increase in their ideological distance from each other, increases policy stability, impeding significant departures from the status quo. Policy stability affects a series of other key characteristics of polities, argues the author. For example, it leads to high judicial and bureaucratic independence, as well as high government instability (in parliamentary systems).The propositions derived from the theoretical framework Tsebelis develops in the first part of the book are tested in the second part with various data sets from advanced industrialized countries, as well as analysis of legislation in the European Union. Representing the first consistent and consequential theory of comparative politics, Veto Players will be welcomed by students and scholars as a defining text of the discipline. From the preface to the Italian edition: "Tsebelis has produced what is today the most original theory for the understanding of the dynamics of contemporary regimes...This book promises to remain a lasting contribution to political analysis."--Gianfranco Pasquino, Professor of Political Science, University of Bologna

Author Biography

George Tsebelis is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of "Nested Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics" and coauthor of "Bicameralism". The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Hoover National Fellowship, and a Russell Sage Fellowship, he has published numerous papers on the institutions of the European Union and on comparative institutional analysis.

Reviews

This is a big book and an important one. It completes a program on which George Tsebelis has been working for ten years or more. With luck, it may revolutionize the systematic study of comparative government. -- Iain McLean Journal of Legislative Studies