Do Coalition Governments with Populist Parties Attempt to Rationalise Law-Making in Parliaments? Evidence from the Czech Chamber of Deputies

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216224%3A14220%2F21%3A00122678" target="_blank" >RIV/00216224:14220/21:00122678 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://academic.oup.com/pa/article/74/4/835/6168572" target="_blank" >https://academic.oup.com/pa/article/74/4/835/6168572</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsab011" target="_blank" >10.1093/pa/gsab011</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Do Coalition Governments with Populist Parties Attempt to Rationalise Law-Making in Parliaments? Evidence from the Czech Chamber of Deputies

Original language description

Populism might be a threat to parliamentary democracy but does not automatically signal its demise. First, not all populist parties seek illiberal goals. Second, in Europe most populist parties entering governments have done so as coalitions with mainstream parties. Yet, almost all populists, including the non-extremist and ‘integrated’ ones, call for more efficient governance. We assume that once in the executive, that objective will also manifest itself in the rationalisation of law-making in legislatures. By applying a more assertive strategy and exploiting existing rules, cabinets will attempt to streamline their legislative agendas. We test this theoretical framework on empirical evidence from the Czech Chamber of Deputies, which can serve as prototypical case. Since 2010, three coalition governments have ruled. In the last two, the influence of populist parties (represented by ANO under the leadership of Andrej Babiš) gradually increased. By tracking the legislative performance of cabinets in the Chamber, we found that executives with a populist presence actually fared worse than their non-populist predecessor (baseline) in almost all proceedings and outcomes of law-making. The bills submitted by the last government, where ANO dominated, even suffered the most. Contrary to our assumption, a strategy of rationalisation has therefore not succeeded. The findings open interesting questions about how effective cabinets with populists are in law-making in parliaments, and about the future of legislatures as resilient safeguards against the populist challenge.

Czech name

—

Czech description

—

Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

50601 - Political science

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Parliamentary Affairs

ISSN

0031-2290

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

74

Issue of the periodical within the volume

4

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

18

Pages from-to

835-852

UT code for WoS article

000697384700006

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85112353106