Legislative Reforms and Party Competition

Our research project investigates the ability of parliamentary systems to initiate policy reforms and the effects of party competition and coalition policy-making on the duration and success of those reforms. Using new data from Germany and Austria, the project traces the individual reform proposal as the unit of analysis through its life cycle from initial discussion outside the legislative arena through the final parliamentary decision. The goal of our comparative analysis is to get a better understanding of how party competition affects the duration of reform processes and the success of legislative reforms.