Majority Rule and Parliamentary Behaviour

Research question/goal: 

Parliamentary democracies rest upon the assumption that the majority has the right to overrule a dissent minority after a period of debate. Yet there are considerable differences between countries and periods with regard to the practical use of the majority rule. The project sets out to study such differences and provide a comparative analysis of the multitude of institutional configurations and their effects on parliamentary behaviour in 36 countries.

Current stage: 

This project was abandoned with the move of Steffen Ganghof and Christian Stecker to the University of Potsdam in 2007.

Fact sheet

Funding: 
MZES
Duration: 
2006 to 2010
Status: 
discontinued
Data Sources: 
constitutions, parliamentary standing rules, behavioural data
Geographic Space: 
Europa sowie Australien, Indien, Israel, Japan, Kanada, Neuseeland

Publications

Journal Articles

Ganghof, Steffen, and Thomas Bräuninger (2006): Government Status and Legislative Behaviour. Partisan Veto Players in Australia, Denmark, Finland and Germany. Party Politics, 12, issue 4, pp. 521-539. more