Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work

by George Tsebelis

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
?



"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

Genres: Politics, Political Science, Nonfiction, Public Policy, Grad School

344 pages, Paperback

First published August 26, 2002

Reviews

[Truls Ljungström · Rating 2 out of 5]

Först skall bekännas: Matten i denna bok är alldeles för svår för mig - jag vet inte ens var jag skulle börja angripa den. Det gör att dess underbyggnad är otydlig för mig -jag kan inte uttala mig om dess vetenskapliga stringens.

Detta sagt, är sakinnehållet ganska intuitivt: Ju fler mästare som styr en stat, desto mindre förändring kan uppnås, och det är rimligt att betrakta de koalitionspartners som utgör statsapparaten som grupper med negativ kontroll över staten, dvs grupper som kan blockera dess förändring. Detta är egentligen inget annat än machiavellis gamla statsbeskrivning - att staten är dess hov/dess makthavare.

Just eftersom sakinnehållet är så intuitivt, gör det att boken inte innehåller något mervärde för en läsare som inte kan dra nytta av tidigare nämnda matematiska beskrivningar.

[Robert Muller · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this too repetitive and not mathematical enough (most people would say too much, but I'm me). It makes sense until you realize two things. It's actually pretty hard to instantiate concepts like "winset" and "policy" with actual, empirical things. And, like most theories in the social sciences, it's tautological in that you can just use "absorption" and other reframings to change the playing field until it matches what you think you want to claim. In other words, it doesn't really explain anything. The empirical referents in the book are uniformly at a very high level and are general, not specific to actual events or things other than broad constitutional facts, which likely is because getting into the weeds would show up #1 above. Like another reviewer, I think reading the first couple of chapters will tell you everything you need to know.

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting theory. Didn't read past the introduction and the first chapter - gets quite repetitive from thereon. The main thesis is clearly presented in that first part anyway. Short summary: if there are more agents in the system with power to influence policy (to change the status quo), there is more likely to be policy stability (e.g. US with three branches of government). This method of analysis allows for comparison between different state structures (presidential, parliamentary, two-party, multi-party etc.)

[Aaron Crofut · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of those "why I found grad school to be a waste of my time and money" books. Just because you throw out a lot of math doesn't mean you told me anything I didn't know before. This books isn't wrong. It's just unnecessary. I had forgotten that I read this book until looking through a book list on Goodreads and recognized the cover.