Chief executives in many parliamentary democracies have the power to dissolve the legislature. Despite a well-developed literature on the endogenous timing of parliamentary elections, political scientists know remarkably little about the strategic use of dissolution power to influence policy-making. To address this gap, we propose and empirically evaluate a theoretical model of legislative bargaining in the shadow of executive dissolution power. The model implies that the chief executive's public support and legislative strength as well as the time until the next constitutionally mandated election are important determinants of the use and effectiveness of dissolution threats in policy-making. Analyzing an original times-series data set from a multi-party parliamentary democracy, we find evidence in line with key empirical implications of the model.
- Legislative politics
- Social Sciences
- Confidence voting
- Dissolution of legislative bodies
- Coalition government
- Parliaments
- Legislative veto
- Executive-legislative relations