Explaining Reforms of Minority Rights in Parliaments: A Theoretical Framework with Case Study Application

Autor(en)

Ulrich Sieberer, Wolfgang Claudius Müller

Abstrakt

How can we explain the institutional reforms that redistribute institutional power between the parliamentary majority and minority? This paper draws on the literatures on institutional design in Congress and inductive explanations from case studies to propose an informal theoretical model for changes in minority rights in European parliaments. We argue that political parties as the relevant actors propose and decide on institutional reforms based on their substantive goals, their current and expected future government status, the transaction and audience costs of reforms, second-order institutions that regulate the relative influence of various actors in changing parliamentary rules, and the institutional status quo. From this model, we derive a number of hypotheses on system-level conditions that make suppression and extension of minority rights more or less likely. These hypotheses are tested with a qualitative case study of all standing order reforms in the Austrian parliament from 1945 to 2014. The empirical analysis finds support for various hypotheses and their underlying causal mechanisms. As Austria constitutes a least-likely case, the evidence provides strong support for our theoretical model.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Staatswissenschaft

Externe Organisation(en)

Universität Konstanz

Journal

West European Politics

Band

38

Seiten

997–1019

ISSN

0140-2382

Publikationsdatum

2015

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

506014 Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, 506012 Politische Systeme

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Social Sciences(all)

Link zum Portal

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/explaining-reforms-of-minority-rights-in-parliaments-a-theoretical-framework-with-case-study-application(fd156f19-d1b1-4e41-bcc5-1341fa829e3c).html