The Role of Governments in Legislative Agenda Setting [Paperback]

Setting the agenda for parliament is the most significant institutional weapon for governments to shape policy outcomes, because governments with significant agenda setting powers, like France or the UK, are able to produce the outcomes they prefer, while governments that lack agenda setting powers, such as the Netherlands and Italy in the beginning of the period examined, see their projects significantly altered by their Parliaments.

With a strong comparative framework, this coherent volume examines fourteen countries and provides a detailed investigation into the mechanisms by which governments in different countries determine the agendas of their corresponding parliaments. It explores the three different ways that governments can shape legislative outcomes: institutional, partisan and positional, to make an important contribution to legislative politics.

It will be of interest to students and scholars of comparative politics, legislative studies/parliamentary research, governments/coalition politics, political economy, and policy studies.

1. Governments and Legislative Agenda Setting: An Introduction George Tsebelis and Bj?rn Erik Rasch 2. Germany: Limited Government Agenda Control and Strong Minority Rights Christoph H?nnige and Ulrich Sieberer 3. France: Systematic Institutional Advantage of Government Sylvain Brouard 4. Italy: Government Alternation and Legislative Agenda Setting Francesco Zucchini 5. United Kingdom: Extreme Dominance by the Executive... Most of the Time Mads Qvortrup 6. Hungary: Changing Government AdvantagesChallenging a Dominant Executive Gabriella Ilonszki and Krisztina J?ger 7. Netherlands: Legislative Agenda Setting and the Politics of Strategic Lock-Ins Arco Timmermans 8. Switzerland: Agenda-Setting Power of Government in a Separation-of-Powers Framework Daniel Schwarz, Andr? B?chtigls'