| I examine what institutional arrangements and practices work particularly well (or bad) at combining the dual objectives of accountability and governability. Specifically, I explain under what conditions Chief Executives succeed and under what conditions they fail in the legislative arena. In most contemporary democracies Chief Executives play a dominant role in the law-making process. Given their proposal powers, their initiatives should never be defeated in the legislature. However, Chief Executives experience numerous legislative defeats. In the face of this puzzle, the project addresses two questions. First, why legislation initiated by a Chief Executive ever gets defeated? Second, what explains the variation in Chief Executives' legislative success?; Combining a formal model with cross-national data on legislative success rates, I show that Executive-initiated bills are defeated due to Chief Executives' uncertainty about legislators' positions on particular policy issues, and limited resources to affect legislators' voting decisions. While there are many models of Executive-Legislative relations, they tend to be unrealistic in their predictions that no defeats occur, and they often neglect the role of constituency influence and of voting across party lines.; I argue that uncertainty about legislators' support for Executive-initiated bills, and limited resources to engage in “vote buying” explain defeats. The source of uncertainty is the existence of cross-pressured legislators. Legislators either belong to the governing party/coalition or are in the opposition, and this is known by a Chief Executive. However, legislators are also responsive to their respective constituencies. When Chief Executives send a proposal to the legislature they can observe its partisan distribution but they are uncertain about the preferences of legislators' constituencies. In case a proposal does not command a majority, a Chief Executive may be able and willing to bribe or punish some legislators to secure a bill's passage. However, if the total cost of securing these votes is too large, a Chief Executive may be better off by keeping the status quo. Thus, Chief Executives may handle the effects of cross-voting with “deep pockets” or “big sticks,” but they may be defeated if a measure commands too much opposition. |
