Divided Government and Legislative Bargaining in Japan and South Korea

This dissertation explores divided government and its policy consequences in two East Asian democracies: Japan and South Korea. In the late 1980's, the chief executives in the two countries, for the first time since the early 1950's when dominant party systems in which governing parties fully control their legislatures began to take root, faced divided government in which governing parties lack control of their legislatures. Since then, divided government has become one of the most pervasive phenomena in the two East Asian democracies. Reflecting its substantive importance, there has been scholarly debates about the effect of divided government on executive's lawmaking outcomes in both nations. To bridge the divide, I first conceptualize divided government as a bargaining situation in which governing party must deal with the pivotal opposition party that is ideologically close to her and has necessary seats to form a winning legislative coalition. Then I model divided government as a bargaining game to argue that the effect of divided government on executive's lawmaking outcomes varies depending on the policy disagreement between the governing party and the pivotal opposition party and the constitutional settings in which the governing party operates. Specifically, the larger policy disagreement between the governing party and the pivotal opposition party, an executive bill is less likely to be accepted and is more likely to be abandoned before the floor-stage vote in the two democracies. The larger policy disagreement between the governing party and the pivotal opposition party, an executive bill is more like to be amended in Japan that adopts parliamentary constitution and is less likely to be amended in Korea that adopts presidential, constitution. The divergence is due to the constitutional difference between the two countries: a policy failure might cause the cabinet termination in parliamentary system that has confidence requirement while a policy failure has no such political consequence on the executive survival in presidential system that has no confidence requirement. To support these theoretical claims, I employ original datasets on the fates of executive bill -- acceptance, amendment, or abandonment -- in Japan and Korea. Competing risks event history analysis shows that the acceptance rate decreases and the abandonment rate increases as the ideological distance between governing parties and pivotal opposition parties widens in Japan and Korea. It suggests also that the amendment rate increases in Japan and decreases in Korea as the ideological distance between governing parties and pivotal opposition parties widens.