No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Executive–Legislature Divide and Party Volatility in Emergent Democracies: Lessons for Democratic Performance from Taiwan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 December 2008
Abstract
Are new democracies with divided government and volatile parties politically ill fated? The literature suggests so, but cases of emergent democracies such as Taiwan and Brazil that face both conditions defy the prediction. This paper explains why: party volatility follows from pursuing distinct executive and legislature agendas under divided government; the political ambition that underlies these conditions sustains democratic and even political performance. We evaluate the argument through government spending in Taiwan. The results corroborate our expectations: they show more parties composing the legislature as government spending favors an executive agenda and neglects a legislative welfare-spending agenda. The findings make three contributions to the literature: first, they reveal a political divide between executive and legislature rather than ideological parties to undercut concerns regarding performance. Second, they demonstrate that the strategic use of government spending to institutionalize party development along an executive agenda fuels party fragmentation. Third, they show that legislators split, switch, or create alternative routes to office in reaction to strategic spending to underscore that ambition underlies party volatility and divided government.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008
References
1 See Powell, G. Bingham Jr, ‘Party Systems and Political System Performance: Voting Participation, Government Stability and Mass Violence in Contemporary Democracies’, American Political Science Review, 75 (4) (1981): 861 – 79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weatherford, M. Stephen, ‘Responsiveness and Deliberation in Divided Government: Presidential Leadership in Tax Policy Making’, British Journal of Political Science, 24 (1) (1994): 1 – 31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Laver, Michael, ‘Divided Parties, Divided Government’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, 24 (1) (1999): 5 – 29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Reich, Gary, ‘Coordinating Restraint: Democratization, Fiscal Policy and Money Creation in Latin America’, Political Research Quarterly, 52 (4) (1999): 729 – 51Google Scholar; Hix, Simon, Noury, Abdul, and Roland, Gérard, ‘Power to the Parties: Cohesion and Competition in the European Parliament, 1979 – 2001’, British Journal of Political Science, 35 (2) (2005): 209 – 34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kreuzer, Marcus and Pettai, Vello, ‘Political Parties and the Study of Political Development: New Insights from the Postcommunist Democracies’, World Politics, 56 (4) (2004): 608 – 33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Levitsky, Steven and Cameron, Maxwell A., ‘Democracy without Parties? Political Parties and Regime Change in Fujimori's Peru’, Latin American Politics and Society, 45 (3) (2003): 1 – 33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 See Figueiredo, Argelina Cheibub and Limongi, Fernando, ‘Presidential Power, Legislative Organization, and Party Behavior in Brazil’, Comparative Politics, 32 (2) (2000): 151 – 70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Yap, O. Fiona, ‘Agenda Control, Intraparty Conflict, and Government Spending in Asia: Evidence from South Korea and Taiwan’, Journal of East Asian Studies, 6 (1) (2006): 69 – 104CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Reich, Gary, ‘Constitutional Coordination in Unstable Party Systems: The Brazilian Constitution of 1988’, Constitutional Political Economy, 18 (3) (2007): 177 – 97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 See Heller, William and Mershon, Carol, ‘Party Switching in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, 1996 – 20’, Journal of Politics, 67 (2) (2005): 536 – 59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 See Marcus Kreuzer and Vello Pettai, ‘Political Parties’.
5 See Gary Reich, ‘Cordinating Restraint’, and Argelina Cheibub Figueiredo and Fernando Limongi, ‘Presidential Power’.
6 We are constrained in the start and end dates of the dataset because of reliance on a key variable, change in the legislative seats held by the executive party, obtained from Beck, Thorsten, Clarke, George, Groff, Alberto, Keefer, Philip, and Walsh, Patrick, ‘New Tools in Comparative Political Economy: The Database of Political Institutions’, World Bank Economic Review, 15 (1) (2001): 165 – 76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 See Wong, Joseph, ‘Deepening Democracy in Taiwan’, Pacific Affairs, 76 (2) (2003): 235 – 60Google Scholar; O. Fiona Yap, ‘Agenda Control’, and Reilly, Benjamin, ‘Electoral Systems and Party Systems in East Asia’, Journal of East Asian Studies, 7 (2) (2007): 185 – 203CrossRefGoogle Scholar. We note that political performance in Taiwan was especially troubling between 2004 and 2008; however, this is largely attributed to Chen Shui Bian's particular presidency and his administrative and political mishaps, missteps, and corruption troubles rather than systemic problems. See, for instance, Chan, Steve, ‘Taiwan in 2005: Strategic Interaction in Two-Level Games’, Asian Survey, 46 (1) (2006): 63 – 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Chu, Yun-han, ‘Taiwan in 2006: A Year of Political Turmoil’, Asian Survey, 47 (1) (2007): 44 – 51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 See O. Fiona Yap, ‘Agenda Control’, and Eaton, Kent, ‘Parliamentarism versus Presidentialism in the Policy Arena’, Comparative Politics, 32 (3) (2000): 355 – 76CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Eaton cites studies of Japan and the US and concludes that national defense is a public good that executives ‘take responsibility for shaping’ (366). We follow the literature to consider that civilian spending represents the allocation of particularistic benefits for legislators’ constituencies; while defense spending, a national public good, typically falls within the executive's purview.
9 See Gary Reich, ‘Coordinating Restraint’, and Lebovic, James, ‘Spending Priorities and Democratic Rule in Latin America’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 45 (4) (2001): 427 – 52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 See G. Bingham Powell Jr, ‘Party Systems’, M. Stephen Weatherford, ‘Responsiveness and Deliberation’, and Simon Hix et al., ‘Power to the Parties’.
11 See Pereira, Carlos, Power, Timothy J., and Rennó, Lucio, ‘Under What Conditions Do Presidents Resort to Decree Power? Theory and Evidence from the Brazilian Case’, Journal of Politics, 67 (1) (2005): 178 – 200CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 See Laver, Michael and Benoit, Kenneth, ‘The Evolution of Party Systems between Elections’, American Journal of Political Science, 47 (2) (2003): 215 – 33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; William Heller and Carol Mershon, ‘Party Switching’.
13 See Bowler, Shaun and Lanoue, David, ‘New Party Challenges and Partisan Change: The Effects of Party Competition on Party Loyalty’, Political Behavior, 18 (4) (1996): 327 – 43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berman, Sheri, ‘The Life of the Party’, Comparative Politics, 30 (1997): 101 – 22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stockton, Hans, ‘Political Parties, Party Systems, and Democracy in East Asia: Lessons from Latin America’, Comparative Political Studies, 34 (1) (2001): 94 – 119CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grzymala-Busse, Anna, ‘Coalition Formation and the Regime Divide in New Democracies: East Central Europe’, Comparative Politics, 34 (1) (2001): 85 – 104CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Marcus Kreuzer and Vello Pettai, ‘Political Parties’.
14 See, for example, Steven Levitsky and Maxwell A. Cameron, ‘Democracy without Parties?’.
15 See Gary Reich, ‘Coordinating Restraint’; Goldie Shabad and Slomczynski, Kazimierz M, ‘The Emergence of Career Politicians in Post-Communist Democracies: Poland and the Czech Republic’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, 27 (3) (2002): 333 – 59Google Scholar; Tavits, Margit, ‘The Development of Stable Party Support: Electoral Dynamics in Post-Communist Europe’, American Journal of Political Science, 49 (2) (2005): 283 – 98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 We make argument regarding why politicians prefer to stay in office, that is we do not distinguish between those that prefer to stay in office for the coffers from office or to make policies.
17 See O. Fiona Yap, ‘Agenda Control’; Jeff Yates and Whitford, Andrew, ‘Institutional Foundations of the President's Issue Agenda’, Political Research Quarterly, 58 (4) (2005): 577 – 85Google Scholar; Kent Eaton, ‘Parliamentarism versus Presidentialism’; Argelina Cheibub Figueiredo and Fernando Limongi, ‘Presidential Power’.
18 See William Heller and Carol Mershon, ‘Party Switching’, and see Michael Laver and Kenneth Benoit, ‘The Evolution of Party Systems’.
19 See Hans Stockton, ‘Political Parties’.
20 See also Jeff Yates and Andrew Whitford, ‘Institutional Foundations’, and Argelina Cheibub Figueiredo and Fernando Limongi, ‘Presidential Power’. Another way to consider this is: just as the executive – legislature divide existed prior to democratization without impeding political liberalization, the same divide does not indicate democratic weakness following democratization.
21 This is not to suggest that smaller parties are unimportant; rather, it reflects the tack that parties are constituent parts of the party system and a focus on the larger parties, which usually have longer histories, is more generalizable.
22 See Tufte, Edward, Political Control of the Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Alt, James E., ‘Political Parties, World Demand, and Unemployment: Domestic and International Sources of Economic Activity’, The American Political Science Review, 79 (4) (1985): 1016 – 40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Keech, William, Economic Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gary Reich, ‘Coordinating Restraint’; Kwon, Hyeok-yong, ‘Economic Reform and Democratization: Evidence from Latin America and Post-Socialist Countries’, British Journal of Political Science, 34 (2) (2003): 357 – 68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
23 See Ames, Barry, Political Survival: Politicians and Public Policy in Latin America (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Bates, Robert, Markets and States in Tropical Africa (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981)Google Scholar; Yi Feng (with Margaret Huckeba, Son Nguyen T., and Aaron Williams), ‘Political Institutions, Economic Growth, and Democratic Evolution: The Pacific Asian Scenario’, in de Mesquita, Bruce Bueno and Root, Hilton (eds), Governing for Prosperity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Hyeok-yong Kwon, ‘Economic Reform’.
24 See O. Fiona Yap, ‘Agenda Control’.
25 See Gary Reich, ‘Coordinating Restraint’, and Lipseyer, Christine, ‘Parties and Policy: Evaluating Economic and Partisan Influences on Welfare Policy Spending during the European Post-Communist Transition,’ British Journal of Political Science 32 (4) (2002): 641–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 See Bruce Dickson, ‘The Kuomintang before Democratization: Organizational Change and the Role of the Elections’, in Tien, Hung−Mao (ed.), Taiwan's Electoral Politics and Democratic Transition (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1996)Google Scholar; Cheng, Tun-jen and Haggard, Stephan, ‘Democracy and Deficits in Taiwan: The Politics of Fiscal Policy’, in Haggard, Stephan and McCubbins, Mathew (eds), Presidents, Parliaments, and Policy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.
27 See O. Fiona Yap, ‘Agenda Control’.
28 See O. Fiona Yap, ‘Agenda Control’.
29 See Rigger, Shelly, From Opposition to Power: Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001, p. 68)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
30 See O. Fiona Yap, ‘Agenda Control’.
31 See Shelly Rigger, From Opposition, pp. 59 – 74. It is also noteworthy that in an effort to contain the divisiveness, neither the DPP policy manifesto nor the party platform is considered representative of the DPP but, rather, ‘evolving’ documents. See Shelly Rigger, From Opposition, p. 120; Fell, Dyadd, ‘Measuring and Explaining Party Change in Taiwan’, Journal of East Asian Studies, 5 (2) (2005): 105 – 33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
32 See Taiwan Communique (Washington, DC: Formosan Association for Public Affairs, 1981 – 2006).
33 See Constitution of the Republic of China (Taipei, Taiwan, 2003), http://www.president.gov.tw/index_e.htm <accessed January 2007>
34 Article 57.2 stipulates that the Executive Yuan may return a bill to the legislature for ‘reconsideration’. Also, the executive retains the ability to propose additional spending for cases of national defense emergencies or war, national economic event, calamities, or an irregular political event. See Constitution of the Republic of China.
35 See Thornsten Beck et al.'s Database on Political Institutions, the Asian Development Bank's Key Indicators of the Developing Asian and Pacific Countries (1998 – 2006), and publications from the World Bank. The economic data for Taiwan are obtained or calculated from the Taiwan Statistical Data Book (Taiwan: Council for Economic Planning and Development, 1972 – 2006) and Yearbook of the Financial Statistics (Taiwan: Ministry of Finance, 1976 – 2006). Data on elections are gathered from figures released by the Central Election Commission, which may be found in several sources including Annual Review of Government Administration (Taiwan: Research, Development, and Evaluation Commission, 1976 – 1990) and Taiwan Communique (Washington, DC: Formosan Association for Public Affairs, 1981 – 2006).
36 The dataset codes Taiwan between 1975 and 1983 as having no parliament (NA in the dataset). The dataset also codes independents as ‘individual parties with one seat each’; as a result, it codes opposition fractionalization between 1983 and 1986 where nine independents won seats in the legislature as 100%. We disagree with the coding for 1983 – 86 in two ways: first, independents run their campaigns differently from organized parties. Second, several of the independents were loosely allied with the ‘dangwai’ movement and are not unrelated as such. Thus, our analysis begins from 1987 when opposition parties were permitted and the coding is consistent with general interpretations of party organization in Taiwan.
37 See Hyeok-yong Kwon, ‘Economic Reform’, and James Lebovic, ‘Spending Priorities’.
38 See Hyeok-yong Kwon, ‘Economic Reform’.
39 See Freedom House, Freedom in the World (New York: Freedom House, 1972 – 2006).
40 See James Lebovic, ‘Spending Priorities’, and Hyeok-yong Kwon, ‘Economic Reform’.
41 See Yi Feng, ‘Political Institutions’, and Bollen, Kenneth and Jackman, Robert, ‘Democracy, Stability and Dichotomies’, American Sociological Review, 54 (4) (1989): 612 – 21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
42 Substantively and statistically, the effects from using this ordinal scale from 2 to 14 are the same as using a [0, 1] score, where 1 reflects the highest level of democracy and 0 the lowest or a dichotomous measure of democracy (0, 1), where Taiwan is considered democratic in 1992. The results are also substantively similar if Taiwan is considered democratic only since 1996.
43 See, for instance, Annual Review of Government Administration (1986, 1990).
44 See Greene, William, Econometric Analysis (5th edition) (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002)Google Scholar; Kennedy, Peter, A Guide to Econometrics (5th edition) (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003)Google Scholar.
45 Specifically, the Durbin – Watson statistic for autocorrelation lies in the indeterminate range both before and after autocorrelation corrections. To retain the maximum degrees of freedom and because the results were not substantively different, we used the Huber – White regression to ensure results that are robust to variance heterogeneity and residual correlation.
46 The results for change in unemployment contradict theoretical expectations; it shows that increases in unemployment reduce the number of opposition parties in the legislature. We attribute this aberration to peculiarities in the unemployment data from Taiwan. In particular, unemployment rates reported from Taiwan are exceptionally low, ranging between 1.2% and 2.4% between 1975 and 1980 (notwithstanding the OPEC oil crisis that crippled the world economy) with an average unemployment rate between 1975 and 1996 of 1.9%.