Staggered membership renewal and differential time horizons in second chambers. Staggering formulas, membership patterns, time horizons and their effects on both procedural and substantive dimensions of law-making
Final Report Abstract
Two of the key practical and normative questions in the study of politics are the issue of how to ensure that elected representatives have long enough time horizons to be able to effectively grapple with very difficult issues, and the issue of how to avoid elected politicians succumbing to the temptation to use the resources of the state which they control through their office to attempt to improve their chances of re-election by engaging in sub-optimal spending of public resources. One potential solution to these problems, which has been proposed at least going back to the debate regarding the ratification of the constitution of the United States (Hamilton, Jay, and Madison 1788), is to stagger the terms of representatives, so that only a part of them are up for re-election in any given election year. The logic is that this will both allow for the kind of long-term planning necessary for the successful functioning of the state, and will prevent the use of public resources to maximise chances of re-election, as those representatives not up for re-election will have no interest in doing so, and so would be expected to prevent their colleagues facing the electorate from doing so. Despite being used in the upper chambers of more than twenty democracies, the effects of staggered terms have been neglected in the study of politics. This project sought to conduct a comparative study of the effects of staggered terms in parliamentary regimes, studying the upper chambers of Australia, France, Germany, and Japan. In order to do so, we collected data on the activity levels of members of these upper chambers over extended periods of time, in order to be able to investigate the extent to which their behaviour was influenced by both their own time until re-election and the time until their colleagues faced re-election. The most interesting finding arising from the project was the clear tendency towards staggered terms having, at best, no effect, and at worst the exact opposite effect of that intended. Staggered terms encourage upper chamber members to become more active not only when their own election is approaching, but also when their colleagues are up for re-election. At the same time, the more frequent and larger number of elections required to accommodate staggered terms means that these lead to a multiplication of political cycles, rather than a reduction in their number.
Publications
- (2019) Do electoral district size and diversity affect legislative behaviour?. Australian Journal of Political Science 54 (1) 37–64
Willumsen, David M.; Stecker, Christian; Goetz, Klaus H.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2018.1537390) - (2019) How does staggered membership renewal affect parliamentary behaviour? Evidence from the French Senate. Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev. (European Political Science Review) 11 (2) 267–284
Willumsen, David M.; Goetz, Klaus H.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755773919000110) - (2015), Staggered Political Institutions: Design and Effects, Journal of European Public Policy, 22(7), pp. 1040-1051
David M. Willumsen & Klaus H. Goetz
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2015.1036905) - (2015), Synchronisation demokratischen Regierens in der Europä ischen Union, Leviathan, Sonderband 30, 2015, pp. 132–151
Klaus H. Goetz
- (2017) The Electoral Connection in Staggered Parliaments: Evidence from Australia, Germany, France and Japan, European Journal of Political Research
David M. Willumsen, Christian Stecker & Klaus H. Goetz
(See online at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1475-6765.12250/full) - (2017), Political leadership in the European Union: a timecentred view, European Political Science, 16 (1), pp. 48-69
Klaus H. Goetz
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2015.115) - (2017), Set Free? Impending Retirement and Legislative Behaviour in the UK, Parliamentary Affairs, 70(2), pp. 254-279
David M. Willumsen & Klaus H. Goetz
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsw018)
