Abstract
We question results claiming to extend non-cooperative models of legislative bargaining to the theoretically general and substantively typical case with an arbitrary number of disciplined parties. We identify problems with both the derivation of formal results and empirical evaluation of these. No empirically robust formateur advantage is observed in field data on bargaining over government formation. Given this theoretical and empirical impasse, we reconsider the substantive premises that should form the foundation for any new attempt to model this fundamental political process, arguing that models should be grounded in binding constitutional constraints on the government formation process in parliamentary democracies.
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Thanks are due for comments on earlier drafts of this paper to John Aldrich, Gary Cox, John Ferejohn, Guillaume Fréchette, Macartan Humphreys, Peter Morriss, Kenneth Shepsle and Paul Warwick, as well as participants in departmental seminars at the University of Iowa and New York University, the conference on Political Economy of Bargaining, Wilfred Laurier University, 24–26 April 2008, and the Annual Meeting of the American POlitical Science Association, Boston, 27–31 August 2008.
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Laver, M., de Marchi, S. & Mutlu, H. Negotiation in legislatures over government formation. Public Choice 147, 285–304 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-010-9627-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-010-9627-4