editor's introduction

Editor's IntroductionAuthor(s): Malcolm E. JewellSource: Legislative Studies Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 2 (May, 1976), pp. 143-146Published by: Comparative Legislative Research CenterStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/439510 .

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MALCOLM E. JEWELL

University of Kentucky

Editor's Introduction

Articles in This Issue

The articles in this issue report on research in two European coun- tries (Italy and the Netherlands), the United States Congress, and several American states (Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri, and a group of eight states); but the major topics that are explored cut across geographic lines. Both the studies in Italy and in Wisconsin examine how legislative rules and procedures affect the interests of particular parties and groups. The studies in Italy, the United States, and the Netherlands analyze factors affecting the operation of the committee system and relationships between committees and political parties. The importance of party in voting decisions is compared in two American states: Ohio and Missouri. Both the study of the Dutch parliament and the study of eight American state legislatures examine legislators' perceptions of the information sources that they consider to be most useful.

Giuseppe Di Palma's article on "Institutional Rules and Legislative Outcomes in the Italian Parliament" is a good illustration of the utility of examining legislative procedures closely. The Italian legislative committee system is unusually interesting because the Constitution provides that the committees have authority to make the final decision on certain types of bills. On the surface it would appear that such strong committees are incompatible with the strong, disciplined political party system that prevails in Italy. Di Palma shows that the decentralized procedure under which committees make final decisions is used for handling large quantities of relatively non- controversial legislation. The more controversial legislation must be taken up on the floor of parliament, where the procedures are open to the public and all of the parties are fully represented (in contrast to committees). In prac- tice, however, controversial legislation is frequently delayed because of procedural devices and often dies at adjournment without having been debated or voted on. The failure of the parliament to deal with the more important, controversial issues is partly a result of the government's weakness and lack of will power. But the failure is also a consequence of long established practices

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Malcolm E. Jewell

and procedures, "an institutional reality that feeds on and perpetuates itself' and encourages governmental irresponsibility. Obviously the government, and its legislative majority, have the power to change these procedures; but as long as they persist they make it easy for issues to be postponed and confron- tations avoided. This study suggests the need for equally careful studies of the consequences of parliamentary procedures in other legislative bodies.

Both legislative practitioners and political scientists are interested in understanding the consequences of procedural change, more specifically the question of who will benefit and who will be hurt by such change. Perceptive practitioners and students both recognize that the consequences may be different from what is anticipated by those who initiated the change. Ronald Hedlund and Keith Hamm, in "Conflict and Perceived Group Benefits from Legislative Rules Changes," deal with perceived consequences of several rules changes in the Wisconsin legislature. Shortly after the changes were adopted at the start of a session, they asked legislators how the changes would affect a number of major groups; at the end of the session they asked legislators for judgments about what the consequences had actually been. One conclusion is that at the end of the session there was greater consensus about who had benefitted and who had been hurt by the procedural changes. The groups that apparently benefitted most (such as liberals and Democrats) were less reluctant to admit that this had happened at the end of the session. Moreover, answers appear to have been based more on first-hand experience and less on partisanship and group membership at the end of the session. There are some broader implications to this study. It illustrates the importance of studying how legislative attitudes are formed and changed. It emphasizes the need for dynamic, longitudinal studies and not merely cross-sectional analysis, to produce comparative findings.

Charles Bullock's study of "Motivations for U.S. Congressional Com- mittee Preferences: Freshmen of the 92nd Congress" might appear, at first glance, to have no comparative implications. It tells us what reasons freshmen articulate for seeking committee assignments. More than that, however, it provides some valuable supporting data for Richard Fenno's thesis that congressmen seek committee assignments for several distinct reasons and that certain types of committees primarily attract congressmen with a particular motive. For example, members of the Public Works Committee are princi- pally concerned with re-election; those on Judiciary are motivated by policy interests; and the Ways and Means Committee is sought because of its prestige and power in the House. Differences among committees in the motivations of members lead to differences in committee norms, decision-making processes, and outputs. The growing number of studies of committee systems outside the United States would be enriched by a careful analysis of the motivations

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of members serving on committees, such as that done by Bullock. If there is any aspect of legislative studies in which there might

appear to be a surplus of published research, it may be roll call analysis of American legislative bodies, but our list of manuscripts submitted to the Quarterly shows that there is no decline in scholarly interest in the topic. Some questions about roll call voting remain unresolved, including the com- parability of congressional and state legislative findings, and the extent to which party alignments vary by issue. Both of these topics are covered by Lance LeLoup in his study of "Policy, Party, and Voting in U. S. State Legislatures: A Test of the Content-Process Linkage." His major finding is that in two states (Ohio and Missouri), party is the best explanation of voting alignments and that issues do not lead to voting dimensions that are distinct from party.

Professor van Schendelen's article on "Information and Decision Making in the Dutch Parliament" is of interest for several reasons. The most obvious one is that most legislative scholars know very little about the Dutch parliament. The article is also important because, like Di Palma's Italian study, it sheds light on the potential conflicts between legislative parties and committees. In the Netherlands this conflict appears to be minimized, in large part because of the key role played by the party specialist, who develops policy positions and who serves as a link between the party and the committee. This decentralized pattern of decision making resembles that used in the German Bundestag, but the Dutch parliamentary setting is quite different because there are a much larger number of parties holding at least a few seats. The van Schendelen study also provides us with useful data on the sources of information that MPs say they find to be most influential and reliable in making their decisions. The relative importance and adequacy of these sources differ with the size of the member's party and his role as a party specialist or committee member.

In somewhat similar fashion, Professors O'Connor, Wissel, and King are seeking to find out how legislators in eight American states assess the utility of information sources both within and outside the legislature, and how they evaluate proposals for improving those sources. The title of their article, 'The Hunting of the Legislative Snark: Information Searches and Re- forms in U. S. State Legislatures," is supposed to suggest that opinions differ over the nature of the information that is sought and how best to achieve it. (Foreign readers should read the article before turning to their dictionaries for a definition of "snark.") Differences among states in the adequacy of staffing, the strength of parties, and the extent of guberatorial leadership are factors affecting evaluations of information sources. The major finding re- garding proposals for reform is that legislators who have been accustomed to depending on particular information sources usually suggest improving these

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rather than seeking to develop and finance other types of sources. This is partly a matter of habit and partly a consequence of their political environ- ment.

Manuscripts Accepted for Future Publication

The August, 1976, issue of the Quarterly will be the first special issue devoted to papers on a single theme. The theme is "The Role of Parlia- mentary Politicians in Asia," and the papers were presented in initial drafts at a conference in Penang, Malaysia, held in March, 1975. The co-editor for this issue is W.H. Morris-Jones, Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in London. At this time the following papers have been received for publication in this issue:

W.H. Morris-Jones, "Introduction: The Parliamentary Politician in Asia" Shriram Maheshwari, "Constituency Linkage of National Legislators in India" Iqbal Narain and Shashi Lata Purl, "Legislators in an Indian State: A Study of

Role Images and the Pattern of Constituency Linkages" Manindra K. Mohapatra, "The Ombudsmanic Role of Legislators in an Indian

State" Chong Lim Kim and Gerhard Loewenberg, "The Cultural Roots of a New

Legislature: Public Perceptions of the Korean National Assembly" Rounaq Jahan, "Members of Parliament in Bangladesh" Chan Heng Chee, 'The Role of Parliamentary Politicians in Singapore" M.C. Kumbhat and Y.M. Marican, "Constituent Orientation among Malaysian

State Legislators" Michael Ong, "The Member of Parliament and his Constituency: The Malay-

sian Case"

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