legislative studies in western democracies: a comparative perspective

Legislative Studies in Western Democracies: A Comparative PerspectiveAuthor(s): Malcolm E. JewellSource: Legislative Studies Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 4 (Nov., 1978), pp. 537-554Published by: Comparative Legislative Research CenterStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/439614 .

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MALCOLM E. JEWELL University of Kentucky

Legislative Studies in Western Democracies: A Comparative Perspective

This article summarizes some of the major trends in recent research on Western democratic legislatures, providing a framework for analyzing the findings on Canadian legislative behavior reported in this issue. It focuses on four major areas of legislative research: the individual legislator, his selection of roles, and his constituency service responsibilities; legislative institutions, including party organization, committee reorganization, and decision-making theories; legislative oversight of the executive; and the relationships between the legislature and the political system.

The purpose of this paper is to review some of the major recent trends in research on legislatures in Western democracies, in order to provide a framework for analyzing the findings of the research on the Canadian parliament and provincial legislatures reported in this issue of the Legislative Studies Quarterly. The subsequent article by Kornberg and Campbell provides additional background for the papers in this issue by summarizing the last decade of research on Canadian legislatures. Not all of the research trends summarized in the present paper are equally important in the United States and Europe, because of the obvious differences between the congressional and the parliamentary systems and because there are often different scholarly priorities in the two academic communities. Nevertheless, there is considerable overlap between the topics that have assumed importance in the two geographic areas. Some of the trends that are most apparent result from recent developments in legislative bodies, for example, the growing interest in the operation of committees. Other topics, such as formal decision-making theories, have attracted greater interest independent of any trends in the legislatures themselves.

This paper will be organized around several major topics. This first is the individual legislator: his election, career patterns, selection of roles, and his growing service responsibilities. A large proportion of the papers in this issue deal with the individual MP or member of a provincial legislature. The second topic is the legislative institution, with particular emphasis on party organization, structural reorganization (particularly committees), and decision- making theories. A few of the papers touch on the Canadian or provincial

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parliamentary institutions. The third topic is legislative oversight of the executive, and particularly budgetary review. The final topic concerns the relationship of the legislature to the political system, notably questions of integration, support, and legislative outputs. The third and fourth topics discussed here are not covered in the research papers in this issue.

The Individual Legislator

European studies focusing on the individual legislator continue to give attention to such topics as socioeconomic background, recruitment, and career patters (for a review of some earlier research on legislative recruitment, see Patterson, 1968). For example, a recent comparison of career patterns in Britain and West Germany concluded that in both countries success in rising to positions of parliamentary leadership is related less to prelegislative experiences and characteristics than to parliamentary service and the age of entry into parliament (Frankland, 1977). Two recent studies of the Dutch parliament have attempted to find out what characteristics of legislators determine whether they will stay in parliament for a prolonged period or drop out (van Schendelen and van de Paardt, 1975; Irwin, Budge, and Farlie, 1978). There have been several studies in recent years providing insights into the role of political parties in the recruitment of legislators in Britain (Ranney, 1965; Rush, 1969; Fairlie, 1976) and in Finland (Pesonen, 1972).

William Mishler's study of the recruitment of Canadian parliamentary candidates in this issue is designed to find out what attributes of potential candidates make them attractive to the parties as nominees. He finds several attributes characterizing many parliamentary candidates: a record of activity in the party organization, previous success in campaigns for elective office, and high socioeconomic status. He finds some differences among the parties in the characteristics of candidates, particularly in terms of socioeconomic status. But he does not find anticipated differences in the characteristics of candidates from more and less competitive constituencies or between those candidates who were self-starters and those recruited by party leaders. In Canada, as in other countries where recruitment studies have been carried out, there is a need to supplement aggregate statistical studies with extensive case studies describing how party organizations actually carry out the process of recruitment.

Studies of American congressmen in recent yearshave focused attention on elections, and specifically on the increasing success of incumbent congressmen in winning reelection, even in the face of strong political trends away from their party (see particularly Erikson, 1971; Cover, 1977; Kostroski, 1973; Hinckley, 1970). A number of explanations for the growing success of

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incumbents have been advanced, including: gerrymandering by state legislatures (Tufte, 1973), the declining influence of party identification as a voting cue (Ferejohn, 1977), and the growing resources available to congressmen to gain more visibility (Cover, 1976). Richard Fenno (1978) has analyzed the methods by which congressmen identify and cultivate particular constituencies in their districts and develop a "homestyle" for interacting with them. His research sheds light on a variety of factors that can explain both the electoral successes and failures of congressmen. Fenno's study is likely to lead other scholars to examine more carefully what the congressman does in his district, and how he develops and maintains his political base.

Students of Congress have recognized for many years that a major part of the congressman's job is to obtain various kinds of governmental benefits for his district (and to protect those gains that have been won) as well as to provide individual services for his district. But there is an increasing recognition that the escalation in the number and range of governmental programs, particularly over the last fifteen years, has increased both the demands on congressmen and their opportunities to gain recognition by being instrumental (or appearing to be instrumental) in getting benefits for their districts and their constituents. It is Morris Fiorina (1977a, 1977b) who has been most articulate in describing these trends and in suggesting the linkage between them and the increasing electoral success of incumbents. Despite the growing attention to this topic, we have little systematic evidence about the way in which congressmen perform this role, the options open to them, and the factors that affect their success.

Heinz Eulau and Paul Karps (1977) have suggested that the changing role of congressmen requires us to define more broadly what we mean by representation. It is clear that constituents are often less interested in the policy stands and voting records of congressmen than in their success in providing the district with its share, or more, of governmental benefits. Eulau and Karps suggest that we should distinguish among four dimensions of representation: policy, service, allocation, and symbolic responsiveness.

The increasing interest in these aspects of representation has not led to any decline in efforts to measure the impact of district characteristics on voting records of congressmen. Fiorina (1974) has provided an elaborate and useful theoretical foundation for studies of the relationship between a legislator and his district with regard to policy questions. The most ambitious recent effort to measure policy congruence between congressmen and their constituents is Stone's (1976) study, using survey data over a period of years to repli- cate the famous Miller-Stokes (1963) study based on a 1958 survey.

The literature on European legislators does not provide anycomparable evidence that MPs are growing more independent and powerful or that they

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are benefiting from increasing participation in the distribution of governmental benefits to their districts. This suggests that such a trend is less obvious, but it does not mean that it is nonexistent. There are scattered references in the literature to an increasing service role for Members of Parliament, particularly in Britain. Barker and Rush (1970), for example, have described in considerable detail the close linkages between British MPs and their constituencies, and particularly the growing volume of constituency case work. Their book and that edited by Leonard and Herman (1972) shed light on various aspects of the British MP's roles (see also Munroe, 1977).

Several of the articles in this issue provide insights into the roles of Canadian national and provincial legislators, and particularly their constituency service roles. Fletcher and Goddard, using data from studies of provincial legislators in British Columbia and Ontario, are testing the general hypothesis that there will be differences in role orientations among three groups of legislators: ministers, government backbenchers, and opposition members. They examine differences in representation style and areal focus, as well as examining the priority attached to various functions of their jobs. The authors of this study find that these measures of legislative status have a substantial impact on roles and tasks, although a number of other variables, when added as controls, have some effect. The study also emphasizes that relatively high importance is attached to constituency service by a large proportion of legislators.

Clarke's study, based on questionnaires from legislators (other than cabinet ministers) in all of the Canadian provinces, is designed to determine what variables affect the proportion of time that the legislators spend on constituency problems. He finds that almost three-fourths of the members spend between one-fourth and three-fourths of their time on constituency matters,with substantial variations among the provinces and between the parties in many of the provinces. His multivariate analysis indicates that the socioeconomic status of the member, his role orientations, and his motivations for serving in the legislature all have an effect on the amount of attention devoted to constituency service. In addition, an institutional variable, distinguishing between one-party dominated legislatures and others, has some effect. Finally, it should be noted that these variables, collectively, leave a large proportion of the variation in constituency service unexplained.

Mark MacGuigan offers an entirely different method of explaining the attention given by Members of Parliament to constituency service. MacGuigan, an experienced Member of Parliament, describes the growing pressure from constituents to provide services for them, and also makes the interesting point that the gradual expansion of staff assistance for MPs seems to have contributed to the growth of constituent demand. He explains well the variety of factors that encourage MPs to devote time and attention to constituency problems, even when this leads to neglect of legislative business.

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While some MPs may prefer to concentrate on either legislative matters or constituency needs, MacGuigan clearly feels that both are important and that the MP does not have the time and resources to devote adequate attention to both.

Atkinson's study of provincial legislators in Ontario and Nova Scotia is designed to determine why some backbench members develop broad policy interests and others have no policy interests and are concerned only with specific constituency problems. Atkinson's hypothesis is that members with broad policy interests are most likely to be those with progressive ambitions, that is, those who aspire to become provincial cabinet ministers. His findings support this hypothesis, although the effects of ambition are somewhat reduced when he controls for personal variables, such as age and years of constituency residence, and institutional variables, such as the distinction between government and opposition members.

These studies are useful in calling attention to both the individual and institutional variables that affect legislators' roles and behavior, but-like most such studies-they make it clear that a large number of variables must be taken into account if we are to understand variations in roles and activities. To some degree, members of both the national and provincial legislatures are constrained by institutional factors, such as the operation of the parliamentary system and their status as members of the government or the opposition. Despite these constraints, some legislators obviously take a greater interest in policy and devote more time to lawmaking functions than others do. No member can afford to neglect the increasingly persistent demands of constituents for various kinds of services, and yet it appears that some members assign much higher priority to this area, both in theory and in practice, than do other members. In short, it appears that the Canadian legislative systems offer members a considerable range of choice in developing their careers, and offer political scientists a continuing opportunity to study how and why these choices are made.

The Legislative Institution

Political Parties

A long series of roll-call studies covering both branches of the U.S. Congress has clearly established both the impact of political parties on voting and the effect of a variety of factors in undermining party cohesion. Recent scholarship in this area has resulted in some findings that are interesting if not dramatically different. There have been several efforts to measure and explain variations in the level of party cohesion in earlier periods of history. Several scholars, notably Aage Clausen (1973), have described a number of

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major policy dimensions that produce different patterns of partisan voting, and have also noted that changes in the specific issue content of some of these policy dimensions have led to declines in party cohesion. Clausen in particular has shown how closely partisan voting on foreign policy issues is linked to changes in partisan control of the presidency.

In recent years more careful attention has been paid to the ways in which congressmen follow stable patters in accepting voting cues from certain groups or individuals within Congress on particular issues (Kingdon, 1973; Matthews and Stimson, 1975; Jackson, 1974). This has led to studies of some of the groups that are most important sources of voting cues, such as state party delegations, and policy groups-the Democratic Study Group, for example (Deckard, 1972; Stevens, Miller and Mann, 1974). It may be that there will be increasing attention to the influence on voting of groups and individuals within Congress as it becomes more obvious that congressmen who have established a strong political base through service activities do not have to be so sensitive to pressures from their district on policy questions.

European studies have never devoted as much attention to legislative voting as congressional studies have, largely because the consistently high level of cohesion in many European legislative parties has made such studies appear superfluous. In recent years, however, there seems to have been substantially more interest among scholars in the operation and the cohesion of European legislative parties. Some of these studies have been analyses of voting, while others have focused on other aspects of legislative parties. One reason for this increased scholarly attention has been the recognition that some European parties are becoming less unified than they used to be, although the evidence of such disunity is not always apparent on the surface. Several years ago, studies by Finer, Berrington, and Bartholomew (1961) and by Robert Jackson (1968) demonstrated that, while British parties remained cohesive when votes were taken, there were other indicators of cohesion or disunity-such as early day motions-that could be usefully studied. Franklin and Tappin (1977) have also studied early day motions. Philip Norton (1975, 1976) has conducted extensive studies of intraparty dissension that has occurred in divisions on the floor and in committees of the British House of Commons; he has found that the Government is much more likely to be defeated in votes in committee than on the floor, in part because members of the governing party know that they can vote against the Goverment in committee without endangering it. Schwarz and Lambert (1972) have related party loyalty of British Conservative MPs to career patterns. A recent study (Wilson and Wiste, 1976) of voting in the French National Assembly, 1958-1973, concluded that party cohesion was higher than it had been during the Third and Fourth Republics, in part because of greater stability in the party composition of the governing coalitions and the opposition. It also measured differences among the parties in party

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cohesion. Studies of voting in European legislatures have been concerned not

only with measuring levels of party cohesion but with identifying the underlying cleavage structure in the legislature and determining to what extent it is consistent on a variety of issue dimensions. Damgaard and Rusk (1976), for example, used dimensional techniques to study the voting record of parties in the Danish parliament from 1953 to 1972 and identified a basic left-right cleavage; they also related this to public perceptions of the parties. Clausen and Holmberg (1977) used a similar technique for the Swedish Riksdag for the 1967 session, and found a left-right cleavage on some issues and a center- extreme cleavage on others. This study also demonstrated the feasability of using cohesive parties as well as individuals as units of analysis. They also were concerned with the level of cohesion of various parties on different types of issues. Holmberg (1976) has analyzed both the dimensions of party voting alignments and individual voting loyalty in the Swedish parliament for the 1967-1970 period.

Another method of studying the basic cleavages in a legislature, and the relationships between issue dimensions and parties, is to ask MPs questions about their viewpoints concerning issues or their perception of the stand taken by various parties. This is particularly useful in a country like Switzerland, where roll-call votes are few and far between. Several papers presented at a recent conference at the University of Iowa (and published in Legislative Studies Quarterly) explore in some detail the issue cleavages, and their relation to parties, in both Switzerland and Belgium (Dierickx, 1978; Hertig, 1978; Frognier, 1978; de Ridder, Peterson, and Wirth, 1978).

Another approach to investigating the characteristics of legislative parties is to ask Members of Parliament for their perceptions and attitudes toward the parties. The questions might include perceptions of norms and individual standards of party loyalty, views about the role of party leaders, perceptions of and attitudes toward conflicts between party and constituency, and attitudes toward compromise on partisan issues. Often these questions have the effect of defining legislators' role orientations; they also help to explain how the parties operate, how much cohesion they are likely to achieve, and how large are the differences in the norms and attitudes of members of various parties. Many of these questions have been explored in two studies of the French National Assembly (Cayrol, Parodi, and Ysmal, 1976; Woshinsky, 1973), in two studies of the Italian parliament (Di Palma, 1977; Leonardi, Nanetti, and Pasquino, 1977), and in a study of the Dutch parliament (Daalder and Rusk, 1972).

In this issue, the article by Fletcher and Goddard on the provincial legislatures of British Columbia and Ontario is another example of measuring the attitudes of legislators toward party institutions. They find that government

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members emphasize the utility of the caucus as a vehicle for input by backbenchers, while opposition members stress its strategy-planning functions. They also find that government backbenchers are more willing than opposition members to be bound by caucus decisions in Ontario, but the opposite pattern exists in British Columbia, probably because of differences in the parties involved.

The most thorough recent analysis of an entire legislative party system is Giuseppe Di Palma's study of Italy (1977). It uses a variety of techniques and sources of data, particularly extensive interviews with Members of Parlia- ment. He shows how the fragmentation of the Italian party system and the refusal of the parties to deal with the major issues facing the country have led the parliament to devote its attention to narrow, parochial, and less controversial issues. The study, which is aptly titled Surviving without Governing, not only sets an example for others to follow but offers theoretical insights that are applicable to other Western parliaments.

Committee Structure and Legislative Reform

Students of Congress, for obvious reasons, have spent considerable time on the study of committees. Fenno's (1973) study provides an excellent framework for analysis, devoting attention to the motivations of members for joining committees, the development of committee norms, and institutional and other environmental constraints. In addition, we have a number of useful case studies of the more important congressional committees (for example, Fenno, 1966; Manley, 1970; Matsunaga and Chen, 1976). In addition, Peabody (1976) has provided detailed case studies on the selection of congressional leaders.

Some of the most recent literature on Congress has described and analyzed the process and consequences of reforms in that body. These reforms, primarily in the House, have undermined the automatic seniority system for the choice of committee chairmen and limited their power, reorganized the committee structure, strengthened subcommittees, and revitalized the Demo- cratic caucus. The result is a curious combination of trends toward centrali- zation (more power for the Speaker and the House Democratic caucus) and decentralization (more autonomy for subcommittees). It is too early to measure the long-run consequences of these reforms, but several studies have described them and explained how they came about and whattheimmediateconsequences have been (Ornstein, 1975; Dodd and Oppenheimer, 1977; Rieselbach, 1977; Davidson and Oleszek, 1976). (For a further discussion of this literature, see Jewell, 1977.)

There are methodological problems in assessing the consequences of reform. Because those who initiate reform often have different goals in mind

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and even different perceptions of the reforms, it is difficult to assess the success or failures of reforms in terms of any single set of goals. To date, the most careful and systematic efforts to assess the consequences of American legislative reform have been those made by Rosenthal (1974) and Hedlund and Hamm (1974, 1976) in their study of state legislative reform, a topic that has attracted much attention in recent years.

Scholars have paid relatively little attention to committee systems in other Western legislatures, reflecting the general belief that committees do not perform important functions in most parliamentary bodies-particularly those in which party discipline is strong. Scholarly interest in parliamentary committees is increasing, however, and at the same time steps have been taken in several Western parliaments to strengthen the role of committees. The first significant step in the comparative analysis of committees is a volume being edited by Lees and Shaw (forthcoming) on committee systems in eight countries (United States, Italy, West Germany, Philippines, Canada, Britain, India, and Japan). In a chapter summarizing the findings of the volume, Shaw ranks the committees from the strongest to weakest in the order listed above. In seeking to explain reasons for these variations, he pays particular attention to the effects of presidential and parliamentary systems, and the impact of various types of party systems. He also notes some of the changes that are occurring in legislatures, particularly where efforts are being made to enlarge the role of committee. Di Palma's study (1977) cited earlier concludes that the authority of Italian Parliamentary committees to give final passage to certain types of less controversial legislation, along with several other procedural devices, contributes to partisan irresponsibility and governmental stalemate.

Great Britain and Canada are both countries in which rank-and-file legislators, seeking to enhance their opportunities for influence and activity, have tried with some success to get a larger role for parliamentary committees. In both countries the party leadership, and particularly the government, have moved slowly and cautiously in response to these demands. There have been several studies of particular committees in the British House of Commons, which will be mentioned below in the context of legislative oversight of the executive, because this has been the major activity of these committees. The interest in enhancing committee roles is just one aspect of a concern for reform that has dominated some of the writing on the British parliament for a number of years. These studies, particularly those by Crick (1968), Hanson and Crick (1970), and Butt (1967), have been analyzed in a review of works on the House of Commons by Patterson (1973).

Kornberg and Mishler's study (1976) of the Canadian House of Commons, which is primarily concered with the distribution of influence and participation, finds that the increased activities of committees have

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provided an outlet for the activities of MPs who want to have a voice in policymaking but who do not hold party leadership posts. This suggests that there may be limits on the potential for an enhanced policymaking role for the committee. MacGuigan's article in this issue suggests several additional limits: the pressures of the MP's time and staff resources resulting from constituency responsibilities, and the resistance of traditionalist MPs who either are unac- customed to the committee's new role or are so loyal to the party that they cannot play any independent role in the committee.

Thomas's article in this issue reports on the results of a series of case studies undertaken to determine the conditions under which committees in the Canadian parliament may have some influence on the substance of legislation. He finds that the institutional and procedural changes in committees have had a limited impact, largely because party discipline remains strong in committees. Significant substantive changes are made in committee when the government indicates its willingness to accept a change. This occurs more often on the less important bills. Sometimes the government accepts amend- ments offered by committee members, particularly if these are supported by important pressure groups. Thomas's study emphasizes the generalization that procedural changes do not affect the underlying political realities in legislative institutions.

Legislative Decision Making

Some American students of legislatures in recent years have devoted their efforts to applying various theories of decision making, developed for other institutions, to legislative bodies. These have included organization theory, small-group theory, exchange theory, and several forms of coalition theory (Hinckley, 1973, 1977; Eulau, 1972; Cooper, 1977). Many of the efforts have been less than completely successful, and some aspects of coalition theory, for example, Riker's "minimum winning coalition," seem ill-suited to the legislative process. We know, however, that in any legislature-or subgroups such as a committee-bargaining occurs and coalitions are formed and reformed. Legislators must constantly make decisions about payoffs and costs, and must estimate the advantages and costs of gaining information. Consequently, it seems reasonable for scholars to pursue their efforts to find theories that will stand up to the test of reality and will help to explain the legislative process. Some of these studies are formal and mathematical, whose pertinence and utility are hard to judge. Several of the more interesting recent studies, however, have demonstrated with some success the ability of the theories to explain various aspects of legislative behavior-particularly voting patterns. Still lacking, however, are one or more theoretical approaches that are not

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borrowed from other areas of the discipline, but are developed for the specific purpose of explaining the workings of the legislative system. There has not been much work along these lines devoted to European legislatures, although Dodd (1976) has used coalition theory to explain the formation and mainte- nance of cabinets in multiparty systems.

Legislative Oversight of the Executive

Those legislators and scholars who are concerned about the declining influence of legislative bodies and the growth of executive power have a common interest in revitalizing and analyzing legislative institutions for the oversight of the executive. One of the major goals of the committee reforms we have described has been to strengthen the capacity for oversight. Commen- tators have generally agreed that strong committees were the best vehicles for oversight, and that one ingredient of such strength was better staff resources. They have also recognized that in legislatures with strong political parties, particularly parliamentary bodies, there are fundamental political obstacles to vigorous, effective oversight.

The recent literature on legislative oversight in several countries, particularly the U.S. and Britain, has been reviewed by John Lees (1977). Prescriptions for effective oversight by Congress have traditionally emphasized the need for more rational committee structure and more adequate staff. But students of oversight have begun to realize that there are other factors that affect the likelihood of oversight, including particularly those that affect the congressman's incentives to devote scarce time and resources to this topic. Ogul's recent work (1976) is particularly perceptive in analyzing congressional incentives and in exploring the complex and subtle relationships between congressional subcommittees and executive agencies. Ogul's conclusions, based on a series of case studies, ought to inspire similar efforts to fill a very large void in the area of legislative oversight by committee.

The most dramatic step in congressional reform that affects oversight has been the establishment of a new procedure for budgetary review, one that includes the creation of a Budget Committee in each house (in addition to, not instead of, existing appropriations committees) and the establishment of an elaborate precedure by which the Congress establishes budget ceilings for each substantive area early in the appropriations process. The goal is to centralize the budgetmaking process and to reduce the independence ofsubcom- mittees handling appropriations, thereby better equipping the Congress in its struggle with the president for control over budgetary policymaking. It is too early to judge how successful this process will be, but political scientists are watching it closely and several descriptive studies of the early experiences with the new system are already in print (Ellwood and Thurber, 1977).

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The development of specialist select committees in the British parliament, designed to improve the capabilities for oversight and budgetary review, has been the subject of a number of books and articles. These include studies of the Committee on Public Accounts (Reid, 1966), the Expenditure Com- mittee (Johnson, 1966), the Select Committee on Nationalized Industries (Coombes et al., 1966), the Commons and Lords Committees on European Communities legislation (Miller, 1977), and a more general review of the specialist committees (Study of Parliament Group, 1976). At the risk of simpli- fying the conclusions of several authors on various committees, it is possible to conclude that these committees have not led to any fundamental change in the parliamentary system or undermined the authority of the Government, but they have had some less dramatic and often informal effects on administrative decision making. Given Ogul's conclusions about the need for incentives for legislators, one might wonder how long British MPs will remain devoted to the cause of oversight if the results are usually undramatic, unpublicized, and informal. It would be interesting to know whether the MP who demonstrates skill and zeal in the pursuit. of effective oversight helps or hurts his chances for a ministerial position.

There is also a comparative study (Coombes etal., 1976) of legislative influence over budgetary decisions in Britain, West Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The conclusions parallel those from the American and British studies: the influence over budgetary matters is usually informal and diffuse over time, and the success of such efforts depends not so much on formal structures as in the interest shown by MPs and in the political relationships between the Government and other parliamentary parties.

There have been some studies in France that shed light on legislators' attitudes toward legislative-executive relations. Cayrol, Parodi, and Ysmal (1976) analyzed the responses of MPs in 1969-1970 to a series of questions about the power of the president, and found that, despite differences among parties, a majority approved the balance of executive-legislative power pre- vailing under the Fifth Republic. Jackson, Atkinson, and Hart (1977) asked similar questions of French MPs in 1968 and again in 1973, and found a growing sense of resistance to the dominant position played by the French president. They also found significant differences along party lines.

The Legislature and the Political System

The analysis of legislative-executive relations is just one example of the relationships between the legislature and other components of the political system that might be explored. Legislative scholars have paid particular attention to Easton's concept of support, and have tried to measure and explain

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the levels of support for legislative institutions. We have learned a little about support for Congress and a lot about support for the Iowa legislature, an im- balance that results from the geographic location of those undertaking the studies (Parker, 1975; Patterson, Hedlund, and Boynton, 1975). Comparable studies appear to be lacking in most other Western countries (see, however, Boynton and Loewenberg, 1973).

The measurement and analysis of support have encountered a variety of difficulties, concering both the definition of the term and the creation of adequate tools for measurement. It is not easy to distinguish support for the legislature from support for other political institutions, or from support for individual legislators; the problem is even more difficult if the respondents to surveys do not make the distinction themselves. Finally, a number of questions need to be raised about the consequences of varying levels of support. It is widely believed that support for political institutions (and politicians) is declining in many Western countries, and there is survey data in some countries to support the assumption, but it is not clear how far support can drop, or to what level, before the stability and effectiveness of such institutions are jeopardized.

The Eastonian model includes demands on the legislature, as well as support for it, but there is a shortage of research dealing with demands-how they are organized, perceptions held by legislators, interactions of legislators and lobbyists, or other aspects of demand. There have been studies of interest groups and lobbyists, and a scattering of case studies, but the whole topic has not generated either the theoretical or empirical research effort that we find in most other areas of legislative studies (see, however, the theoretical work by Mezey, forthcoming). This shortage is particularly surprising with regard to congressional studies; in parliamentary countries it may be assumed that interest groups devote more of their attention to the cabinet and administrative officials in the belief that they make the major policy decisions. (For an example of a study of lobbyist-legislator relations in West Germany, see von Nordheim and Taylor, 1976.)

Another aspect of legislative studies involving the political system deserves mention. A multinational study being coordinated by the University of Iowa, and covering the legislatures of Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy, has been undertaken in an attempt to determine what role these bodies play in managing social conflict. The countries were chosen because of basic social cleavages within them, and the study focuses on current political issues that are derived from these cleavages. Those participating in the study are particularly interested in trying to determine whether and how legislators differ from other political elites in the handling of conflict. Does the legislature have some impact on the way conflicts develop and are resolved, postponed, or otherwise

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dealt with? It will be interesting to see what kinds of answers result from this ongoing study.

The Iowa study is, in a broad sense, a study of legislative outputs, but it differs from most of those that have been carried out by American scholars. There have been a number of American studies, mostly concered (for comparative purposes) with state legislatures, designed to measure what characteristics of the legislative system have an effect on outputs (after social and economic characteristics of the states are controlled). The methodology has been an aggregate statistical one, the focus has been primarily on budgetary levels, and the results have been contradictory (for a summary and critique of some of these studies, see Bicker, 1971). The impact of legislative activity is diverse and diffuse; its outputs are symbolic as well as substantive; and the consequences of changes in various legislative characteristics are difficult to measure in any precise or immediate way. The study of legislative outputs, like many other topics discussed in this paper, is only in a preliminary stage of development.

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Barker, Anthony and Michael Rush. 1970. The Member ofParliament and His Information. London: Allen and Unwin.

Bicker, William E. 1971. "The Effects of Malapportionment in the States-A Mistrial," in Nelson W. Polsby, ed., Reapportionment in the 1970s. Berkeley: Uni- versity of California Press, pp. 151-200.

Boynton, G.R. and Gerhard Loewenberg. 1973. "The Development of Public Support for Parliament in Germany, 1951-1959," British Journal of Political Science 3 (April, 1973):169-189.

Butt, Ronald, 1967. The Power of Parliament. London: Constable. Cayrol, Ronald, Jean-Luc Parodi, and Colette Ysmal. 1976. "French Deputies and the

Political System," Legislative Studies Quarterly 1 (February, 1976):67-100. Clausen, Aage R. 1973. How Congressmen Decide: A Policy Focus. New York: St. Martin's. Clausen, Aage R. and Soren Holmberg. 1977. "Legislative Voting Analysis in Disciplined

Multi-Party Systems: The Swedish Case," in William O. Aydelotte, ed., The History of Parliamentary Behavior. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 159-185.

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