Abstract
The vote of no-confidence is the primary mechanism through which the principle of government accountability to the legislature – the defining feature of parliamentary democracy – is achieved. Yet, no research has been devoted to its influence on the relations between the government and the mechanism’s main users – the opposition. This article attempts to fill this lacuna by theorising how restrictiveness in the vote of no-confidence influences the opposition’s strategies vis-à-vis the government in legislative voting. We delineate the influence of the vote of no-confidence on the opposition via its preference to pursue more cooperative strategies, as opposed to conflictual ones, distinguishing between the two stages of the vote of no-confidence – initiating and voting. We empirically explore the relation between the vote of no-confidence and the voting behaviour of 59 opposition parties in 16 countries, showing that greater restrictions on both stages of the vote of no-confidence correlate with less conflictual opposition behaviour.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 984-1004 |
Number of pages | 21 |
Journal | Political Studies |
Volume | 72 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Aug 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© The Author(s) 2023.
Keywords
- conflict
- government
- no-confidence
- opposition
- parliament