To dissent or not to dissent? Informative dissent and parliamentary governance |
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Authors: | Indridi H Indridason |
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Institution: | 1.Department of Political Science,University of Iceland,Reykjavik,Iceland;2.Department of Politics and International Relations,University of Oxford,Oxford,UK |
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Abstract: | Legislative dissent has detrimental effects for both party and legislator, i.e., legislators depend on their party label for
re-election, which value in turn depends in part on the party’s reputation of cohesiveness. Commonly dissent has been attributed
to “extreme” preferences. I provide an informational rationale for dissent. Costly dissent allows the legislator to credibly
signal information about his constituency’s preferences to the Cabinet. As a result the Cabinet can better calibrate its policies
with the electorate’s preferences. Dissent is shown to depend on policy preferences as well a the legislators’ electoral strength,
electoral volatility, and the cost of dissent. Finally, the results suggests that parties may sometimes benefit from tolerating
some level of dissent.
I am grateful to Christopher Kam, Randall Calvert, John Duggan, Mark Fey, Eduardo Leoni, Sona Golder, and the anonymous referees
for their helpful comments and suggestions. I also wish to thank the Political Institutions and Public Choice Program at Michigan
State University for its support. All remaining errors are mine. |
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Keywords: | Dissent Parliamentary government Intra-party politics Cabinets |
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