ENDOGENOUS DOMESTIC INSTITUTIONS IN 2-LEVEL GAMES AND PARLIAMENTARY OVERSIGHT OF THE EUROPEAN-UNION

Many scholars argue that domestic politics can tie the hands of diplom ats, who can sometimes exploit these constraints for bargaining levera ge in international negotiations. The author examines domestic institu tions that make such constraints permanent, and thus credible, in a pa rliamentary system. Existing ''divided government'' theories are unabl e to explain the pattern of parliamentary constraints that we find bec ause they treat executive preferences as exogenous to the legislature. In the author's model of parliamentary politics, in contrast, parties may constrain the government by forming governing coalitions or estab lishing effective oversight institutions. This model explains the vari ation in these oversight mechanisms among the members of the European Union (EU). The most interesting of these is Denmark's system of parli amentary oversight, which the author analyzes in detail. Among the new est members of the EU, analogous institutions are most likely in Swede n and least likely in Austria.