Veto players and law production in parliamentary democracies: An empiricalanalysis

This article investigates hypotheses generated by the veto players' theory. The fundamental insight of I this theory is thar an increase in the number of veto players (for all practical purposes, in, parliamentary ssystems th e number of parties in government) and their ideological distance from one another will reduce the ability of both government and parliament to produc e significant laws. In addition, the number of significant laws increases w ith the duration of a government and with an increase in the ideological di fference between current and previous government. These propositions are te sted with legislative data (both laws and government decrees) on working ti me and working conditions identified in two legislative sources: the NATLEX computerized database in Geneva (produced by the International Labour orga nization) and Blanpain 's International Encyclopedia for Labour Law and Ind ustrial Relations. The data cover fifteen West European countries for the p eriod 1981-91. The evidence corroborates the proposed hypotheses.