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Law Production in Multiparty Presidentialism: Veto Player Theory and its Application to Korea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2022

Woojin Moon
Woojin Moon*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Ajou University, Suwon, Korea (the Republic of)
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

In this article, I offer a theory of lawmaking in multiparty presidential systems with different legislative institutions. I present a model that combines Krehbiel's pivotal politics theory with Tsebelis's veto players theory. This model simplifies various institutional veto players into the de facto veto players. I analyze the model to explain how the government type (unified versus divided governments), the legislative rules (majoritarian versus supermajoritarian rules), and the party system (two-party versus multiparty systems) affect legislative productivity. I apply the theoretical results obtained to solve the puzzle about the nondifferential legislative performance between unified and divided governments in the National Assembly. I test a hypothesis stating that the distance between the ideological positions of the agenda-setter and the de facto veto players has a negative effect on the proportion of controversial bills enacted between the 16th and the early 21st National Assemblies.

Keywords

law productiongovernment typeslegislative rulesparty systemmultiparty presidentialismveto player theory
Type
Article
Information
Journal of East Asian Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 125 - 145
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the East Asia Institute

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