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Agenda Power in the Japanese House of Representatives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2000

Gary W. Cox
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, Ca 92093-0521
Mikitaka Masuyama
Affiliation:
Seikei University, Dept. Law, 3-3-1 Kichijoji Kitamachi, Musashino, Tokyo 180-8633
Mathew D. McCubbins
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, Ca 92093-0521

Abstract

In this paper we provide evidence from Japan that bears on a general theory of agenda power in legislatures. By agenda power we mean the power to determine: (a) which bills are considered in the plenary session of the legislature and (b) restrictions on debate and amendment to these bills, when they are considered. While a substantial amount of work has focused on the second category of agenda power, including studies of special rules in the US House (e.g., Sinclair forthcoming), closure in the UK House of Commons (e.g., Cox, 1987; Dion, 1997), and the guillotine in the French National Assembly (e.g., Huber, 1996), there is very little on the first and arguably more fundamental sort of agenda power. This agenda power – the power to decide which bills will actually be considered on the floor of the legislature – is our focus here, and henceforth when we refer to ‘agenda power’ we shall mean this narrower conception.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2000 Cambridge University Press

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