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The Vote of Confidence in Parliamentary Democracies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

John D. Huber
John D. Huber*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Abstract

I present a formal model of the confidence vote procedure, an institutional arrangement that permits a prime minister to attach the fate of a particular policy to a vote on government survival. The analysis indicates that confidence vote procedures make it possible for prime ministers to exercise significant control over the nature of policy outcomes, even when these procedures are not actually invoked. Neither cabinet ministers, through their authority over specific portfolios, nor members of parliament, through the use of no-confidence motions, can counteract the prime minister's policy control on the floor of parliament. The analysis also illuminates the circumstances under which prime ministers should invoke confidence vote procedures, focusing attention on the position-taking incentives of the parties that support the government, rather than on the level of policy conflict between the government and parliament.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 90 , Issue 2 , June 1996 , pp. 269 - 282
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1996

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