Institutional Foundations of Legislative Control

Abstract

Institutional arrangements fundamentally affect public policy and the balance of power between political actors. In this chapter, I survey a range of institutional elements that determine legislative control of public spending. This synthesis is important because the effect of one institutional feature may be balanced or neutralised by another (Scartascini and Stein 2009). Hence, a highly selective analysis may lead to unrealistic expectations about the impact of institutional arrangements on fiscal policy. It may also obscure the fact that similar aims can sometimes be achieved with different combinations of institutions. Some authors have developed models that incorporate aspects of institutional design discussed here with a focus on individual countries (Baldez and Carey 1999; Pereira and Mueller 2004). I outline a broader framework that provides a basis for cross-national analysis.