Bringing Cohesion In

Intra-party cohesion is a crucial analytical tool of veto player theory, which has long been neglected in empirical analyses explaining policy change. This paper seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the importance of party cohesion in political decision-making processes by asking “does ideological party cohesion matter”? In order to answer this question I will apply a newly invented index of ideological party cohesion (Jahn/Oberst 2012) for an analysis of partisan effects on labor market reforms. I will replicate the empirical study by Becher (2009) that examines the impact of veto players on labor ministers for labor market reforms, and add cohesion to the models by interaction with the ideological positions of the agenda setter. Thus, I am able to analyze the effects of a party´s cohesion on a party´s position. The interpretation of marginal effects of cohesion over position clearly indicates that cohesion has a relevant effect.