Policy-Making Power of Opposition Parties

Democratic elections normally not only lead to the formation of a government but also result in an opposition. In this logic, a democratic election is as much about winning as it is about losing and, hence, oppositions are an inherent part of democracies. Despite this crucial role of opposition parties in democratic regimes, research in political science has mostly neglected oppositions and their role in democracies. This paper brings oppositions into focus as crucial actors of the democratic decision-making process and proposes to look at the legislative organization from the perspective of opposition parties. The paper focuses on the potential influence of opposition parties in the policy-making process and presents data on more than 70 national legislatures around the world. The presented index of policy-making power of opposition parties includes three different dimensions – initiation, debate, and veto – allowing for a fine-grained analysis of the power of opposition parties. Results show considerable variance of the power of opposition parties among democracies. A comparison of the power of opposition parties when it comes to the initiation, the debate, and possible veto power indicates some specific patterns among regions as well as regime types. These different levels of political power of opposition parties might have important consequences for the functioning of democracies and individual political behavior alike.