Equilibrium Veto Players: Veto Institutions, Cabinet Formation and Institutional Change

In countries with institutional veto players such as symmetric second chambers, coalition builders sometimes have incentives to build coalitions that “absorb” the veto institutions. The paper argues that these incentives vary systematically across countries, and that, if incentives for “veto control” are strong, there is also a stronger incentive for political elites to weaken or abolish the constraining institution. We build a comparative index of veto control incentives created by veto institutions and use it in conditional logit analyses of cabinet formation to predict cross-country differences in veto control. The same index is then used to explain differences in the reform of veto institutions. Our sample consists of 21 advanced parliamentary and semi-presidential democracies between 1955 and 2012. The empirical analysis supports our argument and thus provides insights into the characteristics of institutional veto players that are powerful and resilient – equilibrium veto players.