Veto Powers in Parliamentary Democracies: The Portuguese Case

Veto power has been studied along several institutional and possible legislative perspectives, nonetheless, the concept of veto is not always clear or consensual. For instance, it may related with gatekeeping theories (Cox and McCubbins, 2005); notions of a negative control over the agenda that produce effects and changes in a given policy (Clinton, 2007, 459); be a notion of pivotal theory like in Krehbiel (1998), Brady and Volden (2005); or, work as a changing a policy from veto-players perspectives (Müeller and Ulrich, 2014) later anchored in the foundations of veto player theory (Tsebelis and Money, 1997: Tsebelis, 2002). Previous work shows that veto powers of the Portuguese president of the republic (Calca 2015 and 2021) have a small impact on the strategic decision-making of the government to introduce laws. The latter meaning that in a purely rational world vetoes should not occur. However, they do happen. Why is this the case? I expect that presidential policy preferences over issues and symbolic politics may play an influential role in explaining veto behavior in Portugal.