To prevent defeats on the floor of parliament legislative majorities may resort to means of negative agenda control or means of enforcing party unity. Whereas agenda control is associated with presidential regimes, party unity is associated with parliamentary regimes. Recently the concept of negative agenda control has been transferred to parliamentary systems. It has been suggested by proponents of the procedural cartel theory that part of the secret of legislative success of the German government also lies in its ability to prevent measures from reaching the floor that could split the government coalition. Our account tells a different story. Most importantly, we show that the opposition constantly puts items on the agenda that are capable of splitting the majority coalition but that these proposals are virtually always voted down. Hence, it is nothing but party unity that ensures the legislative dominance of the German government. In elaborating our argument we draw on a new empirical basis about agenda formation and the legislative process that combines interviews with parliamentary officials, information on the legislative process (GESTA) and data on roll call votes. Although focussing on the effects of legislative rules our story also reveals interesting insights for scholars interested in the genesis and reform of legislative rules.
Drawing on the procedural cartel theory we suggest that the demand for negative agenda control (which would imply a reform of parliamentary standing orders) remains weak as long as party unity is sufficiently high.
