How well does MSA Travel? Evidence from German Case Studies

MSA has been developed by Kingdon for the presidential system of the United States. Despite the substantial differences between presidential and parliamentary systems regarding key aspects of MSA, a number of scholars, most notably Zahariadis, have shown that the lens can also be applied to the more orderly parliamentary systems. Nonetheless, the approach has mostly been applied to parliamentary systems with a low level of institutional pluralism like the UK and Greece. In my paper I report how MSA fared when applied to the veto-ridden German political system. I analyze seven key decisions from different periods between 1969 and 2010 and from different policy fields including foreign, economic and social policy, but also abortion and non-smoking regulation. It turns out that MSA travels comparatively well. In contrast to Zahariadis, however, it turns out that it does not suffice to concentrate on parties in the politics stream as interest groups and even the national mood can play important roles. Moreover, parties and interest groups also play a role in the policy stream as they are at times closely involved in the generation of ideas. This puts the independence of the streams in question. Furthermore, three further criteria of survival can be added in the policy stream as policies also seem to stand fewer chances of surviving if their constitutionality is in doubt, if they do not seem to conform to EU legislation and if they contradict previous regulations in areas where path dependency is relevant. In sum, it turns out that MSA is a helpful analytical lens for policy analysis even in veto ridden, party dominated parliamentary systems but it should and can be amended slightly more than the existing literature has been aware of.