This research addresses the question under what conditions will rank and file
legislators favor or oppose changes in a legislature’s internal rules of order. The study
deviates from previous approaches to the study of legislatures in four primary ways: 1) the
study moves from advanced democratized cases of the U.S. Congress and British House of
Commons to cases of neo-democracies; 2) the study considers the interaction between the
design of the electoral system and its impact on legislature organization; 3) in addition to
chamber level factors, party and individual level factors are considered; and 4) the theory
considers when legislators will rebel against attempts by party leadership to alter the internal
rules of order.
The central question focused on is what factors influence legislators’ willingness to
speak out or vote against changes in the internal rules of order following a change in the
electoral system design. The theory proposed that when it comes to changing the internal
rules of order of a legislative chamber, the effective number of parties in the chamber, the effect of proposed changes in the rules of order on legislator behavior, party discipline, and
the nature of legislator ambition affect the probability that change occurs.
Experimental and statistical methodologies are used to test the hypotheses derived
from the theory. Original data were collected from experiments conducted on
undergraduate pupils at Texas A&M University. For the statistical analyses, a data set of
proposed changes in the rules of order were compiled using archived data from the
Colombian Senate and Peruvian Congress. This multi-method approach was used because
of the nature of the question under examination and to minimize limitations of the
individual methodologies.
The experimental analyses demonstrate that the operations of the theory are
supported in the controlled environment of the experiment. The results from the statistical
analyses were, within the restrictions imposed by the data, consistent with both theoretical
expectations and the experimental findings. The most consistent factor influencing change
in the rules of order is the effect of the proposal followed by party discipline.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-1363 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Heath, Roseanna Michelle |
| Contributors | Hill, Kim Q., Whitten, Guy D. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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