Veto power fosters cooperative behaviour: institutional incentives and government-opposition voting in the German Bundestag

This article argues that opposition veto power in institutional arenas such as second chambers can foster a more consensual relationship between government and opposition parties in parliament. This theoretical claim is supported in the article using data on legislative voting behaviour in the German Bundestag. The statistical analysis shows that opposition and government parties are much more likely to vote the same way, if the opposition controls a majority in the second chamber and this chamber enjoys veto power. This pattern holds even when controlling for policy-area specific ideological distances between government and opposition parties and electoral signalling incentives. The article’s findings suggest that government and opposition parties seek compromises early in the legislative process and that bicameral conflicts are often already resolved in the lower chamber. The results here support theoretical arguments on the absorption of institutional veto players and challenge the frequent claim that opposition veto power leads to more competitive behaviour and gridlock.