All Votes are Equal? Significant Legislation and Party Competition in a Multiparty Parliament

Abstract

In nearly all studies on legislative party competition, all votes are treated equally. We argue that the cooperation between parties varies substantively depending on the type of legislation analysed. However, establishing a measure of the relative significance of votes has challenged legislative studies for decades. We propose to use a novel measure for legislative significance: length of debate. Using parliamentary votes from 23 legislative periods in the Danish Parliament (1953-2003) and debate length as measurement for bill significance we present analyses focusing on between-party voting patterns on significant and non-significant legislation and discuss the presence, extent, and features of legislative cartels. Our results suggest that when looking only at the significant legislation reveals more clearly the legislative cartels within the legislature. These findings first of all challenge the traditional assumption of treating parliamentary votes equally and secondly, the findings allow for a better understanding of legislative cartels in the Folketing.