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The Double Majority Rule: Estimating the Impact of a Supermajoritarian Rule in Pre-Confederation Canada

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The Double Majority Rule: Estimating the Impact of a Supermajoritarian Rule in Pre-Confederation Canada THE DOUBLE MAJORITY RULE: ESTIMATING THE IMPACT OF A SUPERMAJORITARIAN RULE IN PRE-CONFEDERATION CANADA by Adrian Raddatz B.A.(Hons.), The University of Calgary, 2016 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Political Science) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) September 2017 © Adrian Raddatz, 2017 i Abstract This thesis uses a counterfactual simulation to estimate the impact that applying the double majority rule would have had on legislative productivity in the Province of Canada, 1840- 1867. The double majority rule was supermajoritarian in nature, and if applied would have required two sectional majorities from the administrative regions within the province to pass legislation. The thesis compares a constructed dataset where votes could only pass with a double majority to the observed data, arguing that applying the double majority rule would have reduced legislative productivity. There is weak statistical evidence found supporting gridlock interval size as the causal explanation for the decreased productivity, but this is argued to be due to abnormal status quo points and the potential for voting patterns to collapse from two ideological dimensions to one. Finally, the introduction of responsible government is found to not influence whether votes were passed with a double majority. This is explained through the partisan capacity hypothesis, which argues that supermajoritarian rules are ignored when they would prevent a government from implementing its legislative agenda. These conclusions argue that the historical literature was correct that applying the double majority rule would have reduced productivity, but wrong about the impact of responsible government on passing votes with double majorities. ii Lay Summary This thesis will estimate what would have happened if the double majority rule was applied to the legislature of the Province of Canada. Under the double majority rule, the support of more legislators would be required to pass bills into law, leading to an expected decrease in the number of votes that would have been passed. The reason behind the decrease is explained by size of the ideological differences between members, though only weak statistical evidence is found to confirm this. The move from external governance to home rule in 1848 was expected to increase the number of votes passed with double majorities, but no statistical evidence was found to support this claim. iii Preface This work makes use of data collected by Dr. Christopher Kam and his previous research assistants, to include the collection of important roll-call data and the calculation of common space scores. I was responsible for cleaning up parts of the data, and using the common space scores to calculate gridlock intervals. All analysis within this thesis is my own work, and has not been published elsewhere. iv Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... ii Lay Summary ............................................................................................................................... iii Preface ........................................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ...........................................................................................................................v List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... vii List of Figures ............................................................................................................................. viii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... ix Dedication .......................................................................................................................................x Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................1 Chapter 2: Literature review ........................................................................................................3 2.1 Historical overview ......................................................................................................... 3 2.2 Supermajoritarian institutions and legislative productivity ............................................ 4 Chapter 3: Data and methods .....................................................................................................10 3.1 Data analysis ................................................................................................................. 10 3.2 Basic model design ....................................................................................................... 10 3.3 Hypotheses and predicted outcomes ............................................................................. 12 3.3.1 Applying the double majority rule would reduce productivity ................................. 12 3.3.2 Introducing responsible government caused more votes to pass with a double majority ................................................................................................................................. 15 3.3.3 Increasing the size of the gridlock interval decreases productivity .......................... 16 v Chapter 4: Results........................................................................................................................19 4.1 Descriptive data ............................................................................................................ 19 4.2 Regression results ......................................................................................................... 20 Chapter 5: Discussion ..................................................................................................................23 Chapter 6: Conclusion .................................................................................................................27 Tables ............................................................................................................................................30 Figures ...........................................................................................................................................33 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................37 vi List of Tables Table 1. Descriptive data listing the number of votes passed, passed with a simple majority, and passed with a double majority from the important votes dataset, 1841-1867. ……………….. 30 Table 2. OLS regression results for Equations 1-3. Standard errors are clustered around the dependent variable for Equations 2 and 3, and reported in brackets below each estimator for all equations. ……………………………………………………………………………………... 31 Table 3. OLS regression results for Equations 4-5. Standard errors are clustered around the dependent variable for Equations 4 and 5, and reported in brackets below each estimator for all equations. …………………………………………………………………………………...… 32 vii List of Figures Figure 1. Example proportion of votes passed in the provincial legislature over time, comparing the control group of observed data with the treatment group of counterfactual data with the double majority rule applied………………………………………………………………… 33 Figure 2. Example proportion of votes passed in the provincial legislature over time, comparing the control group with the treatment group and after the introduction of responsible government in 1848 at the beginning of the Third Parliament. ……………………………………………... 34 Figure 3. Visualized regression results for Equation 1, showing the fitted values of the proportion of vote passed by parliament for the observed and counterfactual data. …………………… 34 Figure 4. Visualized regression results for Equation 2, showing the fitted values of the proportion of vote passed by parliament for the observed data, counterfactual data, and the expected counterfactual data in the post-responsible government period. …………………………… 35 Figure 5. The relative ideological location of median voters in both sections of the province and along both dimensions in the Fourth Parliament. The overall gridlock interval is represented by the shaded area enclosed in dashed lines……………………………………………………. 36 viii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Christopher Kam, for his support and patience throughout the process of writing this thesis. I would also like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for their funding of my program. I would finally like to thank my friends and family for their support during my program. ix Dedication To Shadow x Chapter 1: Introduction Supermajoritarian rules can protect minority rights and prevent policy cycling by increasing the amount of support required to pass votes in a legislature (Bradbury and Johnson, 2006). Compared with majoritarian rules, which require only a simple majority to pass a vote, supermajoritarian rules expand that requirement to include parts of the political minority in the decision-making process. Increasing the barrier to passing legislation makes it more difficult to implement new policies and laws, which can reduce legislative
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