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French legislative voting in the Fifth Republic

French Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

This study analyzes legislative voting in the French National Assembly during the Fifth Republic. We use an original data set of roll-call votes to understand the development of party voting unity from the Ist to the XIIIth Legislature (1958–2012). We also include a spatial analysis of legislative voting to measure the dimensionality of politics in the legislature. Our results show that party unity is very high in the National Assembly and that the policy space in the legislature is primarily one-dimensional. However, we note that party unity is weaker under certain circumstances, particularly when voting is related to foreign policy issues and the European Union, or when the government is composed of an ideologically diverse coalition of parties.

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Notes

  1. An example of this dual incentive structure relates to the vote for the approval by the French legislature of the Amsterdam Treaty in March 1999 on the European Growth and Stability Pact. First, we find that four MNAs of the government coalition dissented and voted against the proposal (Yvette Benayoun-Nakache, Julien Dray, Yann Galut and Catherine Picard). Second, within the conservative opposition, we find that 18 MNAs from the RPR voted against the proposal, which was at the time in conflict with the official position of their parliamentary group. Third, two of the centrist MNAs (Christine Boutin and Pierre Micaux) voted against the proposal, even though the center generally favors European integration. Finally, the two main supporters of the socialist government at the time were strongly divided on this issue: all 33 Communists MNAs voted against the proposal, whereas only half of Greens and the Left Radicals MNAs voted with the government.

  2. Although Wilson and Wiste, 1976 analyzed a sample of 357 recorded votes in the French National Assembly between 1958 and 1973. The authors conclude that party cohesion was stronger during the Fifth Republic when compared with earlier periods, as measured by the Duncan MacRae’s (1967) French representation study.

  3. This threshold has evolved over time. From 5 per cent in 1958 and 1962, it jumped to 10 per cent in 1967, 1968 and 1973, and finally it was set at 12.5 per cent in 1978.

  4. FANI (Formation Administrative des Non-Inscrits); UDSR (Union Démocratique et Socialiste de la Résistance); CR (Centre Républicain); PRS (Parti Républicain, Radical et Radical-socialiste); PRSG (Parti socialiste et radicaux de gauche); PS (Parti Socialiste); MRG (Mouvement Radicaux Gauche). We invite the reader to consult Appendix A for a complete list of the acronyms used in the remainder of the text.

  5. Recent examples here would be the formation of the RCV in 1997 and the GDR in 2002.

  6. It is worth reporting that some governments were able to remain in office with the support of only one PPG (as in the IVth, XIIth and XIIIth legislatures). However, this is not the case for the other 10 legislative terms where government coalitions were supported by parliamentary alliance of at least two different PPGs.

  7. Note also that we analyze the ‘corrected’ scrutins publics solennels in the official records of the National Assembly.

  8. However, the government does not have the power to prevent a vote over a motion of confidence. A significant procedural change occurred in 2009 when the Constitution was modified (Article 48) in July 2008 allowing the opposition groups to benefit from one day every month where they could control the legislative agenda. This rule change implies that the opposition (or minority groups) is allowed to request scrutins solennels. However, the government can always reject this demand.

  9. For a description of the voting procedure, see: http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/connaissance/fiches_synthese/septembre2012/fiche_44.asp

  10. In September 1994, the National Assembly adopted a new procedure to cast electronic vote for all types of roll call votes (including « scrutins solonnels »). This new procedure prevented MNAs to cast multiple proxy votes for their party. Today, MNAs can only cast one proxy vote per roll call.

  11. Interview with C. Maurice and R. Schenberg (Administrators in charge of roll call votes at the French National Assembly) on 25 April 2013.

  12. Note that in the XIth Legislature, the Communist family includes the loyalty scores of Communist MNAs only, because the Greens were now associated with the RCV parliamentary group (Alliance des Verts+Radicaux de Gauche+Mouvement des Citoyens). In this analysis, the RCV group is reported in the party family category ‘Other’. See Appendix C for the complete listing of PPGs by party family for each legislative term.

  13. For example, in the Vth Legislature, there are four different PPGs in the Centrist party family (RCDS, RDS, RI, UC), and we calculated an independent measure for each of these groups. Note that the distribution of these scores was combined and reported in the Centrist party family to facilitate the presentation of the data.

  14. Recall here that we are measuring the loyalty of individual members toward their parliamentary family on public votes only.

  15. Political statement delivered by the REL group on April 1993, see Assemblée Nationale (1993).

  16. Whenever a party family includes more than one PPG in a given term, we computed the overall Rice index for this party family by averaging all of the individual group scores. For example, in the Vth Legislature, the Centrist party family was composed of four different PPGs (RCDS, RDS, RI, UC). To obtain the average Centrist Rice score for this term, we calculated the Rice index independently for the fours PPGs (RCDS 0.92; RDS 0.75; RI 0.96; UC 0.94) and then reported the average of these scores (0.89). Thus, in the plot of Figure 2, the point under the Centrist party family in the Vth Legislature corresponds to this aggregated value. We recognize the limitation of this approach, especially since the size of PPGs generally varies inside each of the different party family (see Desposato, 2005). However, we believe that this trade off is necessary in order to facilitate the representation of the data and the comparison between the IV and V Republics.

  17. In both of these terms, the unity for the independent Socialist PPG was always very high (average loyalty scores of 0.97 and 0.99 respectively). Rather, it was the smaller FANI (0.70) and RD (0.89) PPGs from the left who systematically lowered the overall unity for the Socialist family.

  18. It is possible that a party family composed of several distinct parliamentary party groups in a given term is more likely to have a lower level of unity, simply because we are averaging the Rice scores of two or more PPGs of different size. In the data, this is mostly observed in the Centrist or the Socialist party families. The Centrists have indeed a lower level of party unity and a higher number of PPGs on average (mean of 1.6 PPG per term). However, this is not the case for the Conservative party family, which is always represented by one PPG, or for the Socialist party family, which maintains a relatively high level of unity, even when it is composed of more than one PPG (such as in the Ist and IInd Legislatures).

  19. This result is observed in all of the surplus coalitions of the Fifth Republic. The average loyalty scores are systematically lower for the smaller partners when we compare how often the members of the coalition vote with the government: IVth Legislature coalition (RI 0.92 versus UDR 0.97), VIIth Legislature coalition (COM 0.88 versus SOC 0.99), XIIth Legislature coalition (UDF 0.69 versus UMP 0.99) and XIIIth Legislature coalition (NC 0.84 versus UMP 0.98).

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Acknowledgements

We thank Loïc Bouffard-Dumas for his assistance in the realization of this project. We also thank Cécile Maurice and Rémy Schenberg (Assemblée Nationale) for providing us with the roll-call records of the National Assembly and for answering numerous questions about legislative voting in France. We are responsible for any remaining errors.

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Correspondence to Jean-François Godbout.

Appendices

Appendix A

Table A1

Table A1 Parliamentary party groups

Appendix B

Table B1

Table B1 PPGs by legislature

Appendix C

Table C1

Table C1 Parliamentary party families

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Godbout, JF., Foucault, M. French legislative voting in the Fifth Republic. Fr Polit 11, 307–331 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/fp.2013.17

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