Ruling by Statute

This is an excellent book! It offers a theoretical explanation for a phenomenon that cannot be accommodated by existing models of legislative action: why democratic governments sometimes get defeated in the legislature (it has to do with uncertainty about legislators' preferences). The theory developed in the book is brought to the data in a rigorous and creative way, with the use of multiple methods and datasets. The book contains many interesting and provocative claims, including the idea that vote buying is almost inherent to legislative action; that vote buying is often efficient; and that there area circumstances in which governments may rule too much. In short, Ruling by Statute is an important book that represents the best in political science. - Jose Antonio Cheibub, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign This outstanding book puts the study of executive-legislative interaction over lawmaking where it belongs: in a context of strategic interaction under uncertainty. This is a rich, wide-ranging and eye-opening analysis of a topic that is central to understanding how democracies work. - William R. Keech, Duke University In Ruling by Statute, Sebastian Saiegh challenges the conventional wisdom concerning law making that either agenda-setting powers and/or partisan whipping and voting cohesion are essential to a chief executive's power to make law. Instead, relying on positive political theory, statistical analysis, and country case studies, Saiegh provides a major advance in our understanding of how inter-branch bargaining affects lawmaking, showing, for example, that the unpredictability of legislators' voting behavior is actually key in limiting or shaping a chief executive's ability to successfully enact new laws. This book should be on the reading list in every course on democratic theory or comparative politics. - Matthew D. McCubbins, University of Southern California