![[PDF]](/pb-assets/Icons/adobe-pdf-icon-1498649896243.png){kind=icon}
Abstract
The study of time in legislative processes has so far understood time mainly as duration (of the process as a whole or of its single stages). This work contributes to existing research by presenting a new approach to the study of time which takes as the unit of analysis the whole temporal trajectory followed by a bill from its introduction to the floor to its final adoption. Legislative processes are conceived of as sequences of stages a bill has to go through before its final adoption. The relative time spent in each of these stages varies considerably. This work aims to explore the determinants of variation in the observed trajectories of relative duration. To this end, it applies the tools of discrepancy sequence analysis, a method commonly employed for the study of occupational histories or life courses. The analysis was conducted on a sample of Italian legislative acts adopted in Italy from 1987 to 2008.
Points for practitioners
The greater availability of longitudinal data and the increased focus of social science theory on temporal change have contributed to heightening the attention given by social science scholars to the tools of sequence analysis. Scholars are increasingly recognizing that this set of methods may effectively complement existing techniques for the study of temporal data, by allowing new questions to be addressed. This article shows an example of how sequence analysis may be extended beyond the study of life or career histories, where it has been mainly confined. What is more, it presents an application of a novel technique, discrepancy analysis, which allows the study of the relationship between the trajectories and covariates of interest in an explanatory framework.
References
| Abbott, A (2000) Reply to Levine and Wu. Sociological Methods & Research 29(1): 65–76. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Abbott, A, Barman, E (1997) Sequence comparison via alignment and Gibbs sampling: A formal analysis of the emergence of the modern sociological article. Sociological Methodology 27(1): 47–87. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Abbott, A, DeViney, S (1992) The welfare state as transnational event: Evidence from sequences of policy adoption. Social Science History 16(2): 245–274. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Abbott, A, Hrycak, A (1990) Measuring resemblance in sequence data: An optimal matching analysis of musicians' careers. American Journal of Sociology 96(1): 144–185. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Abbott, A, MacIndoe, H (2004) Sequence analysis and optimal matching techniques for social science data. In: Bryman, A, Hardy, MA (eds) Handbook of Data Analysis, London: Sage Publications, pp. 387–405. Google Scholar | |
| Aisenbrey, S, Fasang, AE (2010) New life for old ideas: The ‘second wave’ of sequence analysis bringing the ‘course’ back into the life course. Sociological Methods & Research 38(3): 420–462. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Becker, R, Saalfeld, T (2004) The life and times of bills. In: Döring, H, Hallerberg, M (eds) Patterns of Parliamentary Behavior: Passage of Legislation across Western Europe, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 57–90. Google Scholar | |
| Billari, FC (2001) Sequence analysis in demographic research. Canadian Studies in Population 28(2): 439–458. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Blossfeld, H-P, Rohwer, G (2001) Techniques of Event History Modeling: New Approaches to Casual Analysis, New York: Psychology Press. Google Scholar | |
| Borghetto, E, Giuliani, M (2012) A long way to Tipperary: Time in the Italian legislative process 1987–2008. South European Society and Politics 17(1): 23–44. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Borghetto, E, Curini, L, Giuliani, M, Pellegata, A, Zucchini, F (2012) Italian law-making archive: A new tool for the analysis of the Italian legislative process. Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica 2012(3): 481–502. Google Scholar | |
| Capano, G, Giuliani, M (2001) Governing without surviving? An Italian paradox: Law-making in Italy 1987–2001. Journal of Legislative Studies 7(4): 13–36. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Cox, GW (2006) The organization of democratic legislatures. In: Weingast, B, Wittman, DA (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Political Economy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 141–161. Google Scholar | |
| Däubler, T (2008) Veto players and welfare state change: What delays social entitlement bills? Journal of Social Policy 37(04): 683–706. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Di Palma, G (1976) Institutional rules and legislative outcomes in the Italian Parliament. Legislative Studies Quarterly 1(2): 147–179. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Döring, H (1995) Time as a scarce resource: Government control of the agenda. In: Döring, H (ed.) Parliaments and Majority Rule in Western Europe, New York: St Martin's Press, pp. 223–246. Google Scholar | |
| Elzinga, CH (2003) Sequence similarity A nonaligning technique. Sociological Methods & Research 32(1): 3–29. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Gabadinho, A, Ritschard, G, Müller, N, Studer, M (2011) Analyzing and visualizing state sequences in R with TraMineR. Journal of Statistical Software 40(4): 1–37. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Goetz, KH, Meyer-Sahling, J-H (2008) The Europeanisation of national political systems: Parliaments and executives. Living Reviews in European Governance 3(2)) Available at: http://www.livingreviews.org/lreg-2008-2 (accessed 19 May 2009). Google Scholar | |
| Grzymala-Busse, A (2010) Time will tell? Temporality and the analysis of causal mechanisms and processes. Comparative Political Studies 44(9): 1267–1297. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Jones, BD, Baumgartner, FR (2005) The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar | |
| Kaufman, L, Rousseeuw, PJ (2005) Finding Groups in Data: An Introduction to Cluster Analysis, 1st edn. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Interscience. Google Scholar | |
| King, T (2013) A framework for analysing social sequences. Quality & Quantity 47(1): 167–191. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Kreppel, A (1997) The impact of parties in government on legislative output in Italy. European Journal of Political Research 31(3): 327–350. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Krutz, GS (2005) Issues and institutions: ‘Winnowing’ in the US Congress. American Journal of Political Science 49(2): 313–326. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Lesnard, L (2010) Setting cost in optimal matching to uncover contemporaneous socio-temporal patterns. Sociological Methods & Research 38(3): 389–419. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Levine, JH (2000) But what have you done for us lately? Commentary on Abbott and Tsay: Sequence Analysis. Sociological Methods & Research 29(1): 34–40. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| McVicar, D, Anyadike-Danes, M (2002) Predicting successful and unsuccessful transitions from school to work by using sequence methods. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society) 165(2): 317–334. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Manow, P, Burkhart, S (2008) Delay as a political technique under divided government? Empirical evidence from Germany, 1976–2005. German Politics 17(3): 353–366. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Martin, LW, Vanberg, G (2004) Policing the bargain: Coalition government and parliamentary scrutiny. American Journal of Political Science 48(1): 13–27. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Martin, P, Wiggins, RD (2011) Optimal matching analysis. In: Vogt, P, Williams, M (eds) The Sage Handbook of Innovation in Social Research Methods, London: Sage Publications, pp. 387–408. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
| Pollitt, C (2008) Time, Policy, Management: Governing with the Past, New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | |
| R Core Team (2014) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. Available at: http://www.R-project.org/. Google Scholar | |
| Stovel, K (2001) Local sequential patterns: The structure of lynching in the Deep South, 1882–1930. Social Forces 79(3): 843–880. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
| Studer, M (2013) WeightedCluster library manual: A practical guide to creating typologies of trajectories in the social sciences with R. Lives Working Paper, 24. Google Scholar | |
| Studer, M, Ritschard, G, Gabadinho, A, Müller, NS (2011) Discrepancy analysis of state sequences. Sociological Methods & Research 40(3): 471–510. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
| Wu, LL (2000) Some comments on ‘Sequence Analysis and Optimal Matching Methods in Sociology: Review and Prospect’. Sociological Methods & Research 29(1): 41–64. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI |
