Most efforts to detect the consequences of divided government in German federalism by analyzing legislative statistics have been unsuccessful. Therefore, there is still much debate in Germany about the gridlock potential of divided government, as there is in the United States. Using a...

This paper examines the importance of electoral rules for legislators' behavior. The German electoral system includes a mechanism which assigns whether legislators are elected under the "first-past-the-post" (FPTP), or the proportional representation (PR) electoral rule. Using this institution,...

Efforts to verify legislative gridlock in German federalism by analyzing legislative statistics have been largely unsuccessful. For instance, contrary to popular opinion, the complete failure of a government initiative due to the veto of an opposition-dominated Bundesrat is actually quite a rare...