Partisan Voting in the German Bundesrat. The Case of its Finance Committee.

The role of partisanship in the Bundesrat, Germany's second chamber designed to represent the territorial interest of the 16 Länder, has been at the centre of debates for decades. In this contribution, we revisit the topic from a novel perspective, focusing on the Bundesrat's Finance Committee, a central, but so far overlooked actor in the realm of fiscal and financial policies in the Federal Republic. Based on around 1,300 roll call votes, we are able to analyse the voting behaviour of the committee members, the 16 Länder finance ministers and senators, on a large empirical basis. We find, first, that unanimity is an important feature of decision-making, reflecting the existence of joint policy perspectives among the finance ministers and senators. Nevertheless, there is, second, no 'consensus by default' as around 40 percent of the roll call votes are contested. The W-Nominate ideal point estimation thereby provides strong evidence that partisanship instead of territorial interests accounts for the conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]