Political scientist Richard Conley takes a look at legislative activity in Canada’s House of Commons since 1953 with a view towards trying to determine if majority or minority governments really make a difference in terms of a Parliament’s ‘productivity’. He finds they do but, if I read his piece correctly, ‘productivity’ for Conley is really only a measure of the amount of legislation that gets passed by an particularly Parliament.
Conley does not do a qualitative analysis in assessing which is better — minority or majority — but does provide some anecdotal reference to what, 50 year later at least, look like the very productive minority governments led by Lester Pearson and the relatively hamstrung, unproductive minority governments led by Paul Martin and Stephen Harper from 2004 through to 2011. Continue reading Majorities vs Minorities: Which kinds of Parliaments are more productive?