Veto
A veto is a legal power to unilaterally stop an official action. In the most typical case, a president or monarch vetoes a bill to stop it from becoming law. In many countries, veto powers are established in the country's constitution. Veto powers are also found at other levels of government, such as in state, provincial or local government, and in international bodies.
For other uses, see Veto (disambiguation).
Some vetoes can be overcome, often by a supermajority vote: in the United States, a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate can override a presidential veto.[1] Some vetoes, however, are absolute and cannot be overridden. For example, in the United Nations Security Council, the five permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) have an absolute veto over any Security Council resolution.
In many cases, the veto power can only be used to prevent changes to the status quo. But some veto powers also include the ability to make or propose changes. For example, the Indian president can use an amendatory veto to propose amendments to vetoed bills.
The executive power to veto legislation is one of the main tools that the executive has in the legislative process, along with the proposal power.[2] It is most commonly found in presidential and semi-presidential systems.[3] In parliamentary systems, the head of state often has either a weak veto power or none at all.[4] But while some political systems do not contain a formal veto power, all political systems contain veto players, people or groups who can use social and political power to prevent policy change.[5]
The word "veto" comes from the Latin for "I forbid". The concept of a veto originated with the Roman offices of consul and tribune of the plebs. There were two consuls every year; either consul could block military or civil action by the other. The tribunes had the power to unilaterally block any action by a Roman magistrate or the decrees passed by the Roman Senate.[6]
: The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have an absolute veto over Security Council resolutions, except for procedural matters.[30] Every permanent member has used this power at some point.[31] A permanent member that wants to disagree with a resolution, but not to veto it, can abstain.[31] The first country to use this power was the USSR in 1946, after its amendments to a resolution regarding the withdrawal of British troops from Lebanon and Syria were rejected.[32]
United Nations
: The members of the EU Council have veto power in certain areas, such as foreign policy and the accession of a new member state, due to the requirement of unanimity in these areas. For example, Bulgaria has used this power to block accession talks for North Macedonia,[33] and in the 1980s, the United Kingdom (then a member of the EU's precursor, the EEC) secured the UK rebate by threatening to use its veto power to stall legislation.[34] In addition, when the Parliament and Council delegate legislative authority to the Commission, they can provide for a legislative veto over regulations that the Commission issues under that delegated authority.[35][36] This power was first introduced in 2006 as "regulatory procedure with scrutiny", and since 2009 as "delegated acts" under the Lisbon Treaty.[37] This legislative veto power has been used sparingly: from 2006 to 2016, the Parliament issued 14 vetoes and the Council issued 15.[37]
European Union
Veto theories[edit]
In political science, the broader power of people and groups to prevent change is sometimes analyzed through the frameworks of veto points and veto players. Veto players are actors who can potentially exercise some sort of veto over a change in government policy.[5] Veto points are the institutional opportunities that give these actors the ability to veto.[5] The theory of veto points was first developed by Ellen M. Immergut in 1990, in a comparative case study of healthcare reform in different political systems.[138] Breaking with earlier scholarship, Immergut argued that "we have veto points within political systems and not veto groups within societies."[139]
Veto player analysis draws on game theory. George Tsebelis first developed it in 1995 and set it forth in detail in 2002 Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work.[140] A veto player is a political actor who has the ability to stop a change from the status quo.[141] There are institutional veto players, whose consent is required by constitution or statute; for example, in US federal legislation, the veto players are the House, Senate and presidency.[142] There are also partisan veto players, which are groups that can block policy change from inside an institutional veto player.[143] In a coalition government the partisan veto players are typically the members of the governing coalition.[143][144]
According to Tsebelis' veto player theorem, policy change becomes harder the more veto players there are, the greater the ideological distance between them, and the greater their internal coherence.[141] For example, Italy and the United States have stable policies because they have many veto players, while Greece and the United Kingdom have unstable policies because they have few veto players.[145]
While the veto player and veto point approaches complement one another, the veto players framework has become dominant in the study of policy change.[146] Scholarship on rational choice theory has favored the veto player approach because the veto point framework does not address why political actors decide to use a veto point.[5] In addition, because veto player analysis can apply to any political system, it provides a way of comparing very different political systems, such as presidential and parliamentary systems.[5] Veto player analyses can also incorporate people and groups that have de facto power to prevent policy change, even if they do not have the legal power to do so.[147]
Some literature distinguishes cooperative veto points (within institutions) and competitive veto points (between institutions), theorizing competitive veto points contribute to obstructionism.[148] Some literature disagrees with the claim of veto player theory that multiparty governments are likely to be gridlocked.[148]