ABSTRACT In bicameral parliaments, upper chambers amend the bills that have been passed by lower chambers, and sometimes bills that are passed in one chamber never become law and just ‘die’ in the other. Why does one chamber fail or refuse to anticipate what the other will do? What can lead the political actors in one chamber to ‘waste’ their time and resources on a bill that will be never approved as law? How can we explain the variations in the number of such ‘useless’ approvals? This article helps answer these questions by focusing on ‘useless approvals’ in the Italian parliament (1979–2018). Italy offers an ideal setting to analyse this phenomenon, with two houses holding the same powers but characterised by varying degrees of political incongruence over time. We found that differences in preference between the two chambers positively affect the chances of useless approvals, above all for private members’ bills.

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'无用的批准'。意大利两院制及其决策能力

摘要 在两院制议会中，上议院修改下议院通过的法案，有时在一个议院通过的法案永远不会成为法律，而在另一个议院只是“消亡”。为什么一个房间会失败或拒绝预测另一个会做什么？什么会导致一个议院的政治行动者在一项永远不会被批准为法律的法案上“浪费”他们的时间和资源？我们如何解释这种“无用”批准数量的变化？本文通过关注意大利议会（1979-2018）中的“无用批准”来帮助回答这些问题。意大利为分析这一现象提供了一个理想的环境，两院拥有相同的权力，但随着时间的推移，政治上的不一致程度有所不同。