Bicameral Politics in the European Union∗

Policy-outcomes in bicameral systems depend on the actions taken by representatives in both chambers. The collective position adopted by one chamber may influence representatives behavior in, and the collective position of, the other chamber if the decision process is se-quential. Bicameralism often use different majority requirements at the various stages of the legislative process. We model bicameral-ism as a sequential move game with incomplete information regarding the first player’s ability to meet some higher majority requirement at its 2nd stage of the game. The purpose is to investigate to what extent voting behavior of the Council of Minsters influences subse-quent voting behavior in the European Parliament in the European Union’s codecision procedure. our findings suggest that representa-tives located further from the status quo than the pivotal government in the Council are more likely to support amendments. Those located on the losing side of the pivotal government are less likely to support amendments. Division in the Council strengthens these trends