Knowledge Management in Parliament. A quantitative overview for Europe

Abstract

Despite being the fundamental pillar of our democratic systems, there has been a notable scarcity of research on knowledge management within parliamentary settings. The few existing approaches fail to consider the unique structure of parliaments and the challenges newly elected members face. Previous research concluded that knowledge in parliaments still tends to be tacit, informal, and not recorded. In view of the multitude of highly knowledge-intensive crises in the last decade, the need for political knowledge management becomes apparent. This paper investigates how members of the national parliaments in Europe manage their knowledge relevant for policy-making, using original data collected in a quantitative online-survey in mid-2023. I was able to show that both organizational and cultural barriers hinder good knowledge work and that a systematic approach is still not being pursued. I come to the conclusion that modern politics lacks sufficient resources and know-how to adequately evaluate and apply the flood of information in everyday business. This deficiency is especially detrimental to inexperienced MPs and members of the opposition. Building on these findings, a proposed model for political knowledge management is presented. The central pillars are, on the one hand, the creation of awareness, the formulation of a knowledge strategy, the more intensive integration of external expertise and the establishment of IT support.