Parliamentary Oversight and Effective Governance: Implications for Central Asian Transition Democracies

Abstract

Over the years after independence, Central Asian countries have undergone serious transformations towards building of a democratic state. Legal and institutional foundations of the parliamentary oversight have established with the aim of ensuring rule of law and greater transparency and efficiency in public policy. Although the concept of 'parliamentary oversight' is widely discussed and mostly used by the politicians, as a theoretical notion little attention has been given by the academic community in Central Asian countries. Likewise, despite rigorous legal and institutional frameworks, oversight roles of the parliaments in Central Asia have not enjoyed similar level of success in controlling the Executive as it is in many developed countries. Thus, the current paper intends to propose new insights for further research by highlighting recent trends and developments in oversight research in the world, and urges academic community to facilitate politicians and practitioners with an appropriate research and proposals to enhance the efficiency of parliamentary control over the policies and programs of the executive government. Keywords: democratic governance, parliamentary system, oversight, accountability, government efficiency, transition democracies. During the last twenty years, Central Asian countries have undergone serious transformations towards building of a democratic state. Most countries have accepted the primacy of democracy as the universally accepted form of government. Legal and institutional foundations of the democratic governance have established with the aim of ensuring rule of law and greater transparency in public policy. Effective system of checks and balances between executive, legislative and judicial branches of government has ensured as one of the core elements of the democratic political system. Since gaining independence from Soviet Union in early 90s, governments of the Central Asian countries have paid serious attention to enhancing the role of the legislative branch in order to ensure the transparency and accountability of the executive government. Parliaments have armed with oversight functions through which they hold the executive branch accountable for their policy and programs. Oversight functions and mechanisms of the parliaments have also extended considerably. However, although the concept of parliamentary oversight is widely discussed and mostly used by the politicians, as a theoretical notion little attention has been given by the academic community in Central Asian countries. Moreover, despite rigorous legal and institutional frameworks, oversight roles of the parliaments in Central Asia have not enjoyed similar level of success in controlling the Executive as it is in many developed countries. Thus, the current paper intends to propose new insights for further research by highlighting recent trends in oversight research in the world, and to urge researcher to facilitate politicians and practitioners with appropriate research and proposals to enhance the efficiency of parliamentary oversight of the policies and programs of the government. Parliaments, as the central institution of democracy, embody the will of the people in government, carry their expectations, and help solve the most pressing problems that confront them in their daily lives (Beetham, 2006). As the key legislative body entrusted with the oversight of government, parliaments are responsible for ensuring that governments are fully accountable to the people (Ibid). To this end, parliaments have undergone considerable changes in terms of their involvement in policy decision-making and advocacy. Especially noteworthy is the recent tendencies of more effective engagement of parliaments with the public so as to become more genuinely representative of their electorates and more effective in their tasks of legislation and oversight of government. Certainly, if curried out efficiency the oversight function of the parliament is a key in checking the executive tendency towards dictatorship, misconduct, and corruption (Izah, 2013). Some authors stress that the level of democracy in the society is positively correlated with the capability of the