Analysis Of Parliamentary Debates Research Articles

Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Homosexual Expungement Law: Lessons from Australia and New Zealand/Aotearoa

Until recently, a historical conviction for a homosexual offence remained on an individual’s criminal record until expungement legislation was enacted to facilitate such convictions to be spent. An analysis of parliamentary debates in New Zealand/Aotearoa and across Australia highlights the aim and opinions of lawmakers in their desire to bring about a therapeutic remedy to address the ‘criminal stain’ of a conviction for a historical homosexual offence. Along with the aim to remedy the effect of a conviction, parliaments used the law reform debate as a broader therapeutic project of inclusiveness for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) communities. The success of expungement is evidenced by the passing of legislation, with most applications to expunge granted. These positive outcomes are countered by a low number of applications to expunge, a refusal by all governments to provide reparations and the use of expungement legislation to garner favour with all members of LGBTIQ communities—a move open to an accusation of government virtue signalling.

Railroad investment and regional disparity: Public expenditure on transport infrastructure in France, 1837–57

Regional equality was an important issue in French public investment in railroads from 1837, when the French State first intervened financially to facilitate railroad construction to 1857, when the main railroads were completed. Based on an analysis of parliamentary debates, this article aims to examine the weight of regional balancing in the planning of main railroads and their financial model. Using documents from various Chambers of commerce, we then examine the effect of regional equality on local stakeholders’ opinion about the best financing model to adopt for the railroad plan. Finally, we will analyse the data from budgets of the Ministry of Public Works to trace the evolution of regional disparities in public spending from 1837 to 1857.

Constructions of Unemployed Individuals in German Parliamentary Debates on Active Labour Market Policy Reforms: A Comparative Analysis of 2003 and 2016

Active labour market policy (ALMP) reforms have fundamentally changed welfare states over the last decades. Their objectives are quite diverse: workfare reforms have increased conditionality and sanctioning of benefits, while enabling reforms have extended education and training opportunities for the unemployed. Little is known about the political discourse on ALMP reforms. We investigate how the individual unemployed person is portrayed in ALMP reforms via a comparative coding analysis of parliamentary debates on labour market reforms that took place in Germany in 2003 (workfare) and in 2016 (enabling). Our results indicate that compared to enabling reforms the individual unemployed is less important in the framing of workfare reforms but more often blamed. Party characteristics matter: parties on the left more often point to the deservingness of the unemployed. However, when the social democratic party in government introduced a workfare reform they used blaming of unemployed persons as a framing strategy.

The Making of an Imperial Polity: Civility and America in the Jacobean Metropolis, by Lauren Working

In this original and persuasive book, Lauren Working argues that colonisation in America significantly inflected elite political culture in the Jacobean metropolis, shaping debates on matters of state and informing civil identities: these were processes that reflected individual experiences of plantation and the implication of the metropolis in an Atlantic world of goods. Through an analysis of parliamentary debates, correspondence, printed literature, poetry and artefacts, Working conveys the ‘intensely interpersonal environment’ in which interest in American colonial projects flourished: gentlemanly bonds, fostered in parliament, the royal palaces and Inns of Court, sparked and sustained interest in plantation and the civilising project. Interpretations of early English colonial enterprise have tended to emphasise how the social, political and cultural baggage of colonists shaped outcomes and experiences in America. Instead, Working focuses her lens closely on the gentlemen who inhabited London; what they thought, wrote, read and consumed is the subject of this book.

Opening Pathways to Restorative Justice: Analysis of Parliamentary Debates on Sex Crime Law Reform in Victoria, Australia

Abstract This article reveals the trajectory of parliamentary debate on sex crimes over forty years in Victoria, Australia. We aimed to identify what might have led Parliament to support the introduction of restorative justice as an option for some sex crimes. We searched parliamentary records from 1976 to 2016 for debates on law reform for sex crimes that involved adult victims without intellectual disability. It was evident that politicians’ debates shifted in their constructs of offenses and victims in ways that appear to have created space to explore restorative justice.

Russian Political Discourse on Illegal Drugs: A Thematic Analysis of Parliamentary Debates

Background Since the beginning of the twenty first century, there has been an intensified political debate about drugs in Russia. The drug problem is now regarded as one of the country’s most serious problems and as an issue of top priority for the Russian government. Objectives: The aim of this qualitative study is to explore how illegal drugs are discussed in Russian political discourse. Methods: The material includes an analysis of 177 speeches made in the lower house of the Russian parliament, the Russian State Duma, between 2014 and 2018. The data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis (CDA). Results: In general, the study found that the debate about the drug problem was characterized by consensus, and there were small differences between the Deputy members in their understanding of the problem. Three main understandings of the drug problem were identified: (1) Illegal drugs as an increasing problem in Russia, (2) Drugs as an external threat, and (3) A need for a more repressive drug policy. Conclusion: There was a general consensus about how the drug problem should be regarded among the politicians, with a focus on a war on drugs and an absence of harm reduction ideas.

From Brexit to Dexit? Alternative für Deutschland’s Euroscepticism on European debates in the Bundestag

ABSTRACT The 2017 entry of the AfD in the Bundestag is one of the most important event in the history of the federal Republic. The far-right party has changed the way debates are led on numerous subjects including European issues. We analyse how the Brexit debates have shaped AfD’s Euroscepticism and how other parties have reacted to this rhetoric. We investigate how Brexit is mobilized in the Bundestag as a political issue. The case of the AfD is particularly relevant since this far-right party was originally established in 2013 and based its foundations on a critique of the EU construction and particularly its monetary policy. However, the party has evolved into a populist, anti-migrant, sovereignist party while maintaining its Eurosceptic arguments. The AfD is the main opposition force in the Bundestag and has regularly managed to influence the media agenda and political debates on various topics, including Europe. Specific attention will be given to the debates in the plenary to underline how the Bundestag discusses this issue in a chaotic atmosphere. This article relies on the analysis of parliamentary debates and political programmes of the parties in the Bundestag from September 2017 to September 2019.

Policy Life Cycle Analysis of Three Australian State-level Public Policies: Exploring the Political Dimension of Sustainable Development

This article analyses the life cycle of three Australian public policies (Tasmania Together [TT], South Australia’s Strategic Plan [SASP,] and Western Australia’s State Sustainability Strategy [WA’s SSS]). These policies were formulated at the state level and were structured around sustainable development concepts (the environmental, economic, and social dimensions). This study highlights contexts that led to the making of these public policies, as well as factors that led to their discontinuation. The case studies are based on analysis of parliamentary debates, state governments’ budget reports, public agencies’ annual reports, government media releases, and stakeholders’ feedback. The empirical findings highlight the importance of understanding the political dimension of sustainable development. This fact highlights the need to look beyond the traditional three-dimensional view of sustainability when assessing the success (or lack thereof) of sustainable development policies. Equally important, the analysis indicates that despite these policies’ limited success (and even one of these policies not being implemented at all), sustainability policies can have a legacy beyond their life cycle. Hence, the evaluation of these policies is likely to provide insight into the process of policymaking.

Party competition during secession crises in advanced democracies

ABSTRACT This paper analyses party competition during secession crises in advanced democracies. It focuses on Quebec, Scotland and Catalonia to show how a party or parties use secession as a competition issue, how other parties respond and what are the consequences for regional party systems. Using quantitative text analysis of parliamentary debates, this work finds that during secession crises, most parties are forced to talk about territorial integrity and that party systems polarize in the territorial dimension. However, parties can adopt different strategies to alter their salience and position on the issue. Most surprisingly, this paper shows that secessionists are not always the ones that emphasize secession most and that parties do not always position at the poles of the territorial dimension.

Rally around the EU flag: Irish party positions on the EU in the wake of Brexit

ABSTRACT When national interests are threatened by an international political crisis, there is often a ‘rally around the flag’ effect among both the public and the political elite, interpreted as a patriotic response to an external threat. Brexit represented a significant threat both to the Irish economy and to the constitutional settlement on the island of Ireland. In contrast to other international crises that have been studied in relation to the rally effect, a supranational body (the EU) was acting on behalf of the threatened state (Ireland) in the negotiations. This paper examines how Brexit affected Irish party positions on EU affairs in the Republic of Ireland and asks if there was a ‘rally around the EU flag’ at the elite level. Using automated content analysis of parliamentary debates in Ireland between 2014–2019, the results show that there was indeed a significant and sustained pro-EU rally among most Irish parties. The findings also show that the rally effect differs depending on whether the party has a nationalist or internationalist orientation.

Cross-national comparisons in epistemic governance: analysis of parliamentary debates from eight countries

ABSTRACT Cross-national comparisons are a common instrument of epistemic governance in national parliaments. Their prevalence could be seen as a consequence of the emergence of the ‘competition state’ and the ‘rankings explosion’. However, what is actually done with cross-national comparisons has not been properly analysed. The study analyses almost 1000 parliamentary debates from 8 countries from the years 1994–2013. It builds a comprehensive categorisation of the functions of cross-national comparisons. Altogether, six categories were identified: competing nations; rational governance; morals of governance; modern condition; scaling, and picking apples and oranges. The findings indicate no significant increase in the number of comparisons during the studied period. More importantly, only about one third of the comparisons evoke a competitive framing. Cross-national comparisons are a stable feature of political rhetoric and their ubiquitous nature is due, precisely, to their malleability in defining political problems and principles of good governance outside a competitive framework.

Citizenship as a rhetorical tool of nation-building: discourse in Flanders and Quebec

ABSTRACT Recognising that citizenship is an object of contention, this article studies how political actors mobilise the concept of citizenship at the subnational level. As immigrant integration policies define the ‘boundaries of citizenship’, I study the discourse on immigrant integration to trace political parties’ arguments supporting or opposing subnational citizenship. I conduct a qualitative content analysis of parliamentary debates between 1999 and 2014 in two subnational communities that express strong nationalist feelings: Flanders and Quebec. I find that citizenship is a rhetorical tool used by political actors, especially by sub-state nationalist parties, to promote their own political perspective (e.g. nation-building and identity). In Quebec, the Parti Québécois has monopolised the concept of citizenship, first to promote statehood and then to insist on values and identity. In Flanders, the notion of citizenship was not conceived in opposition to the central state, but in establishing citizenship trajectories and language requirements. In both cases, the discourses of sub-state nationalist parties have been marked by an ‘identity turn’, featuring a renewed insistence on identity, language and values. By focusing on the subnational level, this comparative study contributes to the rescaling of citizenship studies, while underlining the challenges presented when subnational actors in multinational settings mobilise around citizenship.

The politics of electoral system choice in a context of democratization. Electoral reform and institutional change in the French Third Republic (1870–1940)

ABSTRACT This article contributes to the field of democratization studies and provides new perspectives for understanding electoral system choice, in the context of fundamental political reforms and unprecedented changes during the Third Republic in France (1870–1940). Using a multi-methodology approach, on an analysis of parliamentary debates of the three electoral laws that (re)established the uninominal voting system in 1875, 1889 and 1927, the factors that determine this choice against a changing political and institutional background are examined. We question how political actors used the new democratic institutions created by the constitutional law of 1875 and the electoral system to secure their position and their influence in the new political regime. Our empirical study shows that the actors’ configurations supporting the uninominal voting system changed according to the political context. Political incumbents try to safeguard their power with the electoral system choice, but electoral reforms do not always achieve the desired objectives. Electoral reforms appear as a strategic element driven by electoral interests and institutional implications. The democratization process is subjected to the ambivalence of actors in relation to the uninominal voting system. There is a confusion in what democratization is, and between what would be consistent with democratic reforms, what is republican and what is not.

Negative Perceptions of Jews in Turkish Politics: An Analysis of Parliamentary Debates, 1983-2016

ABSTRACTWhat are the political roots of anti-Jewish rhetoric? To address this ever-important query, this study analyses perceptions of Jews in Turkish politics. Building on group position theory and the historical background of Turkish-Jewish relations, the research proposes that right-wing ideological orientation and perceived threats can predict negative perceptions of Jews. It scrutinises the Turkish parliamentary proceedings using quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The findings support the premise. The study concludes that discussing perceived threats tends to evoke negative rhetoric while right-wing ideological orientation seems to be a predictive factor for the expression of such views. This implies that an effective management of perceived threats would reduce the frequency of anti-Jewish statements in Turkish politics.

Neutral Masculinity: An Analysis of Parliamentary Debates on Austria’s Neutrality Law

After World War II, postfascist Austria went through a transitional period of nation building. While the political parties (re)installed the democratic institutions and supported the idea of an independent Austria, they still disagreed on the nature of the “Austrian nation.” Moreover, the postwar period experienced a “crisis of masculinity” caused by the Allied occupation which signaled that Austria had lost the war. The official rhetoric, in contrast, claimed Austria’s status as a victim of Hitler’s aggression and hence, as a land not defeated, but liberated by the Allied forces. Self-victimization delegitimated both German nationalism and heroic masculinity. This article analyzes two debates on the neutrality act in the Austrian parliament in 1955, with a particular focus on the discursive construction of “neutral masculinity” as novel political identity and potential solution to the “masculinity crisis.” It deals with the question whether neutral masculinity contributed to a postheroic society and to “gender democracy.”

The “migrant with poor prospects”: racialized intersections of class and culture in Dutch civic integration debates

ABSTRACTThe recent trend towards selective immigration policies is based on the racialization of certain categories of migrants into irretrievably unassimilable Others. In Europe, this trend has materialized largely through the application of integration requirements to the immigration of foreigners, the so-called “civic integration turn”. Based on an analysis of parliamentary debates about civic integration policies in the Netherlands, this paper asks which migrants are considered likely or unlikely to integrate based on which presumed characteristics. We find that Dutch civic integration policies aim at barring “migrants with poor prospects”. In sharp contrast with a long history of Dutch social policies, politicians deny state responsibility for migrants’ emancipation based on a discursive racialization of these migrants as unassimilable. While class has hitherto been largely ignored in the literature on migration and the politics of belonging, we show that class, intersecting with culture and gender, is key in this process of racialization.

Erosion and transformation in the ecology of gender: women's political representation and gender relations in the Ugandan parliament

ABSTRACTPrevious literature on women's representation in the Ugandan Parliament painted a grim picture of women exploited by political leaders, and brought into Parliament and other political spaces by a benevolent dictator who allowed their entry to extend and deepen his political networks. These women were expected to accept a subordinate and inferior place, and to defer to male authority. Female members cooperated dutifully by ‘knowing their place’ and by actively supporting the ‘hand that fed them’. Studies noted that women lacked gender consciousness and even the analytical power to understand the implications of the policies they helped pass. There was a general consensus that patriarchal attitudes in Parliament diminished women's influence and undermined their political efficacy. This paper analyses gender relations, and examines the status of female members through their words, actions and behaviours in the Ugandan Parliament. The three primary sources of data for this study were surveys, semi-structured interviews of male and female members of Parliament, and the proceedings of parliamentary debates in 2014. Analysis of parliamentary debates and personal accounts of gender relations in the 9th Parliament reveal a changing landscape. Women are moving from marginal roles to more central roles in Parliament, and are becoming active participants in shaping parliamentary discourse and policy outcomes. There is a newfound sense of empowerment among respondents. Women articulated a new sense of being respected in Parliament, a sense of self- and collective efficacy that they can advance policy priorities. There is a change in women's performance on the Chamber's floor. Parliamentary proceedings offer evidence of an ability to successfully engage in vigorous debates, effectively advance their policy agendas, and utilise sophisticated political strategising and manoeuvring. While there are still elements of continuity, a new gender schema is emerging – a schema that challenges traditional values and attempts to reconcile these values with requirements for running a modern government.

Institutionalising Islamophobia in Switzerland: The Burqa and Minaret Bans

This article aims to analyse the legislative processes leading to forbidding the wearing of burqas and the building of minarets in Switzerland by a postcolonial approach. In 2009, a federal popular initiative amended the Swiss constitution by forbidding the construction of minarets across the Helvetic territory. At the same time, several right-wing parties have attempted to pass a general prohibition of the burqa in public spaces since 2006. As a consequence, in 2013, the canton of Tessin has adopted an article prohibiting the face covering in public spaces and, in 2016, a popular initiative for the ban of the burqa in the whole country was launched. Starting from the content analysis of parliamentary debates and legislative documents concerning these bans, hegemonic and Eurocentric narratives excluding Muslims from the national community will be examined. The article also aims at casting a new light on the interlinkages between Swiss direct democracy, populism and Islamophobia. Furthermore, the exploitation of gender aimed at reinforcing Islamophobic narratives will be analysed. In both the minarets and the burqa ban cases, the image of women has played a crucial role in justifying the right-wing discourse on Muslims and Islam in Switzerland. On the one hand, the minarets ban has occupied the Swiss public space by a propaganda poster showing a woman wearing a burqa in front of minarets erected like missiles on top of a Swiss flag. On the other hand, the burqa ban articulated its campaign around the defence of freedom and women's right as Swiss traditional values. By deconstructing political and legislative arguments against burqa and minarets, the article shows how they have encouraged the legitimacy of public Islamophobic discourses and fostered a crystallised and undifferentiated representation of the Muslims' presence in Switzerland.

Does Russia Matter?

Through an analysis of parliamentary debates concerning naturalization procedures for stateless children in Estonia and Latvia from independence through 2015, this article explores how Russia has influenced policymaking toward Russian-speakers. By shifting the focus from policy outcomes to the policymaking process, operationalizing policymakers as their own field of contestation within the “quadratic nexus” framework, and treating external pressures as strategic opportunities for domestic policymakers, I find that Russia has been utilized as both a motor and a brake on reform in these cases. Nationalizers in both states have used Russia’s activism to discredit European recommendations and to deflect responsibility for Russian-speakers, explaining the delays, controversies and suboptimal outcomes surrounding the passage of simplified procedures in1998, despite the use of EU conditionality. While Russia’s kin-state activism has been used primarily to justify exclusionary preferences in post-accession Latvia, it has been harnessed as a motor for reform in Estonia, contributing to the passage of an amendment granting citizenship to stateless children at birth in 2015.

Imaginaries of nuclear energy in the Portuguese parliament: Between promise, risk, and democracy.

This article explores the evolution of the nuclear energy debate and its associated controversies in the Portuguese parliament. The analysis focuses on the dictatorial regime of the New State (from the beginning of the nuclear program in 1951 until the 1974 revolution) and on the democratic period (post-1974). Portugal, as an exporting country of uranium minerals, significantly invested in the development of a national capacity in nuclear research, but never developed an endogenous nuclear power infrastructure. Through the analysis of parliamentary debates, this article characterizes the dynamic evolution of the Portuguese sociotechnical imaginary on nuclear energy and technology interlinked with ambivalent representations, including the promise of nuclear energy as key for the constitution of a technological Nation or as prompting new sociotechnical risks.