Parliamentary Period Research Articles

Right-Wing Populist Discourse in the European Parliament on Turkish Foreign Policy

Right-wing populism is on the rise all over the world and has led to profound effects and changes in the international system. The European continent, which is identified with democracy and human rights, also sees its share of this trend. Today, right-wing populist parties and actors are gaining strength in many EU countries and come to the fore as a serious political focus. The European Parliament (EP), as an example of direct democracy, has become one of the most visible institutions facing this shift. In this article, the discourses of right-wing populist parliamentarians in the EP toward Türkiye are focused on through a social constructivist perspective. The 2009-2014 and 2014-2019 parliamentary periods are analyzed comparatively to present which discursive strategies MEPs used in their statements about Türkiye and what kind of Türkiye representation they constructed in the EP. The article benefits from critical discourse analysis studies and aims to contribute to the literature on the attitudes of right-wing populist groups on Türkiye.

The Impossibility of Party Unity in Peru: Party Affiliation, Subnational Electoral Competition and Party Discipline (2011–2019)

Party division in Peru is a constant event and has become an expected feature of Peruvian parliamentary politics. For instance, in 2016, the elected Congress was composed of six parliamentary groups, and at the moment of its dissolution, that number doubled. This article explores the factors that produce such rapid division in the Peruvian Congress during two parliamentary periods (2011–2016, 2016–2019). It argues, through quantitative analysis, that there is a direct and negative relationship between the fragmentation of parliamentary groups and party discipline due to party affiliation and the dynamics of subnational party competition.

Mimetic Reading of J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy: A Political Critique of the United Kingdom’s 2010 General Election Through the Analysis of Children Characters’ Sufferings

In 2010, the United Kingdom called on a General Election after the Queen agreed to grant an approval to Gordon Brown’s proposal to dissolve the parliament. The Queen’s approval resulted on prorogation marking the end of Gordon Brown’s parliamentary period. The General Election was used as a stage for the United Kingdom’s three biggest parties to assert their political dominance. Publishing her first novel for adult, The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling attempted to deliberate the change of political atmosphere during the major event.The recent paper employs Paul Ricoeur’s Threefold Mimesis to analyse the symbolisms presented in The Casual Vacancy in order to demonstrate how it is used as a means of constructive criticism of the three biggest parties participating in the UK’s 2010 General Election. The criticism mentioned in this paper are based on writer’s interpretation. Those are the Conservative needs to evaluate its rigid, too right-winged, outdated policies and to expunge its tendency of establishing class-exclusivity, Labour Party needs to evaluate its members and to pay more attention to its supporters’ concerns; Liberal-Democrats needs to resolve its scandals and to be more selective in postulating its candidates. Details are discussed.

An overviews of Nepal’s parliamentary finance committee

This paper presents an overview of the parliamentary Finance committee (PFCN) of Nepal. Typically, a democratic country's regime includes three types of systems. Parliamentary system, presidential system, and semi-presidential model. Nepal has adopted a parliamentary system and the West Ministry model of government. The position of head of state, the president, in Nepal's parliamentary form of government is ceremonial and has no real powers. In this form of government, the head of the government is the Prime Minister, who has all the real powers. The executive branch of government is exercised by a group of legislators who hold a majority in the House of Representatives (HoRs) under Nepal's parliamentary system, which unites the legislative and executive branches of government. It is assumed that all the perspectives and shades of the opinion of the parliament are reflected through the parliamentary committees because they are representative organs of the legislature in terms of both composition and membership. The finance committee has a vital role in HoRs. In this paper characteristics and working outcomes of PFCN during the Parliamentary period of 2017 to 2022 have been shown.

Nuclear Weapons in the Tweede Kamer: Analysis of Nuclear Motions in the Dutch House of Representatives in Times of Contestation

Abstract US nuclear weapons are presently hosted in five European countries. In recent years, parliaments in four out of the five countries held debates about these weapons. For most of them, this was the first (or the only) debate in many years. By contrast, in the Netherlands, the Tweede Kamer, the House of Representatives, held forty-four votes related to nuclear weapons in the last two parliamentary periods alone. Although parliament's powers are restricted, these votes can oblige government to pursue a certain policy and ultimately put soft constraints on government's freedom of action. Yet, the extent of the contestation of nuclear weapons in European parliaments is almost unknown. Using the Dutch case and spatial modeling methods, we offer three lessons: first, that security policy does not stand above the parliamentary politics; second, that cross-bench voting happens but the activity originates in partisan silos; and third, that there is a strong partisan element to the debates about nuclear weapons in Europe.

The disappearance of the ‘legislative model': Indonesian parliament's experience in response to Covid-19

ABSTRACT The argument that choosing a legislative model will strengthen Parliament's checks and balances in an emergency has not been proven in Indonesia. Due to the high president’s constitutional legislative power, combined with his coalition supported by a majority of parliamentarians in Covid-19 emergency, left parliament to serve much of the executive’s agenda. This paper compares the law-making process in the parliamentary period before and during the pandemic. Extreme partisan power will allow the executive to control the legislative agenda and weaken Parliament's legislative power under the pretext of the Covid-19 pandemic emergency. The ‘legislative model’ is no longer viable; instead, various laws have been passed, unrelated to Covid-19.

Party Competition Structure and Legislative Productivity of Local Councils: From the 4th to 6th Local Councils in Korea

The Korean local autonomy system has a unique feature in that it grants councils, mayors, and governors the right to submit bills. Because of Korea’s extensive experience with authoritarianism, the relative legislative productivity of the assembly with respect to the head of the group—that is, the person who has the legislative initiative—has become an evaluation criterion for the activities of local councils in Korea. In this study, we address the question of why the relative legislative productivity of individual councils appears to be the cause of problematic awareness in situations where the legal and institutional conditions—for example, the organization and function of local councils, operating methods, and support systems—are very similar. Accordingly, regarding the 4th to 6th parliamentary period (2006–2018) of 15 parliaments, panel data analysis was performed to understand how the structure of party competition between the heads of the group and parliament and the structure of party competition within the assembly affects the relative legislative productivity of the assembly from a macro perspective. It was found that the relative legislative productivity of the parliament for mayors increases when there is a divided government rather than unified one and when the seat share of the first party in parliament increases. However, it was also found that the greater the difference in seat share between the first party in parliament and the second party in parliament, the higher the index of party concentration in parliament and the lower the relative legislative productivity of parliament. In Korea’s political reality, it was confirmed that the political structure of a divided government at the local level does not necessarily lead to a decrease in legislative productivity. The significance of this study is that these ideas were verified.

Death of Turkish Democracy: The “Turkish-Style” Presidential System

Turkey has adopted the presidential system over parliamentarism in 2018 with the promise that the new system would bring more stability, democracy, and economic growth. As being the most recent country which changed its government system through a referendum to presidentialism, Turkey constitutes a very important example to be analyzed in order to see the effects of it after a long-adopted parliamentary period in the 21st century. This paper compares the basic features of democracy as well as the democratic presidential systems with the example of Turkey and aims at finding out if the presidentialism has performed well and if not, why, in the light of examples and chosen indicators. Findings of this study suggest that presidential system led to a “consolidation of power” which in its nature is anti-democratic. Analysis of certain indicators show that presidentialism did not perform well in Turkey on democratic, political as well as economic fronts.

Development and Validation of a Corpus of Written Parliamentary Questions in the Hellenic Parliament

This paper presents the development of the first parliamentary corpus of written questions in the Hellenic Parliament. Moreover, we discuss a well-defined end-to-end process that has been streamlined and optimised to produce high-quality open text data based on parliamentary documents. Based on the above methodology, a representative sample of 2,000 questions from four parliamentary periods in the Hellenic Parliament has been extracted, validated, and placed into an open data repository. Furthermore, open data production is analysed, and several degrees of freedom in its application in alternative data sets are proposed and discussed. Consequently, the authors argue that this method constitutes a transferable and scalable practice that can be used by other representative institutions for the creation and subsequent study of their open data.

Limits to Freedom of Speech in the Republic of Latvia During the Parliamentary Period (1918–1934)

The article is dedicated to the analysis of one element of the constitutional identity of the Latvian State – freedom of speech – during the initial democratic period in the State’s existence. The author analyses the rules on the protection of honour and supervision of the press as limits to freedom of speech. It is concluded in the article that the boundaries between one person’s freedom of speech and another person’s honour in the Republic of Latvia changed little compared to the previous period in the history of law and that honour as a legal benefit was prized more highly. The framework of freedom of the press, in turn, was constantly expanded. However, the creation of the lists of prohibited books and third-rate and obscene literature proves that the State did not rely on individuals exercising freedom of speech properly. Paternalistic treatment of its citizens was not unknown to the new democratic republic.

CUMHURBAŞKANLIĞI HÜKÜMET SİSTEMİNDE MERKEZİ PERSONEL HİZMETLERİ ÖRGÜTLENMESİ

In Turkey with switching to the presidential system and the parliamentary systems of government, especially as of 2018, July began taking major transformation in the field of public personnel system. The most important part of these transformations was the reorganization of the public personnel system organization. The existing structure was partially terminated and a new organization was created in its place. The main actors of this new structure organized by the Presidential Decree; Presidency of Administrative Affairs, Strategy Budget Presidency and Human Resources Office. Of these, the Human Resources Office in Turkey office type is a new public organization and especially the human resources the private sector in public by adopting the phrase is very important to undertake the task of establishing an embodiment. Changing the organizational structure is a harbinger of a new understanding of public personnel system in Turkey. In summary, in this study, the new public personnel system organization will be discussed and compared with the parliamentary period and especially the problem areas of the new public personnel system related to organization will be tried to be determined.

Framing brain drain: between solidarity and skills in European labor mobility

How do crisis perceptions interrelate with the emergence and re-constitution of policy problems? By using a novel combination of interviews with a content and network analysis of hand-coded parliamentary questions, this article maps the emergence of brain drain as a policy problem at the level of the European Union and follows the evolution of the issue over the last four parliamentary periods (from 1999 to 2019). I identify a skills storyline (emphasizing reform of vocational and educational training to address skills mismatches) and a solidarity storyline (emphasizing worker conditions, rights, and wages) as the main contending narratives that define the contours of the debate. The article analyzes how each of these storylines interacted over time with changes in the perception of crisis urgency facing the European Union in ways that run counter to what we would expect. I explain this by examining the capacity of each storyline to problematize or de-problematize the movement of labor, as well as their institutionalization over time. The article contributes to the study of the political economy of labor mobility with an original case study from the EU’s Single Market, and challenges conventional wisdom regarding the role of framing during times of crisis.

Celebrities in Czech politics in 1996–2013

The paper deals with the phenomenon of celebrity politics in the Czech Republic, particularly the involvement of celebrities in Czech politics between 1996 and 2013. The authors draw from the celebrity politics’ typologies of Paul ‘t Hart and Karen Tindall, and John Street. Employing a content analysis of newspaper articles from the journals MF Dnes and Blesk during the periods preceding the elections of the Chamber of Deputies, the authors shed light on celebrity involvement in Czech politics. Specifically, they trace three categories mentioned in the media: the celebrity expression of political topics in general, celebrity political endorsement and the candidacy of celebrities. Building upon the collected data, the authors interpret the results within the political and social context of the parliamentary period and indicate more general patterns of celebrity involvement in Czech politics.

When the media matters for electoral performance

In this article, we analyse the connection between media exposure and opinion polls for political parties or “the media influence”. We compare two parliamentary periods in Sweden: 2006–2010 and 2010–2014. Our results show that the media is important for the anti-immigration party, the Sweden Democrats (SD) in the first period. This is not the case, or at least less so, for the other parliamentary parties. In the second period, media exposure wanes in importance for explaining poll fluctuations as well as shifts from national to regional media for the Sweden Democrats. These findings are in consonance with previous research which underlines that the media´s influence on electoral performance differs before and after the party has crossed the electoral threshold to the national parliament.

Enfoques mediáticos sobre libertad y seguridad. La Ley española de Seguridad Ciudadana como estudio de caso

Durante la legislatura española 2011/2014 se reformó la ley de seguridad ciudadana, popularmente conocida como ley mordaza. A favor y en contra se esgrimieron argumentos relativos a la libertad y la seguridad garantizada o amenazada, según el punto de vista. En este análisis de contenido se estudian los enfoques mediáticos a que fue expuesta la ciudadanía a la hora de informarse al respecto. Para ello se ha analizado la cobertura del proceso legislativo por los ocho periódicos de información general con más lectores diarios. Se concluye 1) que la crítica a la reforma, por restrictiva y aun represiva, no solo no fue marginada del discurso mediático, sino que de hecho tuvo algo más de presencia en el cómputo global; 2) que solo en los medios de derecha primó el enfoque securitario; 3) que la presencia de los dos enfoques estuvo más equilibrada cuanto más alejados de los extremos ideológicos, y 4) que el patrón general se mantuvo estable a lo largo de todo el período.

Parliamentary Activity and Voting Behaviour

This study examines whether the electorate votes for the most active incumbent parliament members in the context of the Greek elections held in January 2015. I introduce a new measure of parliamentary activity based on the parliamentary work of each incumbent during the previous parliamentary period. The findings suggest that incumbents with a higher parliamentary activity are more likely to get re-elected. The results hold when controlling for age, sex and familiarity. The findings bear important implications for the electorate and the parliament members.

CORPORATIVISMO E TRANSNACIONALISMO NA ARENA: PORTUGAL COMO INSPIRAÇÃO NA AÇÃO PARLAMENTAR DE PLÍNIO SALGADO

The central political composition of the Brazilian Integralist movement was found in the thinking of the leader, Plinio Salgado. Exiled in Portugal from 1939 to 1946, he returned to Brazil and adopted a new methodological composition through Christian Democracy and the Portuguese Estado Novo. The integralist held two mandates via the Popular Representation Party (PRP), from 1959 to 1963 and 1963 to 1967. After the Institutional Act no. 2, he joined the National Renewal Alliance (ARENA) and again held two terms: 1967-1971 and 1971-1974. This investigation aims to analyze the Salgado parliamentary period, which among other characteristics, was marked by the defense of Portugal in Brazil and by the attempt to establish a corporatist regime similar to the one in Portugal. With a nationalist and basically Catholic perspective, Salazar inspired Plinio, who went on to defend the Lusitanian interests, including those in relation to the particularities of the country, such as the colonial wars.

Spatial power indices with applications on real voting data from the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament

Participants in parliamentary voting—usually political parties—are evaluated with a value that assigns them predicted power with respect to their strength by so called power indices. However, in real world, political parties’ representatives act not strictly as predicted in theory. One possibility how the representatives differ from theory is the way they form coalitions; the coalitions can be announced (for example official governmental coalition parties in multiparty parliaments) or hidden. To incorporate the coalition forming influence, Bilal et al. (http://aei.pitt.edu/2052/1/001591_1.pdf, 2001) proposed to consider additional weights to possible coalitions into power indices. This article applies the concept of additional weights to calculate an ex post power distribution using Shapley–Shubik power index together with Banzhaf power index on real voting data, namely the data from the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament with the emphasis on the State Budget voting issues during 2006–2010 parliamentary period.

Political Participation in Kuwait: Dīwāniyya, Majlis and Parliament

This article examines political participation in Kuwait, focusing on formal and informal mechanisms Evaluating society only in terms of the degree to which it is “democratic” has diverted attention from basic elements in Kuwaiti society and from important changes that it has undergone over time. Like other countries in the Arabian Peninsula, Kuwait grew out of a tribally structured society; therefore tribal characteristics need to be accounted for when examining its society and the institutionalization of its politics. Following a brief explanation of the basic problems of researching political participation, a short historical outline, and definitions of Kuwait's basic administrative mechanisms, a chronological analysis of the first half of the twentieth century is presented, in order to explain the evolution of Kuwait's political system. Exploring the parliamentary period from the 1960s to the present also helps to create a new approach for understanding Kuwait's unique political culture.

Political Effect on Major Transport Elements of Budapest after the Transition

The aim of our article is to describe the connection between the Hungarian political environment and the development of the transport system of the Hungarian capital, Budapest, since the beginning of economic transition. The starting point of our research is the beginning of the transitions as from this period the political parties had the chance to make changes in the transport sector in order to build a liveable city. The authors have reviewed the urban transport programs of the parties, which they planned to realize in the case of winning the elections. The authors have dealt only with parties which were present in the Parliament during all parliamentary periods since 1990. The authors have investigated four parameters: length of express roads and the length of the M0 ring road as a parameter of economic growth and development, service levels (length of services, average age of vehicles, number of vehicles) of BKV (a monopoly responsible for urban transport in Budapest) and the length of cycle paths.