Power Of Parliament Research Articles

Remembering Australian Constitutional Democracy

For many years, historical accounts of Australian Federation ignored the distinctive ideological origins of the Australian Constitution. From the mid 1980s until the 2000s, however, a generation of historians remembered how the Australian drafters built a distinctive constitutional democracy that combined trust in parliament with a direct constitutional role for a plural ‘people’: the people of Australia and the people of the states. Drawing on Chartist and American ideas of popular sovereignty, this system of popular political constitutionalism textually guarantees that ‘the people’ can ‘directly’ choose both houses of parliament, break deadlocks between these houses and make constitutional law. The definition of ‘the people’ in this distinctive form of constitutional democracy was, however, racially exclusive. In particular, First Australians were excluded from the plural people of Australia. This intellectual history of the Australian Constitution, however, has had remarkably little impact on constitutional interpretation and discourse. This paper will begin the process of examining those implications. First, it will show how this history provides important contextual support and direction to the implied limitations on parliamentary power that stem from the constitution’s guarantee of representative democracy in sections 7 and 24 of the Constitution. Second, it will demonstrate how it aids in better understanding Australia’s unique constitutional system. To date, this system has remedied the racist roots of the original constitutional definition of the people largely through legislative reform. The constitutional recognition of First Australians is a critical step in acknowledging that First Australians are a distinct part of the plural Australian people. In the aftermath of the failure of the First Nations Voice to Parliament proposal, meaningful constitutional recognition for First Australians must address their structural exclusion from the plural Australian people.

Who gets the goods? Disentangling the effects of parliamentary representation and collective action on social spending

Abstract A century of activist and academic analysis of the welfare state can be sorted into insider and outsider theories of social change. One perspective argues that working-class and poor people can achieve income redistribution through insider strategies, primarily through the legislative efforts of left-wing political parties. A competing perspective argues that political parties themselves have no inner motor and merely channel the outside pressure from disruptive collective action. This article makes a substantive and methodological contribution to the debate over the generosity of the welfare state. We analyse the extent to which collective action confounds, moderates, or operates independently of left-wing parliamentary power to explain the history of social spending in 22 countries. Our results support a strong version of the insider intuition that the parliamentary road is crucial to winning gains for poor and working people. It does so without channelling the power of mass mobilization: accounting for various forms of collective action does not reduce the impact of left parliamentary representation on public social expenditures. Nonetheless, we do find that strikes, in particular, have independent effects on social spending. These results together provide some support for what can be called a Marxist–social democratic alliance. We also find evidence for the outsider view that protests and riots matter when combined; these mobilizations, like strikes, operate independently of the role of left-wing parliamentary power.

Representation of the UK Parliament’s Power in the National Media: Too Weak, or Too Strong?

Abstract Representations of UK parliamentary power in the popular media have attracted little attention, despite shaping citizens’ impressions of the institution. We begin to close this gap, through a content analysis of 657 articles in the national newspapers 2013–2019—a period straddling the Brexit referendum. Pre-referendum, media representations of parliamentary power were mixed, while afterwards, as parliament exerted influence over Brexit, it was presented as more powerful. But right-leaning newspapers shifted their normative position from lamenting parliament’s weakness to criticising its strength. Parliament hence faced a lose-lose situation, with key media outlets depicting it either as dangerously weak or dangerously strong.

Shakespeare and the New Palace of Westminster (1834–1927)

ABSTRACT This article explores how the art and architecture of the New Palace of Westminster (home to the UK’s Houses of Parliament) evoke a theatrical experience underpinned by ‘Shakespearean’ aesthetics. Over a series of artistic commissions from the 1840s to the 1920s, artists instrumentalised Shakespeare both explicitly and implicitly as part of the wider schemes within which they worked. Doing so, they visualised and even theatricalised the political and artistic aims of their commissioners and sought to project a unified sense of national history and contemporary aesthetic taste. The three case studies from within the Palace discussed here therefore offer a concentrated reception history of Shakespeare. This reading of the Palace’s visual arts thereby sharpens our understanding of Shakespeare’s developing roles in British national conception. It brings together print, theatrical, and art history with attention to architecture and design, as well as archival details, to offer an interdisciplinary analysis of Shakespeare’s role in constitutional expressions of British identity – not least during a major period of imperial activity and at the very seat of parliamentary power.

Future and Challenges of LGBT in Eastern Europe: The Rise of Populism and Political Movement Analysis in Poland

Poland becomes one of the states located in East Europe that is recognized as one of the Soviet Union's “former” alliances. Following the dissolution of the USSR, Poland began to show its openness to become part of the European Union as a supranational organization that regulates various policies at the national level for its members. However, regulations regarding guarantees for upholding human rights for every individual, including the LGBT community group have resulted in a separate shift for Poland as a country that still adheres to the religious values it adheres to. This is caused by the presence of conservative groups in society who refer to the ideology of populism as a rationale that is starting to strengthen in the country. Populism, which is represented through the presence of the political elite of the PiS party as the holder of parliamentary power, makes the response of the government of this country tend to be intolerant and antipathy towards upholding the rights of LGBT people. Therefore, in recent years, the act of upholding rights and the rejection of discrimination against LGBT people has become one of the social issues that are increasingly facing challenges and testing Poland's level of inclusivity in the future.

The Democratic Challenge of Central Bank Credit Policies

Abstract This article provides a framework for understanding the economic role of central banks and their democratic legitimacy. I argue that thinking about the democratic challenges of central banking requires considering central banks’ insurance role and how their actions are part of credit policy. The contract between the central bank and the sovereign is incomplete because it cannot integrate all unforeseen contingencies, distributive consequences and interactions with other policies. This opens the door to viewing the legitimacy of central bank decisions through a process of deliberation, coordination and reflexivity, rather than only a delegation of power. I discuss a proposal for a European Credit Council, which would be a deliberative body aimed at strengthening Parliamentary power on monetary and credit policies, the democratic legitimacy of central bank policy in the Euro Area as well as its coordination with other European policies. More coordination, Parliamentary power and deliberation are consistent with central bank independence and aim to delimit more precisely the action of central banks within the macroeconomic and credit policies of the State.

ОБЩЕСТВЕННАЯ ЛЕГИТИМАЦИЯ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОЙ ВЛАСТИ В КОНТЕКСТЕ ТРАНСФОРМАЦИИ ГРАЖДАНСКОГО ОБЩЕСТВА В СОВРЕМЕННОЙ РОССИИ

The issues of legitimizing the political regime are of particular importance in the conditions of transitional societies, when the preservation of the sustainable development trend becomes the most important condition and basis for the preservation of national security. The subject of the article is the legitimization of political power due to the level of trust and loyalty of the Russian population to a number of socio-political institutions at the present stage. The analysis of the data of monitoring studies conducted at the ISPR of the Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences allowed the author to state That in society there remains a significant gap between trust in the institution of presidential and parliamentary power, and that a high level of distancing from government institutions and moderate loyalty associated with the need to maintain formal “order” are reproduced at a low level of trust. Given that the public legitimacy of the Russian political system is based on the president’s ratings, which retain a high potential, it can be assumed that the pseudoalternative election model will be preserved in the near future. At the same time, the dynamics of the level of trust and sympathy for a number of political institutions suggests the limit of opportunities for growth in the existing conditions of a system with a limited role of parties, what both reduces the space of free political discourse and limits the possibility of choice for citizens, which will threaten the legitimacy of the political regime.

Parliamentary Power of the Purse: Stocktaking the Role of the Jatiya Sangsad in the Budgetary Process in Bangladesh

Parliamentary Power of the Purse: Stocktaking the Role of the Jatiya Sangsad in the Budgetary Process in Bangladesh

A database about the Members of European Parliament: Contributions and limitations of automated data collection in the study of European political elites

Over the past 25 years, a field of research concerning the careers of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) has developed. Drawing on a massive amount of accessible open data, we have assembled an updated database including all MEPs from 1979 to September 2019. In this note, we describe the data collection processes and the construction of the database. Then, we propose an application concerning the turnover at the EP following the 2019 European elections. The longitudinal perspective provided by the database allows us to describe this turnover, which is important, but varies greatly according to nationality and political group, and does not fundamentally alter the division of parliamentary power. Finally, we identify some limitations: the lack of data in MEP profiles and difficulties both in the comparison between people from 27 countries and the comparison over a long period (1979–2019). As a result, the article shows that automated data collection can be very useful. However, in the case of individuals, as MEPs, it should be seen as a complementary source to other sources.

Democracy, accountability and audit: the creation of the UK NAO as a defence of liberty

PurposeThe study focusses on explaining why advocates for reform to state audit in the United Kingdom (UK) in the early 1980s, focussed on improving the links between the new National Audit Office (NAO) and Parliament, rather than on traditional notions of audit independence. The study shows how this focus on the auditor's link to Parliament depends on a particular concept of liberty and relates this to the wider literature on the place of audit in democratic society.Design/methodology/approachUnderstanding the issue of independence of audit in protecting the liberties and rights of citizens needs addressed. In this article, the authors investigate the creation of audit independence in the UK in the National Audit Act (1983). To do so, the authors employ a neo-Roman concept of liberty to historical archives ranging from the late 1960s to 1983.FindingsThe study shows that advocates for audit reform in the UK from the 1960s to the 1980s were arguing for an extension to Parliament's power to hold the executive to account and that their focus was influential on the way that the new NAO was established. Using a neo-Roman concept of liberty, the authors show that they believed Parliamentary surveillance of the executive was necessary to secure liberty within the UK.Research limitations/implicationsThe neo-Roman republican concept of liberty extends previous studies in considering the importance of audit for public accountability, the preservation of liberty and democracy.Practical implicationsPublic sector audit can be a fundamentally democratic activity. Auditors should be alert to the constitutional importance of their work and see parliamentary accountability as a key objective.Originality/valueThe neo-Roman concept of liberty extends previous studies in considering the importance of audit for public accountability, preservation of liberty and democracy.

Variation in Parliamentary Power: Measurement and Explanation

Democratization is a century-long hot issue in comparative politics. Parliament functions as the central system of democracy. Studies on comparative parliament can shed light on the politics of democratization. The core issue in comparative parliament is that how to explain variation in parliamentary power. This study reviews the burgeoning literature on parliamentary power and focuses on the measurement and explanation of variation in parliamentary power. A small but growing amount of studies provide three theoretical perspectives, namely political institution, the incentive structure of parliament members, and political party. All those propositions emphasize the significance of the political party. As for the relationship between the political party and committees in parliament, there are two conflicting versions: substitution thesis and agent thesis. Based on these reviews, this paper puts forward the issues of future research in comparative parliament.

Do parliaments have control over sovereign debt management?

Sovereign debt management (SDM) requires decisions about the composition and structure of central government debt. Nowadays the process is delegated to professional debt management offices (DMOs), which use complex financial instruments and resort to capital markets. Parliaments in some countries have expressed concern over losing control of SDM. This article devises two indices to measure parliamentary control over SDM and DMOs’ implementation flexibility. It applies both indices to original data from 17 OECD countries. The article finds that parliaments’ legal authority over SDM and rights to information pertaining to it relate to their general power as well as economic and SDM financialisation. There is no trade-off between parliamentary strength and DMOs’ flexibility in operational decisions. These findings are of interest for research on parliamentary power, financialisation and delegation. To draw causal inferences from these associations more research is needed on the timing, politics and consequences of institutional change towards professional DMOs.

It's coming from inside the House (of Commons): Agenda control, accountability, and interest group lobbying in majoritarian parliaments

AbstractIn majoritarian parliaments, the executive branch typically enjoys an informational advantage over the legislature. In theory, legislators can reduce this asymmetry with information from interest groups. In practice, the government is almost always better informed than the legislature. This article develops a model whereby a politician's access to outside information depends not just on her parliamentary power but on the diffusion of legislative agenda control among political parties—for example, during minority government. Using a new panel data set of 41,619 lobbying communications, it finds interest groups are more likely to communicate with government frontbenchers than with opposition or backbench members. This gap diminishes as agenda control diffuses to opposition parties. It also finds evidence of partisan clustering in lobbying networks during majority government. Strong legislative parties weaken accountability by restricting access to outside information, but this is conditional on the governing party's control over the agenda.

Not Quite What You Expected: The Curious Case of Brexit Scrutiny in the Czech Parliament

AbstractThe aim of the article is to explore how the Czech bicameral parliament has reacted to the process of the United Kingdom's (UK's) withdrawal from the European Union (EU). Drawing upon insights from the theoretical expectations of parliamentary power, the inquiry researches the ways that Czech legislatures have developed in terms of engaging with and influencing the Brexit process. In this regard, the Czech case is exceptionally interesting and worth exploring, since the EU agenda has become a highly politicised issue within the Czech context. The significance of this inquiry has been further highlighted by the high level of party-based Euroscepticism typical of Czech politics as well as the frequent changes that the Czech party system has been undergoing in recent years. Throughout the in-depth analysis of parliamentary scrutiny activities—conceptualised as comprising four aspects: (i) the institutional adjustment; (ii) articulation of priorities; (iii) interactions with the government and (iv) parliamentary party politics—the article considers how these activities compare between both chambers of the Czech Parliament.

Comparative analysis of Mongolian Constitutional provisions on parliamentary power

Comparative analysis of Mongolian Constitutional provisions on parliamentary power

Deparliamentarization in Turkey: A Major Decline in the Scrutiny Function

In parliamentary democracies, governments are formed through parliamentary elections, and both thecabinet and budget must receive the confidence of the legislature. The “golden age”, when parliamentsmake laws without any pressure from the executives and have strong control over cabinets, ended by20th century. For the last few decades, however, legislative studies have been pointing to a shift in thebalance of power from the legislative to the executive branch in many countries. The declining powerof parliaments is explained by many factors. Scholars who studied “declining parliaments” generallyagree on the commonly accepted contributing factors for deparliamentarization. These factors are“constitutional arrangements, increasing global regulations, the complexity of issues and technicalfocusin policy making, disciplinary party structures, the lack of intra-party democracy, the dominationof parties by their leaders, and electoral systems.” Although a trend of deparliamentarization has beennoted, mainly in parliamentary democracies, the decline of parliaments has not been as glaring andforbidding everywhere. Thus, the variation, especially among similar democratic systems, calls fora closer analysis of country cases. This study examines Turkey, and discusses the changes regardingthe power balance between the executive and legislative branches of government by identifying thepattern of changes in constitutions and country’s electoral system, and party structures which tendto stress party discipline and maintain leaders’ control. The paper analyzes the politics of Turkeybetween 1946 and 2014 especially by focusing on the AKP rule after 2002. The power shift in Turkeyhas been from parliamentary supremacy to a very strong executive, and deparliamentarization hasbeen particularly rapid and profound since the 1980s,. In 2017, a change in the constitution allowed atransition to a presidential system and the new system is legalized by the constitutional amendments.The paper concludes with the analysis that there is a significant decline in the power of the parliamentin Turkey, after 1980s, mainly in its scrutiny function. The longitudinal study of changes shows thatdeparliamentarization, or the increase in the power of the executive, was caused by multiple domesticand international factors that occurred simultaneously and reinforced each other’s impact. Thesignificant difference of Turkey from the other world cases are rapid constitutional changes, increasingleader authority within the parties, and existence of dominant party system in Turkey since 15 years.

Ironic political reforms: elected senators, party-list MPs, and family rule in Thailand

ABSTRACT An elected Senate and the party-list system are two institutional innovations of the 1997 Thai Constitution designed to support political reforms. This paper sheds light on one unintended effect of these reforms: they have allowed scores of political families to maintain or even tighten their grip on Parliament. Combining aggregate data and case studies, this paper shows that a sizable number of elected senators and party-list parliamentary members are related, by birth or marriage, to other parliament members elected in the post-1932 period. The well-intended reforms have concentrated parliamentary power in the hands of these families, many of which represent the excesses of Thailand’s full-blown electoral democracy. The survival and resilience of these families diminish reform opportunities by further entrenching corruption, clientelism, violence, and electoral fraud, as well as by deepening dynastic rule that militates against political pluralism and inclusiveness.

Phoenix Populism

This paper is the first exploratory analysis of the ideological features of extra-parliamentary radical-right populist parties in Romania, which, despite lacking parliamentary power, confirm the latent fertility of Romanian politics for populism. Using qualitative content analysis of programs and statutes, we identify a decreased relevance of ethnicity-based mobilization and an increased emphasis on cultural, religious, and/or gender-based criteria. All of the analyzed parties converge on the need for increased discipline and major anti-corruption measures, a smooth continuity with previous forms of populism. The extra-parliamentary group of Romanian radical populists resembles a phoenix, regularly rising from its ashes, although only partially renewed.

Legislative Sovereignty, Executive Power, and Judicial Review: Comparative Insights from Brexit

In June 2016, participants in a United Kingdom referendum voted to leave the European Union (EU) by a margin of 52% to 48%. The timing and terms of Britain’s exit (commonly known as “Brexit”) are the subject of on-going public and parliamentary debate. But the mechanism by which Brexit is to be formally commenced was clarified by the U.K. Supreme Court at the end of January 2017 in the landmark case R (Miller) v. Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. The question presented was whether ministers of Theresa May’s government could give notice of the U.K.’s withdrawal from the EU “without prior legislation passed in both Houses of Parliament and assented to by HM The Queen.” The secretary of state argued that the power to withdraw was part of the royal prerogative exercisable by ministers without prior parliamentary action. However, in light of the far-reaching changes to domestic law that would result from terminating EU membership treaties, the court held that withdrawal “must be made in the only way in which the UK constitution permits, namely through Parliamentary legislation.” On the one hand, the Miller decision may be seen as a resounding reaffirmation of the principle of parliamentary sovereignty in British constitutional law. Notwithstanding the facts that a majority of voters supported Brexit and that government ministers ordinarily have the power to terminate treaties without legislative approval or judicial review, formal notice of withdrawal under Article 50 of the EU Treaties could not be given unless and until Parliament so agreed. Yet on the other hand, a comparative analysis of Miller also reveals some significant limitations on parliamentary power in the United Kingdom relative to congressional power in the United States—even though Congress is constrained by the Constitution and enjoys no sovereignty over the other branches of government. This Essay explores these limitations on parliamentary power and argues that legislative sovereignty is best understood not as an immutable principle laid down in Britain’s constitutional history, but rather as an evolving ideal that continues to develop to this day.

The Distribution of Power in the Lebanese Parliament Revisited

The governance structure of the Lebanese Republic is particularly characterized by its confessional nature guaranteeing a pre-defined representation of Christians and Muslims and its sectarian subgroups in parliament. In this sense, the composition of the parliament is based on the allocation of a specific number of seats to each of the two major religious groups and its sectarian subgroups. However, the ratio being used to assign seats to these sectarian subgroups has been an intensively debated controversial issue over decades. Recently, Diss and Zouache (2015) have addressed some aspects of power in the Lebanese Parliament. Applying the Penrose-Banzhaf and Shapley-Shubik indices, they investigate the relative confessional power distributions under the current seat distribution and a proposal for its amendment and revealed some paradoxical effects. Since then a new electoral law has been introduced for the Lebanese Parliament. In this paper, we re-examine the results of Diss and Zouache (2015) applying the Penrose-Banzhaf measure. Furthermore, we take into account the effects of the new electoral law and the seat distribution prior to the current one. This allows us to relate our findings to the general motivations for the electoral reforms underlying all studied seat distributions. Additionally, we address the implications of the existing party blocs in the current parliament from a party and confessional perspective. Currently, their existence is put into question in the public and political discussion. With our analysis, we deliver a theoretical foundation for this debate and demonstrate that in terms of parliamentary power the current bloc formation is a priori disadvantageous.