Parliament Research Articles

Interparliamentary cooperation in the context of representing and realizing national interests: foreign experience of Asian countries

At the turn of the century, the role and place of interparliamentary cooperation institutions in international relations has increased. Identifying the reasons for the increased activity of interparliamentary cooperation structures makes the research topic relevant. The complexity, multifaceted nature, multi-vector and multi-actor nature of the modern global political process actualizes the search for new institutions, forms and technologies for the presentation of national interests. The article analyzes various projects and initiatives of inter-parliamentary cooperation carried out in a number of Asian countries from the point of view of their democratic legitimacy. The authors shows the numerous forms and conditions currently existing for cooperation between national parliaments. Based on the study of the content of multilateral meetings in the BRICS format, the authors traces the obvious readiness of large Asian countries to establish interstate relations on the terms of equality and mutual benefit of all participating parties. In this regard, the idea is substantiated about the importance of actively implementing the decisions of the leadership of the BRICS member countries through the parliamentary level and maintaining a constant dialogue to bring cooperation to a new level in various areas, such as economics and trade, the fight against poverty, as well as joint work in the field of international and regional issues in order to ensure peaceful coexistence and regional development of the member states. The authors focuses on the positive dynamics of the development of Chinese-Indonesian relations. The issue of developing legislative initiatives that will work towards achieving the main goals of BRICS in various areas continues to be controversial: development of common payment systems, expansion of cooperation in the judicial and legal sphere, creation of analogues of the IMF and the World Bank, etc.

The Employment Effects of Ethnic Politics

We study the labor market consequences of ethnic politics in African democracies. Using subnational georeferenced data from 15 countries from 1996 to 2017, we compare individuals from ethnicities linked to parties at the margin of electing a representative in the national parliament. Having a local ethnic party politician in parliament increases the likelihood of being employed by 2–3 percentage points. The effect is concentrated in the agricultural sector and mostly driven by self-employment, suggesting increased access to land as the main channel. We also show that religion and age are salient markers in African politics that trigger similar employment effects. (JEL D72, J15, J23, J43, O15, O17, Z12)

The notion of transformism in Gramscian theories and its application to social movements studies

The current article examines the notion of transformism within the framework of Gramscian theories. This term was initially used to describe parliamentary politics in Italy and meant the cooptation of radical parties into the government under the leadership of moderate parties and the subsequent moderation of radical parties. Antonio Gramsci rethinks transformism and defines it as the strengthening of the ruling class through the absorption of active elements from other classes. Although this can be found in works of some scholars utilizing different Gramscian approaches, it still requires some concretization. The article examines the development of this notion in Gramsci's texts as well as its usage in the Gramscian political economy and Ernesto Laclau's theory. The article demonstrates that the notion of transformism can be applied to social movements studies. Under conditions of transformism separate achievements of social movements turn into strategic failures. The functioning of transformism is based mainly on trade-offs between upper and lower classes. Upper classes satisfy some demands from below and lower classes constrain their discontent to cooperate with upper classes. Transformism amounts to the absence of independence of social movements, their readiness for trade-offs, cooperation with the authorities and parliamentary mechanisms as well as organizational weakness.

Glas za parlamentarnu republiku

The author puts forward the idea to replace the existing, ill-functioning semi-presidential form of government in Serbia with parliamentary government. The latter would put an end to the shortcomings of the current form of government, predominantly consisting in hypertrophy of the presidential powers. The author discusses two topics concerning the parliamentary form of government: election of the head of state and the relations between parliament and the cabinet. The author’s suggestions regarding the future shape of these institutions in a future parliamentary republic are aimed solely at instigating debate, which he considers indispensable.

Конституційні принципи права Європейського Союзу

The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the role of constitutional principles of law in the process of legitimization and functioning of the European Union. The author emphasizes the problems of practical implementation and application of constitutional principles at the supranational and national levels. It is noted that a condition for the EU's stable development is to ensure its legal homogeneity, which implies that the Member States must comply with the basic principles of the EU's functioning and the provisions of two constitutional acts - the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). The article adopts a limited view of constitutionalism, which covers only those principles that regulate (a) the grounds for legitimacy at the level of the European Union and (b) the relationship between the supranational and national levels. These principles are: vesting of powers, subsidiarity, proportionality, institutional independence, and delegated sovereignty. The analysis of the five constitutional principles leads to the following conclusions: The Treaties on the European Union and the functioning of the European Union are not called a "constitution," but they have all the features of a codified body of constituent legal acts; the European Union is established as a federation, although in all respects it is a confederation, since the source of its legitimacy is the principles of delegation, subsidiarity and proportionality; the only direct source of legitimacy in the EU is the European Parliament, whose powers are still limited in certain areas due to the general EU restrictions on issues such as common taxation. The EU has a lot of potential power, despite the fact that the principle of delegation of powers aims to limit its powers to an exhaustive list of competences; a more effective and formalized platform for adopting laws in policy areas that intersect supranational and national levels is needed; the current system of providing national parliaments with reasoned opinions on draft legislation is rather limited to achieve a balance between the legitimacy of the Union and national legitimacy for powers that are actually exercised.

Co-production and the Use of Constituency Development Funds (CDFs) in Poverty Alleviation: A Case of Selected Constituencies in Zambia

Constituency Development Fund (CDF) is the generic name for a policy tool that dedicates public money to benefit specific political subdivisions through allocations and/or spending decisions influenced by their representatives in the national parliament (Centre for International Development 2009: 8-9). Dissimilar to large national development projects, CDF-financed projects are essentially community based and driven with the major aim of bringing facilities and services closer to people for purposes of improving their social economic living conditions, especially reducing poverty. In the 2022 Zambia National Budget, CDF saw an unprecedented increase in the size of funding and scope of its mandate. For the year 2023, CDF was increased from K25.7 million (USD 1,070,833) to K28.3 million (USD 1,179,167) per constituency while being expanded to include additional components such as youth, disabled and women empowerment programs as well as secondary school bursaries that will now be locally administered. It is in this regard that the authors undertook a study to assess the impact of CDFs on poverty alleviation in 12 constituencies selected namely, Kankoyo, Moomba, Bweengwa, Mpika, Rufunsa, Monze, Chawama, Mufulira, Kaoma, Kantanshi, Mbala and Solwezi. Data was collected from men, youth and the disabled from the said constituencies. Due to the nature of data collected, mixed methodology research was used. Qualitative data was analysed with the aid of ATLAS.ti while quantitative data was analysed using SPSS Version 30. Key findings are that the general public is aware of the existence of the CDFs and that it is a government empowerment programme especially for funding education and skills acquisition through school bursaries and skills development components, community projects and empowerment loans. However, empirical evidence on the ground point to challenges of the CDFs through political patronage, nepotism, the abdication of key decision making to the politician (Member of parliament) who has massive influence as he/she has power to arbitrary hand-pick 6 members out of 12 to the main CDF committee responsible for administration of CDF funds.

Gamson going global? Cabinet proportionality in comparative perspective

AbstractWe conduct a global, large-N analysis of proportionality in the partisan distribution of cabinet portfolios. Formulated in the context of postwar Western European parliamentary democracy, Gamson’s Law predicts that parties joining a coalition government will receive cabinet ministries in direct proportion to the seats they are contributing to the coalition on the floor of the legislature. Using a sample of 1551 country-years of coalitional government in 97 countries from 1966 to 2019, and comparing all main constitutional formats (parliamentary, presidential, and semi-presidential), we find that Gamson’s Law does not travel well outside its context of origin. Among the constitutional predictors of cabinet proportionality, we find that pure presidentialism is a major outlier, with an exaggerated form of formateur advantage. Introducing party-system and assembly-level predictors to the debate, we find that party institutionalization tends to increase fairness in portfolio allocation within parliamentary systems only.

Examining the relationship between women’s descriptive political representation and women’s possibility to participate in civil society across regime types

ABSTRACT This study examines the link between women’s representation in national parliaments and their possibility to participate in civil society. Utilizing panel data from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset, covering 1975–2019, we investigate how the presence of women in parliaments influences the possibility for women to participate in civil society, especially in non-liberal democratic settings. The results indicate a positive association post-1990, coinciding with an international emphasis on civil society and a rise in women’s parliamentary representation in both liberal democracies and autocratic regimes. The study however highlights that in hybrid and autocratic regimes, increased female representation can also be used to project a gender-equal image without genuine democratization intentions. These findings suggest a correlation between the increase in women in parliaments and greater opportunities for their participation in civil society, but do not imply that the results reflect processes towards democracy. The findings contribute to understanding women’s possibilities in non-democratic regimes and underscores the need for further qualitative analysis to fully grasp the implications of these trends.

The German Parliament and the political crisis of 1917–18: the role of the Intergroup Commission

ABSTRACT In 1917, not least in consequence of the First World War, political and institutional reforms were advanced in Germany which requested the democratization of the suffrage in Prussia and aimed at strengthening the role of the national parliament (Reichstag). Confronted with the resistance shown by the existing powers, the majority parties including the Social Democrats, the Progressive People’s Party and the Centre Party (with the intermittent presence of the National Liberals) created an Intergroup Commission which initially was thought to face the question of a negotiated peace, but it rapidly extended its tasks by enhancing cooperation among the parties and by promoting a reform policy. The novelty of the Intergroup Commission resides in its being informal and fluid, with flexible delegations as well as unbureaucratic procedures, and in maintaining contact with the public by means of press releases. The Intergroup Commission’s activity and significance progressively increased until it became a fundamental interlocutor of the German governments of the time and in October 1918 its programme was set in motion and its reforms were implemented.

Procurement for Empowerment: The Impact of Female Decision-Makers in Reproductive Health Supply Chains

Access to contraceptives empowers women to not only exercise their reproductive rights and avert unintended pregnancies, but also to prevent a spectrum of adverse societal and health outcomes (e.g., unfulfilled career aspirations, unsafe abortions, maternal deaths.) However, in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where resources are limited and women are under-represented as decision-makers in national governments, reproductive health has not traditionally been prioritized. Motivated by past research showing that female decision-makers tend to prioritize issues in ways that align more closely with women's needs and preferences, we examine the relationship between female decision-makers in national governments and contraceptive procurement. Specifically, we focus on female decision-makers at two levels, as health ministers and parliamentarians, and examine their impact on the procurement quantity of contraceptives by LMICs. Our empirical analysis, based on a comprehensive compilation of data across six distinct sources, shows that a female (vs. male) health minister is associated with an average 66% increase in the procurement quantity of contraceptives. Notably, this relationship is strengthened with an increase in the proportion of female representatives in national parliaments. Together, these findings demonstrate that female (vs. male) decision-makers exhibit greater commitment to contraceptive procurement, an issue that has a disproportionate impact on women's health and well-being. As ensuring good health and well-being for all and increasing gender parity in leadership positions are two of the key United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, our study on examining the relationship between female decision-makers and contraceptive procurement constitutes a timely and consequential line of inquiry.

The Swedish-Norwegian Experience of Increased Budget Control Due to Hierarchical Budget Reforms in their National Parliaments

Abstract There has been a wide-ranging discourse among scholars as to whether a hierarchical budget process contributes to increased fiscal discipline. During the 1990s such reforms were introduced in Sweden and Norway. These countries are characterized as being quite equal. However, they faced contrary economic challenges, with an accelerating debt in Sweden contrasting with huge resource revenues in Norway. Nonetheless, they shared equal political challenges by being characterized by minority as well as coalition governments, and even a large proportion of minority, coalition governments. This study confirms that there has been significantly increased fiscal discipline during the parliament’s budget approval process. The outcome has been supported by reforms to the preparation of the budget approval, which have been centralized to the parliaments’ standing committees on finance. The study supports the framework for evaluation of budget processes in von Hagen and Harden (1995). However, there are two significant modifications which stands out as supplements to the framework. First, strong limitations on amendments may be less important under a regime of top-down budgeting than anticipated in their framework. Second, the importance of centralizing the budget preparation in one specific committee, normally the standing committee on finance, may be stronger than anticipated by von Hagen and Harden.

Energy agendas: A longitudinal analysis of Finnish parliamentary debates

AbstractEnergy agendas in national parliaments are crucial when countries seek to develop their energy futures while adhering to international obligations. This article examines how energy agendas emerge and evolve in parliamentary debates using data from Finland over a period of 12 years. By relying on topic modelling, we can show how the key energy agendas relate to an overall energy solution, promoting domestic energy production and seeking carbon‐neutral energy, and how they evolve successively alongside general concerns for the country's task ahead in the field. Examining more detailed agendas, in turn, validates the first analysis and exposes some differences in the agendas of political parties. These differences were few. This further specifies the nature of Finnish energy politics, which is often considered consensual except for nuclear power and peat as sources of energy. The article demonstrates that scholars who examine parliamentary politics may benefit from the use of language‐based computational methodologies to uncover insights that have previously been difficult to attain.

Accountability in pan-European borrowing: mind the gap

The European Union (EU) is now borrowing on the scale of a large state to address challenges ranging from COVID-19 to the war in Ukraine. However, there has been limited comparative research on how pan-European borrowers can and should be held to account. This article offers a normative justification for why such borrowing should be accountable before showing how accountability practices diverge from a set of accountability expectations derived from three baseline theories: liberal intergovernmentalism, sociological institutionalism and historical institutionalism. Through elite interviews and online archival analysis, we show that the vertical accountability of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank and the European Stability Mechanism to national parliaments in six EU member states varies. Our findings also show that horizontal accountability has been constrained by the European Parliament’s limited involvement in borrowing decisions until recently and that patchy interest from national auditors has undermined diagonal accountability. As EU borrowing increases in importance, these accountability gaps urgently need to be filled.

Does gender diversity in politics improve access to electricity and electrification inequality? A global analysis

Does gender diversity in politics improve access to electricity and electrification inequality? A global analysis

Tone in politics is not systematically related to macro trends, ideology, or experience

What explains the variation in tone in politics? Different literatures argue that changes in the tone of politicians reflect changes in the economy, general language, well-being, or ideology. So far, these claims have been empirically tested only in isolation, in single country studies, or with a small subset of indicators. We offer an overarching view by modelling the use of tone in European national parliaments in 7 countries across 30 years. Using a semi-supervised sentiment-topic model to measure polarity and arousal in legislative debates, we show in a preregistered multiverse analysis that the tone in legislative debates is not systematically related to previously claimed factors. We also replicate the absence of such systematic relationships using national leader speeches and parties’ election manifestos. There is also no universal trend towards more negativity or emotionality in political language. Overall, our results highlight the importance of multi-lingual and cross-country multiverse analyses for generalizing findings on emotions in politics.

Multi-aspect multilingual and cross-lingual parliamentary speech analysis

Parliamentary and legislative debate transcripts provide an informative insight into elected politicians’ opinions, positions, and policy preferences. They are interesting for political and social sciences as well as linguistics and natural language processing (NLP) research. While exiting research studied individual parliaments, we apply advanced NLP methods to a joint and comparative analysis of six national parliaments (Bulgarian, Czech, French, Slovene, Spanish, and United Kingdom) between 2017 and 2020. We analyze emotions and sentiment in the transcripts from the ParlaMint dataset collection, and assess if the age, gender, and political orientation of speakers can be detected from their speeches. The results show some commonalities and many surprising differences among the analyzed countries.

A Critical Analysis of Anti-defection Laws in India

The Anti-defection statute has a great relevance in Indian democracy. Political defections in India persist despite the Anti-Defection Laws being put into place, which begs the question of how efficient these laws are at preserving political stability and discouraging opportunistic behavior on the part of elected officials. This study looks into the causes of political defections’ continued occurrence in India and assesses how well the Anti-Defection Laws work to solve the problem. The law’s historical context, its clauses, their effects on political parties, and how the legislative process operates will all be examined in this paper. In addition to looking at proposed changes to the current system, the report will also analyze the arguments and complaints made against the law.

Frontex's expanding mandate: Has democratic control caught up?

AbstractThis article analyses to what extend the rapid growth of Frontex has been accompanied by adequate democratic accountability, whereby the author draws on her experiences as a Member of Parliament. She elaborates on the safeguards in legislation but also on their application in practice, with a focus on the lessons the Parliament learned from its own inquiry on the role of Frontex in pushbacks. The contribution subsequently puts democratic control to a test on two relatively recent tasks of Frontex: return and external cooperation. Regarding the latter, the Parliament's role is highlighted in the negotiations on the Frontex status agreements between the EU and Mauritania/Senegal. The article answers the question of what obstacles must be overcome, through legislative amendments or changes in practice and culture, for the Parliament to exercise its role effectively. Two of these factors are dealt with more prominently: transparency and cooperation with national parliaments.

МОНГОЛ УЛСЫН ИХ ХУРЛЫН ТӨЛӨӨЛЛИЙН ЧИГ ҮҮРГИЙН ХЭРЭГЖИЛТИЙГ ҮНЭЛЭХ НЬ

In the theory of democracy, Parliament, is an institution of representation that creates a universally recognized legal entity that expresses national interests. Mongolia has been transitioning to a parliamentary system for 30 years, but the fundamental role of representing the people of the legislative constitution and strengthening representative democracy has been blurred, resulting in a decline in public trust in the institution. Therefore, in this study, we evaluated the representation functions of the Mongolian Great Ikh Khural, established in the 2020 elections, based on the views of researchers on the role of representation, as well as the participation of citizens and voters in the legislative process.

Blondel’s African Presidential Republics: proof presidentialism can perform even in the most challenging contexts?

The debate on the ‘perils of presidentialism’ has been raging for over 30 years and gone through at least three waves. It began with the influential work of Juan Linz and most recently has seen the emergence of a rich literature on coalitional presidentialism, which has demonstrated the capacity of presidents to manage fragmented multi-party legislatures, and hence overcome the dangers of political deadlock. Jean Blondel’s last book (African Presidential Republics, Oxford, Routledge, 2019) belongs to this latest wave in the sense that he argues that presidential systems can overcome their limitations, and that certain aspects of the presidential models actually give them an advantage over parliamentary equivalents. This article reviews Blondel’s argument against the latest developments in African politics. I suggest that there are fewer instances of positive presidentialism today than Blondel hoped for, in part because democratic progress has often proved to be particularly vulnerable to later autocratization due to a tendency not to entrench gains via constitutional reforms. Despite this cautionary note, however, I conclude that Blondel is right to reject the idea that African cases provide support for the ‘perils of presidentialism’. This is not only because Blondel highlights a number of presidents who played a benign or positive role in their country’s political development, but also because the coalitional presidentialism literature suggests that there is little evidence that parliamentary systems would perform significantly better.