This article is the first to look at parliamentary administrations, which are vital to the functioning of primary democratic institutions, from a global perspective. Political scientists know surprisingly little about parliamentary staff. Basic facts like what is or drives the number of parliamentary staffers around the world is not known.
Drawing from a functionalist framework, we propose that staff plays different roles which leads to different possible drivers: if staff primarily serves to relay information from and to the population, population size is likely a major driver. If staff primarily serves to advise MP in their legislative and oversight work, stronger parliaments will have more staff. If staff primarily serves to assist MPs administratively, assembly size is likely a major driver.
We also apply an institutionalist framework, which focuses on institutional isomorphism. Parliaments that exchange information in networks such as parliamentary assemblies will likely emulate each other.
Finally, from an exchange perspective, in countries that are more clientelist, staff positions are distributed as patronage. More clientelist systems are likely to see larger staffs.
We analyze all 161 countries that have supplied data to IPU. Preliminary analyses indicate that staff size reflects assembly size, population size, parliamentary power and institutional isomorphism.
