Parliaments and the Challenges to Democracy

Parliaments are at the centre of representative democracies. Their internal rules, composition, the roles, the behaviour of legislators, and the connection between citizens and representatives, are all aspects of the quality of democracy. Lately, an increasing number of authors call attention to democratic decline. The growing success of far-right and populist parties at democratic elections testifies that representative institutions are no longer able to fulfil their mission. Our Section invites Panels and Papers dealing with representative democracy and the role of parliaments in strengthening democratic quality. The Section welcomes studies at the local, national and EU levels. Both theoretical ideas and empirical Papers are welcome with different study designs and methods. Short biographies Michael Koß is a professor of the political system of Germany and the European Union at Leuphana University Lüneburg. He publishes on institutional aspects of political parties and parliaments and currently serves as deputy convenor of the ECPR Standing Group on Parliaments. Olivier Rozenberg is associate professor at Sciences Po in the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics. He publishes on the European activities of parliaments as well as on legislative studies in general. Panels 1) The politics of MP monitoring Jonathan Bright, University of Oxford Olivier Rozenberg, Sciences Po Paris During the 2000s, web sites were created all around the world to monitor MP behaviour. In some cases, those sites generated public controversies on their effect on MPs actual behaviour. They have been accused both of interfering with MPs actual activities and of privileging the quantitative aspect of the parliamentary functions. This panel welcomes papers offering analysis of those issues considering either the dynamics of those controversies or the actual analysis of the (lack of) impact of those websites on MPs behaviour. 2) Parliamentary Approaches to EU Affairs in the Visegard Countries Karolina Borońska-Hryniewiecka (University of Wrocław) Jan Grinc (Charles University in Prague) Visegrad Countries (the so-called “V4”) including Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary have been vocal advocates of strengthening the powers of national parliaments in the European Union (EU) as a remedy for its alleged democratic deficit. Yet, the EU-oriented activity of V4 legislatures including their legal-constitutional standing, institutional capacities, actual performance and prospective ambitions remains under-researched. The aim of this panel is to shed light on participation of these four Central-European parliaments in EU affairs fifteen years after their countries' accession to the EU. The panel invites papers of interdisciplinary nature (representing political science and law) that probe into the various EU-oriented activities of V4 parliaments and their MPs, including both policy-oriented and arena-oriented studies, as well as aspects of inter-parliamentary cooperation and relations with EU institutions. 3) Legislatures and Multilevel Settings Patrícia Calca (ISCTE-IUL Lisbon & University of Konstanz) Teresa Ruel (University of Aveiro) National parliaments have received the bulk of attention while considering the study of legislatures. However, in a given country may exist other legislative levels than the national. Identically, a huge body of academic literature has been developed regarding cross country realities at the international level being a good example of it the European Union. Political institutions in multilevel settings, within the state, and that also have legislative power, may have a significant but less analyzed role in the overall legislative activities of a country. In this panel, we seek theoretically driven and empirical (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed proposals) contributions and aim at integrating papers whose regional basis plays a role in the overall stage of legislative realities. Papers on all the aspects of legislative behavior of actors, such as political parties, citizens, regions, lobbies, among other possible examples related to this level of analysis, are welcome. 4) Parties’ and MPs’ legislative behaviour Stefanie Bailer, Basel David Willumsen, Innsbruck Parties and individual legislators can directly influence public policy through the law-making process, making it a crucial activity for both. This panel explores the role and behaviour of both individual and collective actors in the legislative process, as well as how variations in incentives both within and outside of the legislature influences the behaviour of, and relationship between, these actors. 5) Executive-Legislative Relations Maria Thürk, Humboldt Berlin Executive-legislative delegation and accountability involves interactions between cabinet ministers and MPs in numerous manners, both formal and informal. Some of the relation takes the form of legislative control while other parts are initiated by the minister. The panel is interested in such contacts, how much time they consume, their impact, as well as theoretical perspectives that may include the role of ministers and MPs as party actors. 6) Methodological innovation in parliamentary research Tom Louwerse, Leiden University Increasingly we see more methodological diversity in the general literature. Experiments, process tracing, content analysis, focus groups and network analysis slowly gather ground besides regression-based statistical methods, surveys, and interviews. What are the uses and limitations specifically for parliamentary research compared with more traditional methods? The panel invites papers that use or discuss the use of methodologically innovative methods within the study of parliament or government. 7) The Politics of Procedural Choice in European Legislatures Radoslaw Zubek, University of Oxford Recent research has shown a growing interest in the historical evolution of legislative institutions in European democracies. This panel would bring together 3-5 papers exploring questions which are fundamental to our understanding of legislative politics: Under what conditions are parliamentary reforms more or less likely? To what extent are reforms driven by partisan and non-partisan factors? 8) Minority Governments Revisited Bonnie N. Field (Bentley University) Shane Martin (University of Essex) This panel jointly analyze the causes, nature and consequences of minority governments in national parliamentary systems (-where the party or parties represented at cabinet do not between them hold a majority of seats in the legislature). Focusing on governments since 1989, it analyzes minority governments in distinct institutional and partisan contexts, and seeks to provide new insights regarding the effects of institutional and party system characteristics, the tools that governments employ to govern or facilitate cooperation, and how analytically distinct stages of governance affect one another (e.g. formation and functioning; functioning and performance).