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Philip Norton - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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the internet and Parliamentary Democracy in europe
The Journal of Legislative Studies, 2007Co-Authors: Philip NortonAbstract:The overall aim of this volume is to investigate the impact of new information and communications technologies (ICTs), in particular the Internet, upon Parliamentary Democracy in Europe. Through a comparative study of four parliaments (the British, European, Portuguese and Swedish), our research addresses three important dimensions of the impact of the Internet on Parliamentary Democracy, namely, the practices, principles and rules related to the use of the Internet in a Parliamentary context. It is hoped that, by comparing the experiences of the four parliaments and their Members, a European perspective on the development of and issues about ‘Parliamentary e-Democracy’ can be established. The main sources of data and methodologies employed in this volume include a questionnaire survey, content analysis of Parliamentary websites, interviews with parliamentarians and Parliamentary staff and research workshops. Here we highlight the main features of the individual contributions included in this volume.
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Parliamentary Democracy online lessons from europe
The Journal of Legislative Studies, 2007Co-Authors: Philip NortonAbstract:The relationship between parliament and new information and communications technologies (ICTs), in particular the Internet, is becoming ever more complicated. By means of conclusion, we highlight the key findings from our comparative study of four parliaments, the British, European, Portuguese and Swedish Parliaments, which have all adopted the Internet as an essential element of their Parliamentary communication strategy. It is clear from our research that the Internet is already having a significant impact upon the operation of Parliamentary institutions. Parliamentary and parliamentarians' use of the Internet has also raised important issues that ought to be considered cautiously by policy makers, and further academic study is important to the search for solutions.
Kaare Strom - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The Madisonian Turn: Political Parties and Parliamentary Democracy in Nordic Europe - The Madisonian Turn : Political Parties and Parliamentary Democracy in Nordic Europe
2020Co-Authors: Torbjorn Bergman, Kaare StromAbstract:This volume examines these claims and their implications. The authors find that the Nordic states have moved away from their previous resemblance to a Westminster model toward a form of Parliamentary Democracy with more separation-of-powers features---a Madisonian model. These features are evident both in vertical power relations (e.g., relations with the European Union) and horizontal ones (e.g., increasingly independent courts and central banks). Yet these developments are far from uniform and demonstrate that there may be different responses to the political challenges faced by contemporary Western democracies.
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the madisonian turn political parties and Parliamentary Democracy in nordic europe
2011Co-Authors: Torbjorn Bergman, Kaare StromAbstract:This volume examines these claims and their implications. The authors find that the Nordic states have moved away from their previous resemblance to a Westminster model toward a form of Parliamentary Democracy with more separation-of-powers features---a Madisonian model. These features are evident both in vertical power relations (e.g., relations with the European Union) and horizontal ones (e.g., increasingly independent courts and central banks). Yet these developments are far from uniform and demonstrate that there may be different responses to the political challenges faced by contemporary Western democracies.
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communication and the life cycle of Parliamentary Democracy
Political Research Quarterly, 2008Co-Authors: Kaare StromAbstract:The study of coalition politics in Parliamentary democracies has come a long way from its one-time conception of coalition bargaining as episodic and mutually isolated events, brought about spontaneously and exogenously by a general election or by the sudden fall of an incumbent government. Bargaining is in fact a continuously ongoing process that involves much more than capturing the spoils of government once and for all. And while all political regimes may be characterized by ongoing bargaining, such continuous negotiations are particularly critical to Parliamentary democracies, since it is in the very nature of such polities that the right to rule is renegotiate at any time, with no advance notice, and in most cases on the basis of no direct consultation with the voters. But while power is for this reason always and continuously insecure, there are nevertheless seasons in Parliamentary politics. There is a season for building cooperation and mechanisms of joint governance, and there is a season for abandoning them. And there is a season for listening to and communicating with voters and party supporters. In a forthcoming large-scale collaborative study of European Parliamentary democracies (Strom, Muller, and Bergman 2008), we refer to this seasonality as the life cycle of Parliamentary politics. The Parliamentary Life Cycle Coalition bargaining consists in a cyclical set of events, the sequence of which is sometimes given and sometimes negotiable. These phases are cabinet formation, governance, and termination. Governance in this context denotes both the practice of governing and the stage in the political cycle devoted to policy execution and implementation. What completes this cycle, and brings Democracy back into Parliamentary Democracy, is elections. It is through elections that political parties receive their endowment of Parliamentary seats and hence their bargaining power. Nonetheless, or precisely for that reason, the electoral connection is probably the aspect of coalition politics that scholars have most seriously neglected. Figure 1 illustrates this Parliamentary life cycle. Cycles of political competition such as these are not, of course, an exclusive property of coalitions or Parliamentary Democracy. Rather, the life of any democratic government can be described under these headings. Yet, Parliamentary polities, especially if they are also centralized, may be more profoundly shaped by a single political cycle than presidential and especially also federal systems, in which different political cycles more commonly interact and compete. Furthermore, Parliamentary systems differ among themselves, as each stage of bargaining is more complex under multiparty coalitions than under single-party majority government. Whereas the electoral cycles that drive two-party Parliamentary politics are powerful and comparatively simple, those that condition the coalitions game in multiparty contexts can be far more complex, but not necessarily any less powerful. Though the literature on coalition politics in Parliamentary democracies is in many ways impressive, there are still serious lacunae and imbalances. One is directly related to the Parliamentary life cycle: scholars have by no means given equal attention to these various stages of Parliamentary politics. In a previous publication, Wolfgang C. Muller and I likened the cabinet coalitions literature to the romantic Hollywood films of the 1950s: "Much is made of the courtship process and 'who gets whom,' whereas relatively little light is shed on how such alliances actually work" (Strom and Muller 1999, 255). Thus, the life cycle of coalitions has received the same selective attention as that of onscreen marriages: the focus has been on the formative moments of coalition relationships, not on their day-to-day negotiations, achievements, or terminations. The picture that has emerged has emphasized the happier and more glorious moments of political togetherness (Muller and Strom 2000, 13, 16-25). …
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comparative Parliamentary Democracy a project report
European Political Science, 2005Co-Authors: Torbjorn Bergman, Wolfgang C Muller, Kaare StromAbstract:The Comparative Parliamentary Democracy project examines West European Parliamentary politics from a principal-agent perspective. The project involves thirty-five scholars from Western Europe and t ...
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Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies - Delegation and accountability in Parliamentary democracies
European Journal of Political Research, 2000Co-Authors: Kaare StromAbstract:Parliamentary Democracy has been widely embraced bypoliticians and especially by the scholarly communitybut remains less widely understood. In this essay, Iidentify the institutional features that defineParliamentary Democracy and suggest how they can beunderstood as delegation relationships. I proposetwo definitions: one minimal and one maximal (orideal-typical). In the latter sense, ParliamentaryDemocracy is a particular regime of delegation andaccountability that can be understood with the help ofagency theory, which allows us to identify theconditions under which democratic agency problems mayoccur. Parliamentarism is simple, indirect, andrelies on lessons gradually acquired in the past. Compared to presidentialism, parliamentarism hascertain advantages, such as decisional efficiency andthe inducements it creates toward effort. On theother hand, parliamentarism also implies disadvantagessuch as ineffective accountability and a lack oftransparency, which may cause informationalinefficiencies. And whereas parliamentarism may beparticularly suitable for problems of adverseselection, it is a less certain cure for moral hazard.In contemporary advanced societies, parliamentarism isfacing the challenges of decaying screening devicesand diverted accountabilities
Philipp Dann - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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european parliament and executive federalism approaching a parliament in a semi Parliamentary Democracy
European Law Journal, 2003Co-Authors: Philipp DannAbstract:The European Parliament has often been understood along the lines of theories of European integration - compared to regular parliaments by Federalists or belittled as merely an international assembly by intergovernmentalists. This paper proposes an understanding of the European Parliament not along theories about what the EU should become, but what it is and surely will continue to be, that is a very distinct federal structure. The European Parliament is a parliament in an executive federalism - with far-reaching consequences for its form and functions. After outlining the characteristics of this federal structure, these consequences will be demonstrated by analysing the European Parliament in contrast with two ideal types of parliaments: the working parliament, separated from the executive branch and centred around strong committees (like the US Congress), and the debating parliament, characterised by the fusion of Parliamentary majority and government as well as plenary debates (like the British House of Commons). Dwelling thus on a comparison to a legislature in a non-Parliamentary federal system, like the US Congress, this paper argues that the European Parliament might best be understood as a special case of a working parliament. Finally, it will be proposed to consider the influence of executive federalism not only as fundamentally shaping the European Parliament but also as rendering the EU generally a semi-Parliamentary Democracy.
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European Parliament and Executive Federalism: Approaching a Parliament in a Semi‐Parliamentary Democracy
European Law Journal, 2003Co-Authors: Philipp DannAbstract:The European Parliament has often been understood along the lines of theories of European integration - compared to regular parliaments by Federalists or belittled as merely an international assembly by intergovernmentalists. This paper proposes an understanding of the European Parliament not along theories about what the EU should become, but what it is and surely will continue to be, that is a very distinct federal structure. The European Parliament is a parliament in an executive federalism - with far-reaching consequences for its form and functions. After outlining the characteristics of this federal structure, these consequences will be demonstrated by analysing the European Parliament in contrast with two ideal types of parliaments: the working parliament, separated from the executive branch and centred around strong committees (like the US Congress), and the debating parliament, characterised by the fusion of Parliamentary majority and government as well as plenary debates (like the British House of Commons). Dwelling thus on a comparison to a legislature in a non-Parliamentary federal system, like the US Congress, this paper argues that the European Parliament might best be understood as a special case of a working parliament. Finally, it will be proposed to consider the influence of executive federalism not only as fundamentally shaping the European Parliament but also as rendering the EU generally a semi-Parliamentary Democracy.
M Moniruzzaman - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Parliamentary Democracy in bangladesh an evaluation of the parliament during 1991 2006
Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 2009Co-Authors: M MoniruzzamanAbstract:This study of three parliaments in Bangladesh during 1991-2006 argues that parliament has failed to become the centre of political and legislative activities. This is mainly because the ruling parties deliberately bypass parliament, while the opposition deserts it. The parliament has been dysfunctional for more than half of its tenure. For the short periods it has been active, its business sessions were devoted more to party political bickering than legislative activity. Due to the opposition boycott, the ruling party's negligence and the absenteeism of ordinary members, the standing committees of the parliaments were less effective, and Parliamentary accountability of government was lacking. On gaining independence in 1971, Bangladesh adopted the Westminster model ofParliamentaryDemocracy.Thesystem,however,wasreplacedinquicksucces- sion by authoritarianism (Islam, 1986), single party system (Ahmed, 1991) and personal rule (Moten, 1990). The mass upsurge against the personal rule of General Hussein Muhammad Ershad in 1990 led to elections in 1991 which once again installed the Parliamentary system that lasted until 2006. During this period, three elected parliaments completed thefive-year constitutional term. This study attempts a comparative analysis of the performance of the Bangladesh parliament during the era of Parliamentary Democracy (1991- 2006). It analyses three parliaments, i.e. the Fifth (1991-95), Seventh
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Parliamentary Democracy in Bangladesh: An Evaluation of the Parliament during 1991–2006
Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 2009Co-Authors: M MoniruzzamanAbstract:This study of three parliaments in Bangladesh during 1991-2006 argues that parliament has failed to become the centre of political and legislative activities. This is mainly because the ruling parties deliberately bypass parliament, while the opposition deserts it. The parliament has been dysfunctional for more than half of its tenure. For the short periods it has been active, its business sessions were devoted more to party political bickering than legislative activity. Due to the opposition boycott, the ruling party's negligence and the absenteeism of ordinary members, the standing committees of the parliaments were less effective, and Parliamentary accountability of government was lacking. On gaining independence in 1971, Bangladesh adopted the Westminster model ofParliamentaryDemocracy.Thesystem,however,wasreplacedinquicksucces- sion by authoritarianism (Islam, 1986), single party system (Ahmed, 1991) and personal rule (Moten, 1990). The mass upsurge against the personal rule of General Hussein Muhammad Ershad in 1990 led to elections in 1991 which once again installed the Parliamentary system that lasted until 2006. During this period, three elected parliaments completed thefive-year constitutional term. This study attempts a comparative analysis of the performance of the Bangladesh parliament during the era of Parliamentary Democracy (1991- 2006). It analyses three parliaments, i.e. the Fifth (1991-95), Seventh
Samuel Merrill - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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policy seeking parties in a Parliamentary Democracy with proportional representation a valence uncertainty model
British Journal of Political Science, 2009Co-Authors: James Adams, Samuel MerrillAbstract:A unidimensional spatial model of multiparty Parliamentary elections under proportional representation is presented, in which parties project that the median Parliamentary party will implement its policy position. The parties are assumed to be uncertain about the electoral impact of valence issues relating to party elites’ images of competence, integrity and charisma. The assumptions of the model, highlighting the importance of the median party in parliament, are consistent with empirical work by McDonald and Budge. Under them, the existence of a Nash equilibrium under quite general concavity conditions is proved and it is shown that parties will moderate their positions when their valence images deteriorate. Computations of party equilibria are reported. The model and its implications for policy-seeking parties with results on vote-seeking parties can be contrasted with that recently reported by Schofield and Sened.
