PSA Parliaments will be contributing a great selection of panels at the PSA 2020 conference, serving to highlight the diverse nature of the research taking place across our network. The theme of the event will be ‘reimagining politics’ as the PSA reaches its 70th year. This provides a great opportunity to showcase some cutting edge scholarship on a range of themes that are central to the understanding of parliaments and legislatures as they evolve in response to contemporary challenges. In total, we have seven panels running at the annual conference, which have been scheduled for Monday 6th and Tuesday 7th April. They cover the following topics:
- Parliamentary Questions: Adversarialism and Constituency Links
- Perspectives on Transparency
- Comparing Parliamentary Perspectives in the UK
- Parliamentary Roles
- Do MPs care about their publics?
- Scrutiny and Legislation
- The Changing Face of Parliament
Full details of the panels can be seen on our website. If you are presenting a paper on one of our panels, or chairing a panel, please make sure that you register for the conference through Ex Ordo by Monday 17th February.
Monday 6th April
0900 – 1020: Parliamentary Questions: Adversarialism and Constituency Links
Chair: Margaret Arnott
- Can’t answer? Won’t answer? An Analysis of Equivocal Responses by Theresa May in Prime Minister’s Questions (Peter Bull and Will Strawson)
- Constituency questions and proximity to election (Mark Shephard and Daniel Braby)
- Questions to the PM vs. Questions by the PM: An Examination of the State and Nature of ‘Punch and Judy’ Politics during PMQs (Mark Shephard and Daniel Braby)
- “Oh no you won’t!”: The Language of Parliamentary Disorder in the House of Commons 2018-2019 (Sylvia Shaw)
1050 – 1210: Perspectives on Transparency
Chair: Sarah Childs
- Can we Watch Parliament? Monitory and Counter democracy at Westminster (Ben Worthy and Stefani Langehennig)
- Still a Revolving Door? The Political Employment History of Registered Lobbyists in Canada (Paul EJ Thomas and R. Paul Wilson)
- Remuneration for Representation: Legislative Pay in Comparative and Long-Term Perspective (Nick Dickenson)
- Can money buy access? (Sophie Moxon)
1310 – 1430: Comparing Parliamentary Perspectives in the UK
Chair: Paul Thomas
- Standing up for the nations and regions? Patterns of sub-state territorial representation in the UK House of Commons, 1992-2017 (Jack Sheldon)
- Representative Democracy and Legitimacy: Inter-parliamentary Relations in the Devolved UK (Margaret Arnott)
- Back from Cardiff: How Electoral Incentives Shape the Representational Styles of Assembly Members (David C W Parker and Michaela McDowell)
- Evaluating Knowledge Exchange across the UK’s Legislatures (Danielle Beswick and Marc Geddes)
1500 – 1620: Parliamentary Roles
Chair: Jack Sheldon
- Parliamentary Roles and Parliamentary Careers in the UK House of Commons: A Latent Class Analysis, 1979-2019 (Stephen Holden Bates, Mark Goodwin, Steve McKay and Wang Leung Ting)
- Rethinking Opposition Roles: What Opposition Roles do Green Representatives Perform in the UK’s Legislatures? (Louise Thompson and Mitya Pearson)
- Cohesion through participation: Rethinking party discipline in Westminster democracies (Paul E J Thomas)
- Why different parliamentary roles? The influence of the career path with the example of parliamentary control of the budget (Anthony Weber)
Tuesday 7th April
0900 – 1020: Do MPs care about their publics?
Chair: Ben Worthy
- The Logic of Parliamentary Action: Brexit, Early Day Motions, and Bolstering the Personal Vote (David C W Parker and Ian Caltabiano)
- Constituency focus and attitudes to MPs in the UK: how media deserts break the link (Lawrence McKay)
- Is all Politics Local? When do MPs Speaks about Constituency Interest (Wang Leung Ting)
- Do parliamentary e-petitions matter to Members of Parliament? (Felicity Matthews)
1050 – 1210: Scrutiny and Legislation
Chair: Aileen Walker
- Locating post-legislative scrutiny (Tom Caygill)
- Using an upper chamber to manage coalitions: The use of legislative amendments for ‘keeping tabs in the House of Lords 2010-15 (Andrew Jones)
- What happens to Government legislation in the Scottish Parliament: 1999-2019 (Steven MacGregor)
- What drives scrutiny efforts in the European Parliament? (Mihail Chiru and Alban Versailles)
- How does organised and informal induction shape the roles of newly elected Members of Parliament in Canada and the UK? (Louise Cockram)
1310 – 1430: The Changing Face of Parliament
Chair: Danielle Beswick
- Select committee public engagement (Aileen Walker, Cristina Leston-Bandeira, Catherine Bochel, Naomi Jurczak)
- A labour of love, sadness, anger, excitement..? Emotional labour, job satisfaction and burnout among councillors and Members of Parliament in the UK (James Weinberg)
- Has “Politik als Beruf” become more stressful? The (changing) workload of German MPs 1949–2017 (Karsten Mause)
- Building a Diversity Sensitive Parliament (Sarah Childs)