Author: psaparliaments

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Blog

Using the past to help us to understand the future of the Palace of Westminster

Ahead of next Tuesday’s Virtual IHR Parliaments, Politics and People seminar, we hear from Dr Alexandra Meakinof the University of Leeds. On 9 November 2021, between 5.15 p.m. and 6.30 p.m., she will be responding to your questions about her pre-circulated paper on ‘Using the past to help us understand the future of the Palace of Westminster’.

The Palace of Westminster is in a state of advanced disrepair, and faces what was described by a Joint Committee of MPs and Peers in 2016 as ‘an impending crisis which we cannot reasonably ignore’. While a major refurbishment project—Restoration and Renewal (R&R)—was approved in 2018, the future of the Palace remains uncertain, as concerns mount among some MPs about the cost and the prospect of temporarily moving out to allow the work to take place.

The risk of a catastrophic fire, flood or failure of the essential services within the Palace has developed over many decades, as vital maintenance was neglected and the infrastructure serving the building went far past its expected lifespan. Indeed, some of the mechanical and electrical plant dates back to the building’s establishment in the mid-19th century, as a replacement for the old Palace, destroyed by fire in 1834.

The 1834 fire, as discussed previously on this blog, occurred after multiple unheeded warnings about the state of the building, a situation worryingly similar to today. It is not the only lesson from history, however, which may be relevant for current discussions. This blog posits that through historical analysis we can identify five recurrent themes that help to explain policymaking decisions relating to the Palace as a legislative building (figure 1, below).

Figure 1: Explaining policy decisions

A confused governance system has been evident in Westminster for centuries, manifested through divided patronage between the King and Prime Minister in the appointment of architects to work on the Palace in the 18th century and delays to the rebuilding after the 1834 fire caused by contradictory instructions from ministers, MPs and Peers—an issue still present today. In addition, the emotional attachment parliamentarians feel about their workplace—for example in the form of a connection to their predecessors, transmitted through the very fabric of the Palace—influences the decisions they make about its future.

This is linked to the third recurrent theme: a clear unwillingness to make radical changes to the Palace. When disaster has occurred, there has been a tendency to recreate the past: either in the exact replica of the previous Commons chamber in the 1940s (described by one MP in 1945 as taking ‘nostalgia to the stage of absurdity’), or in Barry’s design for the new Palace after the 1834 fire. These decisions then become precedent to be followed faithfully in future, a form of path dependency that explains the reluctance to move out of the Palace, the fourth theme. Finally, historical analysis shows that you cannot explain decisions about the Palace of Westminster purely by considering what was happening within the building. The intrinsically political nature of the legislature means that wider political events have influenced the policies chosen for the building.

The Elizabeth Tower covered in scaffolding, 2019; image: Ethan Doyle White, CC via Wikimedia Commons

Looking to history helps to explain how R&R became necessary but it can also explain why its future remains unclear. While the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Act 2019 legislated for an independent governance structure, the future of the R&R project continues to be subject to the views of the House of Commons Commission. A number of MPs remain opposed to leaving the Palace of Westminster even temporarily, demonstrating the same attachment to the building as has been witnessed for generations. There have been repeated efforts to scale back the scope of programme, in a further sign of the tendencies towards conservatism and to reflect the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. A key lesson from the historical analysis is that major work to the Palace of Westminster has tended to occur only when unavoidable: despite the approval of R&R, it may be that history repeats itself and the ‘impending crisis’ warned of in 2016 occurs.

The threat of a crisis is one major reason why the future of the Palace of Westminster matters. The risk to the Palace is not just about the potential loss of an emblem of national identity, but also the very real dangers faced by the people working in or visiting Parliament. Former Leader of the Commons, Andrea Leadsom, has warned that ‘it is only by sheer luck that no one has been injured or killed’ to date. But the future of the building also matters for the health of our democracy. Legislative buildings are not just symbols of the institution, but their architecture, design and décor affect how people—parliamentarians, staff and visitors—behave within. Through the necessary work to fix the pipes and stonework, the UK Parliament has an opportunity to think about how it can build a legislative building fit for the 21st century, shaped by the public and designed to facilitate their engagement with democracy. Taking this opportunity before crisis occurs would demonstrate that MPs and Peers really have learnt from the past.

To find out more, Alexandra’s full-length paper ‘Using the past to help us understand the future of the Palace of Westminster’ is available here.

This blog was originally posted on The History of Parliament Website and is reposted with permission.

Categories
Events

PSA Parliaments at #PSA22

We are delighted to confirm our panels for the Political Studies Association annual conference (PSA22), taking place in York and digitally in April 2022. We have five excellent panels, plus a round-table event Exploring Parliament: Looking to the Future. Full details of the timings and rooms can be found here.

How to be a parliamentarian? Representation and roles

  • David C.W. Parker, Jeffrey L. Lazarus (Montana State University-Bozeman, Georgia State University): Bringing the Bacon Back to Bassetlaw: Distributive Politics and the UK Parliament
  • Caroline Bhattacharya, Stephen Holden Bates, Stephen McKay (University of Helsinki, University of Birmingham, University of Lincoln): Backbench MPs’ roles, 1979-2019: a latent class analysis
  • Luai Allarakia (University of Richmond): Dimensions of Conflict in the Absence of Programmatic Parties: The Case of Kuwait’s National Assembly
  • Omomayowa Olawale Abati (Stellenbosch University): Is Lowering the Minimum Age of Candidacy Enough? The Politics of Youth Representation in Nigeria’s Lower National Legislature

Exploring Parliament: Looking to the Future

  • Farrah Bhatti (Principal Clerk of Select Committees, House of Commons)
  • Simon Burton (Clerk of the Parliaments, House of Lords)
  • Sarah Childs (Royal Holloway, University of London)
  • Jack Sheldon (Cambridge University)

How to be a parliamentarian: how do Members participate?

  • Donald Keya Manyala, Benson Inzofu Mwale (Parliament of Kenya): Participation of Minority Legislators in Legislative Business at the National Assembly of Kenya
  • Alia Middleton, Louise Thompson (University of Surrey, University of Manchester): The awkward squad? The parliamentary lives of former Prime Ministers
  • Wang Leung Ting (London School of Economics and Political Science): Can you hear me? An analysis on how virtual proceeding affected the content and influence of legislative speeches
  • Joel Martinsson (Linnaeus University / Swedish Parliament): Access Granted, Access Denied: When and why Swedish parliamentarians submit motions on behalf of special interest organizations

How MPs use old and new media and how old and new media affects MPs

  • James Weinberg (University of Sheffield): “I’ve had to teach myself to laugh at people calling me a liar and ugly and fat and all the rest of it. And try to remember it’s not really about me, even the death threats.” Feelings of distrust, emotional labour and mental health in political office
  • Tevfik Murat Yildirim, Gunnar Thesen (University of Stavanger, Norway): The Media Coverage and Public Visibility of Members of Parliament in the UK
  • Sebastian Ludwicki-Ziegler (University of Stirling): Parliamentarians’ Communication Strategies: The Choice between being in Control and outsourcing Control to Parliamentary Assistants

Parliamentary powers, prerogatives, and public engagement

  • Felix Wiebrecht (The Chinese University of Hong Kong): (Mis)Using Parliament: Why Do Legislatures Become Stronger in Authoritarian Regimes?
  • James Strong (Queen Mary University of London): Did the UK War Powers Convention fundamentally change the House of Commons’ influence over the use of force?
  • Temitayo Odeyemi, Cristina Leston-Bandeira, Alexander Beresford (University of Leeds): From space invasion, to value mediation, and everything in-between: Situating non-state actors and Nigeria’s national-subnational legislative public engagement
  • Alexandra Meakin (University of Leeds): Rebuilding the People’s Parliament – public engagement and the Restoration and Renewal of the Palace of Westminster

Comparative and inter-parliamentary analysis

  • Margaret Arnott (University of the West of Scotland): Constitutional Governance and Common Frameworks: Interparliamentary Relations in the Devolved UK
  • André Vella (University of Birmingham): Parliamentary Privilege in Commonwealth Legislatures
  • Franklin De Vrieze (Westminster Foundation for Democracy): Measuring the oversight role of parliaments in public debt management
  • Sebastian Ludwicki-Ziegler, Mark Shephard (University of Stirling, University of Strathclyde): Hostile or Consensual?: A Comparative Study of Personal Attacks and Positive Self-Reference in Exchanges between the Conservatives and SNP in PMQs and FMQs

Details of how to register can be found on the PSA22 website.

Thank you to everyone who submitted a paper proposal – we were very impressed with the high standard and look forward to seeing you in York!

Categories
News

October 2021 Newsletter

We hope that you are keeping safe and well. We have some updates for you:

  1. PSA Parliaments 2021 Conference
  2. PSA Annual International Conference 2022
  3. Call for Papers: Parliamentary Studies is for Everybody Workshop
  4. New Overview of the Austrian Parliament
  5. Welcome to our new Communications Officer, Chris Monaghan!
  6. Call for Posters for Study of Parliament Group Oxford Weekend
  7. Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye
  8. Recently on the Blog

If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to the group, please let us know.

1. PSA Parliaments 2021 Conference

We are delighted to announce an excellent line-up of panels and papers for our 2021 Annual Conference, Parliament at a Critical Juncture.

The conference this year is a one-day virtual event on Friday 12th November 2021.

We have three panels on the themes of:

  1. Representatives and representation;
  2. Accountability and transparency in Parliaments;
  3. Power(lessness), practices and conventions.

To register (for free) and for full details of the conference and each of the panels, please see here.

2. PSA Annual International Conference 2022

We are delighted to launch our call for papers for the PSA Parliaments panels within the 2022 PSA Annual Conference (#PSA22). The conference is currently planned to be a blend of a physical and digital event taking place online and in York, between 10-13th April 2022 with the theme: “Politics from the Margins”. Full details of the conference, including the current plans for digital-only attendees can be found here.

If you would like to present a paper or organise a panel under the auspices of the PSA Parliaments group, then please submit the relevant form(s), which can be found on our website, to Alexandra and Stephen by Monday 4th October.

We welcome papers from PhD students through to professors and we are fully committed to avoiding manels. We are also seeking to increase the proportion of papers on our panels from people from an ethnic minority background so please get in touch with Alexandra or Stephen if you come from an ethnic minority background and would like to discuss how your research could be highlighted on our panels.

3. Call for Papers: Parliamentary Studies is for Everybody Workshop

Inspired by the recent textbook, Political Science is for Everybody, the Parliaments, Race, Migration & Intersectionality, and Women & Politics specialist groups of the UK Political Studies Association are organising a workshop entitled Parliamentary Studies is for Everybody.

The aim of the workshop is to explore parliaments (and legislatures) at the intersections: how different groups of people engage with, access, navigate and experience parliaments; how parliaments and particular parliamentary institutions might be biased towards certain groups; and how this context might influence parliamentary activity, legislative outcomes and the broader policy-making process.

The workshop will be held via Zoom on Friday 28 January 2022.Full details, including how to submit an abstract, can be found here.

We welcome applications from PhD students to professors, and we do not have any preference in terms of theory and method, or on which parliament(s) and/or legislature(s) you study. We particularly welcome applications from people who are from underrepresented groups in political science and academia more broadly.

4. New Overview of the Austrian Parliament

A new overview of the Austrian Parliament has been added to our map.

Many thanks to Christoph Clar for writing an excellent addition to our collection.

If you would like to write an overview of a parliament or legislature not yet covered on our maps (it is to our collective shame that there is not yet an overview of the UK Parliament), then please get in contact with Stephen or Alexandra.

5. Welcome to our new Communications Officer, Chris Monaghan!

We are really pleased that Chris Monaghan has joined us as our Communications Officer.

Chris is a Principal Lecturer in Law at the University of Worcester. He has a keen interest in constitutional law, accountability and legal history, and his current research projects include the Chagos litigation and impeachment as an accountability mechanism.

Chris is the co-editor of the Routledge Frontiers in the Study of Accountability book series, and is currently organising the Questions of Accountability conference.

His twitter handle is @Chris_JMonaghan.

6. Call for Posters for Study of Parliament Group Oxford Weekend

There will be a new poster session at the SPG’s Oxford Weekend on the 7-8th January 2022 which is open to all members of the SPG, including PhD students, early career researchers and officials. Please consider submitting a poster to display findings from current research projects, to disseminate information about new projects, or to put forward case studies of best practice.

If you’d like to take part in the session, please email Louise Thompson with the following information: Poster Title; Author/(s); Affiliation/(s); Short Summary (150 words) of what the poster will cover.

The deadline for submissions of interest is Friday 8th October 2021. Final posters and short videos would need to be completed by Monday 6th December 2021. Support will be given with the printing and display of posters.

Some financial support (up to £100) towards attending the conference is available for PhDs / ECRs who present a poster. For further details contact Richard Kelly. If you are not a member of the SPG but are interested in joining, please get in touch with Louise.

7. Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye

The South Africa-based Parliamentary Monitoring Group has published a report by Rebecca Sibanda on Assessing the Effectiveness of Written Questions and Replies as an Oversight Mechanism in the South African Parliament.

Rainbow Murray has published It’s a rich man’s world: How class and glass ceilings intersect for UK parliamentary candidates in International Political Science Review.

Fotios Fitsilis has published a research note in the Journal of Legislative Studies entitled Artificial Intelligence (AI) in parliaments – preliminary analysis of the Eduskunta experiment.

Rod Rhodes, Matthew Flinders, Adrian Vatter and David Judge have written a response to Meg Russell and Ruxandra Serban’s recent article on the Westminster Model in Government and Opposition: Stretched but not snapped: A response to Russell & Serban on Retiring the ‘Westminster Model.

John Connolly, Matthew Flinders and David Judge have published Reviewing the review: a three-dimensional approach to analysing the 2017–2020 review of the House of Lords investigative and scrutiny committees in the Journal of Legislative Studies, available on early view.

And, finally, new issues of Legislative Studies Quarterly, Parliamentary Affairs and the Journal of Legislative Studies have been published.

If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Stephen with details.

8. Recently on the Blog

We have recently published one great blog:

If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our communications officer, Chris.

Categories
Blog

Parliaments are watching to make sure climate legislation has an impact

How have parliaments responded to the Paris Agreement during the past five years? In which way are parliaments making sure that climate legislation does have an impact? These were some of the questions guiding the new report “Parliaments and the Paris Agreement”, published by Westminster Foundation for Democracy, ParlAmericas, INTER PARES, and GLOBE International. Based on this report, we put forward five golden rules for conducting climate-proof Post-Legislative Scrutiny.

By Rafael Jimenez Aybar and Franklin De Vrieze.

With only a few of weeks until the start of COP-26 in Glasgow, the role of parliaments in advancing international climate commitments deserves a spotlight. Parliament’s critical role in the development, implementation, and monitoring of their country’s climate objectives is often underestimated. 

The recent report “Parliaments and the Paris Agreement” shows that, to date, action on climate by parliaments has gone beyond adopting climate policies and legislation. The report also notes how parliaments focus on implementation and impact, thus contributing to promoting environmental democracy by upholding the environmental rule of law. 

While legislation is of critical importance to achieve national climate commitments, it is equally vital to ensure that the legislation is implemented and has the intended outcomes. This process is often referred to as Post-legislative Scrutiny (PLS) or ex-post impact assessment of legislation. 

PLS can help identify implementation shortcomings, areas of improvement and good practices. While PLS can provide oversight of the implementation gap, the gap between ambitions legislated for and those delivered, PLS can also provide a window for increasing legislative ambitions in line with what the science demands. 

PLS can be applied to climate-specific legislation as well as to general legislation which is not specifically environment- or climate-focused. In case of the latter, one speaks of a climate and environmental “lens” over PLS. 

Based on the new report, we outline five golden rules for conducting climate-proof PLS. The five golden rules capture the do’s and don’ts for parliaments willing to engage on PLS of environment and climate legislation and PLS of general legislation with an environment and climate lens.

1. Make the work of parliament climate-proof. Climate-proof PLS is not the job of the Environmental Committee only. All committees need to be engaged. This means that parliaments need to organise their internal processes to ensure that environmental oversight spans the entirety of its work, including through inter-committee communication and environmental and climate mainstreaming in committees’ work. This requires that all MPs and staff have been informed of the national targets related to mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and the strategy on adaptation.

For instance, the Scottish Parliament applies its sustainable development Impact Assessment Tool to all its legislation. It helps parliamentarians moving beyond simply asking ‘what is the economic cost or benefit of this law’ to asking, ‘what is the carbon cost?’. The UK Parliament Environmental Audit Committee has a cross-government mandate to consider the extent to which government departments and public bodies contribute to environmental protection and sustainable development.

2. Make all PLS inquiries climate-inclusive. For PLS of general legislation, it is important that environmental impact is explicitly included in the PLS guidance, calls for evidence, and questions used in data collection. The PLS report needs to include a section on findings and recommendations relevant to the environment and climate; going beyond findings and recommendations related to the thematic remit of that law. This is similar to the approach that says that any legislative impact report must have a section relevant to gender equality.

An example is the Indonesian Parliament which has started PLS of the ‘Law on Job Creation’ with specific attention to the risks of driving environmental degradation.

3. Employ environmental treaties as entry-point for environmental PLS. Parliaments have a key role in ratifying international environmental and climate treaties. PLS can provide a window of analysis to check on the government’s commitments and adherence to such treaties as reflected in the national law. Furthermore, delivery against international treaties takes place at national, regional, and sub-regional level. Parliaments are critical to ensure that this happens.

4. Look at the role of implementing agencies of legislation. Each law designates an institution, department or ministry for its implementation. In many countries, the piecemeal development of environmental legislation risks regulatory overlap. Through PLS, MPs can review the role of implementing agencies of environmental laws, in order to consider whether compliance and enforcement regimes exist, and what is their effectiveness, legality, and coherence.

For example, the National Assembly of Nigeria is currently assessing the Environmental Impact Assessment Act and the Act on the National Agency for the Great Green Wall.

5. Review the legislative targets. It is important that legislative targets for climate and environment are adequate, timely and achievable. Setting targets alone does not in itself improve environmental outcomes. PLS of climate and environment legislation should therefore focus its assessment not only on targets, but also performance against those targets – asking if the targets and actions to meet them are doing enough.

For example, the Canadian Parliament enacted a review clause in the Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act to ensure a parliamentary review after 5 years of it coming into force with the aim to sharpen the targets.

Rafael Jimenez Aybar is Environmental Democracy Adviser and Franklin De Vrieze is Senior Governance Adviser at Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD).

Categories
Blog

Parliaments or Legislatures, or perhaps Assemblies? Names, origins and meanings

Cristina Leston-Bandeira, University of Leeds

@estrangeirada

For parliamentary geeks out there, this is a recurrent discussion: parliament or legislature? Which term is the ‘right’ term to use? Which one reflects the true nature of the institution that embodies the representative and legislative branch in a political system. I suggest we should relax more about the exact term and instead acknowledge their differing origins and meanings, whilst recognising the diversity of terms out there – assemblies, councils etc. After all, words are imbued with our own culture and history – why should it be any different with the word used to refer to this institution?

A while ago I started working on a textbook about comparative legislatures – unfortunately, life was a bit too mad at the time and I couldn’t bring it to fruition (maybe a retirement project?). But, as part of Chapter 1, I actually completed some research on the names and history of development of legislatures (or is it parliaments?). Here are some notes from that research. 

The institution supporting the representative and legislative branch of governance has been known by different names across the world and over time. This is often associated with local culture and language, but can also indicate a focus on a particular function to the detriment of others. The terms ‘legislature’ and ‘parliament’ are the most commonly used generic terms and are regularly used inter-changeably – they have, however, different origins and refer to different functions. In short, legislature is North American originally and refers to the function of making law. Parliament has European origin and refers to the function of debating.

The term ‘legislature’ tends to be more ordinarily used in Anglo-Saxon environments and/or countries with a strong American influence. The development of this term is closely associated with the expansion of the nascent American colonial legislatures. As their expansion in a context of independence was closely associated to the right of making law, the label of “legislature” – to legislate, to make ‘legis’(law) – became the natural appellation of these institutions. It is therefore a term linked to American influence, but also to an understanding of this institution as a legislation-making body. 

The term ‘parliament’ however is more common in Europe and in environments with a strong European influence. The term comes from the French verb ‘parler’ – to speak, to discuss. It refers therefore to a different dimension of this institution: as an arena for debate. As we see below, the medieval parliaments were mainly gatherings for discussion, and the term parliament is associated with these. This term can be dated back to medieval times in Europe, being therefore the most well-established nomenclature for this institution.

Other common names include Assembly (often National Assembly and associated with the need to reaffirm the national sovereignty of the people), Congress (usually encompassing a lower and an upper chamber), Chamber (Chamber of Representatives, Chamber of Deputies, etc, encompassing an explicit reference to the primacy of the role played by the Plenum chamber), Council, House and Senate (a popular name for upper chambers). But many parliaments also have their own country specific names, such as Althingi (Iceland), Bundestag (Germany), Diet (Japan), Majlis (Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries), Sabha (India) and Sejm (Poland). And some of these names refer instead to the idea of ‘gatherings’, ‘coming together’, or even ‘events’, which speak to other types of functions performed by these institutions but are also a nod to the way they developed from ad-hoc gatherings to permanent institutions.

Legislatures are not a new feature of our societies, they have existed for many centuries. What is specific to the modern parliament is its complexity of membership and of roles performed, and the way it is integrated nationally in the governance fabric of our societies. It is difficult to date exactly when the first parliaments existed, as this is closely related to how one defines a legislature plus the linkage of the institution with its place (are legislatures that have changed location and/or building, the same legislature, for example?). Besides this, the development of legislatures is often conflated with the development of democracy and/or representative government. Although related, they are not necessarily the same. There are plenty of examples of legislatures, still today, that have little resemblance to democracy or representative government. 

The definition of a parliament, in its basic form, can be summed up as a group of people meeting together at the same time and location (even if digital) to discuss matters that affect the collective of a community. This may simply constitute a discussion and not lead to an effective decision or a vote. Some identify the medieval legislatures as the first ones, other point to the Greek assemblies (with associated myths: the Icelandic Althingi, the Isle of Man Tynwald, England for Westminster, etc.). The first legislatures were mainly forums for discussion, whereby people would meet to discuss key issues of the day. The abiding power of these forums to make decisions or to simply consult and discuss varied considerably, across the ages and contexts. 

Whilst the ancient Athenian Agora is the most well-known early assembly-like institution, this was by no means an exceptional institution. Other assemblies existed already at the time across ancient Greece. Most operated as public spaces for discussion, open to whoever wish to join the debate. Some assemblies had deliberative powers and decisions would be voted upon, though the power to vote would be limited to male citizens who attended the respective meeting. There is also evidence of much earlier presence of assemblies in the Indian sub-continent, in the Vedic age, meaning circa 3000-1000 BC, which exercised considerable influence. The Roman era also includes many types of early institutional expressions of a legislature in the form of councils, assemblies and, of course, the well-known Senate, which was particularly powerful during the Roman Republic. These legislatures varied very considerably in composition, participation, role and powers across the different Roman regimes. Some involved direct democracy participation, some had legislative powers, some were simple forums for discussion of local issues. A common characteristic of all of these different types of legislatures is their transient nature and, in most cases, lack of national remit.

It is from the medieval legislatures, though, that we can identify a clearer path of development towards the institution of the modern parliament. Many authors date the creation of the first parliaments in the 13 century and place it in England, with the De Monfort Parliament in 1265, seen as the first expression of a national legislature. But this development is progressive, representing the culmination of the expansion of smaller scale assemblies. It is also a process present elsewhere in Europe. The first parliaments were born out of a need of Monarchs to negotiate with the members of their aristocracy, and of increasingly larger territories under their ruling. As territories under one Monarch became larger and the need for taxation became a more complex task, the need to negotiate terms with local Barons and other aristocracy representatives became all the more pressing. As the context and environment of those negotiations became more formal and regular, the beginnings of the notion of a parliament started to materialise.

In his detailed comparative analysis of medieval parliaments in Europe, Marongiu shows that the predecessors of the modern parliament – curia, courts, concilia, estates – were developed firstly as occasional public relations reunions, which were “summoned by sovereigns whenever it seemed opportune to ask [secular and ecclesiastical dignitaries] counsel or opinion” (Marongiu, 1968: 45). As these reunions became more regular and larger, their relevance and formality expanded eventually leading to the new parlamentums. The first parliaments were therefore about communication and public relations. But as parliaments became institutionalised and part of a national governance chain, their focus shifted to the relationship with the executive and to the function of legislating.

I’m European, so parliament feels like the most natural word to use. My first language was French (parlement), my second language Portuguese (parlamento) and my third one is English (parliament). So parliament it is; that doesn’t mean I don’t use the term legislatures and I’m perfectly relaxed about using the term, as my recent article with David Judge shows; I’d probably rarely use the term ‘legislators’, but understand where North American colleagues come from when they do. So rather than worrying about what is the right term (whilst ignoring the many other terms that exist, such as Assemblies), it may simply be best to accept both. Or indeed adapt and create new words, as Brazilians have done: by adapting the American legislature word and meaning, they created ‘the legislative’ as a noun – o legislativo – which does not exist in European Portuguese as a noun. Ultimately words simply reflect their history and culture, there is no right or wrong, it’s about what each means, the same with parliament (or is it legislature?).

If you want to find out more about it all, I really recommend the following:

Loewenberg, G. and Patterson, S. (1979), Comparing Legislatures, University Press of America.

Marongiu, A. (1968), Medieval Parliaments – a comparative study, Eyre and Spottiswoode.

Categories
News

September 2021 Newsletter

We hope that you had a good summer. We have returned from our lilos and have some updates for you:

  1. PSA Parliaments 2021 Conference
  2. PSA Annual International Conference 2022
  3. Report on our Survey of the Sub-Discipline
  4. Our Plans for the Upcoming Year
  5. Goodbye to Gavin
  6. Wanted! Communications Officer
  7. Book Launch: Parliamentary Committees in the Policy Process
  8. Other Events: SPG Online Seminar on Select Committee Powers
  9. Call for Papers: Fifteenth Wroxton College Workshop
  10. Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye
  11. Recently on the Blog

If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to the group, please let us know.

1. PSA Parliaments 2021 Conference

Due to a mixture of the current situation and the precautionary measures put in place by the PSA, we have decided that our 2021 Annual Conference, Parliament at a Critical Juncture, will be an entirely virtual event on Friday 12th November 2021.

Due to the previous uncertainty surrounding the format, we have extended the deadline for submissions until 22nd September 2021.

Despite hoping that we could meet in person this year, the conference promises to be an excellent event, following in the footsteps of our successful online events last year.

For full details of the conference, including how to submit a paper proposal, please see our website.

2. PSA Annual International Conference 2022

We are delighted to launch our call for papers for the PSA Parliaments panels within the 2022 PSA Annual Conference (#PSA22). The conference is currently planned to be a blend of a physical and digital event taking place online and in York, between 10-13th April 2022 with the theme: “Politics from the Margins”. Full details of the conference, including the current plans for digital-only attendees can be found here.

If you would like to present a paper or organise a panel under the auspices of the PSA Parliaments group, then please submit the relevant form(s), which can be found on our website, to Alexandra and Stephen by Monday 4th October.

We welcome papers from PhD students through to professors and we are fully committed to avoiding manels. We are also seeking to increase the proportion of papers on our panels from people from an ethnic minority background so please get in touch with Alexandra or Stephen if you come from an ethnic minority background and would like to discuss how your research could be highlighted on our panels.

3. Report on our Survey of the Sub-Discipline

Our report on the findings of the 2021 PSA Parliaments Survey of the Sub-Discipline can now be found on our website.

The survey sought to: (i) identify and map trends in theory and methods across the sub-field of parliamentary and legislative studies; (ii) understand who is undertaking research in this area; and (iii) gain people’s views about how the sub-field could be improved. We received 218 responses from people based in 48 countries.

The report is the first paper in our new PSA Parliaments Working Paper Series. More details about how to publish a working paper with us will be included in a future newsletter.

4. Our Plans for the Year

Thanks to all those who filled in our end-of-year survey over the summer. On the basis of your responses and our reflections on last year, we aim to do the following during the 2021-22 academic year, in addition to our annual conference and our panels at the PSA Annual Conference:

  • Instead of the regular monthly virtual panels we ran last year, this year we have decided to run fewer on-line events and make use of different formats. We are planning to hold book launches (our first is detailed below) and one-hour departmental-style seminars (where a single scholar presents a paper), as well as conference-style panels. If you are interested in holding a book launch with us, or presenting a paper either as part of a seminar or a panel, please get in touch.
  • We are hoping to help organise a couple of workshops– keep an eye-out for details of the first one in next month’s newsletter!
  • We are launching the PSA Parliaments Working Papers Series. Again, more details in next month’s newsletter!
  • If we have enough time and resources, we’re also hoping to launch a PSA Parliaments Podcast. The aim of the podcast will be to discuss the academic study of parliaments and legislatures with scholars at various stages of their careers who have expertise in particular areas. If you are a member of the PSA and based in the UK and would like to be involved in this project (or, indeed, take a lead on it), then please get in contact.

5. Goodbye to Gavin

It is with mixed emotions that we are saying goodbye to our communications officer, Gavin. We are very happy that he has secured a lectureship in criminology at Liverpool Hope University but sad that his migration across disciplinary boundaries means that he’ll be focusing his research away from parliamentary studies.

Gavin has been communications officer for us since 2019 and has been brilliant at editing our blog and tweeting our tweets. We will miss him and are frustrated that we never convinced him to play his guitar during one of our zoom meetings.

So, it is with a tear in our eye but with fondness in our heart that we must say goodbye to Gavin… but not before he gets a newly-instituted PSA Parliaments send-off by answering some Urgent Questions!

6. Wanted! Communications Officer

Would you like to be our new Communications Officer?

The role entails editing our blog and running our Twitter account, as well as contributing to the general running of the group. The PSA Parliaments team tends to meet once a month during the academic year with some emailing in the meanwhilst. PSA Parliaments is one of the biggest specialist groups of the PSA and must surely be the friendliest.

If you are interested, or want to discuss the role in more detail, please feel free to contact Alexandra and/or Stephen. To take up the role, you must be a member of the PSA and be based in the UK.

7. Book Launch: Parliamentary Committees in the Policy Process

A virtual book launch will be held for the new Routledge collection Parliamentary Committees in the Policy Process edited by Sven Siefken and Hilmar Rommetvedt on Wednesday 29th September at 13:00 London Time.

There will be talks by the editors, Philip Norton, and some of the country specialists who contributed chapters.

The event is free but please register here beforehand. All welcome!

The event is co-sponsored by PSA Parliaments and IPSA’s Research Committee of Legislative Specialists.

8. Other Events: SPG Online Seminar on Select Committee Powers

The Study of Parliament Group are holding an online seminar on select committee powers on 16th September 2021 at 19:30.

Full details of the seminar, including how to register, can be found here.

9. Call for Papers: Fifteenth Wroxton College Workshop

The Fifteenth Workshop of Parliamentary Scholars and Parliamentarians will be held on 30th-31st July 2022 at Wroxton College, Near Banbury, Oxfordshire, UK.

Paper proposals (no more than 300 words), plus suggestions for panels and requests for further information, should be sent to Philip Norton by 31st January 2022.

Details of the most recent Workshops, with the topics of papers delivered, can be found on the Workshop’s website.

10. Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye

Mark Bennister has published an article, Navigating three faces of decentred leadership in the UK Parliament, as part of a special issue on decentering leadership in The International Journal of Public Leadership.

Stephen Elstub, David Farrell, Jayne Carrick and Patricia Mockler’s evaluation of Climate Assembly UK, which was commissioned by six House of Commons Select Committees, has been published.

Women, Power, and Political Representation, edited by Roosmarijn de Geus, Erin Tolley, Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant and Peter John Loewen, has been published by University of Toronto Press.

Paul Chaisty and Timothy Power have published an article in Government & Opposition entitled Does Power Always Flow to the Executive? Interbranch Oscillations in Legislative Authority, 1976–2014.

And, finally, new issues Parliamentary Affairs and Representation have been published. The former features special sections on voting age reform in the UK and opposition parties in parliament; the latter is a special issue on parties, electoral systems and political theory.

If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Stephen with details.

11. Recently on the Blog

We’ve recently published one great blog:

If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study please get in touch with our communications officer (once we have a new one) and, in the interim, Stephen.

Categories
Events

Parliamentary Studies is for Everybody

A One-Day Workshop co-organised by the UK Political Studies Association specialist groups:

  • PSA Parliaments
  • PSA Race, Migration & Intersectionality
  • PSA Women & Politics

Inspired by the recent textbook, Political Science is for Everybody, the Parliaments, Race, Migration & Intersectionality, and Women & Politics specialist groups of the UK Political Studies Association are organising a workshop entitled Parliamentary Studies is for Everybody.

The aim of the workshop is to explore parliaments (and legislatures) at the intersections: how different groups of people engage with, access, navigate and experience parliaments; how parliaments and particular parliamentary institutions might be biased towards certain groups; and how this context might influence parliamentary activity, legislative outcomes and the broader policy-making process.

The workshop will be held via Zoom on Friday 28th January 2022. The format of the workshop will be that we focus on each paper in turn with authors providing only a brief introduction, followed by an in-depth discussion, intended to improve the paper. To this end, everyone will be expected to distribute their working papers a week beforehand to give other participants enough time to read them all and draw up comments.

If you are interested in presenting a paper, please email a title and 200-word abstract to Stephen Holden Bates by 29th October 2021. We welcome applications from PhD students to professors, and we do not have any preference in terms of theory and method, or on which parliament(s) and/or legislature(s) you study. We particularly welcome applications from people who are from underrepresented groups in political science and academia more broadly.

Categories
Events

Call for Papers: #PSA22

We are delighted to launch our call for papers for the PSA Parliaments panels within the 2022 PSA Annual Conference (#PSA22).

The conference is currently planned to be a blend of a physical and digital event taking place online and in York, between 10-13 April 2022 with the theme: Politics from the Margins. Full details of the conference, including the current plans for digital-only attendees can be found here.

If you would like to present a paper or organise a panel under the auspices of the PSA Parliaments group, then please submit the relevant form(s), which can be found below, to Alexandra and Stephen by Monday 4th October.

Paper proposal form for #PSA22Download
Panel proposal form for #PSA22Download

We welcome papers from PhD students through to professors and we are fully committed to avoiding manels. We are also seeking to increase the proportion of papers on our panels from people from an ethnic minority background so please get in touch with Alexandra or Stephen if you come from an ethnic minority background and would like to discuss how your research could be highlighted on our panels.

Categories
Urgent Questions

Dr Gavin Hart

GAVIN HART

Dr Gavin Hart is a lecturer in criminology at Liverpool Hope University. He researches the impact of immigration and diversity on politics and society more broadly, focusing especially on Northern Ireland. Gavin is the outgoing Communications Officer of the PSA Parliaments team.

Please tell us a little bit about how you entered academia and your academic career

It was a little odd really that I ended up doing a PhD. I was always a political junkie, but I had worked as a landscape gardener, then as a logistics manager: nowhere near a university. I studied politics as a mature student and I figured that it would probably lead me down a teaching path. Unfortunately, I was way too disorganised to have applied for the PGCE in time. At the end of the academic year, my dissertation supervisor suggested I apply for a funded PhD at Huddersfield University. I nearly fainted at the thought of it! I then made the doctorate look like really hard-work, but finally got over the line and managed to get a few publications out there. Since then I have been teaching social sciences at Huddersfield and larking about doing some research here and there.

Which five books/articles (written by someone else) have been most important to you in your academic career?

Much of my own work has been about consociational democracy, so I guess I should definitely mention Lijphart’s Politics of Accommodation and his academic sparring partner Donald Horowitz for his work Ethnic Groups in Conflict. These texts really got hooks into me and drew me into a debate. Also, I’m a party politics nerd, so I would have to mention Sartori’s Parties and Party Systems and Anthony Downs’ Economic Theory of Democracy. For teaching purposes, I have been using Exploring Parliament by Christina Leston-Bandeira and Louise Thompson (eds) quite a bit the last year or two. It is a nice tome of all things parliamentary with contributions from loads of great people working in the sub-discipline.

Which person has been most influential and important to you in your academic career?

Catherine McGlynn. My PhD supervisor who stood by me when I was being completely rubbish at academic-ing.

Which of your own pieces of research are you most proud of?

None.

What has been your greatest achievement in academia?

I think helping to organise the PSA Parliaments online conference throughout the last year or so. It has been great working with the PSA Parl crew. It was a real team effort and it produced such great panels. I felt like we turned a difficult situation into a great success and I was super proud to have been a cog in the machine.

What has been your greatest disappointment in academia?

Probably the political science jobs market. It can be a fairly miserable existence trying to find anything, even if you are happy to do short-term, part-time, super flexible work – it is still a challenge.

What is the first or most important thing you tell your students about parliaments?

That once the election is finished, party conflict is left at the door and all representatives begin to work collectively in the pursuit of the national interest…. And if you believe that I have some magic beans you might be interested in buying.

Where were you born, where did you grow up, and where do you live now?

Huddersfield, Huddersfield, Huddersfield…

What was your first job?

I worked as a drystone-waller in my late teens and my early twenties.

What was the toughest job you ever had?

See above.

What are your hobbies?

I play guitar, banjo and ukulele to differing standards of incompetence. I like marching up mountains and general outdoors life too.

What are your favourite novels?

The picture of Dorian Grey really got hold of me. Right now, I’m reading Milkman by Anna Burns which is proving to be pretty awesome. I guess I just like authors that can transport you somewhere. Whether that is somewhere truly fantastic or far too real!

What is your favourite music?

Tough, tough question. I guess Nirvana was the first music I really got into so I would say In-Utero for one. Just lately, I’ve been loving the Dead South. They are like Blue Grass with a rock attitude. I like so much music though, it is hard to say why I like things. I either do or I don’t.

What are your favourite artists?

Lowry’s paintings of the industrial landscape in Northern England. I guess I like them because he depicts the places that I think of as home. I really get what he sees and I admire the way he captures it.

What is your favourite film?

Anything Tarantino because his films are the best and that is the end of the discussion!

What is your favourite building?

The last time I was able to leave the country (some time ago) I went to Rome and I am still in awe of the Colosseum and the various bit of ancient Rome that are still standing. I’m a sucker for ancient history.

What is your favourite tv show?

I’m quite a fan of the more ridiculous end of television. My all-time favourite has to be The Simpsons. I was raised on it and it basically defines my sense of humour to this day. These days I’m big into Rick and Morty. I like both of those shows because they blend plain daft with really clever comedy.

What is your favourite holiday destination?

I love North Wales for the opportunity to climb mountains in utterly ridiculous weather conditions. I just love the landscape in that part of the world.

What is your favourite sport?

Rugby League has always been a favourite. I used to play it as a kid, but I was pretty rubbish. I’m also a fan of martial arts. I have studied karate and kick-boxing quite a bit.

Boothroyd or Bercow?

Bercow.

Restoration or Renewal?

Renewal.

Cat or Dog?

Dog.

Fish and chips or Curry?

Aww man, how are you supposed to choose?

Trains, planes or automobiles?

Bikes.

Scones: Devonshire or Cornish Method?

Couldn’t care less really, but I have quite a few friends from Cornwall so I will say Cornish.

And, finally, a question asked by Seth, who has recently turned 9: If you could be a superhero, who would you be and why?

Spiderman. He looks to be having the most fun out of all the superheroes. I’m quite a fan of Deadpool too. He doesn’t take things too seriously!

Categories
News

July 2021 Newsletter

We hope that you are safe and well. We have some updates for you:

  1. PSA Parliaments 2021 Conference
  2. End-of-Year Survey
  3. Recording Available of Our PSA Parliaments Roundtable
  4. Call for Papers: Questions of Accountability Conference
  5. PSA Report on Career Trajectories in Political Science & International Studies
  6. Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye
  7. Recently on the Blog

If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to the group, please let us know.

1. PSA Parliaments 2021 Conference

We are pleased to announce details about our 2021 Annual Conference: Parliament at a Critical Juncture.

If circumstances allow, we will be holding a hybrid conference at the University of Birmingham on the 11th and 12th of November 2021.

If circumstances do not allow (and, at the time of writing, we’re still awaiting an update from central PSA), we will be holding a virtual conference on 12th November 2021 only.

For full details of the conference, including how to submit a paper proposal, please see our website.

2. End-of-Year Survey

At the end of a very long, tiring but successful year for PSA Parliaments, please could you take this end-of-year survey about the group and our potential plans for next year.

The survey is very short and should take no longer than 5 minutes to complete. All responses will be anonymous.

3. Recording Available of Our PSA Parliaments Roundtable

The recording of our roundtable on the past, present and future of parliamentary and legislative studies is now available on YouTube.

If you missed it, the roundtable featured talks by Emma Crewe, Shane Martin and Michelle Taylor-Robinson, as well as a presentation by Caroline Bhattacharya on the results of our recent survey of the sub-discipline.

Recordings of all other presentations made as part of our online conference can also be found on the PSA Parliaments YouTube Channel.

4. Call for Papers: Questions of Accountability Conference

The University of Worcester and the University of Sheffield are organising a conference/exhibition entitled Questions of Accountability between 1-5 November 2021, full details of which can be found here.

If you would like to propose a paper, event or panel for the conference, perhaps under the auspices of the PSA Parliaments specialist group, then please get in contact with Stephen in the first instance.

5. PSA Report on Career Trajectories in Political Science & International Studiesbs

In case you missed it at the time of release a couple of weeks ago, the PSA and the British International Studies Association co-published a report by Chris Hanretty on career trajectories in UK departments of politics and international relations.

The report brings together data relating to the gender, ethnicity, and other characteristics of those working in Higher Education departments and draws the following conclusions:

  • Senior positions in politics and international relations continue to be heavily dominated by white men;
  • There is a particular paucity of BAME staff at senior levels in Politics and International Relations departments. The likelihood of BAME staff occupying senior academic ranks is shown to be lower in Politics and International Relations than other social science disciplines;
  • Staff from ethnic minorities have a higher risk than their white counterparts of exiting UK Higher education;
  • At the current rate of progression, we will not reach gender equality in senior ranks within Politics and International Relations departments until 2045/46.

You can read the PSA’s statement on the report here.

6. Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye

Mihail Chiru and Lieven De Winter have published an article, The Allocation of Committee Chairs and the Oversight of Coalition Cabinets in Belgium, in Government & Opposition.

The Westminster Foundation for Democracy has recently published three reports:

And, finally, new issues the Journal of Legislative Studies and Legislative Studies Quarterly have been published.

If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Stephen with details.

7. Recently on the Blog

We’ve recently published one great blog:

If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study please get in touch with our communications officer, Gavin Hart.