Drawing on the History of Parliament’s oral history project, Emmeline Ledgerwood discusses the thought processes and critical influences that drove or inhibited their political aspirations of women who served as MPs in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
Author: psaparliaments
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December 2018 newsletter
A festive hello from the PSA Parliaments Group team! We have plenty of news and updates to keep you going over the festive period, and they include:
- Our Conference – thank you!
- Survey
- Plans for 2019: summary of ideas
- Membership and the PSA
- Hansard Society Scholars – Dissertation Supervisor
- Essay Competition 2019
- Authoritarian Legislatures
- Registration for #PSA19 open
- Recently on our blog
If you have any notices / messages you would like us to circulate to the group, please let us know (including events, new research projects, grants, publications, etc.). Or other ideas for the group and feedback for us, they’re welcome too!
Best wishes,
Marc (@marcgeddes), Louise (@LouiseVThompson) Alex (@A_Meakin) and Seán (@S_Haughey)
In a blog from our recent Making Sense of Parliaments conference, Thales Torres Quintão develops a framework for the justifications and meanings in the development of participatory policies in legislatures.
On Tuesday 4 December the UK Government was found to be in contempt of Parliament. Dr Andrew Defty explains how this unprecedented situation occurred.
In a new blog from our Making Sense of Parliaments conference, Lawrence McKay investigates the effects of how MPs communicate on constituents’ awareness of their MPs.
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Essay Competition 2019
Launch of the PSA Parliaments 2019 essay competition for undergraduate students.
In the first blog from our Making Sense of Parliaments conference, Matt Williams, Jonathan Jones and Ruth Dixon draw on computer-assisted methods of analysis adapted from biological sciences and natural language processing to show how the text of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill was altered through its parliamentary passage; how government and non-government amendments to the Bill differentially changed the text, and how the Bill’s language compares to other contemporary legislation.
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Pre-appointment scrutiny hearings
In September the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee published their report into Pre-Appointment Scrutiny Hearings. Robert Hazell gave evidence to the committee’s inquiry on the subject; here he discusses the report’s conclusions, and describes the events that led to its being undertaken, including two Constitution Unit studies that evaluated the effectiveness of such scrutiny.
Since payments for MPs were introduced early in the 20th century, the rhetoric used to justify them has changed markedly. Initially, writes Nicholas Dickinson, on a blog originally posted by Democratic Audit, any remuneration was almost always construed in terms of broadening democratic representation. Related to a landmark 1971 report, however, MPs increasingly began to be depicted as political professionals. This change in framing allowed salaries to increase, but at the cost of lasting public ambivalence.
A recap of the PSA Parliaments annual conference Making Sense of Parliaments, held at the Parliament Buildings, Belfast, on 8-9 November 2018.