Stephen Holden Bates (University of Birmingham), Mark Goodwin (Coventry University), Steve McKay (University of Lincoln) and Wang Leung Ting (LSE) discuss the impact of departmental select committee work on business in the House of Commons chamber.
Category: Blog
Stephen Holden Bates (University of Birmingham) and Alison Sealey (Lancaster University) explore the relationship between changes in the proportion of female MPs in the House of Commons and changes in the frequency of representative claims about women specifically and constituency matters more broadly at PMQs.
Following reports that Rory Stewart, a former contender for the Conservative leadership was once a member of the Secret Intelligence Service, Andrew Defty of ParliLinc, discusses the history of spies in Parliament.
James Weinberg, University of Sheffield discusses his research into the psychology of members of the UK Parliament – and what it can tell us about the Conservative leadership race – in a blog originally posted by The Conversation.
Blerim Vela analyses the recent European Commission 2019 annual country reports for the Western Balkans counties, and what the report reveals for the national parliaments in the region.
Lobbying for access to parliamentary and media debates potentially allows organisations to represent the interests of their members and exert political influence. Wiebke Marie Junk looks at which types of interest groups are favoured when it comes to lobbying access in the United Kingdom and Germany. She finds that access to the legislature is higher for ‘umbrella’ organisations that unite many member groups, while representing a higher number of individual people does not seem to matter.
Ernest Plange Kwofie explores the performativity of “vetting” hearings in the Ghanian Parliament.
There has for some time been an apparent consensus in parliament and government that the House of Lords has too many members, yet recent efforts to effect reform have made little progress. David Beamish explains how an apparent change of government position and the parliamentary tactics of a determined minority have slowed the pace of change.
Franklin De Vrieze discusses a recent expert seminar on post-legislative scrutiny, organised by the University of Hull and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy.
It is two years since the Intelligence and Security Committee published its report into UK lethal drone strikes in Syria. Despite a commitment to ‘respond substantively to any report by the ISC within 60 days’ the government has yet to produce a detailed reply to this report. Andrew Defty examines the government’s record in responding to ISC reports and the changing nature of its commitment to doing so. This blog was originally posted on Democratic Audit and is reposted with permission.