Scotland and Wales’ devolved political institutions, elected under proportional Additional Member electoral systems, were intended to produce a more consensual political culture. However, writes Felicity Matthews, although their electoral rules have increased the proportionality of representation, the structures of the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales have meant that a more consensual approach to policy-making has been more limited than might have been expected.
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What is a good ethnography of Parliament?
By Emma Crewe
Ethnography is a methodological and theoretical approach to studying social worlds. Doing ethnography does not require particular research techniques but is a process of prolonged engagement with a group of people to find out how they act, think, talk and relate to each other. Ethnographers’ understanding of subjectivity is distinct from positivistic approaches; rather than attempting to remove their influence on the research findings, they make this part of their research. Such reflexivity entails turning back on oneself, reflecting on how you are thinking and on how the social interaction between ethnographer and informant impacts on perception and interpretation.