Tag: parliaments

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Petition platforms must reach beyond the usual suspects

By Cristina Leston-Bandeira and Blagovesta Tacheva.

Petitions are a popular avenue for participating in politics, with a recent study finding that signing a petition is the dominant form of political engagement. Thanks to new parliamentary processes introduced in recent years, petitioning parliament has also become an effective way for the public to raise issues of concern to policymakers.

However, as illustrated in the figure below, current petitioners are overwhelmingly from already politically engaged groups, typically an older white public with high socio-economic status – the so-called “usual suspects”. Rather than expanding opportunities for democratic engagement, there is a risk that petitions to parliament are simply amplifying the voices of those who “already shout the loudest”.

Source: Research Retold

This problem is compounded by a lack of research on how people from disengaged groups perceive engagement and petitioning. In a new study, we addressed this issue by asking people from seldom-heard groups, such as those from a low socio-economic or ethnic minority background, for their perceptions about petitioning. Our aim was to identify the barriers and enablers to engagement faced by groups beyond the usual suspects.

To do so, we organised focus groups with petitioners and non-petitioners, including people from seldom-heard groups. This was supplemented by interviews with parliamentary officials and representatives from community organisations. This research allowed us to identify six core findings.

1. Deep mistrust

Unsurprisingly, our research unveiled deep mistrust of politics – as illustrated in the figure below, which shows participants’ views when asked what politics would be if it were an animal.

Source: Nifty Fox

There was a particularly acute disconnect from the political system among seldom-heard groups. Although everyone who took part in the research identified core issues they felt strongly about, they did not see these issues as being related to politics.

Participants held such negative perceptions that positive experiences with politicians did not alter these perceptions. This affected participants’ willingness to engage in politics and petitioning. As a result, they did not view politics as a route for addressing core issues affecting them. Participants felt politics was not for them, despite expressing interest in it.

Our research showed that engagement with politics or political processes, such as petitioning, needs to be communicated through issues (examples, case studies, stories) as much as possible. This is what enables a connection between politics and citizens. We also found evidence that the deep well of distrust keeps people away from opportunities such as petitions.

2. A lack of awareness

Seldom-heard groups had limited knowledge or awareness of petitioning in general, including through platforms such as change.org. Very few were aware that they can petition their parliament. Those participants aware of petitioning were usually those who reported higher levels of political engagement overall. However, even the politically engaged non-petitioners were mostly unaware of petitions to their parliament, only knowing of websites such as change.org.

3. Obstacles to engagement

Seldom-heard groups are often affected by intersecting inequalities. These inequalities can exacerbate each other, making it extremely difficult for people within these groups to engage in politics. As illustrated in the figure below, seldom-heard groups can be affected by illiteracy, language barriers, low IT literacy, a lack of IT equipment, disability, poverty and isolation. These barriers can preclude them from engaging in formal politics.

Our research also identified specific barriers to political engagement and petitioning, such as limited knowledge about politics. This was a recurring theme throughout our research, with participants lacking basic knowledge about politics and the UK political system, such as an understanding of what parliament does and how it differs from the government

.Source: Research Retold

This was combined with a lack of key campaigning skills, as well as a lack of confidence, which can make the process of petitioning feel intimidating. These findings show why parliaments need to be more proactive in the way they disseminate and explain their petition systems if they wish to reach beyond the usual suspects.

4. Community organisations as mediators

Our research also showed the importance of community organisations working with seldom-heard groups as mediators when it comes to facilitating access. Community organisations have often built long-term relationships with these communities, they have direct access to them, they have a good understanding of their circumstances and challenges, and they have gained their trust. They could therefore play a role in helping to raise awareness of petitioning among these groups and even help them to start a petition, just as they help people access other services.

However, these types of organisations would not necessarily think of facilitating engagement with petitions, as they may themselves be unaware or unconvinced of their value. This was apparent in our interviews. Facilitating further involvement from these groups would also be challenging for community organisations due to a lack of capacity and resources.

Still, interviewees suggested that a buddy system in which engagement “champions” are identified could make this role easier. Following the “train the trainer” principle, these champions could be based in community organisations and trained to have a better understanding of petitioning and their potential role in supporting service users.

5. Managing expectations and guiding participation

Managing expectations was a recurring theme in our research. This is closely linked to the way parliaments’ e-petitions systems are communicated to the public. The language used to communicate with petitioners and explain the petitions process was often seen as unclear, with many asking for more plain language to be used.

Although petitioners were happy overall with their experience, a few found the process disjointed and unclear. These concerns were well summarised by one petitioner, who highlighted that clarity around the process and the language used to describe it is key for managing petitioners’ expectations: “You’ve got to have that clarity, otherwise people’s expectations go up here and they’re just going to be massively deflated by the end of it.”

The language used across all communication channels is essential to making the process more accessible beyond the usual suspects. This should be accompanied by the development of resources aimed at wider audiences, such as infographics, audiovisual material and “Easy Read” guides.

6. Collaboration with citizen-centred services

Finally, our research showed that petitioning processes cannot be considered solely through the actions of the officials directly involved. Other citizen-centred services, such as education, communication, outreach and participation services, play a key role.

However, links between these services and the staff responsible for petitions are not always well established. Petitions to parliament are considered to be parliamentary business, but they are also led by citizens. Supporting the petitions process therefore requires closer collaboration between those services that focus on enhancing the public’s understanding of parliament.

The need to be proactive

Overall, we found people have considerable interest in political issues and petitions, including those within seldom-heard groups. However, there is also deep mistrust within these groups, often coupled with a lack of knowledge, skills and confidence to engage with participatory tools such as petitions.

To expand the reach of petitions beyond the usual suspects, parliaments need to be proactive in reaching out to a wider audience. The mere fact a participatory tool exists does not mean it will be used by everyone. Our research underlines the importance of education and clear communication for enhancing the value of participatory tools.

This post was first published on the LSE British Politics and Policy blog.

About the authors

Cristina Leston-Bandeira is a Professor of Politics in the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds.

Blagovesta Tacheva is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds.

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The (worst) laws of the land: The concept of legislative basket cases in Central-Eastern Europe

By Miklós Sebők and Rebeka Kiss.

Is it possible to conceptualise the quality of legislation in a multidimensional manner? If yes, how can we define the laws which are of the lowest quality? This blog examines these conceptual and methodological issues by introducing a theory of legislative basket cases and offering illustrative case studies from Central-Eastern Europe.

How can we conceptualise legislative quality in a multidimensional manner?

One way to start the conceptualisation of legislative quality is to look at some examples which are universally (regardless of party affiliation) considered to be “bad” laws. An example, which we described in more detail in Sebők, Kiss and Kovács, 2023, that highlights the potential failures of the legislative process is the famous case of the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ in Alaska. The ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ narrative commenced in 1996 when municipal authorities in the city of Ketchikan endorsed a proposal to construct a bridge. This proposed infrastructure aimed to connect the sparsely populated Gravina Island to the Alaskan mainland. The justification for this bridge was vigorously debated, especially since a functional and inexpensive ferry service was already in place. Despite the availability of this service, the  bridge project secured initial federal backing under the ‘Transportation Equity Act of 1998’.

Eventually, the Gravina bridge became a notorious example of wasteful expenditure and dysfunctional legislation, particularly after a dramatic U-turn by Sarah Palin, who was campaigning for the governorship of Alaska at the time. Palin had initially displayed support for the project, only to pivot post-election as governor and ultimately dismissing the bridge in 2007 as an impractical solution. Extant scholarship often correlates such poor legislative practices with authoritarian and illiberal regimes. The case of the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’, however, demonstrates that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ laws are not a regime characteristic as the legislative process leading up to is passage unfolded in one of the longest-standing liberal democracies.

Conceptualising the quality of law-making and legislative basket cases

Although the problem of legislative quality has not generated a unified strand of research in political science and legal studies, various approaches to conceptualisation are available that we can build on:

Based on the literature cited, a ‘good’ law can be characterized by a clear, and publicly supported policy objective which was fleshed out in stakeholder consultations. It should be efficient, coherent, transparent, and relatively stable post-adoption. Essentially, a ‘good’ law meets high standards across four key dimensions of legislative quality: (1) public policy; (2)  formal–legal–constitutional; (3) procedural; and (4) stability.

Conversely, a legislative basket case signifies a major failure in law-making, marked by various deficiencies compromising its effectiveness and legitimacy. Such laws often miss their public policy goals, have unclear purposes, and may conflict with existing laws and constitutional principles. Their drafting often bypasses essential consultations and is rushed through the legislature without adequate justification, leading to a lack of consensus. Post-enactment, these laws are unstable, requiring frequent amendments. The absence of post-implementation evaluations and a failure to establish necessary enforcement conditions further diminish their effectiveness and enforceability. In essence, a law can be considered to be a legislative basket case if it is flawed across a wide-ranging of indicators of legislative quality.

Building on our previous research, which delves into the concept and measurement of legislative backsliding (Sebők, Kiss and Kovács, 2023), in the manuscript serving as the basis of this blog entry, we aim to identify legislative basket cases by employing a multidimensional framework for assessing legislative quality considering content, public process, legal formalities, and constitutional considerations. We examine the quality criteria listed in Table 1 for each law under consideration.

An empirical case study: The Polish Law on Forests

In our presentation at PSA Parliaments Conference 2023, we examined illustrative cases from the Czech, Hungarian, Polish, and Slovak legislation in detail. Here, we focus on the Polish Law on Forests (Act on Forests of 16 December 2016, known as “Ustawa o lasach”) and evaluate it from the perspective of our theory of legislative quality. This piece of legislation was at the centre of a significant legal controversy due to its provisions allowing land clearing and excessive cutting down of trees, which was claimed by its detractors to be in violation of European Union conservation laws. The initial goals of the law were to enhance the rights of property owners regarding tree and shrub growth, simplify regulations on felling trees, and delegate to local governments the ability to adjust greenery protection levels to their needs. The law aimed to introduce a stable solution under the oversight of the Minister for the Environment, who was expected to ensure environmental balance and prevent selective application of provisions (Radecka, 2018).

However, the law’s implementation led to a scandal involving the Minister of Climate and Environment, who approved a logging plan that sparked widespread criticism. The law’s enforceability was complicated by the fact that the area in question—Białowieża forest—is part of the Natura 2000 network and UNESCO World Heritage sites, which is subject to stringent protection standards. The European Commission consistently and formally called on Poland to avoid extensive logging in the primeval forest, which Poland’s government initially ignored and proceeded with the logging activities.

The law faced challenges regarding its constitutionality and compliance with EU law, whereby the Polish government defended its policies by asserting that national legislation mandated sustainable forest management, implying that its tree-cutting practices were environmentally friendly. However, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) sided with the European Commission, ruling that Poland’s policy contravened the EU’s nature conservation rules (C-432/21). Notably, this was not the first instance of Poland facing legal action over forest management. In 2018, CJEU had already ruled that Poland should halt tree-cutting in the protected Białowieża forest (C-441/17). Due to a ruling in 2023 (C-432/21), Poland was required to revise its national legislation to align its forest management plans with EU biodiversity conservation laws.

The procedural aspects of the law’s enactment were also criticised, as it was adopted hastily, without sufficient preparation, stakeholder consultation, and proper public deliberation. The parliamentary debate was conducted in a fast-track manner, raising concerns about the law’s rushed adoption and potential violation of EU directives— this was later confirmed by the judgments mentioned above. Overall, the Forest Law ticks most boxes related to poor legislative quality and, therefore, constitutes an example of a legislative basket case.

As we showed in our presentation at PSA Parliaments 2023 this case is not unique, and similar multidimensional deficiencies can be observed in relation to many other laws passed in the Central-Eastern European region. Notable such examples include the Czech taxation of church restitution (Act No. 125/2019 Coll.), the Hungarian Medical Chamber Law (Act I of 2023) or the Slovak Land Acquisition Law (Act No. 140/2014 Coll.). Avenues for future research include developing methods to measure and quantify individual quality criteria in a multilingual  research design and to assess the causes and consequences of passing legislative basket cases.

About the authors

Miklós Sebők is a Research Professor at HUN-REN Centre of Social Sciences and poltextLAB (poltextlab.com). He serves as the research director of the Hungarian Comparative Agendas Project, and as principal investigator of the V-SHIFT Momentum research project, funded by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His research in legislative studies includes co-authored contributions such as “The Concept and Measurement of Legislative Backsliding” in Parliamentary Affairs, “Measuring legislative stability – A new approach with data from Hungary”, in European Political Science, and “Comparative European legislative research in the age of large-scale computational text analysis: A review article” in International Political Science Review.

Rebeka Kiss is a Junior Research Fellow at the HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences and a PhD student at the Doctoral School of Public Administration Sciences of the University of Public Service, specialising in legislative studies. Her contributions to the field include co-authored works such as “The Concept and Measurement of Legislative Backsliding” in Parliamentary Affairs and “The Transparency of Constitutional Reasoning: A Text Mining Analysis of the Hungarian Constitutional Court’s Jurisprudence” published in Studia Iuridica Lublinensia. She has participated in various research projects including as the Hungarian Comparative Agendas Project, the V-SHIFT Momentum research project, and the OPTED – Observatory for Political Texts in European Democracies. 

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Obstruction, Alternation, and Amendments: Evidence from Israel

By Tal Elovits.

Obstruction in parliament dates back to the eighteenth century when legislatures became more diverse and democratic. Parliamentary obstruction is a deliberate strategy used within legislative bodies to delay or prevent legislation from being passed. A minority or individual legislators commonly use it to oppose the majority will. While conscious obstruction can be a strategic tool within a democratic system, its misuse can jeopardize the democratic principles that it means to protect. It can potentially reduce legislative power while increasing executive power, putting the democratic principle of broad representation at risk. If an obstruction is used excessively, it can endanger the proper functioning of legislative bodies, possibly threatening the future of parliamentary government. As a result, extreme caution is essential while employing obstruction techniques (Bell, 2018; Rutherford, 1914).

Previous study points out that obstruction using legislative instruments may be connected to government alternation. According to Zucchini (2011), who used the Italian case study to explore the relationship, the opposition is likelier to use delay tactics following an alternation government, and the more the opposition is ideologically cohesive, the greater the chance they will use obstruction tactics. In this study, I wish to explore the relationship between alternation and legislative obstruction in Israel following the alternation government of 2021 and specifically ask how the alternation affected the amendment’s introduction in the Israeli Knesset. Furthermore, when were amendments used more strategically? The use of amendments in the legislative process will measure legislative obstruction, and this study will be the first to analyze amendments in the Israeli parliament.

As a part of the legislative process, amendment is an instrument that allows parliament members to suggest changes to a bill under deliberation, usually by a committee. In the same way that private members have the right to introduce private member bills, private members may propose changes to a bill. Typically, amendments introduced by individual members of parliament (MPs) are voted on before the final vote of the plenum (Behrens et al., 2023; Mattson, 1995; Palau et al., 2023). Although a form of amendment as a parliamentary instrument can be found in many legislatures, they differ greatly in their restrictions, stage of voting, and deliberation time assigned to a bill considered in the final vote (Strøm, 1995).

The Israeli parliament posits an interesting and vibrant arena to study the possible effects of government alternation. In 2021, what is known as the “right bloc,” led by long-serving PM Benjamin Netanyahu, lost its governmental positions, and Israel had for a year an alternation government for the first time in 15 years. As illustrated in Figure 1, this special circumstance allows us to question and study the possible effects of government alternation in Israel and to provide further empirical evidence for the study of legislative behavior. We set two hypotheses for our study. H1 – Government alternation increases amendment introduction. H2 – Narrow ideological differences between opposition parties foster strategic cooperation.

Figure 1 – Israel political parties 2015-2022 with their coalition status

In Israel, amendments are the only tool allowing parliament members to gain debate time at the committee and the plenary. Each amendment allows a 5-minute speech for each sponsor, which can be multiplied, sometimes reaching hundreds of debate hours on a single bill (Akirav et al., 2010). Therefore, when studying legislative obstruction in Israel, using parliament members in amendments becomes a vital measurement.

Although amendments have been in use in the Israeli parliament since its first day, no data is available for analysis, and retrieving this requires manual analysis of bills in their final wording. This study covers 2015-2022, 3 legislative terms – the 20th, 23rd, and 24th and three different governments, as seen in Figure 1. In the study period, 791 non-budgetary bills have reached the final wording stage. Amendments data was collected manually regarding each bill. Further data, such as the legislative committee, bill category, type of legislation, and when the bill was introduced, were mined from the Knesset Odata API service. In total, 24,001 amendments were gathered. Figure 2 shows the share of bills with amendments by legislative term and yearly quarter. Even without any further statistical analysis, one can notice the different pattern that the 24th term presents.

Figure 2 – Share of bills with amendments 2015–2022

The data gathered was also statistically manipulated to uncover possible mechanisms explaining this change in using amendments. I have constructed two dependent variables: Amendments – dummy, where one is when a bill is introduced with amendment(s), and Strategic – dummy, where one is when amendments are introduced by half or more of the effective number of opposition members. The study hypothesis was tested using statistical Probit regression in Stata in two models —the first tested alternation as an independent variable, and the second focused on the Knesset term as an independent variable. Table 1 presents the results of the two models. Further marginal analysis was done following the first model to uncover the probability of a bill being introduced with amendments under an alternate government. The results, illustrated in Figure 3, show that while under continuous government, the probability for a bill to be introduced with the amendment is 26.4%, under alternation government, the probability rises to 70.8%, supporting the first hypothesis.

Table 1 – Probit model results for amendments and strategic (1)

Figure 3 – Margin analysis following first model probit regression

The result of the second model supports this study’s second hypothesis. As the opposition becomes cohesive, they will increase their cooperation, acting more strategically, providing additional evidence for earlier theoretical and empirical studies suggesting that when ideological distance is small, they are more likely to coordinate in the parliamentary arena (Dewan & Spirling, 2011; Kaiser, 2008; Whitaker & Martin, 2022).

Our analysis also suggests that the use of amendment is related to the legislative term cycle, where both the first month of the new government and the period following parliament dissolution appear to have an effect with a slightly significant positive coefficient and a highly significant negative coefficient, in accordance. At the beginning of a new government, regardless of the alternation status, the probability that a bill will introduced with amendment increases, and this probability drops significantly following parliament dissolution. We found no significant effect on the bill’s content or the committee it deliberated in.

This study’s findings open a wide window into how parliamentarian obstruction may look in Israel and shed light on the use of amendments in the Knesset. Alternation fuels opposition resistance. In Israel, this resistance manifested through the use of amendments. However, one must be aware that with obstructing comes anti-obstruction measures by the majority of parliament. This tit-for-tat escalation into a pattern of obstruction and retaliation can poison the spirit of mutual respect between parties. Partisan mistrust and even demonization replace good faith assumptions of sincerity and reasonableness. Thus, while limited obstruction may sometimes be justified, oppositions must also weigh the risks of it becoming entrenched in political culture. When this balance is disrupted, and the opposition resorts to obstructionist tactics without a clear strategy or purpose, it can weaken the legislature and, by extension, lead to democratic backsliding.

This study sheds light on the important role that amendments play in the hands of Knesset opposition members as a significant instrument in filling the gap in the existing scholarship. Furthermore, this study provides important empirical evidence for the use of legislative instruments by opposition parties, especially in the light of government alternation. Future studies, expanding this study period, might allow us to uncover additional patterns of the use of amendments in Israel’s busy parliament.

This short blog post is part of the author’s PhD project, “The Knesset: A Busy Parliaments in the 2020s”.

About the author

Tal Elovits is a PhD fellow at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy. Former faction director in the Israeli parliament. tal.elovits@unimi.it ORCID: 0000- 0003-2681-1445

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Multilevel blame and credit games: How is the European Union held responsible for economic crises?

Agni Poullikka* examines the factors affecting how Members of Parliament (MPs) in Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU) engage in responsibility management for recent economic crises, focusing on the Eurozone crisis and the economic consequences of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Drawing on the theoretical framework of blame and credit strategies, the author combines quantitative text analysis tools with hand coding to derive insights about attribution of responsibility to the EU.

Why should we care about this?

As a result of policy responses to recent crises, the scope and depth of policymaking at the EU level is increasing. Given the EU’s multilevel governance structure, responsibility for significant policy areas is fractured across different levels of governance and multiple institutions, with some of them being unelected. For instance, both national governments and the European Central Bank (ECB) are responsible for economic policymaking for Eurozone member countries. This can be problematic for the representative model of democracy, which posits that voters should be able to discern who are the decision-makers and then hold them accountable at the ballot box. Instead, the EU’s institutional complexity blurs the clarity of responsibility and creates incentives for elected actors, such as MPs, to obfuscate responsibility in relation to adverse situations. This is the research focus of this paper, which explores the factors affecting how MPs attribute responsibility to the EU for two recent economic crises; the Eurozone crisis (2008-2016) and the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022). 

What is responsibility management?

To address this question, this paper focuses on a specific type of political communication, namely strategic communication to engage in responsibility management. The umbrella term ‘responsibility management’ captures presentational behaviours that correspond to either a blame or a credit strategy. A blame strategy is the act of attributing responsibility for something considered bad to some person or entity, whilst a credit strategy is the act of accepting responsibility for something bad and attempting to present it in a positive light by turning blame into credit (Hood, 2011). 

I use this framework to inform my theoretical model, with the aim of deriving hypotheses about how institutional and preference-based factors affect the responsibility management of MPs and I aggregate the analysis to the party level. The underlying assumption is that when communicating about a negative situation, such as an economic crisis, MPs have a strategic motivation to maximise their gains at the next election. In other words, the way in which they attribute responsibility for the crisis is fuelled by their electoral incentives. These incentives can vary depending on a number of factors. This paper focuses on two. On the one hand, there are institutional factors such as Eurozone membership and whether there is a coalition or single-party government. 

On the other hand, preference-based factors include a party’s political ideology, its predisposition towards the EU and whether it is in government or in opposition. Considering a preference-based factor, the paper expects that government parties engage in more credit strategies compared to opposition parties, regardless of their predisposition towards the EU. One explanation for this could be that even if a government party were Eurosceptic, it would still be interested in portraying the EU in a positive light because the government is involved in decision-making at the EU level through its role at the European Council. 

How can we analyse responsibility management?

Given the theoretical focus on the political communication of MPs, the paper analyses textual data. The textual data consist of plenary session minutes of national parliaments in EU MS. For the Eurozone crisis, the countries covered are the following: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Spain and the United Kingdom (UK). Given that the UK was an EU MS during the Eurozone crisis, it is included in the analysis. For the COVID-19 crisis, the countries are Belgium, Czech Republic, Spain, Denmark and Netherlands. This country selection allows for cross-national as well as cross-temporal comparisons between the two crises.

The methodological approach combines quantitative text analysis tools with hand coding. First, a subset of the data is created for one country, which includes only the time period of each crisis. Second, a dictionary of crisis-related terms is created and applied in order to select only the speeches that discuss the economic crisis. Third, the application of a regular expression dictionary of EU related terms selects sentences that refer to the EU (Rauh, 2015; Rauh and de Wilde, 2014; Hunter 2021). These sentences are more likely to include a responsibility attribution towards the EU. Fourth, a sentiment analysis is run, which can identify whether a sentence includes a blame (negative sentiment), or a credit strategy (positive sentiment). Fifth, hand coding is deployed to understand towards whom the negative or positive sentiment is directed. If that actor is EU-related, then the sentence is coded as an instance of blame or credit depending on the sentiment. This analysis is completed for all the countries in the dataset. Considered in tandem, the findings will explain how MPs assign responsibility to the EU and how institutional and preference-based factors affect this.

What are some findings about responsibility management?

To bring the discussion to life, Figures 1-3 present descriptive analyses about the responsibility management of the three main UK parties. The proportions correspond to the proportion of statements that were either a blame or a credit strategy directed towards the EU or towards the EU and other actors, out of the total statements that correspond to responsibility management. Whilst Labour was in government before 2010, the Conservatives were elected in power in 2010 and formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats until 2015. After winning the 2015 elections, the Conservatives formed a single-party government.

Figure1 reveals the findings for Labour, a left-wing party with favourable predisposition towards the EU. When the Labour party was in government, their communication strategies were characterised by credit, whereas when they were in opposition they switched to more blame strategies. This could indicate that the government-opposition dynamic supersedes their affinity towards the EU. In other words, parties that support the EU might still opt for blame strategies in an attempt to scapegoat the EU and the incumbent government, thereby increasing their chances at the ballot box in the next election. 

Figure 1: Labour responsibility management (2008-2016)

Figure 2 demonstrates that overall the Conservatives, a right-wing party with Eurosceptic tendencies gave more blame rather than credit to the EU. Nevertheless, after coming to power in 2010, they increased their credit towards the EU compared to earlier years. This could confirm the expectation that when parties are in government they are more likely to credit the EU, regardless of their predisposition towards it. Lastly, Figure 3 looks at the Liberal Democrats, a liberal Europhile party. After becoming part of the governing coalition in 2010, they adopted an approach of neither blaming nor crediting the EU, as evidenced by the low values in Figure 3. This could be interpreted as an attempt of blame avoidance as they distance themselves from the topic and avoid discussing it in an emotive way. This strategy would enable them to neither compromise their preference towards the EU nor disappoint their coalition partners. 

Figure 2: Conservatives responsibility management (2008-2016)
Figure 3: Liberal Democrats responsibility management (2008-2016)

Concluding remarks 

This paper seeks to examine responsibility management for economic crises in the EU. The preliminary findings from the UK lend some support to the argument that parties blame and credit the EU with strategic considerations derived from institutional and preference-based factors in mind. The paper will proceed to explore these trends for other EU MS, with the aim of forming a comprehensive understanding of how MPs attribute responsibility to the EU for economic crises. In so doing, it can contribute to debates on the EU’s democratic accountability in policymaking and academic circles.

*Agni is a PhD Researcher at the Department of International Politics at City, University of London. Her research spans several topics in European political economy, focusing on economic crises and political communication. This blog post is based on a paper delivered at the PSA Parliaments Conference 2022.

References

Hood, C. (2011). The Blame Game: Spin, Bureaucracy and Self-preservation in Government. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Hunter, T. (2021). Home Style: Governments, Parties, and the Domestic Presentation of European Integration. PhD Dissertation for the London School of Economics European Institute.

Rauh, C. and De Wilde, P. (2018). The Opposition Deficit in EU Accountability: Evidence from over 20 Years of Plenary Debate in Four Member States. European Journal of Political Research, 57(01), 194-216.

Rauh, C. (2015). Communicating Supranational Governance? The Salience of EU Affairs in the German Bundestag, 1991–2013. European Union Politics, 16(01), 116–138.

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Keeping an eye on the money we don’t have. Parliament’s oversight role on public debt 

Always be prepared for the next crisis. It seems that public debt spiraling out of control is on track to becoming the next global crisis.

Did you know that twenty-five of the poorest countries currently spend more on debt repayments than on education, health and social policy combined? Sixty percent of low- and middle-income developing countries are highly debt vulnerable. Public debt is currently at the highest level globally in over fifty years and triple its 2008 level. National economies might collapse, as we have seen recently in Sri Lanka. 

The origins of this situation are, among others, the COVID-19 crisis and its economic and financial impact, and debt management practices which might not have been very prudent.

But it is not all doom and gloom. There are ways to conduct public debt management in a responsible and accountable way. While public debt has traditionally been managed by the Ministry of Finance and executive agencies, there is increasing recognition of the unique roles for parliament in the governance of public debt. The role of parliaments is to ask questions, to scrutinize, to provide quality assurance of the process, and to ask what the priorities are. Parliaments are increasingly taking on this challenge, as we have seen in – for instance – Kenya, Zambia, Georgia, the Maldives, and the Caribbean.

In its submission to the UK House of Common’s International Development Committee’s inquiry, Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) suggested that the UK’s international development policies can be strengthened by including a public debt accountability lens through an enhanced role for parliaments in oversight of public debt. There are six incentives as to why national parliaments in partner countries can play a more active legislative and oversight role with regards to public debt:

  1. It serves as a catalyst for greater debt transparency.
  2. It helps to establish and implement a stronger legal framework on public debt management.
  3. It strengthens oversight over government policies and spending.
  4. It protects the national interest in emergency contexts and highlights the gendered effects of public debt.
  5. It unearths the risks of State-Owned Enterprises becoming a major cause of debt accumulation and debt crises.
  6. It contributes to deliver the requirements of successful Nature-for-Debt swaps, hence contributing to action on climate change mitigation and adaptation, for which these countries are otherwise receiving insufficient multilateral support, and to climate change finance accountability.

These six arguments for parliamentary involvement in public debt management should incentivise the UK and others making parliamentary oversight on public debt management one of the criteria for their debt relief schemes. Strengthening the governance and domestic accountability in debt relief schemes will contribute to prudent debt management and more sustainable economies.

However, based on our interaction with a range of parliaments globally, there are three main challenges. Firstly, parliaments might struggle with the technical nature of public debt questions. MPs and parliamentary staff might feel weary and intimidated about the complexity of the subject matter. Secondly, parliaments often do not have access to the relevant data to exercise oversight on public debt as the documentation is not shared by the executive. Fortypercent of low-income developing countries have never published public debt data or have not updated information in the past couple of years, and lenders such as China apply strict nondisclosure clauses. So, there is a need to bridge the information disconnect between the executive and the legislature. Thirdly, private sector lending has increased sharply in recent years, accounting for nearly 20% of loans to east and southern Africa. Often sold on to other private companies, including hedge funds and vulture funds, private lending is notoriously opaque as revealed by scandals in countries ranging from Mozambique to Malaysia.

To assist parliaments in facing these challenges, WFD is rolling out targeted support to parliaments through pilot assessments in public debt oversight, tailor-made learning and knowledge building, and parliamentary assistance programmes. Together with the National Democratic Institute (NDI), WFD recently published four new policy briefs. The briefs explain that, while most countries do have a financial administration act, far fewer countries have specific public debt legislation in place. Setting a legal framework for public debt management is one of parliament’s key tasks. The briefs outline best practices in the implementation and monitoring of a legal debt framework and the ratification of loan agreements. Beyond parliament’s legislative role, the briefs also cover parliament’s oversight role of public debt, and oversight over public debt in emergency contexts. The way how public debt was managed during the COVID-19 crisis has informed the brief on emergency context, though it is applicable to other potential future emergencies as well.

In addition, WFD developed a baseline assessment methodology on parliaments and public debt oversight and an e-course for parliamentarians, parliamentary staff, civil society and those engaged in public financial management. The e-course explores the concepts, mechanisms and risks which impact public debt management, and brings together expert contributors, country examples and interactive exercises.

In conclusion, it is worth mentioning that parliament’s capacity to oversee public debt management is very much linked to the depth of parliamentary scrutiny throughout the budget cycle, the resources available to committees, parliament’s oversight practices in general, and its ability to work collaboratively with civil society to enhance the political space to upscale transparency. 

Solid and accountable public debt management is not only the task of the government borrowing money. It is also a responsibility of the lenders — lending countries and lending international institutions — to ensure due diligence of the viability of the economic projects and of the rationale underpinning borrowing requests. Hence, the current initiative of revitalizing the UNCTAD principles on the promotion of sovereign lending and borrowing cannot be timelier and will hopefully contribute to avoiding a next global crisis of public debt spiraling out of control.

Franklin De Vrieze,
Head of Practice Accountability, Westminster Foundation for Democracy.

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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.

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Trust, parliaments, and stability

In a new post based on a paper from our Making Sense of Parliaments conference, Aileen Walker, Associate at Global Partners Governance, discusses how to build public trust in parliaments.

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Presidential proxies: Cloaked law-making in contemporary Russia

Why is the Russian President using senators to introduce bills into the federal legislature? PSA Parliaments Group member Ben Noble discusses the relationship between the Kremlin and the Federal Assembly in a blog originally posted on Presidential Power.

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What Makes Parliaments Effective? The case of the States of Jersey

By Mark Egan

What makes a parliament effective? What are the factors which make parliaments better at making laws or representing the people? These issues were discussed during the PSA Parliaments and Legislatures annual conference in October 2016. I spoke from the perspective of a parliamentary practitioner with experience of the UK and Jersey about the additional challenges faced by small parliamentary bodies in achieving the Holy Grail of effectiveness.

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One-Day Conference: “Making Parliaments Work: What Makes For an Effective Parliament?”

Politicians, the public, think-tanks, journalists and academics alike have increasingly focused in recent times on how parliaments and legislatures work and how to make them work better in terms of policy-making, representation, scrutiny and accountability. Yet, despite this focus, the evidence base for making judgments about the effectiveness of parliaments and legislatures is arguably not as extensive as it could be, perhaps partly because of methodological difficulties in assessing the influence, impact and power of these institutions.

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