Jack Sheldon and Hedydd Phylip discuss potential improvements to interparliamentary relations among the UK’s four legislatures, in the first blog from our Parliaments: Coming of Age? conference.
Tag: Scottish Parliament
As the Brexit chaos continues, Professor Margaret Arnott discusses the constitutional issues it has posed for inter-parliamentary relations in the UK.
For more than half a century (1921-72), the existence of a devolved parliament in Northern Ireland created a contradiction at the heart of Unionist thought: while proponents of ‘the Union’ championed legislative autonomy in one part of the United Kingdom (Northern Ireland), they simultaneously denigrated moves towards devolution in Scotland and Wales on the basis that it might constitute a ‘slippery slope’ towards full ‘separation’. In a new blog from our Making Sense of Parliaments conference Dr David Torrance sheds light on a neglected aspect of broader debates about parliamentary devolution in the UK.
How can we judge success or failure in relation to e-petitions to Parliament? Dr Catherine Bochel discusses a framework for assessing e-petitions, drawn from research in the National Assembly for Wales and Scottish Parliament.
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.
The electoral system by which members of parliament are elected shapes how legislators perceive their roles. Furthermore, write David C.W. Parker and Caitlyn M. Richter, in the case of the Scottish Parliament, both the electoral system and the change implemented prior to the 2007 election, whereby candidate names were removed from party-list ballots, have an impact on how Members of the Scottish Parliament spend their time and resources.
In the latest blog from our Legislatures in Uncertain Times conference, Anouk Berthier (Scottish Parliament) and Hugh Bochel (University of Lincoln) discuss their research into the diversity of witnesses to committees in the Scottish Parliament.
In its early days, some considered the internet to be the silver bullet that could deal with the deficits of representative democracy. Others had been less optimistic vis-à-vis its potential to foster democracy. In a blog originally posted on LSE British Politics and Policy, Hartwig Pautz looks at whether the e-democracy tool WriteToThem allows for meaningful communication between citizens and their elected representatives.
The PSA Parliaments and Study of the Scottish Parliament Group co-hosted their annual conference Legislatures in Uncertain Times on Friday 17 November at Holyrood.
David Judge and Cristina Leston-Bandeira discuss the symbolic importance of parliamentary buildings, in a blog originally posted by the Crick Centre at the University of Sheffield.