Interests groups in Parliament: Exploring MPs’ interest affiliations (2000‐2011)

This research note presents an innovative dataset of Swiss MPs’ interest ties between 2000‐2011. The longitudinal analysis shows that the average number of interest ties per MP has more than doubled: from 3.5 in 2000 to 7.6 in 2011. Since the mid‐2000s, public interest groups have accounted for approximately one out of two ties between MPs and interest groups, showing the strongest increase during the period. However, when looking at the most present individual groups, important business groups dominate and appear well connected with the governmental parties of the political right. Finally, interest groups are also able to forge themselves a strategic presence within the parliamentary committees that are the most relevant for their policy issues. Next research steps include the assessment of the (un)biased access of interest groups to the parliamentary venue and their policy influence.     

Institutional Foundations of Legislative Turnover: A Comparative Analysis of the Swiss Cantons

Abstract: The rate of turnover within parliaments remains an understudied area of research. The present paper contributes to filling this gap by presenting the first comparable macro‐level data on legislative turnover in the 26 Swiss cantonal legislatures. In examining the strikingly different levels of turnover in sub‐national Swiss parliaments between 1993 and 2011, the focus is on politico‐institutional features. Multilevel models reveal that two hitherto neglected institutional variables are correlated with legislative turnover. In addition to the reduction of parliamentary size, we find the strength of a cantonal parliament to affect turnover rates on the Swiss sub‐national level. Moreover, we show that proportional representation significantly promotes parliamentary elite circulation. Among the non‐institutional covariates, we find that electoral volatility is also relevant in explaining legislative turnover rates.     

Political or Financial Benefits? Ideology,Tenure, and Parliamentarians’ Choice of Interest Group Ties

This article develops and tests a parliamentarian‐centred decision model of the collaboration between interest groups (IGs) and parliamentarians. We posit that parliamentarians face a trade‐off when deciding on IG ties that offer them either political (policy support and votes) or financial benefits (additional income). We theorise the balance in this trade‐off to be moderated by ideology and tenure because both introduce variations in IG ties’ utility across politicians. Using Swiss longitudinal data from 1985 to 2015 on 743 parliamentarians and their 5,431 IG board positions, we show that parliamentarians become more financial benefit‐seeking over time. This holds in particular if they belong to right‐leaning parties. We also find self‐imposed restrictions for new and left‐leaning parliamentarians on seeking financial benefits. This highlights that parliamentarians are responsive to their partisan constituents when building their IG tie portfolio.     

Deliberative Capacity in the Political and Civic Sphere

In an evolving deliberative system, a crucial question is how deliberation of ordinary citizens differs from that of professional politicians. This study compares the deliberative capacity of citizens and political elites on exactly the same issue, namely a direct democratic initiative in Switzerland on the expulsion of criminal immigrants. In concrete, I perform a quantitative content analysis of the quality of citizen deliberation in an online poll and compare this to the quality of deliberation in representative politics, namely in the non‐public committee and public floor debates in the Swiss parliament. The findings show that political elites reach much higher levels of justification rationality than ordinary citizens, but achieve lower levels in terms of respect. I conclude that citizen deliberation, while useful as an advisory tool, cannot replace serious deliberative scrutiny in representative politics.     

Parliament on “the Wireless” in Australia

Australia's parliament allowed the radio broadcast of proceedings in 1946, a decade after New Zealand, but well before the “Mother of all Parliaments” in 1978. In keeping with Australia's reputation as a pioneering democracy, early interest in broadcasting parliamentary debates can be traced to the 1920s. In the formative years of “wireless” it was imagined radio might close the gap between parliaments and the public. Proceedings of the New South Wales parliament were actually broadcast for several weeks during 1932 (and before the New Zealand parliament institutionalised this practice). Tasmania experimented with parliamentary broadcasting in 1934. Australia's embrace of parliamentary broadcasting in 1946 was less carefully planned than has been suggested. It was an opportunistic, caucus‐initiated Chifley government measure driven by a long‐held ALP concern about newspaper bias. It was however generally justified as reform to bring the people to their Parliament and, remarkably, did have bipartisan support.     

Women in the House (of Parliament) in Fiji: What’s Gender Got to Do with It?

Abstract

Women in Fiji have made steady, albeit slow, progress in terms of parliamentary representation, with women now holding 14% of seats in the lower house of parliament. Some of the progress has occurred as a result of improvements associated with increased socio-economic development, such as education, female employment and incremental changes in women’s standing in Fiji society. Much of this change, however, has been due to women’s movements and civil society activism becoming more astute to concerns of gender equality and lobbying for women’s political participation. In a country that witnessed four political coups, women have had to create their own path into the public sphere. Despite progress, with an increasing number of women in the 2014 parliament, patriarchy is still a major force hindering women’s political advancement in Fiji. This paper argues that a combination of cultural stereotyping and persistent gendered norms contribute to masculinisation of the political realm and eulogise women’s role in the private sphere. But gender intersecting with ethnicity, age and class create differential levels of political agency for different groups of women in Fiji.     

Les comites permanents de l'assemblee nationale constituante française mai 1848 — mai 1849

Summary

For most of this century the history of the Elizabethan and Jacobean parliaments was dominated by the interpretations of Sir John Neale and Wallace Notestein. They argued that the major feature of these parliaments was the emergence of an organized opposition which contributed greatly to the constitutional development of England through their conflicts with the monarchy. This view has recently been challenged by a number of historians who stress parliament's role as a legislative body, arguing that there was a high degree of co‐operation and agreement, and that there was no organized opposition.

This paper suggests that these two alternative models — political arena/ conflict and legislative body/co‐operation — are overstated and that a better model is to consider parliament as an arena in which different ‘interest groups’, ‘factions’ or ‘lobbies’ operated. It investigates a number of lobbies which are discernible from parliamentary, state and local archives and concludes that such a model enables us to return the organized puritan opposition to the history of these parliaments without their becoming the dominant feature. It allows for the interpretation that the primary function of parliament was legislative, and that this was achieved through co‐operation and consensus, while not under‐estimating the conflicts that legislation could provoke.     

The opposition Pakatan Rakyat in the twelfth Malaysian parliament, 2008–12, and parliamentary behaviour on the budget process

In the post-2008 Malaysian general election, the opposition political parties the Parti KeADILan Rakyat, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party and the Democratic Action Party started to gain currency, especially when the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) government was denied its two-thirds of the majority in parliament. The 2008 result indicated that there was a substantial shift in support from the incumbent BN to the opposition parties. The opposition later on was formed into a coalition known as Pakatan Rakyat (PR). The minor victory of the PR in the 2008 election suggested that it had secured a considerable number of seats in the twelfth Malaysian parliament. This article argues that the 2008 electoral outcome exhibited substantial competitive parliamentary behaviour despite the authoritarian nature of Malaysia. The article examines PR behaviour in the twelfth parliament with reference to the budget process. Besides elections, the Malaysian parliament is a very crucial indicator of the development of democratic governance in Malaysia. This article argues that the opposition PR is still relevant in the way in which it has fully exercised its legal parliamentary capability, especially its de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim, in questioning and posing constraints on the ruling BN policies concerning the budget process.     

Volk oder Parlament: Wer entscheidet nachhaltiger? Eine vergleichende Untersuchung von Nachhaltigkeitsabstimmungen in der Schweiz

Based on the example of Swiss semi‐direct democracy, this article addresses the question to what extend Swiss voters and the Swiss parliament tends to vote in favor of inter‐ and intra‐generational sustainable issues. The comparative empirical analysis of 109 relevant sustainability‐related proposals, which were presented to both Swiss voters and Swiss National Council during the years 1980 to 2014, reveals three main findings. First, Swiss voters as well as Swiss National Council voted – contrary to theoretical expectations – in most of the cases in favor of sustainability. Second, in comparison to Swiss voters, Swiss parliament displayed a higher willingness to vote accordingly to sustainable issues. Third, particularly with regard to votes about intra‐generational sustainable issues – especially about the rights of out‐groups such as foreigners and asylum seekers – Swiss parliament voted more likely in favor of sustainability than Swiss voters. On the part of Swiss voters a closer investigation of recent ballots on sustainability, taking cantonal difference into account, also draws attention to the impact of the economic capacity and the age structure of the canton of residence.     

Populist Communication and Publicity: An Empirical Study of Contextual Differences in Switzerland

Abstract: This study analyzes the context‐dependency of populist communication and asks whether there are variations in populist communication for representatives of different kinds of parties. In contrast to previous research on European populism, which mostly considers only the right‐wing, this study includes the entire scope of political parties; thus allowing for the possibility of the diffusion of populism in contemporary politics. The empirical contribution is a multilevel analysis of speeches in non‐public and public forums (closed parliamentary committees, open parliamentary floors, and the talk show ‘Arena’) on immigration and asylum amendments in Switzerland. A so‐called populist party, the Swiss People’s Party, played a significant role in drafting the legislation. Analysis reveals that a) different public settings influence populist communication differently; b) a non‐populist party, the Christian‐democrats, employs more populist communication on average than any other party and its populism is employed more consistently across contexts than that of the Swiss People’s Party; c) but when speaking in media forms, the Swiss People’s Party employs substantially more populist communication than any other party. Thus, the type of public forum does not uniformly contribute to higher levels of populist communication, but rather the effect of forum type varies substantially by party.     

Die parlamentarische Vertretung von ethnischen Minderheiten und das österreichische Verfassungsrecht

SUMMARY

The representation of ethnic minorities has remained an issue in the parliament of the Austrian Republic at the end of the twentieth century, just as it had been in that half of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy a century earlier. However, in modern Austria theoretical discussions of the problem have not yet led to any attempt at a practical solution. Whereas the Dual Monarchy's system was based on the majority principle, so that the size of constituencies could be ‘gerrymandered’ to secure more seats for ethnic minorities, the republics since 1918 have been committed to proportional representation. The much smaller ethnic minorities in the twentieth century gave rise to little interest in their representation until after 1955, when the state undertook new obligations under international law, albeit in rather general terms committing it to ‘equal elections’ and ‘the rights of minorities’. The federal constitutional court had to consider these matters once the Slovenian minority in Carinthia brought a case in 1979 complaining of their non-representation in the provincial parliament. The court would not accept the argument that formal equality of votes did not lead to equality of representation. None of the subsequent proposals to alter the legal or constitutional framework so as to meet the demands of minorities in Carinthia or elsewhere in the Republic overcame the problems of misuse by those for whom the measures were not intended or the changing nature of minority groupings. Heinz Tichy concludes his review by arguing that present Austrian constitutional law guarantees equal rights for individuals, not collective groups, and merely allows for, but does not require, modifications to the electoral laws to secure representation for ethnic minorities. He warns that a special parliamentary mandate for relatively small national minorities might create more problems than it solved, and suggests instead following the Danish model of using lobbyists to represent minority interests.     

Do Multicultural Democracies Really Require PR? Counterevidence from Switzerland

Central to consociational (or power‐sharing) theory is the claim that multicultural societies require electoral systems based on proportional representation (PR) in order to ensure a fair representation of the various cultural groups in parliament. In this context, Switzerland is often cited as a “PR country”, as well as the key example of successful consociationalism. This article argues that, in this respect, the Swiss experience does not support consociational theory as far as the representation of linguistic groups is concerned. The counterevidence is found by exploring the variety of Swiss electoral systems, both at the national level and in the four multilingual cantons. The article suggests that territoriality (i.e. definition of electoral districts) is the key variable for ensuring linguistic proportionality in parliament. When this is not possible, as is the case in some elections in the multilingual cantons, majoritarian systems sometimes do a better job than PR.     

Party unity and presidential dominance: parliamentary development in the fourth republic of Ghana

Political power in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa is often portrayed as being highly informal and heavily personalised. The assumption that personalised politics is how ‘Africa works’ has led to the neglect of the study of Africa's formal institutions, including parliaments. This article assesses the position of the Parliament of Ghana under the Fourth Republic. It displays evidence suggesting that over successive parliamentary terms parliamentary committees became increasingly adept at handling legislation, and inputting into the policy process. It also shows that the parliament was increasingly able to oversee the implementation of legislation. Although the findings of hitherto undocumented progress represent a valuable nuance, the argument that the parliament became increasingly able to input into the legislative process says exactly that; while the parliament became increasingly capable of amending legislation rarely was this witnessed. The article argues that parliamentary development in Ghana has been a function of three interacting structural factors: the constitution; unified government since 1992; and political party unity. The strong partisan identities of legislators from the two major political parties – the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National Democratic Congress (NDC) – provide the executive with extra leverage to control the parliament. Throughout the Ghanaian parliament is juxtaposed with the Kenyan National Assembly. More substantially, the article seeks to force a revision of the dominant narrative that generalises African party systems as fluid and fragmented, and African political parties as lacking any recognisable internal cohesion or ideology.     

Representation in the English House of Commons: The New Boroughs, 1485–1640

SUMMARY

In this paper Norman Ball re-examines the well recognised process of enlarging the House of Commons in the Tudor and early Stuart periods by the creation of new, or the revival of old parliamentary boroughs. The usual explanation of the phenomenon has been that it met pressures from local gentry for wider access to parliamentary seats. The paper questions this interpretation, noting the new seats often appeared in areas that were already well provided with borough places. On the basis of a geographical analysis of the new boroughs it is shown that there was a preponderance of creations in the lands of the two royal duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster. It goes on to suggest that the main motive behind the creations was the need of the crown and its advisers to find places for reliable members who could assist the royal business managers in carrying through an expanding volume of parliamentary business.     

The Fiji Election of 2014: Rights,Representation and Legitimacy in Fiji Politics

Abstract

Fiji’s 2014 election was its first in eight years, first under the 2013 constitution, and first using a common roll of electors with proportional representation. In the new parliament of 50 seats, the coup leader of 2006, Frank Bainimarama, emerged triumphant. His FijiFirst Party won 32 seats, with the Social Democratic Liberal Party, a successor party to earlier indigenous Fijian parties, winning 15 and the National Federation Party three. The election of the new parliament marked the end of Fiji’s longest period under a military government since independence. How should the significance of these elections be judged in the context of Fiji’s history? Do they represent the breakthrough to democratic stability that so many Fiji citizens have wanted for so long? Or are they just another phase of Fiji’s turbulent politics, a democratic pause before another lurch into authoritarian government?     

Partisan Pork‐Barrel,Independents and Electoral Advantage: Australia's Regional Partnerships Program in 2004

This article, building on previous research into earlier Australian pork‐barrel schemes, uses data from Australia's Regional Partnerships Program (RPP), and its apportioning of $104 million in constituency‐level grants in 2003–4, to explore the distinctive logic of parliamentary pork‐barrel politics. Results show that the Liberal‐Nationals Coalition's distribution of these funds was consistent with three electoral priorities — to reward its own MPs and show voters that the government “can deliver”; to provide vote‐winning assets in the Coalition's most marginal seats, where even small vote gain can make the difference between victory and defeat; and to try to re‐establish its credibility at the local level in regional seats that had proven vulnerable to inroads made by Independent candidates.     

From interest groups to parties: The change in the career patterns of the legislative elite in German social policy

Analysing the careers of members of the Bundestag Standing Committee for Labour and Social Affairs, the paper demonstrates that the ties between social politicians and social policy organisations such as trade unions, faith-based social policy organisations, independent charity organisations, works councils and social insurance institutions have become blurred. Since the 1990s social politicians have become more focused on political careers in the party and in parliament than on social policy. The new social politicians are party politicians who have distanced themselves from the interest groups. The qualitative change in parliamentary personnel is explained by changes in electoral politics, parties and interest groups. The author argues that the weakening linkages confirm contemporary research results on change in German neo-corporatism.     

Is All Politics Indeed Local? A Comparative Study of Dual Mandate‐Holders’ Role Attitudes and Behaviours in Parliament

The practice of dual mandate‐holding, i.e. the simultaneous occupation of a political mandate at the (sub)national and the local level, is understudied in the comparative literature. Dual mandate‐holders embody the most direct link between local and central government, yet research has disregarded whether these actors actually feel and act as local ambassadors in parliament. In this article, we study whether councillors in parliament feel responsive for local grievances in terms of their respective role attitudes and behaviour, using the PARTIREP Comparative MP Survey. The estimated regression models demonstrate that dual mandate‐holders indeed perceive themselves as local brokers, even when controlling for various systemic‐, party‐ and individual‐level factors. On the other hand, they struggle to translate their localized attitudes into localized parliamentary behaviour, which could call one of the main arguments in favour of dual mandate‐holding into question.     

The British Parliament and ministerial responsibility c. 1740–60*

This article deals with certain matters concerning the issue of the political accountability of ministers to parliament during the last twenty years of the reign of King George II. It emphasizes the fact that there was no constitutional convention during this period that would have allowed parliament or the House of Commons alone to force the dismissal or resignation of ministers (as the ultimate sanction of political accountability). At that time, the king was the real master of his ministers. On the other hand, and as a matter of fact, only those ministers who could best manage the king's business in parliament were kept in office by the king. These propositions are demonstrated by examining the practice of the various administrations between 1740–60. It was also especially important for the leading ministers, such as Robert Walpole, Henry Pelham, the Duke of Newcastle and William Pitt to secure both the favour of the king and the confidence of parliament to remain in office. The Pitt-Newcastle administration (from 1757) additionally confirmed the general principle in times of war that administrations can only have firm parliamentary majorities to hold onto power as long as they would lead a war successfully.