Parliamentary Questions as an Instrument for Geographic Representation: The Hard Case of Portugal

This article asks whether and why, in a system lacking electoral incentives to cultivate personal votes, MPs might choose to signal to geographic constituents. It explores this question by analysing the number of written parliamentary questions submitted to the Portuguese parliament on two issues – unemployment and crime – between 2009 and 2015, and asking if MPs are more inclined to table questions on specific issues when their districts suffer particularly from related problems. The article finds evidence that constituency‐level problem pressure does matter for the signalling activities of MPs, although policy specialization remains the main driver of their issue emphasis. This finding contributes new knowledge to the ongoing debate on the factors accounting for the representative relationship between MPs and constituents, by drawing attention to the importance of district‐level problem pressure as one of the drivers of issue sponsorship in parliament.     

The Rise of the Parliamentary Counsel

SUMMARY

In this article Sir George Engle has traced the early development of the use of official Parliamentary Counsel for the drafting of government legislation. The origins are traced to a series of individual legal experts employed informally by government in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries until the formal appointment of a Parliamentary Counsel to the Treasury in 1769. Following that, other major departments engaged their own Counsel until Peel decided to rationalize the system in 1841 and J.E.D. Bethune was appointed Counsel for fourteen government departments. The work of Henry Thring in developing the principles of parliamentary drafting is discussed and then the appointment of Thring to the ‘Office of Parliamentary Counsel’ in 1869, with one assistant. The institution was made permanent in 1871. The work of Thring's two successors, Henry Jenkyns and Courtnay libert and the working practices they developed arc analysed. Finally the artide summarizes the principle achievements of the Parliamentary Counsel Office over its 126 years of activity.     

Analysing Parliamentary Debate with Computer Assistance

The analysis of parliamentary debates is at the confluence of a number of developments in political science. What light can automated and semi‐automated techniques throw on such analysis? In this paper we compare two such approaches, one semi‐automated (Hamlet) and the other fully automated (Alceste). We use both approaches to identify the prominent themes in debate and to assess how far speakers who favour different positions adopt a distinct pattern of discourse. We seek to assess how far the two approaches yield convergent or divergent analyses. Selecting a second reading debate from the UK House of Commons on a private member's bill on abortion in July 1966, we are able to show similarities of analysis despite the detailed differences between the two approaches. In particular, the analysis in Hamlet al.lows identification of the extent to which individual speakers employ one type of vocabulary rather than another. Alceste is able to provide a statistical basis for the different classes of vocabulary that occur in the debate. However, the two programs rest upon quite different assumptions about the relationship between syntax and meaning, with implications for the practice of political science.     

Evaluating Communication in the British Parliamentary Public Sphere

This article begins with a re-evaluation of political communication research based on Habermas' original theory of the public sphere. It presents Habermas' alternative framework for assessing communication in contemporary 'actually existing democracies'. The model is then tested with a case study of the UK parliamentary public sphere based on 95 semi-structured interviews with political actors (politicians, journalists and officials). It concludes that parliament today operates rather better, according to public sphere norms, than the public sphere described in Habermas' accounts of 18th and 19th-century England. Such a finding, on its own, is clearly at odds with public perception. The research accordingly offers two explanations for this disparity and the (perceived) crisis of political legitimacy in UK politics.     

Berlin's Republic: Parliamentary government in a German land

Berlin is the only German Land that has had to manage its own reunification and originally many hoped that it would turn into a model for east–west reconciliation. Yet 15 years later there is widespread consensus that Berlin failed to live up to the challenges of the time and adequately deal with the consequences of reunification. Instead of embarking on structural reforms Berlin produced its own version of a Reformstau. The article describes and examines some basic features of the party system in Berlin and the Berlin polity. It will thus give an answer to the question as to how unification affected the institutional setting in this Land. Overall it will be shown that the Reformstau in Berlin cannot be explained by a fragmented political system or powerful veto players. Political stagnation in Berlin rather was due to the combined effects of party system change, institutional stagnation, and constitutionally inhibited political leadership.     

Individuals,Parties and the Parliamentary Record in the 1690s

SUMMARY

In this article Colin Brooks reviews the historical writing of the last thirty years on British history between 1688 and 1714. This has offered a variety of interpretations which give priority to a number of different factors. The problem now facing historians is how to synthesize these interpretations into a coherent account. The article suggests that while it is possible to reconstruct from the surviving source materials what happened in the House of Commons, the incompleteness and the ambiguities of the evidence make it much more difficult to determine why it happened, or what were the motives of the individuals taking part. The nature of the source materials requires that they be interpreted with more caution than they have often received: they have as much to tell about individual perceptions as about what actually happened.     

The 2007 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections in Timor‐Leste

In the wake of the 2006 “east‐west” crisis in Timor‐Leste, the 2007 Presidential and Parliamentary elections were widely heralded as a key test of political development in the newly independent nation. This article analyses the pre‐election situation, significant electoral law changes, the emergence of new political parties, campaign incidents, poll results, and postelection negotiations over a coalition government. It concludes by reflecting on some of the wider implications for political stability in Timor‐Leste, and related developments through 2008. 1     

Parliamentary Experience in Australian Ministerial Careers 1996–2007

The study contributes the first detailed exploration of parliamentary experience in Australian ministerial careers. It examines how a dimension of parliamentary experience — holding the office of parliamentary committee chair — features in the careers of a single cohort of ministers and parliamentary secretaries appointed during the Coalition government 1996–2007. The study maps parliamentary experience on two dimensions and finds a typology of five different career paths, depending on positions held and the speed of movement between positions. Taking the analysis further, the second part of the study tracks the appointment of the five subgroups of ministers over time. This reveals patterns in the Prime Minister's ministry‐making over the life of the government. At different times particular types of ministers were selected, in response to varying political needs and the demands of career management that John Howard faced over the government's lifecycle. The study considers the argument that elite grooming processes, where aspiring leaders are tested and trained, are weakening in Australia. It does not find evidence for this proposition based on the patterns of parliamentary experience of ministers at this time.     

Parties and Change in the Post-Bailout Cyprus: The May 2016 Parliamentary Elections

The parliamentary elections of 2016, the first following Cyprus’ exit from the bailout programme, took place in a context of indifference on the part of the citizens. Characterised by a decline in bipartisanship, a rise in abstention and a more fragmented party system, the elections paved the way for the historical entry into parliament of the far right party, ELAM. This article sets these outcomes against the broader backdrop of the Great Recession while also paying attention to the reinvigoration of the cultural dimension of political conflict, with potentially significant constraints for future negotiations on the Cyprus problem.