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.     

Gendering Parliamentary Questions

This article explores MPs' use of parliamentary questions to address gender-related concerns. The discussion is based upon a sample of oral and written questions asked during the 1997/1998 parliamentary session. All questions including the terms 'women', 'men' and/or 'gender' were selected. Using quantitative analysis, the first part of the article examines which MPs asked these questions. The second part uses qualitative approaches to explore the content of such oral parliamentary questions. The article finds that women MPs were more likely than their male colleagues to refer to 'women' and 'gender' in both written and oral questions. Male members were more inclined to refer to 'men' than their female colleagues. Whilst the questions address a wide range of concerns, MPs shared a common understanding of which issues should be linked to 'women'. Representations of wo/manhood, however, upheld conservative gender roles and risked essentialising sexual categories. The discussion has relevance for questions of women's political representation that have become increasingly topical and significant since the increase of female MPs in 1997.     

Winds of Change? The June 2015 Parliamentary Election in Turkey

Held in an environment of growing social polarisation, fears of emergent authoritarianism, and economic challenges, Turkey’s June 2015 election ended the Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi’s (AKP’s) parliamentary majority, challenging its single-party rule for the first time in 13 years. This article first provides information on the background to the election, focusing on debates about the authoritarian tendencies of AKP, economic conditions, and the competition for the Kurdish vote. Then, a brief overview of the campaign period is presented, followed by an analysis of election results at the sub-national level. The article concludes with some preliminary discussion of the causes of the loss of AKP’s majority.     

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     

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.     

The Political Rationale of Administrative Reforms: Parliamentary Support of Output Control in Switzerland

Sufficient political support is a sine qua non of comprehensive administrative reforms. However, while the pros and cons of administrative reform measures have been extensively discussed in theory and research, only little is known about the political process which determines whether or not administrative reforms are implemented at all. Against this background, the article aims at throwing light on the politicians' backgrounds and mindsets which account for their attitude towards administrative reforms. Referring to the theories of voting behaviour, socio-structural, socio-psychological, and rational choice factors by Swiss members of parliament are tested for their impact on the attitude towards new output control policies as part of wider administrative reforms. Findings help us understand the different fates of administrative reforms in the legislative process, and they make it possible to draw some essential conclusions for the design and implementation of future administrative reforms. In consequence of this, the article's findings are a significant contribution for the study of the political rationale of administrative reforms as well as the characteristics of political rationale in general.     

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.     

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.     

Parliamentary immunity in imperial Russia 1906–1917

SUMMARY

In this article Valeria Ferrari analyses the conflict between the executive and the parliamentary majority during the nine-month period referred to as the nonimestre costituzionale (1820–21), in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, in terms of the future institutional organization of the periphery. Indeed, the deputies who were militant members of the Carbonari movement intended to subject this issue to radical revision because of their refusal of the centralist model, introduced into the Kingdom by the French sovereigns Joseph Bonaparte and Joachim Murat, and maintained by the restored Bourbon dynasty. This explains the provincial Carbonari members' preference for the Spanish Constitution of 1812 which, in contrast with the centralized model of Napoleonic origin, called for a significant margin of autonomy for local administrations. Based on this Constitution, a decree of July 1820 abolished the Provincial and District Councils and established the Deputations—collegial bodies elected directly by citizens without property-related limits—which had broad and important functions. An entirely different configuration emerged unequivocally quite rapidly between the parliamentary majority and the executive as regards the actual role to be attributed to the provincial Deputations. Indeed, while these local institutions were to represent for most of the deputies adhering to the Carbonari movement the first important step towards a complete form of administrative decentralization, from the point of view of the majority of the government, these new peripheral institutions would instead have to coexist with the administrative system already in place.     

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.     

Voters’ Knowledge of Their Representatives: The Direct and Conditioned Effects of Parliamentary Work

This article examines factors that influence voters’ knowledge of their representatives, a key element in securing the responsiveness and accountability of parliamentarians. We argue that the parliamentary work of MPs (Members of Parliament) benefits incumbents through increased name recall, and that this relationship is conditional on: the incumbents’ candidacy; the voters’ political competence; and their ideological proximity with their representatives. Combining data on French MPs’ activities with a 2007 CSES post‐election survey enables us to test our hypotheses, while controlling for confounding factors. The empirical analysis demonstrates that some parliamentary activities increase the voters’ capacity to recall the name of their MPs. The latter are therefore incentivised to be responsive to and serve their constituents. However, we also find that voters’ political competence and ideological proximity with their MP alter the relationship between parliamentary work and name recall. This may potentially introduce some biases in the democratic process of accountability.