Sidelined, Bypassed or Empowered?! – Resilience of Parliaments in Hybrid Regimes

Abstract

While research on parliaments in established democracies and, increasingly, authoritarian regimes covers a wide range of different aspects, the emphasis in studies on hybrid regimes is often placed more on the general development of democracy or the dominance of executive actors. Yet parliaments in these dynamic structural conditions represent a fruitful area of research. On the one hand, parliaments provide oppositional forces with an institutional framework for formulating criticism and alternatives. As a result, parliaments can represent the starting point for a transition or shifts in the balance of power. On the other hand, given a corresponding majority, parliamentary procedures can be exploited as a democratic façade. To what extent do the external framework conditions influence the way parliament fulfils its roles? This panel shall focus on the internal structures and decision-making processes in parliaments in hybrid regimes. This includes, for example, questions regarding the resilience and institutionalization of parliaments, analyses of opposition behaviour, strategies of the governing majority to maintain power, but also methods of obstruction and circumvention of parliamentary procedures. Analyses on internal structures and workings of parliament could be connected to regime developments, such as autocratization, democratization and polarization, which could reflect upon legislatures. Furthermore, parliaments are increasingly discussed in the context of the emerging literature on dissensus on liberal democracy, the interplay between drivers and opponents of autocratization; and institutions which could prevent executive aggrandizement. We gather both comparative perspectives and in-depth case studies of individual parliaments in hybrid regimes. The panel brings together contributions with different methodological approaches (qualitative, quantitative, theoretical), studying primarily legislative processes and structures internally or external conditions affecting the overall standing of legislatures within a political system, such as democratization, autocratization and opposition against it.

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