Knowledge Practices in Parliaments: How Do MPs Gather, Analyse and Use Expert Knowledge in Parliamentary Work?

Abstract

How is knowledge used in parliaments? What are the values that underpin knowledge use in those institutions? And what are the effects of knowledge production, acceptance and contestation on democratic governance? These are pivotal questions at a time when democratic decision-making has never been more scrutinised and contested. And while there have been many longstanding debates across philosophy, humanities and social sciences about the role of knowledge in decision-making, we still know comparatively little about the role of parliaments, and their impact on democratic governance, within such debates. This panel explores precisely these issues and seeks to answer the relationships and interplays between parliaments and knowledge providers across empirical, methodological and normative dimensions. Empirically, papers cover a range of parliaments across the global north and south, and examine different structures, actors and processes in parliaments. This includes the way that parliamentarians speak about the natural and social sciences in speeches; the types of organisations and types of expertise that are invoked or used in the plenary and in committees; and, the impact of expertise on parliamentary work. Methodologically, papers follow quantitative and qualitative research designs, and demonstrate a mix of comparative research and individual case studies. The methodological pluralism of this panel demonstrates the value of different methods and innovations in political science, and raises questions for how the intersection of expertise and democracy can be studied. And normatively, this panel offers a distinctive opportunity to bring together the latest scholarship to discuss the relationship between epistemic quality and democratic values. It raises questions about the values of different kinds of knowledge and expertise in parliamentary work, how this can be organised, and what impact this might have on the quality of democratic decision-making. Collectively, the papers in this panel offer significant new research to existing scholarship and both broaden and deepen our understanding of the knowledge practices of parliaments.

Title	Details
Who Refers to Science? Understanding the Use of Scientific Evidence in Parliamentary Debates	View Paper Details
How Do Stakeholders Influence Evidence References in Parliamentary Committees?	View Paper Details
Knowledge Use in the European Parliament’s Health Policy: Whose Knowledge Do Parliamentary Actors Consider?	View Paper Details
Evidence Regimes and the Role of Social Sciences in Parliaments	View Paper Details
The Geopolitics of Expertise: Three Decades of Economics in Parliamentary Debates in Australia, Germany, Poland, South Africa and the UK	View Paper Details