From Tip to Toe: Evidence from National and Subnational Parliaments in Europe

To which extent do committees in regional parliaments have agenda power like national parliaments? How do parties act and interact in different tiers of legislative arenas on the basis of legislative initiatives (issues)? Do parties engage in similar issues at national and regional legislative arenas? In this paper, we extend the research on regional agenda power in unitary states to the sub-national level and test if in regional parliaments have a distinct agenda. We expect that these assemblies function identically to national assemblies as for being regional agenda-setters. To test our theoretical approach we selected and coded new data on the sub-national Parliaments in Europe that have legislative power in unitary states as Åland Islands (Finland), Azores and Madeira (Portugal) and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (UK). This research links the research about actors' legislative behavior at different government levels (national and regional) and their agenda-setting power. We find that, contrarily to some relevant literature on regional matters, legislative actors on the regional tier of representation do not fully "nationalized" their agenda as some issues, like shared-rule by regional and national parliaments, and the agendas or MPs position, are not convergent, needing further theoretical and empirical explanations.