Advancing the Study of Parliaments: Structures, Actors and Processes at a Crossroads

Overview Against a backdrop of changing political contexts – such as the rise of challenger parties, policy and economic crises, distrust in political institutions, and democratic backsliding in some countries – it is clear that parliaments are facing increasing and cross-cutting pressures. This section seeks to advance the study of parliaments as critical institutions in representative democracies, and to examine how the role and importance of parliaments continues to evolve. It focuses on the structures and organisational aspects of parliaments, as well as key actors and their relationships within and outside these institutions (e.g., individual parliamentarians, parliamentary party groups, administrative staff or external stakeholders such as interest groups), and the processes and practices inside these political arenas. To support these multiple foci, this section has developed several comprehensive and comparative panels exploring both recent challenges that have impacted parliaments, as well as more classic topics that are ever-relevant. We welcome papers about any parliament, whether national, sub-national or international, with a particular invitation for studies on under-researched regions. Contributions may be empirical, theoretical or methodological. The ECPR Standing Group on Parliaments endorses this section. Panels 1. Parliaments under pressure Chair: Patricia Calca Parliaments have faced and are facing challenges: new political parties that are disrupting established norms within parliaments, policy and economic crises which parliaments are seeking to solve, obstacles by executive actors to ensuring fair and substantive democratic functions of legislatures, and beyond. How do parliaments deal with these challenges? How effective are they at doing so? 2. Debate and deliberation in parliaments Chair: Tim Mickler Parliaments are an arena where conflict is held, and where debates about policy and laws take place. The plenum is therefore an arena for deliberation and persuasion, but also for grandstanding, moralizing, and campaigning. This panel looks at how and why parliamentary debates matter, and how deliberation shapes decision-making. It therefore welcomed papers on the rhetoric in parliament, interaction of actors, and quality of legislative discourse as well as its consequences. 3. Actors in parliaments I: Individual MPs, roles and pathways to parliament Chair: Stefanie Bailer Parliaments are constituted of a collective of MPs. This panel focuses on them and asks questions about how they conceive of their role, how they build and understand their career trajectories in (and out of) parliament, the relationship between roles and behaviour, and beyond. 4. Actors in parliaments II: parties, administration and stakeholders Chair: David Willumsen Parliaments are also comprised of a wide set of collective actors, that frame how parliamentary work happens. This includes parliamentary party groups that drive the work of MPs, but also the parliamentary administration that needs to ensure work goes smoothly. Though generally from the outside, interest groups also seek to influence parliamentary outcomes in their own way. This panels investigates how those groups act and how they relate to each other. 5. Representation in parliament Chair: Daniel Höhmann Parliaments are, first and foremost, representative institutions. But how do MPs seek to fulfil this core function? And how have modern conceptions of representation affected the work of parliaments? To what extent do parliaments engage with the wider public to overcome challenges of distrust and apathy? This panel examines the core function of representation both within and outwith this institution in the wider system of representative democracy. 6. Voter-elites linkage Chair: Marc Geddes Links between political elites and voters often appear somewhat fragile, which makes it more important to examine the interaction and representation between citizens and politicians. This panel investigates how MPs keep ties to their constituencies, what kind of demands they are responsive to, and how they communicate to their voters. It also looks at how citizens can hold their representatives accountable, and what citizens can do for parliamentary actors to react to their demands. 7. Legislation and policy in parliaments Chair: Ulrich Sieberer This panel welcomes all papers dealing with the legislative process: initiation of legislation, government and private bills, pre-legislative stages, parliamentary stages in plenary and in committee, adoption, implementation and post-legislative scrutiny. Paper topics could include government-majority coordination, the influence of parliamentary and non-parliamentary actors on legislation, effectiveness of parliamentary processes, case study analysis of particular bills and processes, and beyond. 8. Parliaments and Governments Chair: Christina Stremming The relationship between the executive and the legislature is one of the most fundamental aspects of representative democratic systems. In parliamentary systems, especially, the executive and parliament are intertwined and interdependent. These relations can fundamentally affect the nature of parliamentary work, both from individual parliamentarians as well as other actors. This panel focuses on these relations, with a specific focus on accountability and control. 9. Analysing parliamentary structures in comparative perspective Chair: Simone Wegmann The organisation of legislatures crucially affects the conduct and outcomes of representative democracy in lots of ways. For example, committees support parliaments in efficiently carrying out many important tasks. However, these and other structures, such as the nature of uni- or bi-cameralism, but also the existence of friendship groups or else, vary in terms of processes, memberships, effectiveness, outputs, and influence on parliamentary work. This panel explores these and other themes. 10. Methodological advances in legislative research Chair: Oliver Rittmann Methodological diversity and advances in the methods of studying legislatures is at the cutting edge of the field. This panel welcomes papers that apply or develop innovative methods for the study of legislatures, such as text-as-data, analysis of parliamentary Open Data, social media data, anthropological approaches, and experiments.