Parliaments risk becoming the main losers of internationalisation; a process that privileges executives and experts. Still, parliamentarians have developed a range of responses to catch up with international decision-making: they coordinate their actions with other parliamentarians; engage in international parliamentary forums; and some even opt to pursue political careers at the supranational level, such as in the European Parliament.
This volume provides a thorough empirical examination of how an internationalising context drives parliamentarians to engage in inter-parliamentary coordination; how it affects their power positions vis-à-vis executive actors; among themselves; and in society in general.
Furthermore, building upon these empirical insights, the book assesses whether parliamentary democracy can remain sustainable under these changing conditions. Indeed, if parliaments are, and remain, central to our understanding of modern democracy, it is of crucial importance to track their responses to internationalisation, the fragmentation of political sovereignty, and the proliferation of multilevel politics.
Multi-level processes beyond the nation-state are often criticised for their democratic deficit. This rich edited collection assesses carefully the potential and limits of an original remedy for this serious problem: the empowerment of the circuit of representative democracy through the constitution of a ‘multi-level parliamentary field’. A series of fine empirical studies by a team of international scholars highlights the diverse and complex configurations of such a field. The book provides a balanced and fine-grained account of the role of inter-parliamentary networks as a countervailing power to unaccountable supranational governance. -- Yannis Papadopoulos, Université de Lausanne
Editors Crum and Fossum have put together an innovative collection of papers on the increasingly topical issue of the Multilevel Parliamentary Field. The collection covers a broad range of topics (policy domains, levels and actors) and offers contributions from an excellent selection of consolidated and younger scholars. There’s engaging material in every chapter, and rather than responding conclusively to the question of whether parliaments are the losers in globalisation and European integration, the editors leave the question open-ended--an implicit invitation to further research.
-- Carlos Closa Montero, Centre of Human and Social Sciences
Ben Crum is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He works on the political theory of European integration.
He is the author of Learning from the EU Constitutional Treaty (Routledge 2012) and of academic articles in, among others, the Journal of Common Market Studies, the Journal of European Public Policy, European Union Politics, the European Political Science Review, and the European Law Journal. He studied in Amsterdam, London and Berlin, and holds a PhD from the European University Institute, Florence. Before joining the Vrije Universiteit he worked at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy in The Hague, and policy consultancy firm Research voor Beleid in Leiden.
John Erik Fossum is Professor in Political Science at ARENA Centre for European Studies at the University of Oslo, Norway. He works on questions of democracy and constitutionalism in Europe and Canada. He is co-director of the research project NORCONE (The Norwegian Constitution in a Changing European Context) and former substitute coordinator for RECON (6th FP) and CIDEL (5th FP). He is president of ECSA Norway and vice-president of NACS. He has authored and edited eleven books and has published articles in such journals as Comparative European Politics, Constellations, Ethnicities, European Journal of Political Theory, European Journal of Social Theory, European Law Journal, European Political Science Review, European Review, International Political Science Review, International Journal, Journal of Civil Society, Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Integration, Regulation and Governance, and the Supreme Court Law Review.
Willy Beauvallet is a post-doctoral fellow in Political Science, associate member of SAGE laboratory (Societies, Actors and Government in Europe) at the University of Strasbourg. He teaches at the University of Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne. Among his recent publications: 'The European Parliament and the politicisation of the European space – the case of the two port packages' (Rowell and Mangenot, 2010); 'Professionalization and socialization of the members of the European Parliament' (French Politics 2012, with Sebastien Michon).
Arthur Benz is Professor of Political Science at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany. His recent publications include Der moderne Staat. Grundlagen der politologischen Analyse (2008), Governance and Democracy - Comparing National, European and Transnational Experiences (2006, ed. with Yannis Papadopoulos), and Federal Dynamics: Continuity, Change and the Varieties of Federalism (2013, ed. with Jörg Broschek).
Aron Buzogány is a post-doctoral fellow at the German Public Administration Research Institute in Speyer. He holds a doctorate in political science from the Freie Universität Berlin. His recent publications on national parliaments in the European Union were published in Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, Zeitschrift für Politikberatung and Der moderne Staat.
Ian Cooper is Senior Researcher at ARENA, Centre for European Studies at the University of Oslo. Currently, his research is focused on the collective role of national parliaments in the European Union. His recent work has appeared in the Journal of Common Market Studies, West European Politics, and the Journal of European Integration.
Cosima Glahn currently works as a Junior Policy Advisor for the Strategic Alliances and Partnerships group at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). She holds a BA from the University of Mannheim and an MA in ‘International Studies/Peace and Conflict Studies’ from the TU Darmstadt and the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt/Main. She was a student research assistant at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF).
Viera Knutelská is Assistant Professor at Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Studies. She has published various papers on national parliaments, including 'National Parliaments in the Council: Parliamentary Scrutiny Reserves' (Central European Journal of International & Security Studies 2013); 'Working Practices Winning Out over Formal Rules: Parliamentary Scrutiny of EU Matters in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia' (Perspectives on European Politics and Society 2011); and on EU decision-making, including 'Role of Political Affiliation across the European Institutions in the Dynamics of the EU Legislative Process' (AUCO Czech Economic Review 2012, with Radko Hokovský).
Christopher Lord is Professor at ARENA, Centre for European Studies at the University of Oslo. He has published extensively on Democracy, Legitimacy and the European Union. His books include A Democratic Audit of the European Union (2004).
Sébastian Michon is a Senior Researcher at the CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research) and member of the SAGE laboratory (Societies, Actors and Government in Europe). He teaches at the Institute of Political Sciences in Strasbourg. Recently, he published: 'When Europe Mobilises' (in Gaxie and Hubé (eds), Rowell 2011, with Hubé and Méon) and 'European Parliament: the emergence of specialists of European political work' (in Georgakakis (ed), Rowell 2013, with Willy Beauvallet).
Eric Miklin is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Salzburg and a fellow at the Salzburg Centre of European Union Studies (SCEUS). Among his publications are 'Government Positions on the EU Services Directive in the Council: National Interests or Individual Ideological Preferences?' (West European Politics 2009); 'Inter-parliamentary cooperation in EU affairs and the Austrian Parliament: Empowering the Opposition?' (Journal of Legislative Studies 2013); 'EU Politicisation and National Parliaments: Visibility of Choices and Better Aligned Ministers?' (Journal of Legislative Studies 2014).
Dirk Peters is Senior Research Fellow at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt. He is the author of Constrained Balancing: The EU’s Security Policy (2010) and co-editor of The Parliamentary Control of European Security Policy (with Wolfgang Wagner and Nicole Deitelhoff, 2008).
Johannes Pollak is Professor of Political Science at Webster University Vienna and Head of the Political Science Department at the Institute for Advanced Studies (HIS) in Vienna. Among his recent publications are 'The pitfalls of representation as claims-making' (Journal of European Integration 2013); 'Unequal but Democratic? Equality according to Karlsruhe' (Journal of European Public Policy 2013). He is also the editor of the WUV/UTB series 'Europa kompakt'.
Hilmar Rommetvedt is Head of Research in political science at the International Research Institute of Stavanger (IRIS) and Adjunct Professor at the University of Stavanger, Norway. He is Program Chair of the IPSA Research Committee of Legislative Specialists. His publications include The Rise of the Norwegian Parliament (2003), Politikkens allmenngjøring og den nypluralistiske parlamentarismen (2nd ed., 2011), and articles in journals such as Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Legislative Studies, Government and Opposition, Public Management Review, Scandinavian Political Studies, West European Politics and World Trade Review.
Daniel Ruiz de Garibay is assistant programme specialist at the Social and Human Sciences Unit of UNESCO office in Jakarta, Indonesia. He has been Basque Government Research scholar based at the University of Reading, UK (2008 – 2011) and Schuman Scholar at the European Parliament (2006 – 2007). He has published the following articles on the field of interparliamentary relations: 'Relations between national parliaments and the European Parliament: opportunities and challenges' (Elcano Royal Institute, ARI 153/2011, Madrid); 'El papel de los parlamentos nacionales en la EU y la función de sus oficinas de representación en Bruselas' (Elcano Royal Institute, ARI 53/2010, Madrid); and 'Citizens’ Representation in the EU after the 2009 elections to the European Parliament: The Role of National Parliaments' (Elcano Royal Institute, ARI 114/2009, Madrid).
Yoav Shemer-Kunz is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Strasbourg (SAGE laboratory — Societies, Actors and Government in Europe) and at the Department of Political Science of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His current research is in interparliamentary and intra-party coordination in Europe as a political opportunity for small political parties.
Peter Slominski is Assistant Professor at the University of Vienna/Institute for European Integration Research. Among his recent publications: 'The Ambiguities of Legalization and the EU’s Strategy of Extra-Territorial Border Control' (European Foreign Affairs Review 2012); 'Agree Now – Pay Later: Escaping the Joint Decision Trap in the Evolution of the EU Emission Trading System' (Journal of European Public Policy 2013, with P. Müller); 'The Silence of the Shepherds - How the Austrian Parliament Informs its Citizens on European Issues' (Journal of Legislative Studies forthcoming 2014, with J. Pollak).
Wolfgang Wagner is Professor of International Security at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Recently he published Die demokratische Kontrolle internationalisierter Sicherheitspolitik (Baden-Baden 2011). His work on the parliamentary control of military missions also appeared in Parliamentary Affairs, Journal of European Public Policy (European integration online papers) and Armed Forces and Society.
