This paper explores the implementation of the ‘Prevent Duty’ in Scotland. Using archival research into Parliamentary debates, as well as research interviews with Scottish government representatives and healthcare professionals, the paper sheds light on the constitutional politics surrounding the Counterterrorism and Security Act 2015 which resulted in the markedly different applications of Prevent between England and Scotland. The divergence of the policy between the nations, and the constitutional anomalies which facilitated a specifically Scottish Prevent program, have remained unaddressed in the academic literature—partly because of a mistaken assumption by researchers that the Prevent Strategy equally applies to all nations (given that Westminster legislates for the UK on matters of defence and security). To fill this gap in knowledge, this paper explores how the Scottish government was able to leverage the devolution settlement and associated constitutional conventions to implement a modest P/CVE program—dropping some components of the English and Welsh Prevent programs entirely. The paper contributes to studies on British constitutional conventions and the nature of inter-governmental politics in the UK by highlighting the surprising freedom to manoeuvre Scotland can enjoy, with regards to reserved policy areas.
{"title":"Devolution and the Prevent Strategy in Scotland: Constitutional Politics and the Path of Scottish P/CVE","authors":"Charlotte Heath-Kelly","doi":"10.1093/pa/gsad007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsad007","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper explores the implementation of the ‘Prevent Duty’ in Scotland. Using archival research into Parliamentary debates, as well as research interviews with Scottish government representatives and healthcare professionals, the paper sheds light on the constitutional politics surrounding the Counterterrorism and Security Act 2015 which resulted in the markedly different applications of Prevent between England and Scotland. The divergence of the policy between the nations, and the constitutional anomalies which facilitated a specifically Scottish Prevent program, have remained unaddressed in the academic literature—partly because of a mistaken assumption by researchers that the Prevent Strategy equally applies to all nations (given that Westminster legislates for the UK on matters of defence and security). To fill this gap in knowledge, this paper explores how the Scottish government was able to leverage the devolution settlement and associated constitutional conventions to implement a modest P/CVE program—dropping some components of the English and Welsh Prevent programs entirely. The paper contributes to studies on British constitutional conventions and the nature of inter-governmental politics in the UK by highlighting the surprising freedom to manoeuvre Scotland can enjoy, with regards to reserved policy areas.","PeriodicalId":19790,"journal":{"name":"Parliamentary Affairs","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"61220545","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Why was the British Parliament so late in broadcasting its debates? Scholars have made recommendations on parliamentary communication, analysed its effects, and described the debates and arguments on broadcasting parliament. But who was making these arguments, and what role did parliamentarians’ identities play in these debates? We show the crucial role that partisanship—but also the distinctions between government and opposition, senior and junior, and urban and rural MPs—played in Westminster’s debates on broadcasting itself. We do so by applying our new method of ‘structural collocation analysis’ to all 3965 debate utterances on broadcasting parliament between 1935 and 2014—rather than merely the eleven official debates on broadcasting parliament studied thus far—comparing utterances by subgroups of MPs using metadata that we added to the digitised proceedings. We focus on issue ownership, discursive differences and MPs’ reflections on broadcasting parliament.
{"title":"Democracy (Not) on Display: A Structural Collocation Analysis of the Mother of All Parliaments’ Reluctance to Broadcast Herself","authors":"Betto van Waarden, Mathias Johansson","doi":"10.1093/pa/gsad002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsad002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Why was the British Parliament so late in broadcasting its debates? Scholars have made recommendations on parliamentary communication, analysed its effects, and described the debates and arguments on broadcasting parliament. But who was making these arguments, and what role did parliamentarians’ identities play in these debates? We show the crucial role that partisanship—but also the distinctions between government and opposition, senior and junior, and urban and rural MPs—played in Westminster’s debates on broadcasting itself. We do so by applying our new method of ‘structural collocation analysis’ to all 3965 debate utterances on broadcasting parliament between 1935 and 2014—rather than merely the eleven official debates on broadcasting parliament studied thus far—comparing utterances by subgroups of MPs using metadata that we added to the digitised proceedings. We focus on issue ownership, discursive differences and MPs’ reflections on broadcasting parliament.","PeriodicalId":19790,"journal":{"name":"Parliamentary Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44813577","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The corporate governance literature has often been concerned with whether individuals with a high number of board directorships are too busy to serve in their role. In the UK, many MPs also hold positions on boards of directors. This raises the question of whether MPs with board memberships are too busy to serve their constituents, party and parliament. To address this question, we construct a network of directors (including MPs) and the firms they are associated with. We then draw on measures from social network analysis to capture how embedded these individuals are in the UK corporate system. We employ a regression approach to examine the relationship between MPs’ position in the corporate system and their participation in Parliament. We find that that some positions within the corporate network are associated with increased participation and others with decreased participation. MP participation increases when they have high numbers of directorships or high levels of corporate opportunity, but it decreases for those who are deeply embedded in the corporate system, sitting on the boards of well-connected firms. The latter are potentially ‘too busy’ to serve.
{"title":"MPS, Outside Interests, and Corporate Boards: Too Busy to Serve?","authors":"Matthew Smith, J. Newman","doi":"10.1093/pa/gsad003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsad003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The corporate governance literature has often been concerned with whether individuals with a high number of board directorships are too busy to serve in their role. In the UK, many MPs also hold positions on boards of directors. This raises the question of whether MPs with board memberships are too busy to serve their constituents, party and parliament. To address this question, we construct a network of directors (including MPs) and the firms they are associated with. We then draw on measures from social network analysis to capture how embedded these individuals are in the UK corporate system. We employ a regression approach to examine the relationship between MPs’ position in the corporate system and their participation in Parliament. We find that that some positions within the corporate network are associated with increased participation and others with decreased participation. MP participation increases when they have high numbers of directorships or high levels of corporate opportunity, but it decreases for those who are deeply embedded in the corporate system, sitting on the boards of well-connected firms. The latter are potentially ‘too busy’ to serve.","PeriodicalId":19790,"journal":{"name":"Parliamentary Affairs","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41874426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
While the Palace of Westminster, the home of the UK Parliament requires an extensive programme of repairs and action to implement (or even agree) this programme—known as Restoration and Renewal—has been hampered. This article explores the concept of custodianship and poses a question: who are the custodians of the Palace and for whom do they preserve the Palace? Drawing on two research projects, this article explores differing interpretations of custodianship in this context, and whether decisions made about the parliamentary building are made to preserve the history of the Palace, improve working conditions in the present, or with the future of the building (and institution) in mind.
{"title":"Custodians of the Palace of Westminster (Custodians)","authors":"A. Meakin, Sabina Siebert","doi":"10.1093/pa/gsad001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsad001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 While the Palace of Westminster, the home of the UK Parliament requires an extensive programme of repairs and action to implement (or even agree) this programme—known as Restoration and Renewal—has been hampered. This article explores the concept of custodianship and poses a question: who are the custodians of the Palace and for whom do they preserve the Palace? Drawing on two research projects, this article explores differing interpretations of custodianship in this context, and whether decisions made about the parliamentary building are made to preserve the history of the Palace, improve working conditions in the present, or with the future of the building (and institution) in mind.","PeriodicalId":19790,"journal":{"name":"Parliamentary Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-02-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49598699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper, we address two questions: (i) what were the group bases of the British electoral coalitions? And (ii) how have these group bases of support changed in the past decades? We determine which social group memberships significantly influence vote choice by using British Election Study data. We then incorporate demographic data to measure how many votes each social group contributed at each general election from 1983 to 2019. We find that the Labour Party has been obtaining fewer votes from union members and manual labourers, primarily due to shrinking group size and declining turnout. Yet, it is attracting more support from university graduates and ethnic minorities—groups growing in relative size. The Conservatives attract more votes from whites, homeowners and Anglicans. These groups are shrinking as a share of the population, but turn out at rates higher than the national average. Overall, our analysis reveals the changing cleavage structures in British politics.
{"title":"An Analysis of the Group Bases of British Politics: 1983–2019","authors":"B. Farrer, Joshua N. Zingher","doi":"10.1093/pa/gsac021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsac021","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this paper, we address two questions: (i) what were the group bases of the British electoral coalitions? And (ii) how have these group bases of support changed in the past decades? We determine which social group memberships significantly influence vote choice by using British Election Study data. We then incorporate demographic data to measure how many votes each social group contributed at each general election from 1983 to 2019. We find that the Labour Party has been obtaining fewer votes from union members and manual labourers, primarily due to shrinking group size and declining turnout. Yet, it is attracting more support from university graduates and ethnic minorities—groups growing in relative size. The Conservatives attract more votes from whites, homeowners and Anglicans. These groups are shrinking as a share of the population, but turn out at rates higher than the national average. Overall, our analysis reveals the changing cleavage structures in British politics.","PeriodicalId":19790,"journal":{"name":"Parliamentary Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42968825","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The persistence of political dynasties in developed and developing countries has been an interesting puzzle as democracy does not automatically obliterate the domination of familial ties in politics. Prior studies suggest that women are more likely to be dynastic than men. However, it remains unclear on how parties are allocating dynasts into committees and whether it is gendered or not. This paper introduces new observational data on female parliamentary representation, dynastic background and committee membership of 575 sitting parliamentarians in Indonesia. The findings suggest that one in every four members of parliament are dynasts and the proportion among female lawmakers has increased from 42% in 2009 to 44% in 2019. However, the experience of dynastic women in relation to committee assignment is not uniform. The critical variable that influences their placement appears to be the political party to which they belong, particularly in terms of nomination and internal structure. This paper offers initial leads for future research endeavours in connecting the intersectionality between political dynasties and committee assignments in other countries.
{"title":"Gender, Political Dynasties, and Committee Assignments: Evidence From Indonesia","authors":"E. Prihatini, I. Halimatusa’diyah","doi":"10.1093/pa/gsac019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsac019","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The persistence of political dynasties in developed and developing countries has been an interesting puzzle as democracy does not automatically obliterate the domination of familial ties in politics. Prior studies suggest that women are more likely to be dynastic than men. However, it remains unclear on how parties are allocating dynasts into committees and whether it is gendered or not. This paper introduces new observational data on female parliamentary representation, dynastic background and committee membership of 575 sitting parliamentarians in Indonesia. The findings suggest that one in every four members of parliament are dynasts and the proportion among female lawmakers has increased from 42% in 2009 to 44% in 2019. However, the experience of dynastic women in relation to committee assignment is not uniform. The critical variable that influences their placement appears to be the political party to which they belong, particularly in terms of nomination and internal structure. This paper offers initial leads for future research endeavours in connecting the intersectionality between political dynasties and committee assignments in other countries.","PeriodicalId":19790,"journal":{"name":"Parliamentary Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49079728","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Largely inspired by western donor good governance agenda, the current African parliaments literature has overlooked the significance of new parliament buildings that have been constructed by China and tends to place a premium on appraising the performance of parliaments and parliamentarians in executing their legislative, representation, oversight and constituency support. While understanding how parliaments perform is important and necessary, it does not sufficiently address all the ways in which these parliaments are establishing themselves as sustainable political institutions. By disregarding the new parliament buildings, the literature potentially undermines prospects of a wider understanding of the development of African parliamentary institutions. This article leverages the Chinese government donated parliament buildings in Lesotho and Malawi to make a theoretical and comparative case for the utility of discussing the concept of African legislative institutionalisation through and in juxtaposition to, the parliamentary built environment. I find that although there are stylistic and operational differences, the new parliament buildings in Lesotho and Malawi have provided a bespoke parliamentary built environment, enabled the expansion of a cohort of public officials working on legislative business and facilitated the procedural activities of the institution.
{"title":"Purpose-Built Parliament Buildings and the Institutionalisation of Parliament in Lesotho and Malawi","authors":"Innocent Batsani-Ncube","doi":"10.1093/pa/gsac017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsac017","url":null,"abstract":"Largely inspired by western donor good governance agenda, the current African parliaments literature has overlooked the significance of new parliament buildings that have been constructed by China and tends to place a premium on appraising the performance of parliaments and parliamentarians in executing their legislative, representation, oversight and constituency support. While understanding how parliaments perform is important and necessary, it does not sufficiently address all the ways in which these parliaments are establishing themselves as sustainable political institutions. By disregarding the new parliament buildings, the literature potentially undermines prospects of a wider understanding of the development of African parliamentary institutions. This article leverages the Chinese government donated parliament buildings in Lesotho and Malawi to make a theoretical and comparative case for the utility of discussing the concept of African legislative institutionalisation through and in juxtaposition to, the parliamentary built environment. I find that although there are stylistic and operational differences, the new parliament buildings in Lesotho and Malawi have provided a bespoke parliamentary built environment, enabled the expansion of a cohort of public officials working on legislative business and facilitated the procedural activities of the institution.","PeriodicalId":19790,"journal":{"name":"Parliamentary Affairs","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41709115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study attempts to break new ground by systematically comparing oppositional behaviour of Members of Parliament (MPs) in the two key arenas found in parliament: the plenary and the committee. Do MPs express more opposition frontstage in the plenary than backstage in the committee when discussing European affairs? The article sheds new light on political opposition in parliament by using a dataset of hand-coded statements made by MPs during plenary debates and European Affairs committee deliberations in five national parliaments. The results lend strong support to the main hypothesis that MPs express more opposition during plenary debates than committee deliberations.
{"title":"Do Members of Parliament Express More Opposition in the Plenary than in the Committee? Comparing Frontstage and Backstage Behaviour in Five National Parliaments","authors":"C. Karlsson, T. Persson, Moa Mårtensson","doi":"10.1093/pa/gsac016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsac016","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This study attempts to break new ground by systematically comparing oppositional behaviour of Members of Parliament (MPs) in the two key arenas found in parliament: the plenary and the committee. Do MPs express more opposition frontstage in the plenary than backstage in the committee when discussing European affairs? The article sheds new light on political opposition in parliament by using a dataset of hand-coded statements made by MPs during plenary debates and European Affairs committee deliberations in five national parliaments. The results lend strong support to the main hypothesis that MPs express more opposition during plenary debates than committee deliberations.","PeriodicalId":19790,"journal":{"name":"Parliamentary Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2022-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42853074","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Who speaks for marginalised communities in dominant-party parliaments, where electoral accountability is weak? While existing work demonstrates the persistent salience of a legislator’s personal identity in such settings, we build on recent ‘critical actor’ theory to argue for factors beyond identity-based selection to explain why representatives might speak for marginalised communities. To this end, we use a mixed-methods approach to analyse the representation of six marginal communities in Singapore’s dominant-party system. A quantitative content analysis of all 8246 parliamentary questions filed from 2011 to 2020 shows that in addition to representative gender and ethnics identities, prior careers and political tenure also influence marginal community representation. In-depth interviews with seven Member of Parliament help identify precise mechanisms for such representation, including shared experience, career-derived awareness, political freshness and representative philosophies. That said, not all marginalised communities are well-represented, reflecting constraints on individual legislator-driven representation amidst broader party electoral strategies in non-competitive systems.
{"title":"Critical Actors in a Dominant-Party Parliament? Representing Marginalised Communities in Singapore","authors":"Y. Ng, J. Yew, Steven Oliver","doi":"10.1093/pa/gsac015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsac015","url":null,"abstract":"Who speaks for marginalised communities in dominant-party parliaments, where electoral accountability is weak? While existing work demonstrates the persistent salience of a legislator’s personal identity in such settings, we build on recent ‘critical actor’ theory to argue for factors beyond identity-based selection to explain why representatives might speak for marginalised communities. To this end, we use a mixed-methods approach to analyse the representation of six marginal communities in Singapore’s dominant-party system. A quantitative content analysis of all 8246 parliamentary questions filed from 2011 to 2020 shows that in addition to representative gender and ethnics identities, prior careers and political tenure also influence marginal community representation. In-depth interviews with seven Member of Parliament help identify precise mechanisms for such representation, including shared experience, career-derived awareness, political freshness and representative philosophies. That said, not all marginalised communities are well-represented, reflecting constraints on individual legislator-driven representation amidst broader party electoral strategies in non-competitive systems.","PeriodicalId":19790,"journal":{"name":"Parliamentary Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2022-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49277722","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The introduction of evidence sessions for House of Commons public bill committees in 2007, including oral evidence from witnesses, was widely seen as a potentially significant improvement in informing scrutiny of legislation. Drawing on interviews with officials and witnesses, and on data gathered from Hansard for the 2017–2019 session, this article examines the selection and some of the characteristics of witnesses, witnesses’ views of the process and how oral evidence is used in subsequent scrutiny of the legislation. While recognising that oral evidence does make an important contribution to scrutiny, the article notes that both the process as it currently exists, and the inevitable influence of political factors, mean that the impact of oral evidence on legislation remains very limited.
{"title":"House of Commons Public Bill Committees and Oral Evidence: A Half-Step Forward?","authors":"H. Bochel","doi":"10.1093/pa/gsac013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsac013","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The introduction of evidence sessions for House of Commons public bill committees in 2007, including oral evidence from witnesses, was widely seen as a potentially significant improvement in informing scrutiny of legislation. Drawing on interviews with officials and witnesses, and on data gathered from Hansard for the 2017–2019 session, this article examines the selection and some of the characteristics of witnesses, witnesses’ views of the process and how oral evidence is used in subsequent scrutiny of the legislation. While recognising that oral evidence does make an important contribution to scrutiny, the article notes that both the process as it currently exists, and the inevitable influence of political factors, mean that the impact of oral evidence on legislation remains very limited.","PeriodicalId":19790,"journal":{"name":"Parliamentary Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2022-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46347022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}