Research on evaluation has mainly focused on the use of evaluation and has given little attention to the origins of evaluation demand. In this article, I consider the question of why parliamentarians demand evaluations with parliamentary requests. Building on the literature of delegation, I use a principal-agent framework to explain the origins of evaluation demand. In doing so, I argue that the parliamentarians mainly demand evaluations in order to hold the government accountable. The quantitative analysis shows that Swiss parliamentarians demand more evaluations if they have the impression that the administration does not implement the policies within their meaning. This finding suggests that parliamentarians demand evaluations in order to fulfill their oversight function towards the government. This conclusion could be relevant in order to understand the role of evaluations within the parliamentary arena.

This article discusses the methodological challenges of legislative surveys. Following an overview of different types of survey biases, the article argues that self-selection and misreporting are the most critical problems for legislative surveys. In order to identify the self-selection and misreporting biases, we compare the answers to a survey from Swiss members of parliament with their observed behavior in the parliament. The empirical analysis shows that the survey sample has a substantial misreporting bias. We conclude that the parliamentarian's attitude towards the survey object is strongly linked to their response. These issues should be addressed to improve the design and quality of legislative surveys. †

This article demonstrates how attributes of policy fields shape parliamentary oversight across policy fields. Building on the accountability literature, the study develops the argument that parliamentarians will more likely oversee policy fields where cooperative forms of governance are more present, since these policies are more difficult to assess and have a higher need of legitimation. Using the example of policy evaluation demand by members of parliament in Switzerland, the study suggests that parliamentarians seek more control in a policy field, where public activities are more often delegated to nopublic actors or the need for legitimation is particularly high. Both effects increase with the policy field's closeness to science. These findings could be very relevant in order to understand how attributes of policy fields shape political institutions.

Members of Parliament (MPs) request policy evaluations and use the resultant findings to inform law-making and hold the government to account. Since most elected representatives have developed strong ties to interest groups, one might wonder whether these privileged relationships influence MPs' parliamentary behavior. This study investigates how MPs' affiliations to groups affects their demand for policy evaluations. Empirical evidence shows that, regardless of respective party or individual characteristics, MPs are more likely to request evaluations in those policy domains where they have a group affiliation. This effect holds even when controlling for a classical measure of MP policy specialization, such as legislative committee membership. These findings suggest that ties between MPs and specific types of interest group should be considered when explaining parliamentary behavior across different policy domains. Point for practitioners: To influence the policymaking process, interest groups participate in consultation procedures and parliamentary hearings, they lobby elected officials and deliver policy expertise to decision-makers. These advocacy strategies are well studied. This article innovates by showing that, in addition, interest groups foster 3 the development of policy evaluations. MPs affiliated to an interest group active on a specific issue are likely to request policy evaluations in that policy domain. Interest groups strengthen the parliamentary demand for evaluation studies and, thus, may potentially contribute to the accountability of government and public administration.

In this article, we consider the question of how professionalized the cantonal parliamentarians are and which factors are related to this professionalization. By definition, Swiss parliamentarians exert an occupation in parallel to their mandate. We argue that parliamentarians who spend more time for their mandate have more resources to do so and, more importantly, intend to pursue a political career. In doing so, we analyze data gathered from a survey that was conducted among all Swiss cantonal parliaments in 2014. Our multi-level analysis shows that parliamentarians who run for office at the national level spend significantly more time for their parliamentary mandate than their colleagues. This effect decreases with the parliamentarians' age. This finding could be relevant in order to understand the career paths of Swiss parliamentarians. In addition, the study contributes to the discussion of the future development of the militia system in Switzerland.