How are prime ministers held to account? Exploring procedures and practices in 31 parliamentary democracies

Serban, Ruxandra

doi:10.1080/13572334.2020.1853944

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Countries and questioning mechanisms. Drawing on a wider study of questioning prime ministers in parliamentary democracies (Serban, 2022), and using United Kingdom as the anchor case, I selected four cases for in-depth study: Question Period (Canada), Question Time (Australia), PMQs (United Kingdom) and Oral Questions to the Taoiseach (Ireland). The four countries share important similarities: they are parliamentary democracies, so the executive is drawn from and accountable from the legislature, and the prime minister is regularly and routinely questioned by parliament through a questioning session in the plenary.…”

Section: Case Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conflictual behaviour in legislatures: Exploring and explaining adversarial remarks in oral questions to prime ministers

Serban

2023

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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Questioning mechanisms such as Prime Minister’s Questions in the United Kingdom and Question Time in Australia are notoriously adversarial. Much less is known about whether and how questioning facilitates conflict in other legislatures. This question is particularly important given the criticism that excessive adversarialism may hinder the performance of accountability, and hence may be detrimental to the work of legislatures. Building on legislative studies literature, this article presents the first comparative study of conflict in oral parliamentary questions; in so doing, it explores patterns of conflictual remarks in questions addressed to prime ministers in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and Ireland. It posits that institutional culture, party discipline, government and opposition status and the authority of the Speaker are key factors in explaining the performance of conflict, and that rules of procedure alone are not enough to curb the manifestation of conflict in legislatures where questioning is a known opportunity for criticism.

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Section: Case Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conflictual behaviour in legislatures: Exploring and explaining adversarial remarks in oral questions to prime ministers

Serban

2023

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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“…Finally, in the UK, the distribution of questions is decided by a random shuffle which generally favours the two largest parties. Questions are asked to the PM every week, and once the PM answers the question, no rebuttal is possible except for the Leader(s) of the Opposition who can ask questions on every QT and rebuttal the PM's answers (Serban, 2020).…”

Section: Data Collection and Operationalisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parties’ parliamentary attack behaviour throughout the electoral cycle

Poljak

Walter

2023

Party Politics

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Studies examining parties’ attack behaviour, also called negative campaigning, largely neglect temporal dynamics. Therefoe, this paper examines how the electoral cycle, the period between two elections, impacts parties’ attack behaviour in parliaments. We argue that parties attack all the time but that the (i) level, (ii) type, and (iii) nature of attacks are affected by the electoral cycle as parties adapt their objectives. Analysing longitudinal data on parties’ attacks in the parliaments of Belgium, Croatia, and the UK (2010–2020), we find that when elections draw closer parties’ use of attacks, trait attacks, and uncivil attacks increases. We also find support for the notion that not all parties’ attack behaviour is equally impacted by the electoral cycle, as parties differ in sensitivity to the electoral cycle based on risk acceptance. Overall, the impact of the electoral cycle on parties’ strategic choices in general, and attack behaviour specifically, should not be ignored.

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“…A more particular hallmark of a new generation of opposition studies has been the construction of major indices developed from observed institutional patterns in the established parliamentary democracies. These have included an ‘opposition power index’ (Garritzmann 2017), a ‘policy-making power index of opposition players’ (Wegmann 2020) and an index of different parliamentary questioning regimes (Serban 2020). Such studies are important, as most observable patterns of oppositional agency and government–opposition relations – beyond the more particular question of opposition fragmentation or coherence – relate to the prevailing institutional opportunity structures.…”

Section: Party-based Political Opposition In Representative Democraciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Oppositions in Democratic and Authoritarian Regimes: A State-of-the-Field(s) Review

Helms

2022

Gov. & oppos.

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Political opposition has long been one of the most dramatically understudied elements of real-world politics in contemporary democratic and authoritarian regimes. The past decade or so has, however, witnessed an upsurge of new opposition research that begs for a major state-of-the-field review. Interestingly, recent scholarship has focused more on manifestations of opposition in authoritarian and hybrid than in democratic systems, which indicates a latent reconceptualization of political opposition (setting aside older distinctions between regime-loyal opposition and regime-challenging forms of resistance, dissidence and contestation). With a focus on party-based forms of opposition, which have been widely considered to mark the most effective form of opposition, this review article takes stock and highlights key issues for future research as well as some inherent obstacles to the emergence of a more integrated field of cross-regime opposition studies.

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How are prime ministers held to account? Exploring procedures and practices in 31 parliamentary democracies

Cited by 9 publications

References 47 publications

Conflictual behaviour in legislatures: Exploring and explaining adversarial remarks in oral questions to prime ministers

Conflictual behaviour in legislatures: Exploring and explaining adversarial remarks in oral questions to prime ministers

Parties’ parliamentary attack behaviour throughout the electoral cycle

Political Oppositions in Democratic and Authoritarian Regimes: A State-of-the-Field(s) Review

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