The French parliament: Loyal workhorse, poor watchdog

Frears, John

doi:10.1080/01402389008424805

Cited by 19 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…On the other hand, the Congreso usually modified most of the bills. As we can see in Table 4, about 75 per cent of these bills were passed with modifications – a similar rate to that described by Frears (1990: 43) in France. It is significant that a number of government bills were passed with amendments in the 1993 parliament because the governing majority was sharply divided at the time.…”

Section: Law‐making By the Congesosupporting

confidence: 73%

“…As Frears (1990: 33) points out, control over the executive is a fundamental activity of every modern parliament. In fact, we can state that the Cortes has been ‘highly active’ in this field.…”

Section: Control Activity Of the Congresomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Spain, questions are the most frequently used of such procedures – they account for almost 75 per cent of the total. As in other parliaments, such as the French National Assembly (Frears 1990: 34), the Belgium House of Representatives (De Winter 1998: 110) or the Portuguese Assembleia (Leston Bandeira 1998: 155), more than half of the total control activities are written questions (WQs). In Spain, the number of oral questions on the floor of the House is similar to French and Belgian levels.…”

Section: Control Activity Of the Congresomentioning

confidence: 99%

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Output of the Spanish Cortes (1979–2000): A case of adaptation to party government

Dios

2006

European J Political Res

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Abstract. This article considers the activity of the Spanish Cortes in law production and the control of the executive during the six parliaments of the democratic government. It mainly examines the output of the lower chamber due to the asymmetrical bicameralism and weak status of the Senate. In Spain, the legislative output has been dependent on different situations of party government. In general terms, the Cortes have been always very active in controlling the executive and its participation in law‐making was highly relevant when there was a minority government. Because parties are central actors in parliament and due to the strong party discipline in the Spanish case, the author mainly studied parliament output from the viewpoint of strategies of opposition parties. Sometimes parties behaved in parliament procedures in a competitive way, while in others they behave cooperatively. There was a great variety of patterns of strategic behaviour on account of the different situations of party government and the diverse opposition parties. Half of the parliaments had minority governments in which minority parties played a very important role by supporting the government in parliament; however, the main opposition party was never the same since there were two changes of government.

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Section: Law‐making By the Congesosupporting

confidence: 73%

Section: Control Activity Of the Congresomentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Control Activity Of the Congresomentioning

confidence: 99%

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Output of the Spanish Cortes (1979–2000): A case of adaptation to party government

Dios

2006

European J Political Res

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“…Scholars have repeatedly emphasized the fundamental importance of the legislature as a means to bridge the gap between government and the public. Legislatures have been popular avenues for public political activity in their function as ‘arenas for the perpetual fine‐tuning of conflicts’ (Shugart & Carey 1992: 165) or narrowing differences (Martin & Vanberg 2004), in their sensitivity to public opinion, both current (Miller & Strokes 1963) and future (Kingdon 1989) and in their responsiveness to public pressures (Frears 1990; Muller‐Rommel 1990; Pelinka 1985; Shaw 1990; see Mezey (1993) for a further discussion of legislatures). Moreover, legislators often engage in active constituency services to increase their chances of re‐election or other future careers in governmental agencies (Cain et al.…”

Section: Political Institution and Protestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rough days in democracies: Comparing protests in democracies

Nam

2007

European J Political Res

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Abstract. Democratic political institutions are generally designed to channel public opinion; yet citizens often take to the streets in protest. Why would citizens, provided with formal mechanisms to affect the policy process, resort to extraordinary means? This article argues that the strength of representative institutions influences the likelihood of protest. The democratic institution literature does not address the issue of protest and in the protest literature effects of the democratic governmental structure have been largely underestimated. However, the diversity in government formats across democratic states and the corresponding variation in amount of protests leads one to question the relationship between them. This article identifies the variation in the scale of protests among democratic regimes in Western European countries using the European Protest and Coercion Data and explains protest using variation in the forms of government. Protesters in democratic countries with a weak legislature find it difficult to deliver their demands to government due to the institutional environment. Therefore, they are more inclined to protest than citizens in countries with a strong legislature. This argument is tested along with other structural variables and supported by results from testing models using ordinary least squares with panel‐corrected standard errors.

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“…Cette domination de l'exécutif est particulièrement nette en France sous la Ve République (Frears 1990), où l'idéal "modernisateur" de l'après-guerre (porté par les hauts fonctionnaires et les élites socio-économiques au service de l'Etat), l'aggiornamento constitutionnel de 1958 et le césarisme gaullien ont sérieusement contribué à l'abaissement du rôle du Parlement dans la production de la norme et, partant, dans la fabrication des politiques publiques. Le recentrage du pouvoir autour de l'exécutif, le triomphe du mythe d'un gouvernement "rationnel" dans les années 1960 et le renforcement continu de la haute fonction publique à tous les postes de pouvoir dans l'Etat ont concentré le pouvoir décisionnel dans quelques instances proches du gouvernement (cabinets ministériels, administrations d'état-major, grandes entreprises publiques).…”

Section: L'infantilisation Des Assembléesunclassified

La vie à l'assemblée, angle mort de la science politique française

Nay

2003

Swiss Political Sci Review

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RésuméLes "Legislative Studies" constituent une importante sous-discipline de la science politique aux Etats-Unis et dans la plupart des pays européens. Or, dans les vingt dernières années, les chercheurs français ont quelque peu boudé l'analyse des comportements parlementaires. Cette brève note s'interroge sur les raisons de cet éloignement. Elle fait l'hypothèse que le désintérêt pour la vie des assemblées nationales et locales s'explique par la conjugaison de deux facteurs bien différents: d'une part, la faiblesse de l'intervention parlementaire en France (conséquence directe de la montée en puissance des appareils gouvernementaux et de la marginalisation des assemblées dans la définition des dispositifs d'action publique); d'autre part, l'ouverture de la science politique au raisonnement sociologique et son émancipation par rapport aux disciplines juridiques dans les années 1980-1990.

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The French parliament: Loyal workhorse, poor watchdog

Cited by 19 publications

References 0 publications

Output of the Spanish Cortes (1979–2000): A case of adaptation to party government

Output of the Spanish Cortes (1979–2000): A case of adaptation to party government

Rough days in democracies: Comparing protests in democracies

La vie à l'assemblée, angle mort de la science politique française

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