The politics of adaptation: The Europeanisation of national parliamentary systems

Abstract

Parliamentary systems can be characterised by particular patterns of interaction between the executive, the majority parties and the opposition parties in parliament. The basic argument outlined in this paper is that in order to understand the impact of European integration on national parliamentary democracies we have to find out how these patterns are adjusted. The article starts by identifying the basic social mechanisms that drive the interaction of the mentioned groups of actors and by describing how they are modified in European multi-level governance. In this context, members of national parliaments are faced with a dilemma: Successful scrutiny can undermine the effectiveness of European governance whereas a permissive parliament causes a legitimacy deficit. Through case studies on the Europeanisation of the parliamentary systems in the UK, in Denmark and in Germany, the authors show how members of parliaments cope with this challenge and which strategies they apply to avoid the dilemma.

To Scrutinise or Not to Scrutinise? Explaining Variation in EU-Related Activities in National Parliaments

“…MPs and PPGs can, of course, also find ways to compensate for a lack of formal rights through other, and possibly more informal, strategies (Auel and Benz 2005). Yet it can clearly be expected that institutional provisions enshrined in the Constitution, ordinary legislation or standing orders provide institutional opportunities and thus facilitate the involvement of parliaments in EU affairs.…”

National Parliaments in the post-Lisbon European Union: Bureaucratization rather than Democratization?

“…Following accounts of how parliaments were the "victims" of European integration due to a process of "deparliamentarization" (Moravcsik, 1995;Norton, 1996;Weber-Panariello, 1995) in the 1990s, national parliaments have been portrayed as more active players in the context of EU integration after the Treaty of Amsterdam (e.g. Auel and Benz, 2005;O'Brennan and Raunio, 2007), although some still raise the question as to whether national parliaments are "losers or late-comers" (Maurer and Wessels, 2001) or indeed whether they are "destined for irrelevance" (Raunio, 2010).…”

Who Europeanises parliamentary attention, on which issues and how? A policy agenda perspective

“…More recent studies draw our attention to the behavioral and attitudinal dimensions of Europeanization and invite us to take a closer look at what political parties and national MPs really do and how they behave (e.g. Auel 2006, Auel and Benz 2005, Auel and Raunio 2014, Benz 2004, Pollak and Slominski 2003, Navarro and Brouard 2014, Palau 2012, Raunio 2009. We join this second stream of research by looking at the Europeanization of parliamentary activities in Switzerland.…”