Voters increasingly value 'independence' as a quality in politicians; they want elected representatives to put constituents before party. But what does the performance of representation look like in the absence of a party? This article examines how independent (non-party) elected representatives perform their representative work. Drawing on constructivist approaches, the concept of 'representative practices' is developed and applied to explore how Australia's Community Independents are performing representation. Six categories of representative practice are inductively identified and examined: self-presentation, constituency-making, listening and engaging, civic capacity-building, advocacy, and accountability. The analysis sheds light on the diverse ways that politicians are performing representation in contexts where citizens seek more autonomous, 'authentic', and engaged representatives.
We argue that 'new' cleavages (education, age, ethnicity, and urban-rural) have a changing and critical influence on policy outcomes. This influence works through party and extra-party mechanisms, reflecting the decline of the economic cleavage and the distinct logic of new cleavages. We ground our argument in a literature review; this allows us to identify continuities between work on partisanship and new cleavages. Debates about age and immigration are extensive, with distinct views of the relationship between cleavages and outcomes underpinning these. 'Neo-pluralists' emphasize links between demographic changes and outcomes; institutional theorists underline path dependency. Investigations of the urban-rural cleavage underscore the importance of policy visibility and the conditions in which rural voters influence policy outcomes. Studies of education are underdeveloped. Concluding, we argue that our analysis confirms the role of age and ethnicity as major cleavages. In future, researchers might reflect on specific links between new cleavages and parties, making better use of qualitative methods.
There are few studies on how MPs' careers are shaped after they leave parliament, and the vast majority have focused on advanced Western democracies. In T & uuml;rkiye, there is no study on MPs' post-parliamentary careers. Addressing this empirical gap, this study explores how institutional transformations and democratic backsliding reshape elite survival strategies. The analysis reveals that political capital is primarily converted into bureaucratic appointments to secure regime loyalty, rather than free-market opportunities. In addition, it has been found that under the presidential government system, a parliamentary career can serve as a pathway to senior management in the public sector, and former MPs who are members of the ruling party have a significant advantage over former MPs who are members of the opposition party.
Parliaments, as the preeminent democratic institution and source of workplace standards, should uphold the highest regulatory behaviour. However, recent instances demonstrate that parliaments frequently fail to ensure all people in the parliamentary workplace are afforded procedural fairness when handling complaints. This is unjust, inconsistent with employment and administrative law, and undermines efforts to reduce poor behaviour within these institutions. This article uses case studies from the UK, Australia, and Canada to show that this denial of procedural fairness stems from two peculiar practices. First, parliamentary privilege undermines members' rights, such as recourse if defamed or the ability to appeal detrimental action taken by the House. Second, political parties take detrimental action against members without due process while having few obligations to investigate misconduct complaints. Despite these enduring norms, the article argues that parliaments must not be absolved of the responsibility to ensure procedural fairness in regulating member behaviour and proposes that parliamentary privilege and party conduct can be regulated in ways that ensure procedural fairness without compromising parliamentary independence.
This article presents research on the democratic roles and experiences of councillors in the North-East of Scotland. In-depth interviews with councillors examine perceptions of change in the councillor's role(s) and day-to-day experiences of representation. By analysing councillors' narratives, our goal is to understand the elected member 'doing' politics locally and to offer insight on how their roles are evolving. How do councillors perform their roles at a time of financial restrictions, technological change, and rising discontent amongst voters? Councillors are critical actors in our political system, with knowledge and insight on how local democracy functions, and we examine their views on how the role of councillor might be reformed. Our findings demonstrate increasing challenges faced by councillors, not least restrictions on council budgets and rising levels of harassment, although councillors still gain a great deal of satisfaction from the role. Community representation remains a key function, but responsibilities have expanded to include communication of council cuts and managing digital media. Our research suggests that councillors suffer from a 'status problem', in that they feel under-resourced and under-appreciated relative to other elected representatives. We argue that to attract others to the role the status of councillors should be enhanced.
Faced with complex policy challenges, policymakers increasingly rely on expert input, reinforcing technocratic tendencies within representative democracy. While public support for expert governance-especially involving female, politically unaffiliated academics-is well documented, less is known about (the mechanisms shaping) their actual presence in expert roles. This study examines the underrepresentation of female experts in Belgian parliamentary hearings (2012-2023), using logistic regression models to assess how temporal trends, policy domains, disciplinary background, and career stage influence their presence. We find that female academics are disproportionately consulted in soft policy domains and at earlier career stages compared to male academics. These patterns persist even after accounting for temporal change or disciplinary and seniority distributions, suggesting that gendered disparities in expert consultation are not merely reflective of the academic pool. Instead, structural selection biases likely limit female academics' access to policy influence, raising critical questions about democratic inclusivity and the gendered nature of expert involvement.
The present study seeks to contribute to the literature on party behaviour in the EU multilevel system by comparing political opposition in the European and the national parliaments. It breaks new ground by examining if the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic and Europhile parties across levels is consistent. The empirical analysis utilizes an original dataset of more than 5200 statements from plenary debates in the EP and in the legislatures of one former and five current member states: Austria, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Our results show that the oppositional behaviour of both types of parties is inconsistent across levels. Eurosceptic parties express significantly more opposition in the national parliament than in the EP, whereas Europhile parties express significantly more opposition in the EP than in national parliaments.
This study seeks to expand the growing body of literature on affective polarization by examining the relationship between elite rhetoric and partisan animus toward the radical right in the electorate. Although several studies have looked into affective polarization toward radical right parties (RRPs) and how they are delegitimized in parliamentary debates, only a few have linked these two phenomena. This study investigates how negativity expressed in the parliamentary speeches of an in-party toward the RRP is related to an individual's animus toward the radical right. I explore this relationship using the case of the Sweden Democrats (SD). Combining the National Society, Opinion, and Mass Media survey data and legislative speeches from the Riksdag from 2010 to 2021, my results show that the partisans' affective polarization toward SD is higher when their party's rhetoric toward SD becomes more negative. The effect of in-party negativity persists even after conventional predictors of affective polarization are added to the analysis and despite the voters' negative attitudes toward accepting more refugees. These results enhance our understanding of how the communication behavior of elites can potentially shape perceptions and intensify animosity toward the RRP among partisans, even when they agree with the RRP on immigration issues.
Why are some arithmetically possible coalitions never pursued while others form rapidly? This article argues that leadership capital operates as gatekeeper and accelerator in coalition formation, extending the Leadership Capital Index framework from office-holding to office-seeking contexts. Applying this framework to the 2010 UK coalition negotiations, and drawing comparisons with the 1977-78 Lib-Lab Pact and 2017 Conservative-DUP agreement, the analysis demonstrates how Gordon Brown's capital deficits prevented serious pursuit of a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition despite arithmetic feasibility, while David Cameron's strong capital position enabled rapid Conservative-Liberal Democrat agreement within five days. The findings specify scope conditions for when leadership matters: arithmetic determines likely outcomes, but capital shapes the process through which structural possibilities become political realities.
This article examines the historical evolution of legislative chamber design in Latin America, from independence to the present. Using a new dataset, we trace the trajectories of unicameral and bicameral legislatures across the region. The analysis demonstrates that democratic regimes foster greater institutional continuity, making chamber reforms less likely, while autocracies exhibit higher volatility. Moreover, bicameral congresses prove more resilient than unicameral ones, which are more prone to structural change. By linking legislative design to regime type, the study advances understanding of institutional stability and change in Latin America.
This article examines public perceptions of government territorial bias in multilevel systems. Drawing on original survey data from Scotland and Wales, it finds that while devolved administrations are generally viewed as less biased than the UK (state-wide) government, they are still seen as privileging wealthy, urban cores over poorer, rural peripheries. Perceptions of bias are also correlated with constitutional preferences: bias attributed to the state-wide government corresponds with significantly greater support for decentralization, whereas perceived devolved bias is associated with lower support, even after accounting for a wide range of demographic and political factors. Similar, though less clear-cut, patterns are evident for European integration (less so for secession). These findings highlight the importance of perceived territorial fairness in the UK's ongoing constitutional debates.
This article provides the first systematic and data-driven measure of Labour Party parliamentary factionalism under Keir Starmer by examining parliamentary nominations in the 2025 deputy leadership election. Developing an entirely new, comprehensive dataset of all Labour Members of Parliament (MPs) and then using multivariate and bias-reduced logistic regression, our article reveals how personal attributes, constituency characteristics, organizational affiliations, trade union connections and parliamentary behaviour shaped a three-bloc parliamentary factional structure: a leadership-aligned centre backing Bridget Phillipson, a sceptical soft-left coalition supporting Lucy Powell, and a small socialist left nominating Bell Ribeiro-Addy. Drawing on this, we then advance parliamentary signalling theory as a framework for understanding parliamentary choices in intra-party democracy. Through this we advance a transferable approach for analysing party factionalism in other political parties and parliamentary democracies.
There is extensive research on legislation co-sponsorship, but information on why opposition-initiated legislation is adopted is scarce. This article fills this gap by identifying the reasons behind legislation adoption in Romania in the 2020-2024 parliament as the least likely case where opposition could push laws through. Our thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with MPs shows the importance of personal networks, parliamentary experience, budget impact, and public pressure. In some instances, especially with salient issues, proposals' innovation and specificity also boosted their adoption. Somewhat counterintuitively, constituency interests, ideological proximity, and MP expertise did not matter.
Contact between citizens and politicians is clearly beneficial in a democracy. Schools offer a chance to introduce students to politics early, helping engage them before potential disillusionment makes participation more difficult. This study examines the effects of school visits by politicians on students' attitudes towards politics, focusing on three dimensions: the image of politicians, internal political efficacy, and external political efficacy. 15- to 19-year-olds in two German schools participated in a state parliament outreach programme. Using a pre-post design, surveys were administered immediately before and just over one week after the 90-minute event that included a question-and-answer session with a state-level politician. The results show significant improvements in all three indicators, with small to medium effect sizes, suggesting that such outreach programmes can enhance students' perceptions of politicians and students' confidence in understanding and engaging with politics. The findings further indicate that the intervention may have effects across people with different characteristics. This highlights the potential of political outreach initiatives, in schools and elsewhere, to foster positive attitudes towards the political system.
This article examines the institutional mechanisms through which citizens' assemblies (CAs) connect with parliamentary procedures in Ireland and France, two pioneering democracies in the institutionalization of deliberative mini-publics. Drawing on a comparative case study analysis of the Irish Citizens' Assembly (2016-2018) and the French Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat (2019-2020), we develop a typology of institutional coupling mechanisms that mediate between deliberative and representative institutions. Our findings reveal that while both jurisdictions have embraced CAs as supplements to parliamentary democracy, they exhibit distinct patterns of integration: Ireland demonstrates "tight coupling" through formalized procedural integration-specifically the use of dedicated joint parliamentary committees and constitutional referendums-whereas France exhibits "loose coupling" characterized by executive mediation and high-stakes presidential commitments that lack robust legislative follow-through. We argue that effective institutional coupling requires a tripartite alignment of formal transmission protocols, dedicated parliamentary accountability structures, and sustained political commitment to implementation. The article contributes to the scholarship on democratic innovation by demonstrating that the efficacy of citizens' assemblies depends not merely on their internal deliberative quality, but critically on how they are institutionally embedded within the existing parliamentary architecture.
This paper focuses on the Alternative Member System (AMS), sometimes referred to as a Mixed-Member PR (MMPR) electoral system, in which seventy-three members of the devolved Scottish Parliament (MSPs) are elected from single-member, simple plurality, Westminster-style constituencies and fifty-six from eight New Zealand or Germany-style regions. These arrangements are evaluated against general criteria for assessing electoral systems and the representativeness and accountability of regional-list MSPs in particular called into question. Ultimately, a case is made for a shift from the present closed and anonymized party list system for electing regional MSPs to a more personalized semi-open list system in which, in addition to the choice of casting an en bloc list ballot, there would be a single candidate preference option. This would be to implement the recommendation (4.66) of the 2006 Arbuthnott Commission without the need for major electoral surgery.
Like other male-dominated fields, politics is not free from sexism. While most research has focused on voters' sexist attitudes, little is known about how elected representatives themselves, as bystanders, perceive, and respond to sexism within political institutions. This study examines the likelihood that local councilors will identify and confront publicly hostile and benevolent sexist remarks during legislative sessions. Drawing on psychological research, we analytically distinguish between the recognition of sexist behavior and the willingness to intervene. Using a split-ballot experiment on a nationally representative sample of Polish local councilors (N = 669), we find that hostile sexism is relatively easy to recognize and challenge, whereas benevolent sexism often remains overlooked and unaddressed. Responses are moderated by councilors' gender, age (but not tenure in office), and Right-Wing Authoritarianism. We therefore urge attention not only to overt hostility toward women but also to the subtle costs of benevolent sexism, which may contribute to the exclusion of women from deliberative bodies.
This article analyses how UK MPs engage with LGBTQ issues through nonlegislative parliamentary mechanisms. Drawing on original datasets of LGBTQ-related Early Day Motions (2005-25), e-petitions (2010-25), and descriptive representation, it traces patterns of symbolic action, public participation, and visible diversity. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ)-related EDMs have increased but attract declining and partisan support, operating primarily as expressive signals. LGBTQ e-petitions are rare yet achieve comparatively high publication, response, and debate rates, reflecting symbolic rather than substantive responsiveness. Growing LGBTQ representation expands visibility but does not increase use or effectiveness of these tools. Overall, nonlegislative mechanisms offer recognition with limited institutional traction.
Both advocates and critics of the 'presidentialization' thesis agree that the British Prime Minister's power depends on the effective use of the institutional and personal resources at his or her disposal. A good Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) can help them achieve that. Yet surprisingly little has been written about the role. Focusing on Ian Gow, PPS to Margaret Thatcher during her first term, allows us to explore the potential inherent in the job-one that, in addition to acting as a two-way conduit between prime minister and party, involves writing speeches, helping to appoint and control ministers, and advising on policy and general election timing. As such, it deserves more attention from those interested in the premiership and in parliament-and in the relationship between the two-than it has so far been accorded.
Most of the existing studies on political trust focus on citizens' trust in political institutions. This study shifts this focus to investigate how corruption scandals affect trust among policymakers. The analysis concerns one of the most widely known scandals hitting the European Parliament: the money-for-influence scandal popularly known as "Qatargate." I argue that group identification helps understand how policymakers described and experienced the Qatargate scandal and how they perceived the scandal effects on trust among policymakers. This study consists of a framing analysis of EP plenary debates on the Qatargate scandal and interviews with key players. This article shows how group belongings help understand the many differences in the ways policymakers saw the causes of corruption, the importance they attached to citizens' trust in political institutions, and the effects of the scandal on trust among policymakers. While the Qatargate potentially weakened trust among policymakers, trust within party groups often remained strong.
