POL41960 Comparative European Legislatures

Academic Year 2017/2018

This course provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of legislative politics in Europe, focusing on procedures and rules and their consequences for the operation of different models of parliamentary government. We start with a review of agency problems in executive-legislative relations, mapping out the institutional mechanisms that parliaments can use to oversee and hold the executive accountable and tracing several important determinants of legislative organisation in European democracies. From then on, we analyse how political parties use legislative institutions to deal with various challenges of joint governance, such as policy-making, position-taking, ministerial drift, and MPs’ deviation from the party line. Some of the key questions addressed are: Why do patterns of legislative organisation vary across European countries and why does it matter? Who sets the parliamentary agenda and what are the consequences of agenda setting rules? Why are committees important for the operation of parliaments and how can they be useful for coalition governance? What functions do legislative debates serve for government and opposition parties? Who takes the parliamentary floor and why? What explains the high voting cohesion of trans-national party groups in the European Parliament?