Suchergebnisse

The European Union has long suffered from a lack of democratic accountability. In the past decade, the problem has become particularly acute in the economic management of the Eurozone, the 19 countries of the E.U. that use the Euro (nine members don't). At present, the central institution for management of the Eurozone is the Eurogroup, an informal body led by national finance ministers who report neither to the European Parliament nor to national parliaments but coordinate their activities with the Troika, that is, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Council. Critics accuse the Eurogroup both of lack of transparency and of consistently putting the interests of the rich northwest ahead of the interests of poorer and smaller nations in the east and south. In How to Democratize Europe, four distinguished French scholars describe the diverse problems of the Eurozone and propose a treaty that would establish a parliament for economic policy consisting of selected members of national parliaments. Various contributors then respond to the proposal with support, criticism, or ideas for alternatives.--

Intro -- Inhalt -- 1 Soziologie der Parlamente. Konturen eines Programms -- 1 Von der Geburt moderner Parlamentsforschung im Geist der Politischen Soziologie -- 1.1 Die Stellung des Parlaments im politischen System -- 1.2 Der interne Aufbau von Parlamenten -- 1.3 Die Rolle der ParlamentarierInnen -- 1.4 Parlamente in ihrem Verhältnis zu BürgerInnen -- 2 Für eine Erneuerung des soziologischen Blicks auf Parlamente -- 2.1 Die Stellung der Parlamente in der Gesellschaft -- 2.2 Die Wirklichkeitsordnung der Parlamente -- 2.3 Soziale Praxis in Parlamenten -- 2.4 Parlamente und ihre Kontaktstellen zur Umwelt -- 3 Die Beiträge -- Literatur -- Teil I Soziologie der Parlamente - Perspektiven und Potentiale -- 2 Makro - Mikro - Makro. Über Konjunkturen der Parlamentsforschung, den Beitrag der Soziologie und das Potenzial mikroanalytischer Perspektiven -- 1 Soziologische Perspektiven in der Parlamentarismusforschung -- 2 Ein Konzept für die Analyse parlamentarischen Alltagshandelns -- 3 Ergebnisse aus der Analyse parlamentarischen Alltagshandelns -- 4 Ausblick: Zur Zukunft mikroanalytischer Parlamentsforschung -- Literatur -- 3 The Belated Love of French Sociologists for Parliaments -- 1 Why the sociologist empire led to neglecting parliaments -- 2 Studying parliaments as sociologists -- 3 A critical assessment -- 4 Some (more or less) new sociological outlooks on parliaments in France -- 4.1 Historical sociology of the process of monopolisation and civilization -- 4.2 Sociology of techniques and material anthropology -- 4.3 Pragmatic sociology -- 4.4 Praxeology & ethnomethodology -- 5 Conclusion -- References -- 4 Towards an Interpretive Parliamentary Studies -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Traditional institutionalism in British parliamentary studies -- 3 New institutionalism in parliamentary studies -- 4 An interpretive agenda for parliamentary studies

Article 2(3) and (5) of Directive 2002/92/EC of the European Parliament and ofthe Council of 9 December 2002 on insurance mediation, as amended by Directive 2014/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014, and of Article 2(1)(1), (3) and (8) of Directive (EU) 2016/97 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 January 2016, on the distribution of insurance, as amended by Directive (EU) 2018/411 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2018, must be interpreted as meaning that the concept of 'insurance intermediary' and, therefore, that of 'insurance distributor', within the meaning of those provisions, covers a legal person whose activity consists in offering its customers membership on a voluntary basis, in return for payment which it receives from them, of a group insurance policy to which it has subscribed previously with an insurance company, where that membership entitles those customers to insurance benefits in the event, in particular, of sickness or accident abroad.

Can sitting Minister-Presidents rely on an incumbency advantage in German state parliament elections despite the indirect nature of their election? Changes in the office of the Minister-President after (and between) state parliament elections in Germany from 1950 to 2022 show: the importance of state parliaments and their parliamentary party groups should not be underestimated . More new Minister-Presidents were elected during an electoral term than after state parliament elections . Concerning elections to the offices during terms, four different resignation reasons could be identified: successions were successful, in particular, after resignations out of personal reasons . Moreover, it is possible to confirm an indirect incumbency bonus: parties of sitting Minister-Presidents who had served a whole term lost on average less shares of votes than parties of incumbents that had been in office for less than one term . In addition, there has been an increase of incumbent losses since 1990 . Parties of incumbent Minister-Presidents lost more share of votes between 1991 and 2022 than in the time until 1990; this trend is in particular observable again for incumbents that had been in office less than one term .

National parliaments have become significantly active in international arena particularly in advancing democracy and national interests within a globalized context. This report assesses the role that inter-parliamentary organizations play in regional and global political scenes under the umbrella of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). The article views these regional institutions in the context of their relations to the IPU through content analysis of available literature. Three of the regional bodies of interest in the report are the Arab Parliament, Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), and the European Union Parliament. The findings drawn from available literature shows that these organizations have become the new frontier for political movements as they take center stage in global affairs. The objectives of these regional bodies are largely aligned with those of the IPU, and it is not surprising that they frequently collaborate or agree on several issues. The article concludes that the Inter-parliamentary diplomacy and the pursuit of democracy through collective efforts of regional parliamentary bodies have made it possible for IPU to have a higher political currency in different jurisdictions.

During the pandemic, parliaments around the globe suffered a "double shock": They had to adjust to the challenges of the infectious disease and uphold or (re-)establish their roles with regard to the executive . A closer investigation of 27 parliaments in different political systems gives a first in-depth comparative account for their initial reactions to the crisis . It is based on information from an ongoing collaboration of experts on parliaments and builds on a model of historical institutionalism . In some countries significant measures were taken, including restricting participation in parliamentary proceedings and moving some of them online . Committees served as a field of experimentation for digitalizing par­liaments . While only in a few countries legislative activities were strongly dominated by the pandemic, in most countries continuity across policy areas prevailed . More variety can be seen in institutional changes for parliamentary oversight . Communication activities intensi­fied with the pandemic, particularly from parliamentary leadership . These first results indi­cate that parliaments and established parliamentary democracies, in particular, were able to perform their functions despite unprecedented challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandem­ic .

In a 2020 constitutional referendum on the 20th and 21st of September 2020, Italians voted to reduce the number of members of parliament from 945 to 600 . With a turnout of 51 percent, 70 percent voted in favor of this proposal . The article describes the historical background, the process that led to the referendum as well as the election result and its consequences . The main focus is on the question of why this referendum produced such a clear result . The thesis is that this high level of approval came about because the climate of opinion had been on the side of those in favor of reducing the size of parliament for years . This climate of opinion is the result of decades of debate about and against the political "casta", which led citizens to more and more lose trust in parties and parliament until even the parties agreed to the reduction . The opponents' attempt to tilt this climate of opinion shortly before the vote in order to mobilize a majority against the downsizing of parliament was bound to fail because of the long-cemented opinion on the issue .

Main argument raised against EU early warning mechanism is its low utility. Yellow card procedure has been launched three times so far, whereas orange card procedure not even once. This indicates that the potential of political instrument which is early-warning mechanism is not fully explored. Nonetheless after seven years since the Lisbon Treaty came into force we can collect enough data in order to asses not only the mechanism itself but also the influence of this instrument on the national parliament scrutiny and engagement in the EU affairs. The aim of this article is: to research how the Sejm and Senate use the early warning mechanism, describe what is its impact on general competences of the Polish parliament regarding subsidiarity control and to confront this assessment with the activity of other national parliaments. Thus, the author will propose the
set of indicators according to which will be possible to evaluate the activity and eventually the
effectiveness of national parliaments while using the early warning mechanism. There will be also
presented the results of the empirical study measuring the activity of Sejm and Senate in mentioned
area in the years 2010-2016.

The concept of representation in public law is attracting more and more interest; specially gives many problems in the Parliament how representation, so as a representative institution. In this place is plained a principal problem: the new function of Parliament and the role of parliamentary's Government control. We assist to the end of the dogma of the separation of powers. So we need to distinguish between control by the Parliament and control in the Parliament; the first are less effective because significate the Government control of his own majority; the second is the critical capacity of minorities against the Government; this last are a effective control who's should create public opinion. This does not imply the suppression of public representation idea. By suggesting a revision of this idea does not mean that they should disappear. It seems wise to conserve the concept of representation providing it refer to the particular situation of the authority and his decision, whenever he appears as a victim of the process in which take part the after side of problem: the souveragnity.

In 1999 a devolved Scottish Parliament was established within the United Kingdom following a referendum two years earlier. The current governing party in that Parliament – the SNP – held a referendum on Scottish independence in September 2014, which resulted in a decision to stay within the UK. However, during the referendum campaign promises were made by the main UK parties to transfer further power away from the British Parliament at Westminster to the Scottish Parliament in the hope this would satisfy demands for greater self-government in Scotland. This paper analyses the rhetoric of the leaders of Britain's two main political parties in an effort to detect strategies used to construct and perpetuate Britishness in the context of devolution and a threat to the British state. It finds a number of discursive strategies deployed to promote unity and difference to (non-British) others. It also suggests the apparent need by British political leaders to deploy such British-constructivist strategies involves avoiding even acknowledging the reality of a major constitutional reform such as devolution and therefore political difference between the nations of the UK.

Includes abstract. ; Includes bibliographical references. ; The purpose of this thesis is to determine the role played by the media in creating a level of awareness in the public mind, and an associated level of trust and confidence within the legislative arm of government. This is achieved through a qualitative research methodology that includes indepth interviews with experts in the field of political communication, particularly journalists and politicians who are members of parliament. Detailed in-depth questionnaires were also used to ascertain the views of these respondents on the same topic. The research also does a comparative content analysis of two newspapers the Cape Argus and the New Age. The key finding of this thesis is that the state is responsible for its own confidence levels without the role or impact of the media – a view not shared by some members of parliament and communications experts. Indeed, members of parliament feel strongly that the media does not portray a true understanding of the work of parliament and that they should do more than what is currently presented by the media houses across the spectrum in the field of communication.

В статье рассматриваются особенности институционализации парламентаризма в современной России. Использование авторами институционально-правового и нормативно-ценностного подходов для анализа данного политического института направлено на сопоставление конституционного статуса и реальных практик деятельности парламентаризма в постсоветской России. Таким образом, комплексное исследование проблем развития института парламентаризма, присущих современному российскому государству, позволяет определить наиболее острые из них. Подчеркивается, что слабое влияние парламента на политический процесс связано с особенностями представительства, непониманием значительной части населения роли парламента как одной из ветвей власти, а также институциональными особенностями распределения полномочий между органами власти. ; In article features of an institutionalization of parliamentarism in modern Russia are considered. Authors use institutional and legal and standard and valuable approach for the parliament analysis. The constitutional status and real practicians of activity of parliamentarism in Post-Soviet Russia is investigated. As a result of the analysis the most burning issues of functioning of parliament are defined. It is emphasized that weak influence of parliament on political process is connected with features of representation. The considerable part of the population does not understand a parliament place among the authorities. It also influences features of distribution of powers between authorities.

As a state institution that was born from the amendment of the Constitution 1945, Regional Representative Council (hereafter: Council) has authority and supervision functions of such legislation in general. There are two important issues related to the council. First, the Council has the authority and supervision functions which are stated in constitution. Second, the Council has an equal position with the Parliament. By looking at the role of the Council and the Parliament stated in constitution, it can be seen that the Council is merely a complimentary institution. On the other hand, the institution which has the real legislation, supervision and budgeting functions is the Parliament. The provision contained in the constitution indicates inequality and imbalance between the Council and the Parliament, it does not mean that the Council has no role in the process of state. The Council should continue to run its legislation, supervision and budgeting functions optimally. Futhermore the Council should establish optimal relation with local communities. In this case, the Council is more flexible since its presence does not represent any political parties. Therefore the Council may have "public hearing" with various groups in society.

With the United Kingdom lacking a codified constitution, there has been no extraordinary formal mechanism for amending the provisions of the constitution. Change has been achieved through parliament. The century since the passage of the Parliament Act 1911 has witnessed significant constitutional change. The measures enacted have affected basic relationships at the heart of the nation's constitutional arrangements: those between the two chambers of parliament, between parliament and the people, between the state and the individual, between the UK and the rest of the world, and between the centre and the rest of the UK. The measures enacted prior to 1997 were essentially individual statutes produced in response to particular challenges. The period since 1997 has seen proactive and extensive legislation, changing substantially the contours of the constitution. Despite the scale of the change, the measures have been disparate and discrete and not generated within a coherent philosophical framework. Although achieving their principal goals, not all have had the effects intended. This volume treats some of the key measures enacted in this period.

It can be assumed that the cleavage between generations is becoming increasingly important due to the thus-far unresolved environmental and demographic challenges. Accordingly, 'intergenerational justice' (IGJ) would be a justice category that has moved up on the political agenda. This hypothesis can be tested by looking at debates in parliament, since debates in parliament reflect shifts in social values. The article evaluates if members of the German parliament referred more often to IGJ (and related terms) in the run-up to the elections 2009 than they did in 2005. A further analysis is made as to whether the concept of 'social justice' (SJ) in the German Parliament was less often a subject of discussion. The results are broken down according to document type, political parry and policy area. Among other things, the results show that IGJ is indeed discussed more often in 2009 than in 2005. Contrary to expectations, the use of the term 'social justice' and related concepts did not decrease. The further left on the political spectrum a parry was, the more its members discussed SJ. For IGJ, the left-right division was less apparent. Adapted from the source document.