Comparing and Classifying Legislatures
Recent years have witnessed substantial work in the legislative studies field. But what do we know about legislatures and are there clear criteria for comparing and classifying them?
Comparing and Classifying Legislatures reviews the state of our knowledge of parliaments and approaches a comparison and classification of legislatures by examining their relative policy power. There is a systematic application of indicators of policy power to parliaments in various countries and regions, including:
US
Latin America
Southern Africa
Western Europe
Post-Communist Europe.
This book was previously published as a special issue of The Journal of Legislative Studies.
David Arter holds the First Chair of Politics at the University of Aberdeen
Library of Legislative Studies
Edited by Lord Philip Norton of Louth, University of Hull, UK.
1. National Parliaments & the European Union
Edited by Philip Norton
2. The New Parliaments of Central & Eastern Europe
Edited by David M. Olson & Philip Norton
3. Members of Parliament in Western Europe
Edited by Wolfgang C. Muller & Thomas Saalfield
4. The New Roles of Parliamentary Committees
Edited by Lawrence D. Longley & Roger H. Davidson
5. Conscience and Parliamant
Edited by Philip Cowley
6. Parliaments & Governments in Western Europe
Edited by Philip Norton
7. Parliaments and Pressure Groups in Western Europe
Edited by Philip Norton
8. Parliaments in Asia
Edited by Philip Norton & Nizam Ahmed
9. The Uneasy Relationship between Parliamentary Members and Leaders
Lawrence D. Longley & Reuven Yair Hazan
10. Delegation and Accountability in European Integration
Edited by Torbjorn Bergman & Erik Damgaard
11. Second Chambers
Edited by Nicholas Baldwin & Donald Shell
12. Parliaments and Citizens in Western Europe
Edited by Philip Norton
13. The Rise of the Norwegian Parliament
Hilmar Rommetvedt
14. The Unseen Hand
Edited by Rinus van Schendelen & Roger Scully
15. The Scottish Parliament
David Arter
16. From Legislation to Legitimation: The Role of the Portuguese Parliament
Edited by Cristina Leston-Bandeira
17. Cohesion & Discipline in Legislature
Edited by Reuven Y. Hazan
18. Southern European Parliaments in Democracy
Cristina Leston-Bandeira
19. Executive Leadership & Legislative Assemblies
Edited by Nicholas Baldwin
20. The Europeanisation of Parliamentary Democracy
Edited by Katrin Auel and Arthur Benz
21. Comparing and Classifying Legislatures
Edited by David Arter
Comparing and Classifying Legislatures
Edited by
David Arter
First published 2007 by Routledge
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Transferred to Digital Printing 2009
2007 David Arter
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ISBN10: 0-415-37587-8 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0-415-56864-1 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-37587-0 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-56864-7 (pbk)
Contents
David Arter
John E. Owens and Burdett A. Loomis
Vello Pettai and lle Madise
Lia Nijzink, Shaheen Mozaffar and Elisabete Azevedo
Eric Kerrouche
Reuven Y. Hazan and Gideon Rahat
James L. Newell
Carlos Huneeus, Fabiola Berros and Rodrigo Cordero
Erik Damgaard and Henrik Jensen
Anthony J. McGann
David Arter
David Arter is Professor of Politics at the University of Aberdeen and Director of the Nordic Policy Studies Centre. His most recent publications include Democracy in Scandinavia: Consensual, Majoritarian or Mixed? (Manchester University Press, 2006) and Scottish Committee Activity Outside Edinburgh: Towards a Mobilised Small Democracy?, Journal of Regional and Federal Studies, 3 (2006). He has contributed several articles to The Journal of Legislative Studies and is currently working on the policy oversight function and performance of the West European standing committee systems.
Elisabete Azevedo is a PhD Student with the University of Cape Town, preparing a thesis on Public Opinion and Representative Democracy: Analyzing Citizen Attitudes toward Elected Legislatures in 18 African Countries. Currently, Azevedo is a Research Assistant in the African Legislatures Project and works with the Afrobarometer network. She has been European Union Observer for elections in Guinea Bissau, Burundi and Liberia. Her recent work includes a paper, Post-Conflict Elections in Africa: Liberia and Guinea Bissau in Comparative Perspective, presented at the Nordic Africa Institute Conference in Accra, Ghana, 1517 May 2006.
Fabiola Berros is a Political Scientist and Master (C) in International Studies at the Institute of International Studies, University of Chile. She is a Researcher at CERC. Her research interests are parliamentary function, public opinion and presidentialism. Berross latest publications are La UDI en las elecciones 2005, in Carlos Huneeus, Fabiola Berros and Ricardo Gamboa (eds), Elecciones 2005 en Chile (forthcoming 2006) and El Congreso en el presidencialismo. El caso de Chile, Revista de la Asociacin Argentina de Ciencia Poltica, 2/2 (2005).
Rodrigo Cordero is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Research Fellow in the Institute for Social Science Research at Diego Portales University, Chile. His research interests are political sociology, political elites, public opinion, public sphere and mass media. His latest publications are La composicin social de la nueva cmara de dipuados en Chile: cambios y continuidades en perspectiva histrica (19612005), in Carlos Huneeus, Fabiola Berros and Ricardo Gamboa (eds), Elecciones 2005 en Chile (forthcoming 2006) and Los medios masivos y las transformaciones de la esfera pblica en Chile in Persona y Sociedad, XIX/3 (2005).
Erik Damgaard is Professor of Government in the Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus. His professional interests include legislative studies, parliamentary government, coalition studies and democratic theory. He has published widely in books and journals on Danish and Nordic parliaments and politics over the past several decades. His latest publication (with H. Jensen) is Europeanisation of ExecutiveLegislative Relations: Nordic Perspectives, in K. Auel and A. Benz (eds.),
