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A parliamentary committee of inquiry (PCI) is one of the tools with which a parliament carries out its oversight function. It enables the parliament to conduct in-depth investigations of particular issues, uncover failures and corruption, and increase accountability and transparency of the government. Surprisingly, despite its value, the PCI has received little scholarly attention. This research focuses on PCIs in Israel’s parliament (the Knesset) from an institutional perspective. Our analysis – which draws on studies on parliamentary committees in general and on cross-national and other single-country studies on PCIs – highlights the institutional weaknesses of PCIs in Israel; yet at the same time, it shows how even weak PCIs can leave a mark if their limited powers are used skilfully. Based on our findings, we propose an institutional framework to evaluate the PCI as a parliamentary oversight tool that can be developed in future studies and other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Independent regulatory agency has become the standard institutional choice in Western Europe. Little is known, however, about the involvement of legislators in their design and in their monitoring. In this paper, we analyse ex-ante and ex-post legislative involvement for 48 regulatory agencies enacted in France. We show that legislators debate and design more substantially agencies for which the government bill has already granted them more powers to appoint members to their board, or to be appointed as board members themselves. Once enacted, agencies that allow greater participation by legislators in their decision-making are subject to greater scrutiny, and this even after controlling for routine oversight activities. Regulatory domains matter, though only for ex-post legislative oversight. These results suggest that legislative involvement is selective and driven by strategic considerations. More fundamentally, they imply that legislative involvement could be more important in regulatory agency activities than usually assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses parliamentary practices in conducting Post-Legislative Scrutiny (PLS) in Germany, Italy, France, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom against four categories of parliamentary approach in PLS. Parliaments as passive scrutinisers have few parliamentary structures, capacity and procedures for PLS and no parliamentary PLS reports. Parliaments as informal scrutinisers have few parliamentary structures and procedures but are stronger in terms of own parliamentary outputs on PLS. Parliaments as formal scrutinisers have more developed structures and procedures on PLS but remain weak in terms of outputs and follow up. Parliaments as independent scrutinisers are strong in terms of structures and procedures as well as in terms of reports and follow up. The case-studies indicate that the federal parliament of Germany is a passive scrutiniser in PLS, the parliament of Italy an informal scrutiniser, the parliaments of Sweden and France formal scrutinisers, and the UK Westminster and Swiss parliaments independent scrutinisers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As representative democracy has come under criticism from populists and advocates of 'participatory democracy', parliaments have responded by expanding their engagements throughout the governance process. Parliaments around the world are participating in the development of policy proposals including in dialogue with citizens, the shaping of draft legislation, debate and adoption of legislative proposals, in post-legislative scrutiny, and in government oversight and audit. The article explores the motivators for these enhanced roles, the opportunities and challenges entailed in a parliamentary full-cycle approach, and makes recommendations for parliaments and parliamentary development actors to enable successful implementation of an expanded and deepened role for parliaments as core institutions of representative democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses parliamentary practices in conducting Post-Legislative Scrutiny (PLS) in Germany, Italy, France, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom against four categories of parliamentary approach in PLS. Parliaments as passive scrutinisers have few parliamentary structures, capacity and procedures for PLS and no parliamentary PLS reports. Parliaments as informal scrutinisers have few parliamentary structures and procedures but are stronger in terms of own parliamentary outputs on PLS. Parliaments as formal scrutinisers have more developed structures and procedures on PLS but remain weak in terms of outputs and follow up. Parliaments as independent scrutinisers are strong in terms of structures and procedures as well as in terms of reports and follow up. The case-studies indicate that the federal parliament of Germany is a passive scrutiniser in PLS, the parliament of Italy an informal scrutiniser, the parliaments of Sweden and France formal scrutinisers, and the UK Westminster and Swiss parliaments independent scrutinisers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the past decade, scholars and practitioners have developed indexes to measure both legislative powers in general, and of the legislative power of the purse, in particular. Initial focus was on the development of a comprehensive index of legislative powers, and on assessing the ex-ante role of the legislature in the budget process. This article substantially deepens extends previous research on ex-post oversight, by developing a more comprehensive index to measure ex-post oversight, by using more up-to-date data bases and by including more countries. We can partially confirm the emerging consensus that ex-post budget oversight is stronger in parliamentary - and especially Westminster - systems than in countries with other forms of government, thereby somewhat offsetting the previously identified weaknesses of Westminster parliaments in budget formulation. When used in combination Wehner's [2006. Assessing the power of the purse: An index of legislative budget institutions. Political Studies, 54, 767-785] index of ex-ante legislative oversight, this index provides a comprehensive picture of legislative power of the purse regarding the budget process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article builds upon and extends the analyses presented by Fashagba (2009) and drills down on the analyses of oversight in Nigeria presented by Pelizzo and Stapenhurst (2014). It presents more nuanced findings. Based on an in-country document search and 45 personal interviews with politicians, parliamentary staff, civil society representatives and journalists, the article demonstrates that the Nigerian National Assembly possesses the tools and constitutional powers to undertake oversight; what it lacks so far is the political will of National Assembly representatives and senators to use these tools and powers effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is based on the idea that the effective involvement of national parliamentarians in European Union (EU) affairs is as important for the capacity of national parliaments to adapt to the consequences of European integration as the elaboration of new institutional mechanisms. It therefore investigates the attention given to Europe in parliamentary questions as an indicator of the Europeanisation of the French National Assembly. Have French MPs developed a greater degree of attention to Europe in their ordinary work? What are the factors behind individual variations in MPs' attention to Europe? The empirical analysis of more than 334,000 questions from 1988 to 2007 shows the limited Europeanisation of French MPs' work, revealing that the type of questions (oral, written, to the government) is the most significant factor explaining the level of attention given to Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oral questions are usually seen as a procedure designed for political conflict. Yet question time may serve other purposes depending on the institutional setting, the political context and the policy field. By comparing the use of oral questions on the defence issue in the national parliaments of four Western democracies, the paper identifies a specific characteristic of questioning in each lower house: political conflict in Germany, internal dissent in the United Kingdom, reward of policy expertise in Spain and local issues in France. Such diverse uses of questioning procedures impact differently on the quality of the accountability process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All democratic parliaments have some procedures to allow representatives to put questions to ministers. However, there are no two parliaments with exactly the same procedures. Cross-national comparisons are hindered by the lack of agreed-upon scientific criteria to group similar procedures, which are too often classified on the basis of their names rather than on their substantive characteristics. To overcome this problem, this article devises a typology of parliamentary questions based on relevant procedural features in 17 European countries. A ranking of parliaments according to the criteria of the effectiveness of procedures is developed and a discussion of the relationship of this ranking to the coalitional characteristics of the parliaments is provided. Finally, the article develops some tentative arguments to explain what influences the development of more or less effective questioning procedures, testing the hypothesis that countries dominated by coalition governments tend to have more effective procedures. In contrast with the authors' expectations, with regard to the countries included in the present analysis, the frequent presence of coalition government is associated with weaker procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oversight function is a major component of the activities of modern legislatures irrespective of the form of government in practice. This study examines the extent to which the Nigerian legislature, characterised by infrequent appearances on the political scene and operating in an environment largely dominated by the executive arm, has performed its oversight role. The study, which is basically empirical, argues that the Nigerian legislature has been incapable of effectively performing its oversight role because, in addition to constraints like executive interference, crippling internal conflict, inexperience and high rate of members turnover hampering legislative efficiency, the legislature has compromised its role. However, occasional flashes of a measure of assertiveness by the legislature suggest that with effective mitigation of its internal problems its performance will improve as legislative culture deepens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terrorism and anti-terrorist policies are not recent phenomena in Israel. The state's foundation was followed by six decades of terrorist attacks, and the responses of successive governments and the Knesset have evolved over time. Legislative oversight of the executive's anti-terrorist policies was essentially non-existent until the 1980s, almost half Israel's history. Since then, MKs have enhanced their institution's oversight capabilities, exhibiting greater effectiveness and accountability. The evidence of Israel's experience provided by this article suggests that the legislature will, in time, assert oversight powers in a protracted, low-intensity conflict. Legislative assertiveness, however, is necessarily a slow and developing process, and does not lead inevitably to a balance of power between the executive and legislature. The executive may remain dominant, but the Israeli case demonstrates that with time oversight empowerment of the legislature is possible, even in the realm of combating terrorism. The article also demonstrates the impact of other institutions, notably the judicial branch, and stresses that in any democracy engaged in a war of attrition the influence of the public cannot be ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]