Achieving Consensus Through Committees: Does the European Parliament Manage?*

Settembri, Pierpaolo; Neuhold, Christine

doi:10.1111/j.1468-5965.2008.01835.x

Cited by 68 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The Bureau is representative of the type of conciliation and coordination at the basis of decision-making in the EP, seen by many as a consensus institution (Settembri and Neuhold, 2009;Westlake, 1994). The Bureau decides on all administrative, staff and organisational matters (EP, 2009b: at.23) and although in many parliaments this type of body exists essentially to ratify administrative decisions, this is far from the case in the EP.…”

Section: S E E F O R E X a M P L E T H E V I M E O V I D E O S A mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Pursuit of Legitimacy as a Key Driver for Public Engagement: The European Parliament Case

Leston‐Bandeira

2012

Parliamentary Affairs

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Political disengagement and declining trust have become main areas of concern for parliaments in Europe, leading to a considerable reinforcement of public engagement activities. The European Parliament is a prime example of an institution where the need to strengthen the link with citizens became a key priority, in particular following the Lisbon Treaty's reinforcement of the parliament's powers and visibility. This article analyses the decision-making processes this Parliament has put in place to meet the public engagement agenda. It is mainly based on elite interviews with officials and representatives. We show that political will was key to move forward the public engagement agenda, and that new media has become a core element of this strategy.Key words: public engagement; trust in parliament; European Parliament; internet and parliament.Faced with rising levels of p o l i t i c a l d i s e n g a g e m e n t a n d a c c u s a t i o n s o f l a c k o f t r a n s p a r e n c y , parliaments across Europe have considerably reinforced their public engagement activities over the last decade, with many embedding this dimension into their overall strategies. As parliamentary public engagement has grown, the literature has started to analyse the effectiveness of the outputs produced by parliaments, such as petition systems or simply parliamentary websites. Namely, studies have assessed over a decade now the effectiveness of parliamentary websites as a public engagement tool, in the possibilities of information and interaction these offer (Norris, 2001;Trechsel et al, 2003;Setälä and Grönlund, 2006; Global Centre for ICT, 2008Griffith and Leston-Bandeira, 2012; J os hi and Ros enf i el d, 2013), with many more s t udi es f ocus i ng on t he effectiveness of individual MPs' websites (e.g. Zittel, 2003;Ward and Lusoli, 2005;Chappelet and Kilchenmann, 2006;Vicente-Merino, 2007;Francoli and Ward, 2008;Jackson, 2008). In this article we propose instead to analyse the processes in place that lead to the decisions behind public engagement outputs, such as a parliamentary website. Adopting the European Parliament as our case study, we explore the processes in place to support the development of public engagement and its inherent challenges. Whilst some of the literature has considered the structures in place to move forward the engagement agenda (Kelso, 2007;Leston-Bandeira, 2007b;De Rosa, 2009;Clark and Wilford, 2012; Walker 2012), we still need to understand better what processes lead to the development of public engagement, to ascertain who takes decisions regarding the format of public 2 engagement, the inherent challenges and what this can teach us in terms of developing effective public engagement. It is important in particular to identify the challenges in place to be able to set realistic expectations; but also to identify enablers of effective implementation of public engagement.Focusing on the output of a parliamentary website, we enquire into the decision-making process in place behind the decisions made ...

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Section: S E E F O R E X a M P L E T H E V I M E O V I D E O S A mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Pursuit of Legitimacy as a Key Driver for Public Engagement: The European Parliament Case

Leston‐Bandeira

2012

Parliamentary Affairs

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“…They are normally to be found in parliamentary committees (McElroy 2006;Ringe 2010;Settembri and Neuhold 2009;Yordanova 2009), where much of the detailed legislative work of the EP is carried out and where they play a key role in the inter-institutional negotiations (Farrell and Héritier 2004). Curiously, knowledge about this group of 'legislative entrepreneurs' is relatively scarce (Benedetto 2005;Costello and Thomson 2010;Høyland 2006;Kaeding 2004;Mamadouh and Raunio 2003;Rasmussen 2008).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…So far, the academic literature on the effects of eastern enlargement on the EP has either remained very descriptive (Donnelly and Bigatto 2008;Settembri and Neuhold 2009) or focused exclusively on voting behaviour in the plenary (Hix and Noury 2009). In order to get a fuller picture of the procedures operating at the micro-level of the EP, a closer investigation of the dynamics in the institution's committees is imperative.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Report allocation in the European Parliament after eastern enlargement

Hurka¹,

Kaeding²

2012

Journal of European Public Policy

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This article identifies factors that have influenced the chances for Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to become rapporteurs in the European Parliament after the 2004 eastern enlargement. More specifically, it answers the question of how the MEPs from the new member states were integrated into the report allocation process under different legislative procedures. Controlling for a whole range of alternative explanations such as legislative experience, attendance rates or party group membership, we find that MEPs from the accession countries were at a disadvantage when reports were distributed. Their chances of becoming rapporteurs were lower than those of their peers from the old member states. Most importantly, this pattern still holds when comparing MEPs from the accession countries with first-time MEPs from the old member states.

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“…Traditionally, the large majorities necessary to pass legislation and the culture of consensus generated a movement towards the centre in the shape of an informal 'grand coalition'. Although left-right competition seems to have increased in recent parliaments, the level of competition remains lowespecially during the first stages of negotiations (Settembri & Neuhold 2009). Costello (2011) also underlined that, under a bicameral system, the number of possible winning coalitions decreases drastically and introduces more consistency among coalition partners.…”

Section: Co-decision: Consensus and Centripetal Positionsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Institutional and Policy Change in the European Parliament

Servent¹

2015

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Achieving Consensus Through Committees: Does the European Parliament Manage?*

Abstract: This article examines the role of the standing committees in building consensus within the European Parliament (EP) and asks whether the ability to fulfil this function has remained stable even in the context of enlarged membership after the

Cited by 68 publications

References 24 publications

The Pursuit of Legitimacy as a Key Driver for Public Engagement: The European Parliament Case

The Pursuit of Legitimacy as a Key Driver for Public Engagement: The European Parliament Case

Report allocation in the European Parliament after eastern enlargement

Institutional and Policy Change in the European Parliament

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