Legislative protest as disruptive democratic practice

Abstract

This article explores the phenomenon of legislative protest and presents an analytical framework for understanding its significance for democratic theory and practice. Legislative protest is defined as disruptive behaviour of elected representatives within legislative settings. Acts of legislative protest include sit-ins, boycotts, walkouts, and individual or collective disobedience of the presiding officer within legislative chambers or committees. This article begins from the premise that legislative protest should not be dismissed as frivolous or self-interested behaviour. Such acts are significant because they are disruptive, literally of the routine proceedings of legislatures, and figuratively because they transgress boundaries of "orderliness" according to formal rules and norms of behaviour in legislative settings. Variations in the significance and justifiability of such acts of legislative protest are interpreted according to three key debates in democratic theory, namely legislative conflict, deliberation, and representation. Beyond these three broad debates, it is argued that any attempt to decipher the substantive meaning of legislative protest must be informed by a grounded analysis paying attention to specific forms of protest performed within specific legislative settings. Such analysis should acknowledge the corporeality of protest and its embeddedness within historically contextualized institutional and cultural scripts.

Two sword lengths apart

“…Winners -those in the procedural cartel -could use violence to prevent losers from utilizing procedures that might constrain their power to control the legislative agenda and therefore legislative policy outcomes. Both winners and losers may use violence to shore up support among their proponents, as a way of expressing dissatisfaction with legislative outcomes, and to publicize issues they and their supporters care about (Spary, 2013). Winners may not only use active violence, but also might make a strategic choice not to use their powers for example, control of security forces c to prevent or curtail losers' violence with the hope that losers will be publicly discredited.…”

Explaining Physical Violence in Parliaments

“…While spontaneous, gratuitous, or even trivial violence does exist, brawls in legislatures usually serve two strategic purposes. First, violence can be conceptualized as a public performance through which lawmakers communicate with the wider polity (Batto and Beaulieu 2020; Shukan 2010, 2013; Spary 2013; Spary, Armitage, and Johnson 2014). Carole Spary, for instance, showed how disruptive actions are planned and carried out in order to draw attention to particular issues, constituting “a ritual for performing political contention” (Spary 2013; Spary, Armitage, and Johnson 2014, 204).…”

Performing protest and representation? Exploring citizens’ perceptions of parliament in Ukraine

“…Comparative research suggests the meanings of parliamentary disruption are multiple and countervailing. It can be a means to make representative claims, to render the marginalised less marginal, to signal to and mobilise constituents, to perform and resist authoritarian domination and contribute to regime de-legitimation (Rai 2013;Spary 2013;Greene 2013;Whitmore 2019). Disruption can also indicate the inability of the parliament to regulate conflict (Gandrud 2012) and, if routinised, undermine its ability to perform important representative and symbolic functions (Spary 2013, 403, 409).…”