The Politics of Parliamentary Procedure

议会程序的政治

• 批准号: ES/X001768/1
• 负责人: Thomas Fleming
• 金额: $ 29.01万
• 依托单位: University College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FX001768%2F1
• 关键词: Politics; Parliamentary; Procedure

This project will analyse the process by which parliamentary rules are changed in the UK House of Commons, to assess how far - and why - this process is controlled by the government.Parliamentary rules have important political consequences, because they shape how parliament operates and distribute power and resources between MPs. Among other things, these rules structure the processes of law-making, political debate, and government accountability. However, parliamentary procedures are not set in stone. Instead, MPs are often able to establish new rules and amend existing ones. As a result, many academics have tried to explain how parliamentary rules are chosen and changed.A widespread existing argument is that the process of choosing parliamentary rules is dominated by the government. This is a frequent claim about the UK parliament, and a common assumption in comparative studies of other legislatures. Such claims are important, because they suggest that governments may rewrite parliaments' rules to suit their own interests. This could limit opportunities for MPs to scrutinise and challenge ministers, or to present their own policy alternatives. Moreover, this isn't just an abstract hypothetical concern - recent years have seen much criticism in the UK, during Brexit and the pandemic, that the government has too much control over how parliament operates.However, existing academic work on this subject has a number of limitations. Most importantly, very little work systematically describes and explains the process by which parliamentary procedures are changed. This is true of both comparative and UK-focused literature. Some quantitative work analyses the timing of reforms or cross-national procedural variation. Other qualitative studies have explored specific episodes of reform. But we lack a clear overall picture of exactly how far, why, and with what consequences, the government controls parliamentary rules.This project will thus assess the extent, sources, and consequences of government control over procedures in the UK House of Commons, and suggest potential avenues for reform. I will pursue this aim through three specific objectives. First, I will systematically describe how the process of procedural change unfolds in the UK House of Commons, develop and test an explanation for these patterns, and identify their consequences. I will do this by summarizing formal reform patterns since the nineteenth-century, and by using interviews and committee reports for a more detailed analysis of reform processes since 2005. This combination will allow me to explore how the government's role has evolved over time, as well as how the system currently operates. Second, I will establish an overview of the formal rules governing the consideration of procedural reforms in a wider set of parliamentary democracies. This will allow me to understand the variety of options that exist for organising this important political process. Third, I will draw together the previous two components to produce practical reform proposals for the UK, outlining how the House of Commons might ensure it is genuinely able to choose its own internal rules.This project will have a number of benefits. First, it will help provide a more thorough understanding of the way in which parliamentary rules are chosen and changed in the UK, shedding light on which actors dominate this process, why they do so, and with what consequences. Second, it will help policymakers, researchers, and citizens understand how the UK's system for changing parliamentary procedures might be reformed, by providing evidence about how the current approach works, and what alternative approaches are available. Finally, the project will provide valuable new data for other researchers who want to understand the process of parliamentary reform in the UK and elsewhere, thus allowing exploration of further important questions about how democratic institutions are organised.

该项目将分析英国下议院更改议会规则的过程，以评估政府控制此过程的距离以及原因。议会规则具有重要的政治后果，因为它们塑造了议会的运作方式和分发方式国会议员之间的权力和资源。除其他外，这些规则构建了立法，政治辩论和政府问责制的过程。但是，议会程序尚未建立。相反，国会议员通常能够建立新规则并修改现有规则。结果，许多学者试图解释如何选择和更改议会规则。现有的普遍论证是，选择议会规则的过程由政府主导。这是对英国议会的常见主张，也是对其他立法机关比较研究中的共同假设。这样的主张很重要，因为他们建议政府可以改写议会规则以适合自己的利益。这可能会限制国会议员对部长进行审查和挑战的机会，或者提出自己的政策选择。此外，这不仅是一个抽象的假设问题 - 近年来在英国脱欧和大流行期间，在英国有很多批评，即政府对议会的运作有太多控制。限制数量。最重要的是，很少有系统地描述并解释了更改议会程序的过程。对比较和以英国为中心的文献都是如此。一些定量工作分析了改革或跨国程序变化的时机。其他定性研究探讨了改革的特定事件。但是，我们缺乏整体上的清楚表明，政府控制议会规则的准确性，原因和后果。建议进行改革的潜在途径。我将通过三个特定目标来实现这一目标。首先，我将系统地描述英国下议院的程序变革过程如何发展，开发和测试这些模式的解释，并确定其后果。自19世纪以来，我将通过总结正式的改革模式来做到这一点，并使用访谈和委员会报告对自2005年以来进行改革过程进行更详细的分析。这种组合将使我能够探索政府的角色如何随着时间的流逝而演变为以及系统当前的运行方式。其次，我将概述在更广泛的议会民主国家中考虑程序改革的正式规则。这将使我能够了解组织这一重要政治过程的各种选择。第三，我将把前两个组件汇总为为英国制定实用的改革建议，概述下议院如何确保它真正能够选择自己的内部规则。该项目将带来许多好处。首先，它将有助于对在英国选择和更改议会规则的方式有更透彻的了解，从而阐明哪个演员主导了这一过程，为什么这样做以及有什么后果。其次，它将通过提供有关当前方法的运作方式以及可用的替代方法来帮助政策制定者，研究人员和公民了解如何改革议会程序的制度。最后，该项目将为想要了解英国和其他地方的议会改革过程的其他研究人员提供宝贵的新数据，从而探索有关民主机构如何组织方式的进一步重要问题。