The impact of the internet on parliaments: A legislative studies framework

Parliamentary Affairs

Volumn 60, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 655-674

  Leston Bandeira, Cristina ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HULL   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 35148812679     PISSN: 00312290     EISSN: 14602482     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/pa/gsm040     Document Type: Article

References (62)

1. A comprehensive analysis of this data is made in X. Dai and P. Norton eds., The Internet and Parliamentary Democracy in Europe - special issue, The Journal of Legislative Studies, 13, (3), (2007), (forthcoming). The research included interviews with MPs and parliamentary support staff, which will be used to illustrate some of the points made in this article. The number of valid interviews were as follows: British Parliament, three interviews and one workshop; European Parliament, 16 interviews and 1. workshop; Portuguese Parliament, 9 interviews; Swedish Parliament, 9 interviews. The interviews were done between May and September 2005, with the exception of one for the Swedish case carried out in March 2006.
2. Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Guidelines for the Content and Structure of Parliamentary Web Sites, http://www.ipu.org/cntr-e/web.pdf, 2000, p.3, accessed 13 February 2007.
3. According to information provided by the IPU to the author in June 2006; note that this includes only National parliaments and not sub-national or regional ones. According to the UNDP, 97% of the parliaments in developed countries have a website and 81% in developing ones (UNDP, Empowering Parliaments Through the Use of ICTs, United Nations Development Programme, http://www.sd.nhq.undp.org/-raul/e-parl/study/final/e-parl-report-final-printer. pdf, 2006, 13 February 2007, p. 19).
4. With thanks to one of the referees for identifying this point so clearly.
5. L. Longley, 'Parliaments as Changing Institutions and as Agents of Regime Change: Evolving Perspectives and a New Research Framework', The Journal of Legislative Studies, 2, (2), 1996, 22.
6. Longley adapts from S. Patterson and G. Copeland, 'Parliaments in the Twenty-first Century', in Copeland and Patterson (eds), Parliaments in the Modern World, University of Michigan Press, 1994, p. 6.
7. See, for example, the IPU Technical Cooperation Programme which 'assists national parliaments (...) to improve the organization of their work and strengthen their infrastructure' (IPU, www.ipu.org/dem-e/assistance.htm), or the recent guidelines issued by the IPU as good practice (D. Beetham, Parliament and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century: a Guide to Good Practice, IPU, www.ipu.org/PDF/publications/democracy_en.pdf, 2006);
8. or still the European Union funded projects of European Parliaments Research Initiative (EPRI, www.epri.org/eprlorg/EPRIorg_Home.php) and A. Trechsel, et al., Evaluation of The Use of New technologies in Order to facilitate Democracy in Europe, European Parliament, STOA 116 EN 10-2003, 2003, http://edc.unige.ch/edcadmin/images/STOA.pdf,
9. the UNDP ICT4D Projects (www.apdip.net/projects/undp/), the USAID support programmes such as the one reported in USAID, Kenya Legislative Strengthening Project Final Technical Report, 2005, http://pdf.dec.org/ pdf_docs/Pdacf840.pdf,
10. or World Bank initiatives such as the following two studies: T. Kingham, E-Parliaments - The use of information and communication technologies to improve parliamentary processes, World Bank Institute, http://siteresources. worldbank.org/WBI/Resources/wbi37210Kingham.pdf, 2003,
11. and T. Mendel, Parliament and Access to information: Working for Transparent Governance, World Bank Institute and Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, 2005, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/WBI/Resources/ Parliament_and_Access_to_Inforination_with_cover.pdf. AU accessed on, 13 February 2007.
12. See, for example, the Resolution from the 109th IPU Assembly in 2003 (www.ipu.org/conf-e/109-3.htm, accessed on 13 February 2007) or the speech by the President of the IPU, Mr Pier Ferdinand Casini, to the plenary session of the "World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis, November 2005 (www.ipu.org/splz-e/wsis05/speech.pdf, accessed on 13 February 2007).
13. European Centre for Parliamentary Research and Documentation-a network of parliamentary officials mainly from European parliaments. Though originally set up for more general information exchange purposes, recently it has focused particularly on the use of ICT (www.ecprd.org, accessed on 13 February 2007).
14. D. Beetham, Parliament and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century: a Guide to Good Practice.
15. For a detailed breakdown of functions played by parliament see P. Norton, 'Parliaments: a framework for analysis', in P. Norton (ed.), Parliaments in Western Europe, Frank Cass, 1990.
16. See also Bagehot's earlier identification of parliament's functions (W. Bagehot, 'The House of Commons', in, P. Norton (ed.), Legislatures, Oxford University Press, 1992, ori. ed. 1867). Bagehot identifies the following functions: elective, expressive, teaching, informing and legislative.
17. H. Olesen et al., Empowering Parliaments Through the Use of ICTs, UNDP, http://sdnhq.undp.org/raul/e-parl/study/final/e-parl-report-final-printer. pdf, 2006, accessed on 13 February 2007.
18. See on this matter the reports produced by Congress Online for the Congress of the United States of America on the extension of the problem of email overload and the initiatives used to address this: K. Goldschmidt, E-mail Overload in Congress, Congress Online Project-Online Issue Briefs, www.congressonlineproject.org/emailoverload.pdf, 2001,
19. accessed on 07 June 2006 and Congress Online Project, 'Congress Online: Special Report Email Overload in Congress - Update' www.congressonlineproject. org/pf080702.html, 2002, accessed on 07 June 2006. For email overload problems in Europe see S. Coleman and B. Nathanson, Learning to Live with the Internet - How European Parliamentarians Are Adapting to the Digital Age, EPRI, www.epri.org/epriknowledge/contents/Studies.php, 2005, accessed on 13 February 2007 .
20. H. Olesen et al., Empowering Parliaments Through the Use of ICTs, p. 6.
21. Parliamentary support staff, European Parliament, interviewed on the 30 June 2005.
22. S. Coleman, et al., 'Parliament in the Age of the Internet', Parliamentary Affairs, 52,(3), 1999, p. 365.
23. P. Norris, Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, information Poverty, and the Internet Worldivide, Cambridge University Press, 2001;
24. R. Gibson, et al., 'Online Participation in the UK: Testing a "Contextualised" Model of Internet Effects' British Journal of Politics & International Relations, 7,(4), 2005, pp. 561-83.
25. J. Hoff, 'The Democratic Potentials of Information technology: Attitudes of European MPs Towards New Technologies', Information Polity, 9, (1/2), 2004, p. 57.
26. See a summary of this literature in S. Ward, et al., 'Parties and the Internet: an Overview', in R. Gibson, P. Nixon and S. Ward (eds), Political Parties and the Internet: Net Gain? Routledge, 2003.
27. Other than from practitioners themselves. See, for instance, the personal account in R. Allan, 'Parliament, Elected Representatives and Technology 1997-2005 - Good in Parts?', Parliamentary Affairs, 59, (2), 2006, pp. 360-5,
28. and the very detailed analysis of the US Congress and European parliaments' legislative information systems in J. Griffith, Beyond Transparency: New Standards for Legislative Information Systems, ECPRD, 2006, http://www.ecprd.org/Public/publicat.asp (accessed on 13 February 2007).
29. See a prime example in S. Ward and W. Lusoli, '"From Weird to Wired": MPs, the Internet and Representative Politics in the UK', The Journal of Legislative Studies, 11,(1), 2005, 57-81.
30. R. Gibson, W. Lusoli, et al., 'Online Participation in the UK: Testing a 'Contextualised' Model of Internet Effects', p. 567.
31. See S. Coleman and B. Nathanson, Learning to Live with the Internet - How European parliamentarians are adapting to the digital age; EPRI Knowledge Project,
32. Parliamentarians and ICTs: Awareness, Understanding and Activity levels of European Parliamentarians, www.epri.org/epriknowledge/contents/ 7thconference_mat/200503_07_D101,_EPRI_First_Study_final_resent.pdf, 2005; EPRI, 'Reconnecting Parliaments and Citizens' from http://www.epri.org/epriknowledge/ contents/Second_EPRI_knowledge_Workshop.php, 2006; all accessed on 13 February 2007.
33. EPRI Knowledge Project, Parliamentarians and ICTs: Awareness, Understanding and Activity levels of European Parliamentarians, pp. 9-17.
34. Of particular notice that one Portuguese MP who showed a marked suspicion towards ICT in general, but who confirmed using the Internet regularly for parliamentary work (interviewed on 21 June 2005).
35. P. Norris, Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide, pp. 132-47;
36. A. Trechsel, et al., op. cit n6 pp. 5-15. To add to these S. Coleman, 'Parliamentary communication in an age of digital interactivity', ASLIB proceedings, 58, (5), 2006, pp. 375-80, includes a brief analysis of web sites of European parliaments.
37. In the case of Norris, the websites analysed were from all parliaments recorded in the IPU with a live website by May 2000; and in the case of Trechsel et al. the study was on the national parliaments of the country members and candidates, of the European Union, and of the European Parliament.
38. P. Norton, 'General introduction' In P. Norton (ed.), Legislatures, Oxford University Press, 1990.
39. See concepts of Arena and Transformative legislatures in N. Polsby, 'Legislatures', in F. Greenstein and N. Polsby (eds), Handbook of Political Science, Addison-Wesley, 1975.
40. See concepts of policy-making, policy-influencing and little-or-no-policy-impact legislatures in P. Norton, 'Parliaments: a framework for analysis', in P. Norton (ed.), Parliaments in Western Europe, Frank Cass, 1990.
41. S. Coleman and B. Nathanson, Learning to Live with the Internet - How European parliamentarians are adapting to the digital age.
42. H. Olesen et al., Empowering Parliaments Through the Use of ICTs.
43. Ibid., p. 7.
44. As mentioned above, this factor was taken into account by both Norris and Trechsel et al. as, respectively, 'Democratization' and 'Level of democratisation' (P. Norris, Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide;
45. A. Trechsel, et al., Evaluation of The Use of New technologies in Order to facilitate Democracy in Europe).
46. British case, interview on the 15 July 2005. This was confirmed by the other interviews on the British case, by both MPs and staff, as well as from the European Parliament.
47. The issue of budgets and resources is briefly identified by Zittel in his comparison of the American, German and Swedish cases, as a probable constraint in the way ICT is being used by MPs (T. Zittel, 'Political Representation in the Networked Society: The Americanisation of European Systems of Responsible Party Government?', The Journal of Legislative Studies, 9, (3), 2003, 50).
48. D. Beetham, Parliament and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century: a Guide to Good Practice, Chap. 3, p. 2.
49. See L. Longley and R. Davidson, The New Roles of Parliamentary Committees - special issue, The Journal of Legislative Studies, 4 (1), 1998.
50. See, in this context, an interesting consideration - even if brief - of the presence on the web of parliamentary committees in the American, German and Swedish cases in T. Zittel, 'Electronic Democracy and Electronic Parliaments - a comparison between the US House, the Swedish Riksdagen and the German Bundestag'. Joint Sessions of Workshops of the European Consortium of Political Research (ECPR). 2000, ECPR.
51. See comments about this for the British parliament in Hansard Society Commission on the Communication of Parliamentary Democracy, Members Only? Parliament in the Public Eye, Hansard Society, 2005, p. 30.
52. With thanks to one of the referees for emphasising the importance of making this point explicit.
53. As said above, the full empirical analysis of this data is to be found in the articles of X, Dai and P. Norton (eds), The Internet and Parliamentary Democracy in Europe, special issue, The Journal of Legislative Studies.
54. A. Trechsel, et al., Evaluation of The Use of New technologies in Order to facilitate Democracy in Europe, p. 8.
55. Interviews on 15 July 2005 and 21 June 2005.
56. Please note that local government in Portugal is a powerful structure, similar to the French case. This same observation was made by another Portuguese MP who has had responsibilities in a local council.
57. See data on this in R. Vicente-Merino, 'Websites of Parliamentarians across Europe', in X. Dai and P. Norton (eds), The Internet and Parliamentary Democracy, special issue, The Journal of Legislative Studies, 13, (3), 2007 (forthcoming).
58. Some PGs use the virtual platform of FirstClass, for instance, for communication.
59. See as an illustration of this division, the figure in Portuguese Parliament, 'Use of Information and Communication Technologies at the Assembly of the Republic - 8th EPRI Conference', www.epri.org/epriknowledge/ 8th_EPRI_conference/Downloads.php, 2006, 13 February 2007.
60. For more details, see C. Leston-Bandeira, 'Are ICTs Changing Parliamentary Activity in the Portuguese Parliament?', in X. Dai and P. Norton (eds), The Internet and Parliamentary Democracy, special issue, The Journal of Legislative Studies, 13, (3), 2007, (forthcoming).
61. C. Leston-Bandeira, From Legislation to Legitimation: the Role of the Portuguese Parliament, Routledge, 2004, pp. 42-4.
62. Interview on 2 March 2006.