Parliaments and Citizens in Western Europe

Philip Norton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000144123
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Politica

Citizens elect the parliament, but what contract takes place between citizen and parliament in between elections? The authors assess the extent and nature of that contact. To what extent are members of parliament accessible to the ordinary citizen? And what are the implications for the legislature? Can there be too much, or too little, contact?

Chapter 1

Introduction: Linking Parliaments and Citizens

Philip Norton

Citizens in the different states of western Europe go to the polls at regular intervals to elect the members of their national parliaments. In some cases, they elect the members of a single chamber, in others they elect the members of two chambers. In some cases, as in Scandinavia and the European Parliament, there is only a single body that comprises the parliament. In some cases, there are second chambers that are indirectly elected or unelected. The primary but not exclusive focus of this volume is the elected chamber and the relationship between that body and the citizens that elect it.

Candidates who seek election to national parliaments normally do so under a party label. Mass political parties are pervasive in western Europe.¹ They serve, among other things, to aggregate opinions and to give expression to those opinions through the political process. Parties dominate the legislature and government. Parliamentary behaviour is largely determined by party. The dominance of the party limits the extent to which the chamber can act as an independent scrutineer of government. Party has served to ensure or to confirm that parliaments in western Europe are usually reactive, or policy influencing, bodies rather than active, or policy making, bodies.²

Much of the literature on parliaments focuses on the institution and its relationship to government.³ Less attention is given to the relationship between members of the legislature⁴ and citizens. What there is – for example on the role of members of parliaments in their districts – is modest in volume and overwhelmingly country-specific.⁵ There is little literature that permits of generalisation about the relationship. Yet what exactly is that relationship? Is the parliament essentially a ‘closed’ institution to citizens in the period between elections? Has the impact of political parties been such as to the preclude parliamentarians having the time or political incentive to take an interest in the demands and concerns of individual citizens? Or is there some contact, citizens approaching members of the legislature – or vice versa – and eliciting some response?

The purpose of this volume is to identify and assess the relationship between parliaments and citizens. The exercise is important for seeing parliaments in the round, for exploring how they relate to the different elements of the polity. More specifically, it is important because of the potential implications that flow from the relationship.

Legislatures are ‘representative’ institutions. The concept of representation has been subject to different definitions. It permits of at least four separate usages:

(i) acting on behalf of an individual or body (that is, defending or promoting the interests of the person or body ‘represented’);

(ii) denoting a body that is freely elected;

(iii) signifying people who are typical of a particular class or group of persons (as in socio-economic background or, as in surveys, a random sample); and

(iv) acting in a symbolic sense (for example, a national flag ‘representing’ the unity of the nation).⁶

The parliaments of western Europe are representative under the first two usages of the term. They also have some claim to be representative under the fourth usage – as usually does the head of state – but that is not our primary concern.

The first usage was the one that was initially attached to the term when it entered common usage, at least in Britain, at the beginning of the seventeenth century.⁷ Hegel believed that representatives should be chosen to speak for the classes or trades to which they belonged.⁸ In Britain, Edmund Burke believed that Members of Parliament (MPs) could speak on behalf of particular communities (Virtual representation’, as he termed it)⁹ without being elected by all the members of those communities. However, this belief in functional representation was displaced in the nineteenth century by the liberal view, holding that the assembly of representatives must be freely elected, electors acting as individual citizens and not formally as members of a particular trade or class.¹⁰ Though there are some rare traces of functional representation still existing in European legislatures (most notably the Irish Senate)¹¹ the liberal concept is the dominant one. The basis of free election is thus citizens qua citizens, grouped together not by class or trade but by geography, be it in a single district, a region or even, in rare cases, the whole country (where national list electoral systems operate).

The first two usages of representation thus come together in the context of parliaments. Citizens elect members of the legislature for the purpose of defending and pursuing their – that is, the citizens’ – interests. In terms of defending and pursuing these interests, it is possible to identify two types of representation: general and specific representation.¹² General representation is essentially that of members of parliament acting on behalf of the collectivity of citizens. Political parties are the principal bodies through which this representation is now exercised. As we have recorded, they help aggregate the opinions of electors, ensuring that the views of voters are translated into proposals for public policy and, in the case of parties elected to office, given the force of law and implemented. The relationship between electors’ views and the policies espoused by political parties may not be clear and precise,¹³ but the parties nonetheless represent the principal conduits for the expression of the views of large numbers of citizens, transcending – in the case of countries with district or regionally based electoral systems – the boundaries of electoral constituencies.

Specific representation is that of members of the legislature defending or pursuing the interests of particular groups and individuals in society. Members elected for a district or region that has particular industries or interests – for example, fishing or the manufacture of textiles – will seek to ensure that those interests are defended if threatened by some policy proposed by government or by fellow members of the legislature. As one British parliamentarian once put it, the MP ‘is the Member for a constituency with a primary duty to represent its trades and interests, its corporations and councils’.¹⁴ Members may also seek to ensure that the grievances of particular citizens against public bodies (for example, as a result of arbitrary or unfair treatment) are pursued and, if possible, remedied.

It is this specific representation that primarily entails – or has the potential to entail – direct contact between citizens and members of the legislature in the period between elections. The contact may not necessarily be one way, with citizens making demands of their elected representatives: parliamentarians may take it upon themselves to initiate contact with individuals or (one suspects, more likely) with particular groups or bodies within the electoral district in order to keep abreast of developments and concerns.

In so far as members of the parliament engage in specific representation they are fulfilling one of the functions touched upon by Robert Packenham in his important study of legislative functions: that of ‘errand running’ (running errands to the bureaucracy on behalf of constituents), which he subsumed under the function of administrative oversight and patronage.¹⁵ However, the act of pursuing the interests of groups and individuals may overlap with or contribute to other consequences for the political system identified by Packenham. By ensuring that the demands of particular groups or of a body of opinion within their electoral districts or regions are expressed to government, parliamentarians are engaging in a form of what Packenham terms ‘interest articulation’. By virtue of being the recipients of expressions of views from constituents, parliamentarians may also contribute to legitimising the political system in the eyes of electors through acting as a ‘safety valve’. Packenham refers to the legislature as a collective entity in providing a safety valve for tensions in the political system but the concept may be equally applicable to the actions of individual members of the institution. Parliamentarians may serve as a passive safety valve, that is, by merely receiving letters or other communications from citizens: having written to their members of parliament, citizens may feel relieved at having given expression to their views and not expect further action. If parliamentarians go further, and actually reply to the communications from constituents – or pursue the matter with ministers or bureaucrats – then one might expect such actions to enhance further the legitimacy of the system in the eyes of the citizens concerned.

It is also possible to hypothesise that members of the legislature further enhance the legitimacy of the system by engaging in other constituency-based or related activities. One is by making public – through regional or local media or by circulars to constituents – the work they are undertaki...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• The Contributors
• General Introduction
• 1. Introduction: Linking Parliaments and Citizens
• 2. The United Kingdom: Building the Link between Constituent and MP
• 3. Parliament and Citizens in Germany: Reconciling Conflicting Pressures
• 4. Parliament and Citizens in Italy: A Distant Relationship
• 5. Belgian MPs: Between Omnipotent Parties and Disenchanted Citizen-Clients
• 6. Still Persecuting Civil Servants? Irish Parliamentarians and Citizens
• 7. Parliament and Citizens in Portugal: Still Looking for Links
• 8. The European Parliament: Of Barriers and Removed Citizens
• 9. Conclusion: Developing the Links
• Index