LITERATURE REVIEW COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF PARLIAMENTARY IMPACT IN THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS This is a standalone section of the literature review for my PhD, the focus of which is on the impact which parliaments have in the legislative process. One of the main functions of parliament is to make the law. That is, before laws can be changed, new laws created, or old laws repealed, this must be approved by parliament. The focus of this PhD is on what happens during that parliamentary consideration of legislative proposals? What do parliaments do to the legislation put before them by the executive? Do parliaments change the legislation? If they do change it, in what ways? Are any changes significant, trivial, or something in between? Literature Review Comparative analysis of parliamentary impact in the legislative process Answering some of these questions needs a comparative framework. In order to understand the significance of a legislature's role in the legislative process, it helps to know how it compares to other parliaments. Is its impact on legislation of a type? If it is, what is that type and what does that tell us about the parliament? The desire to set parliaments and their role in the legislative process in comparative context is not new. There is an existing body of literature which seeks to address exactly this issue. Between them, Blondel i, Mezey ii, Norton iii and Polsby iv have developed a range of concepts and frameworks to describe and categorise the variation which exists in parliamentary impact in the legislative process. Set out below is a brief description of how these typologies and differentiate types and forms of impact in the legislative process. A visual representation is offered of how these different typologies can be brought together to create a unified spectrum of legislative impact. Finally, there is a consideration of some of their weaknesses and areas for further development. Nelson Polsby arena and transformative legislatures Polsby proposes a spectrum of legislative power. At one end are transformative parliaments, capable of taking legislation created by the government (or anyone else who is entitled to create legislation) and fundamentally changing (transforming) what it does. At the other end of the spectrum are arena parliaments, which scrutinise legislation created by the government but do not change what it does. When he wrote his theory, Polsby suggested that the US Congress was an example of a transformative parliament and the UK Parliament of an arena parliament. i Blondel, J., Legislative Behaviour: some steps towards a cross national measurement, in Legislatures, Norton, P., Oxford University Press, 1990, pp.186-207. ii Mezey, M. Classifying legislatures, in Legislatures, Norton, P., Oxford University Press, 1990, pp.149-176. iii Norton, P., Legislatures in perspective, in Norton, P. (ed.), Parliaments in Western Europe, London: Frank Cass, 1990, pp. 143-152. iv Polsby, N., Legislatures, in Legislatures, Norton, P., Oxford University Press, 1990, pp. 129-148.
The value of Polsby s spectrum is the distinction it draws between those parliaments whose primary function (or inclination) is to check and assess the legislation put before it and those which seek to actively alter the policy which is to be delivered through the legislative proposals put before them. There is a clear difference in type of parliaments who review and discuss legislative proposals before they become the law, and those which can shape what the law should be. Michael Mezey policy-making impact Mezey went a step further than Polsby and developed specific categories of parliamentary influence. Mezey presented his typology from a negative perspective, in terms of a parliament s ability to constrain a government s legislative ambitions. Mezey proposed three types of parliament: Strong policy-making impact (can reject or modify legislation) Moderate policy-making impact (can modify legislation) Little or no policy-making impact (can t do either) Mezey s typology is helpful in separating out those parliaments which are able to exercise a veto over government legislation, rejecting legislation which they disagree with. His typology is also useful in introducing a ranking system, putting those which have the most impact on government legislation at the top and those which have less at the bottom. Mezey also proposed a second dimension of support based on mass/elite expectations of the role of a parliament and how it lived up to those expectations. Because of the difficulty he faced in quantifying levels of support, Mezey settled on the bivariate more and less supported. Taking these two dimensions together, Mezey generated five categories of parliament, with suggestions of parliaments which fitted within those categories: Active (US congress) Vulnerable (Philipines) Reactive (UK) Marginal (Pakistan) Minimal (Soviet Union) Philip Norton categories of policy impact Norton adapted Mezey s typology to provide a trichotomy of legislature impact. At first sight it looks the same as Mezey s but does introduce some important nuances: Policy-making parliaments These parliaments can modify or reject measures brought forward by the government, and can formulate and substitute policies of their own (e.g. a Member s Bill).
Policy-influencing parliaments These parliaments can modify or reject measures brought forward by the government but cannot formulate and substitute policies of their own. Parliaments with little or no policy effect These parliaments can neither modify or reject policies brought forward by the government nor formulate and substitute policies of their own. Where Norton develops Mezey s typology is in allowing for a positive as well as negative expression of parliamentary impact in the legislative process. Norton does this by introducing into the first category of the typology the ability for a parliament to create its own policy, rather than it solely being a body which reacts to government legislation. This allows, for example, a clearer distinction to be drawn between parliaments such as the US Congress (which is understood to have a strong policy-making capacity) and the UK Parliament (which is understood to have a relatively weak policy-making capacity but which does on occasion reject the legislative proposals put before it). Blondel legislative viscosity Blondel focuses specifically on how legislatures respond to legislation which is created by the government. Like Polsby he conceptualises a spectrum, but this time it is a spectrum of responses by the legislature. At one end are parliaments which are free from government control, and at the other end are parliaments which are compliant to the government s demands. So, in a parliamentary system we would expect a free parliament to exist where the government commanded a minority of votes in the parliament and a compliant parliament to exist where the government commanded a majority of votes in the parliament. Blondel suggests that if a parliament is compliant, legislation should pass easily and quickly, with few changes proposed and even fewer made (a low level of legislative viscosity). As a parliament becomes freer, Blondel suggests that more time will be spent discussing legislation, more amendments will be lodged, and more amendments will be passed. Bringing together the different legislative typologies These different legislative typologies can be brought together to create a single unified spectrum of parliamentary impact in the legislative process as set out in figure 1. The left-hand side of the spectrum is where we would place parliaments which have a significant impact on the legislative process. In Polsby s language these would be the transformative parliaments, in Mezey s they are active and strong policy-making, in Norton s they are policy-making legislatures and in Blondel s they are highly viscous. Here is where we would place parliaments which routinely create and pass their own legislation, which routinely block government legislation or which routinely make significant changes to government legislation. The right-hand side is where would place parliaments which have little impact in the legislative process. In Polsby s language these would be the arena parliaments, in Mezey s they are minimal with little or no policy-making capacity, in Norton s they have little or no policy effect, and in Blondels they are low viscous. Here is where we would place
parliaments which routinely rubber-stamp legislation put before them, perhaps discussing and considering that legislation but making no discernible changes to it. The benefit of these typologies and the unified spectrum is two-fold. The first is that they offer a means by which to describe and categorise parliamentary impact on legislation, distinguishing between some fundamental differences those which make legislation, those which block legislation, those which change legislation, and those which do none of those things. The second is that they allow for a standard set of descriptors by which to compare and contrast how different parliaments operate in the legislative process. However, there are a number of issues which need to be addressed. One is the perennial problem of data in order to determine where a parliament sits in these typologies we need data on legislature impact. As will be seen in a separate part of this literature review, data on actual parliamentary impact is hard to extract, hard to validate and there is a lack of sophisticated methods by which to measure that data. Where that data has been lacking, commentators have rested on indicators of potential legislative impact (e.g. committee structure, right to initiate legislation, minority/majority parliaments etc). The problem with that is that it says nothing of actual parliamentary impact and can serve to reinforce stereotypes. These problems with data measurement do not invalidate the use of legislature typologies, but they do mean that care should be taken in how they are used. Another problem is that the typologies are relatively blunt instruments. The categories and spectrum which are employed are stated in general terms and offer limited scope for differentiating between parliaments within the same category. For example, the vast bulk of parliaments are commonly held to fall within Norton s policy-influencing category, but if there are material differences in how they operate and the ways in which they achieve their influence then the typology has limited usefulness in explaining that. A final problem is the broadbrush approach which is sometimes adopted to parliamentary personality and psychology. Parliaments are described as though they are coherent entities but there is a range of complex relationships at play within a parliament which mean that a description of the parliament s approach to something may hide important differences of opinion within the parliament. There is also simplification in terms of the nature of the legislative game that is assumed to be being played. Language such as strong and weak is often used, combined with an apparent assumption that the parliament and government will perpetually be at loggerheads over legislation with each seeking to frustrate the other. For example, Blondel s approach and the terminology he adopts makes sense if a legislature is actively seeking to resist government proposals. It is accurate to describe that parliament as compliant if it doesn t stop, slow down or amend the proposals, or as free when it tries and is able to do those things. However, freedom from government control and the potential for a high level of legislative viscosity, does not necessary give the result Blondel proposes should arise - the slow passage of a Bill, the lodging of a lot of amendments, and the passing of some amendments. If a Bill passes quickly and without amendment it is not necessarily because the legislature lacks freedom or the will to act, but because there may simply be no practical or political sense in seeking to delay or change the legislation. When considering a parliament s reaction to
government legislation that context is as important as parliament s potential or anticipated legislative viscosity. Conclusion - Comparative analysis of parliamentary impact in the legislative process The purpose of this section of my literature review was to consider how the literature has tackled some of the key questions posed by my PhD. How can we describe, measure and present the impact which parliaments have on legislation? The focus here has been on the key existing typologies of legislation Polsby, Mezey, Norton and Blondel provide some high level comparative analysis tools which help distinguish different types of legislative influence. They establish spectrum and categories which help distinguish those parliaments who impact is minimal and those whose is significant, and for how those different types of interest might be expressed, at a very general level, in the legislative process. These typologies are not perfect by necessity, they generalise, and in doing so they do not allow for the fine-grained analysis of legislative impact. They are also only as good as the data from which their conclusions can be drawn, and if this data is poor we should express some scepticism about what a typology will tell us about that data. They are, at some levels, also overly simplistic. The legislative process is not always (and in some cases is very seldom) about a government holding one position on legislation and the parliament holding a diametrically opposite view, with the parliament doing everything in its power to defeat or amend the government's legislation. So, while the value of these legislative typologies for anyone interested in the impact of parliaments in the legislative process should be obvious, they have their limits for those of us who want to understand the final detail of the legislative process. What of the variation across different pieces of legislation? What of the actual policy impact of parliament impact on what a piece of legislation does when it enters parliament and when it leaves? What of the precise nature of amendments which parliaments make to legislation? These are questions which require a look at some of the methodological approaches to the study of parliaments, and in particular the methodological approaches to the study of parliamentary impact.
FIGURE 1 - UNIFIED SPECTRUM OF PARLIAMENTARY IMPACT IN THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS Significant parliamentary influence Minimal parliamentary influence Transformative (Polsby) Arena (Polsby) Policy-making (Norton) Policy-influencing (Norton) Little or no policy effect (Norton) Active (Mezey) Vulnerable (Mezey) Reactive (Mezey) Marginal (Mezey) Minimal (Mezey) Strong policy-making (Mezey) High viscosity (Blondel) Little or no policy-making (Mezey) Moderate policy-making (Mezey) Low viscosity (Blondel)
BIBLIOGRPAHY Arter, D., Comparing the legislative performance of legislatures, Journal of Legislative Studies,12:3,pp. 247. Blondel, J., Legislative Behaviour: some steps towards a cross national measurement, in Legislatures, Norton, P., Oxford University Press, 1990, pp.186-207. Mezey, M. Classifying legislatures, in Legislatures, Norton, P., Oxford University Press, 1990, pp.149-176. Norton, P., Legislatures in perspective, in Norton, P. (ed.), Parliaments in Western Europe, London: Frank Cass, 1990, pp. 143-152.