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THE NEW ROLES OF PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES

BOOKS OF RELATED INTEREST

THE LIBRARY OF LEGISLATIVE STUDIES ISSN 1460-9649

A series of new and recent books exploring the role of legislatures in contemporary political systems. The volumes typically draw together a team of country specialists to provide in-depth analysis.

General Editor: Philip Norton

Parliaments in Contemporary Western Europe edited by Philip Norton

Volume 1: Parliaments and Governments in Western Europe Volume 2: Parliaments and Pressure Groups in Western Europe Volume 3: Parliaments and Citizens in Western Europe

Conscience and Parliament edited by Philip Cowley

Members of Parliament in Western Europe: Roles and Behaviour edited by Wolfgang C. Müller and Thomas Saalfeld

National Parliaments and the European Union edited by Philip Norton

The New Parliaments of Central and Eastern Europe edited by David M. Olson and Philip Norton

THE NEW ROLES OF PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES

edited by

LAWRENCE D. LONGLEY and ROGER H. DAVIDSON

FRANK CASS LONDON • PORTLAND, OR.

First published in 1998 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS AND COMPANY LIMITED

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

and in the United States of America by FRANK CASS

270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016

Transferred to Digital Printing 2005

Copyright © 1998 Frank Cass & Co. Ltd

Website: http://www.frankcass.com

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

The new roles of parliamentary committees 1. Legislative bodies - Committees 2. Parliamentary practice I. Longley, Lawrence D. (Lawrence Douglas), 1939-II. Davidson, Roger H. 328.3'65

ISBN 0 7146 4891 4 (hbk) ISBN 0 7146 4442 0(pbk)

ISSN 1460-9649

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The new roles of parliamentary committees / edited by Lawrence D. Longley and Roger H. Davidson.

p. cm. - (The library of legislative studies) Includes index. ISBN 0-7146-4891-4 (hardcover). - ISBN 0-7146-4442-0 (pbk.) 1. Legislative bodies-Committees. 2. Comparative government. I. Longley, Lawrence D. II. Davidson, Roger H. III. Series.

JF533.N48 1998 98-13228 328.3'65–dc21 CIP

This group of studies first appeared in a Special Issue on 'The New Roles of Parliamentary Committees' of the Journal of Legislative Studies (ISSN 1357-2334)4/1 (Spring 1998)

published by Frank Cass

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording

or otherwise without the prior permission of Frank Cass and Company Limited.

http://www.frankcass.com

Contents

Parliamentary Committees: Changing Lawrence D. Longley and Perspectives on Changing Institutions Roger H. Davidson 1

Parliamentary Committees in European Democracies Kaare Strøm 21

Norwegian Parliamentary Committees: Performance, Structural Change and External Relations Hilmar Rommetvedt 60

Changing Parliamentary Committees in Changing East-Central Europe: Parliamentary Committees as Central Sites of Policy Making Attila Ágh 85

Committees in the Post-Communist David M. Olson, Polish Sejm: Structure, Ania van der Meer-Krok-Paszkowska, Activity and Members Maurice D. Simon

and Irena Jackiewicz 101

US Congressional Committees: Changing Colton C. Campbell Legislative Workshops and Roger H. Davidson 124

Nascent Institutionalisation: Committees in the British Parliament Philip Norton 143

Political Reform and the Committee System in Israel: Structural and Functional Adaptation Reuven Y. Hazan 163

Committees in the Russian State Duma: Continuity and Change in Comparative Perspective Moshe Haspel 188

The Organisation and Workings of Committees

in the Korean National Assembly Chan Wook Park 206

Parliamentary Committees: A Global Perspective Malcolm Shaw 225

Index 252

Parliamentary Committees: Changing Perspectives on Changing Institutions

LAWRENCE D. LONGLEY and ROGER H. DAVIDSON

Parliaments, which according to the then prevalent scholarly literature were expected to decline in significance in the decades of the 1960s and 1970s, actually have developed new and vital political roles and, in recent decades, have innovated in their institutional structure - most recurrently in their newly organised or invigorated parliamentary committees. This is in striking contrast to the seeming antipathy between a vigorous committee system and traditional parliamentary government. There has been a growth of the centrality of committees, not only in a few parliaments, but as a global phenomenon. Even as newly democratic parliaments throughout the world experiment with more elaborate committee structures, those with older, highly developed committee systems are reaching for more varied and flexible alternatives. In short, parliamentary committees have emerged as vibrant and central institutions of democratic parliaments of today's world and have begun to define new and changing roles for themselves. This publication in its entirety is devoted to the study and evaluation of these important and still emergent parliamentary developments - to an understanding of the new roles of parliamentary committees in the quest for effective parliamentary influence in and contribution to democratic government.

As legislative scholars declare proudly, 'we are living in the "age of parliaments'".1 Institutions develop generally from one stage to another as if they were organic beings. Parliaments, which according to the then prevalent scholarly literature were expected to decline in significance in the 1960s and 1970s, actually have developed new and vital political roles. In

Lawrence D. Longley is Professor of Government at Lawrence University, Appleton, USA, and Roger H. Davidson is Professor of Political Science at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA.

This essay reflects the intellectual stimulation of the Parliamentary Committee Initiative, and has particularly benefited from the comments and scholarship of the members of the Initiative's International Steering Committee. Besides Lawrence D. Longley and Roger H. Davidson, these scholars include Attila Ágh, Philip Norton, David M. Olson, Malcolm Shaw, Barbara Sinclair, Kaare Strøm, Wlodzimierz Wesolowski, and Drago Zajc. Valuable and greatly appreciated support was provided to this project by the Dean of the Faculty of Lawrence University in the form of Lawrence University Faculty Research Grants in 1996 and 1997; this assistance greatly facilitated the writing and editing of this work from venues as disparate as Appleton, Wisconsin, Washington, DC, and Budapest, Hungary.

2 THE NEW ROLES OF PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES

recent decades, they have innovated in their institutional structures - most notably in newly organised or invigorated parliamentary committees. This is in striking contrast to the seeming antipathy between a vigorous committee system and traditional parliamentary government. Parliaments have gone through a long process of institutionalisation, a conception of parliamentary change originally derived from the institutional development of the US Congress since the early nineteenth century, and have even moved through post-institutionalisation change and evolution.2 For a long time, parliamentary institutions were not studied deeply and extensively by scholars.3 Yet, parliaments do renew themselves institutionally under such pressures as the international political environment, competition with executive power, and the impact of new cohorts of members.4

Parliamentary committees have been major loci of innovation in the processes and structures of parliaments. As Mattson and Strøm have argued in their seminal review of parliamentary committees,5 'the committee stage' has become a basic moment in the workings of parliaments throughout the world. This growth of centrality of the committee stage has occurred not only in some parliaments, but appears to be a global phenomenon.6

Parliamentary committees figure significantly on all continents and in most countries of the world, increasingly serving as the main organising centre of both legislation and parliamentary oversight of government. Mattson and Str0m conclude with the observation, 'committees have indeed become the main focal points of many representative assemblies'.7

This development of central roles of parliamentary committees is particularly astonishing as it has occurred in both separation-of-powers systems, where it might be seen as the natural result of efforts by legislative bodies to develop institutional tools and resources to strengthen their hands in competing with executives, and in parliamentary systems. If active parliamentary committees come naturally to separation-of-powers systems, such is not the case with parliamentary government systems. Assertive committees in parliamentary systems potentially threaten the primacy of governments, executives and, not least, legislative and partisan leaders in the chamber itself - all antithetical to the principle of unified political leadership and responsibility central to classical parliamentary government. In short, active parliamentary committees fit well into separation-of-powers systems and are inherently at tension with the classical model of parliamentary government.

This world-wide growth of parliamentary committees is a fairly recent development. A hundred years ago, or even 30 years ago, the situation was absolutely different. Parliamentary committees at that time generally did not matter globally, although they were certainly important in the American Congress. The 'Mother of Parliaments', the British Parliament, has always

PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES: CHANGING PERSPECTIVES 3

been weakly institutionalised; politically significant parliamentary committees in that parliament appeared only in 1979, even then more as deviant cases than as the general rule. 'Select committees', with some oversight functions but no legislative role, and 'standing committees', which in fact were only ad hoc committees, were the norm in the UK.8

Although the British Parliament has historically resisted embracing the new roles of parliamentary committees pioneered elsewhere, there have recently been noteworthy and significant innovations and expansions in the powers of British parliamentary committees.

Initially, many democratic parliaments were modelled according to the British pattern and reflected the Westminster system's tradition of weak parliamentary committees.9 Additionally, those parliaments based on other traditions often similarly lacked significant internal structures in the form of politically relevant committee systems. For many decades comparative politics generally meant comparing the varieties of Anglo-Saxon political systems, and legislative studies usually focused at length on just the two extreme cases of the US and the British parliaments. It became customary, in post-war political science, for standard works of political science in general, and those of parliamentary studies in particular, to discuss only the American and British legislative cases at length, perhaps adding at most the German Bundestag or the Japanese Parliament for some diversity.10

The focus on parliamentary committees was, in the political science tradition of the past 50 years, almost exclusively an American one. The US Congress was by far the strongest case of the use of parliamentary committees - as Malcolm Shaw argues in this publication and elsewhere.11 The most frequently quoted statement in studies of parliamentary committee systems, that of Woodrow Wilson that 'Congress in its committee-rooms is Congress at work', was originally written in 188512 and, while less valid then, became the hallmark of scholarly understanding of US congressional committees in the century to follow. In the twentieth century, there was an 'inflation of committees' in the US system, followed by an inflation of subcommittees in the post-war years - most notably in the 1970s - leading to a situation of dozens of committees with scores of subcommittees in which about one-third of House members would chair a committee or subcommittee.13 Despite sweeping changes in committee structures and processes in recent years,14 US congressional committees continue very strong today, both in terms of initiating and managing legislation and in controlling the executive. They have created an important committee-centred bureaucracy on Capitol Hill, as Shaw and others note, in an effort to cope with the growing complexity of the modern American polity and the enormous resources of the executive.15

In terms of its reliance upon committees, the United States Congress surely occupies one end of the spectrum. Committees have played a central part in its


deliberation and executive oversight since the very beginning. At first, ad hoc bodies were created to draft legislation that had already been debated in its full chambers; but soon thereafter standing, or permanent, committees emerged to lend continuity to the consideration of issues. Committees were an efficient way of dividing up the growing legislative workload. They were also convenient, freeing the chambers from the chore of constantly choosing committee members. Eventually committees proved to be powerful antidotes to the growing influence of presidents and their cabinet members in framing the legislative agenda. It is this latter function that, in recent years, has impelled a number of parliamentary assemblies throughout the world to establish 'ministerial' committees whose purpose is to communicate with, and hopefully exert influence over, the various executive agencies.16 This wish by parliaments to enhance their ability to oversee, or scrutinise, the government and ministries is a major - perhaps even the central - factor explaining the growing use of committees in parliamentary democracies.

The rigidity of jurisdictions characteristic of standing committee systems can prove a liability in today's complex, fast-moving world. Definitions of jurisdictional metes and bounds eventually grow into the equivalents of jealously guarded land rights, in which boundaries are stoutly defended and trespassers vigorously fought off. Yet evolving policy challenges rarely fit neatly into jurisdictional definitions that were codified years or even decades earlier. Cross-cutting issues - involving, for example, the environment, trade, health and welfare - demand integrated deliberation and oversight. Even committee systems designed to parallel ministerial agencies are vulnerable to this defect. Mature committee systems, such as those in the US Congress, are increasingly challenged by alternative organisational entities - multi-committee arrangements, partisan or multiparty task forces, leadership committees, or even high-level 'summit' bargaining between legislative leaders and the executive branch. In sum, even as democratic parliaments throughout the world experiment with more elaborate committee structures, those with older, highly developed committee systems are reaching for more varied and flexible alternatives.

G L O B A L PARLIAMENTARY C O M M I T T E E EVOLUTION

A parliamentary committee 'explosion', somewhat parallel with the earlier growth of US congressional committees, occurred in many countries of the world in the post-war period. In a number of countries this has led to an 'inflation of committees' - somewhat similar in numbers but far less often to the level of power of US committees. Over the past 50 years, West European parliaments have generally reconstituted and extended their committee systems and provided them with new responsibilities for legislation and, by


replicating executive departments in committee structures, new means for controlling the central government and administration. A 1979 pioneering collection of parliamentary committee studies edited by Lees and Shaw documented these systemic changes,17 and played a crucial role in legitimising committee research and establishing its scholarly traditions. Nowadays every significant work on cross-national parliaments will contain a lengthy section on committees.18 This recognises that the existence of a vigorous parliamentary committee system has become the sine qua non of legislative work and oversight.19 As Mattson and Str0m put it, 'By broad consensus, committees are considered one of the most significant organizational features of modern parliaments'.20

In contrast to the false impression of a 'decline of parliaments' which gave birth to an extensive scholarly literature in the 1960s and 1970s, parliaments have, in the past three decades, become more influential bodies globally, and this has been due particularly to their newly created or revived committee systems.21 Copeland and Patterson report on strong parliaments world-wide and note that, in several countries studied, 'since the mid-1970s, committees have become significant components of the parliaments, legislative activity has increased, members have come to participate more heavily in floor debate, and the parliamentary parties have grown more competitive'. In general, they find that 'parliaments are stronger in the 1990s than ever before. Partly, the contemporary strength of parliamentary institutions stems from internal changes - in rules, in committee structure, in party government, in leadership'.22 Parliamentary committees have also been instrumental, in recent decades, in relieving state and/or government overload. In the legislative phase of the policy-making process involving ever more complex policy issues, parliamentary committees have turned out to be vital as meeting places and clearing houses of political and policy conflict and resolution. In short, parliamentary committees 'facilitate overall legislative productivity'.23 As one Hungarian MP recently expressed it pithily, 'Committees are the place of proper work'.24

This parliamentary linkage of political and policy dimensions has also produced a necessary and valuable synthesis of legislative studies and public policy research. A path-breaking study along these lines was the 1991 book edited by Olson and Mezey, Legislatures in the Policy Process.25

Another cross-national study of the political processes of parliamentary cameral change, Two Into One: The Politics of National Cameral Change,26

was likewise invigorated by policy as well as political perspectives and traced the significance of both dimensions in effecting parliamentary institutional change.

In the mid-1990s, a turning point was reached in the study of west European parliaments in general and in that of their committees in particular


through the publication of an important multinational substantive collection of studies, Parliaments and Majority Rule in Western Europe, edited by Herbert Döring.27 This book constitutes a breakthrough from the tradition of more or less isolated country studies to a genuine comparative analysis of west European parliaments, including their committees. This is not a collection of some 18 country case studies with a short comparative summary at the end of the book, but common and truly comparative analyses of a number of key dimensions of west European parliaments28 -and, in chapters by Mattson and Strøm29 and by Damgaard,30 important studies focus on parliamentary committees. This comparative research shows that in 16 countries of western Europe (the parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland being exceptions to the 18 countries considered), parliamentary committees deal meaningfully with legislation and have important roles in this regard. Most parliaments have an extended system of specialised permanent committees, usually called standing committees, and these committees are also usually engaged in administrative oversight and are accompanied by many ad hoc committees and committees for investigation. Two parallel and interlocking organisations have been established in all parliaments, above all in the continental European ones: the party organisations with their factions and the committee organisations with their leadership. This duality appears as central features defining the most recent stage of the institutionalisation of parliaments.31

In the 1980s and into the 1990s, a new turning point came in the parliamentary evolution of western Europe through the increasing significance of the European Parliament. In general, the European Parliament has replicated the general patterns of west European parliamentary committees described above. It has created an extended and strong committee system which has influenced heavily the further development of the committee systems of the national parliaments, and it has been an important factor pushing them towards parliamentary homogeneity by establishing structures parallel with those of other countries.32 The European Parliament has itself developed an extended and complicated system of parliamentary committees and subcommittees constituting 'its legislative backbone'.33 Among these European Parliament committees, two committees are particularly important - the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Security, and the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs - because they focus on the two most important intergovernmental pillars created by the Maastricht Treaty. In the European Parliament there has also been great 'inflationary pressure' to organise more and more committees and subcommittees. It has partly been successfully resisted, but the blocking of the establishment of new committees has led to an increasing number of subcommittees, so the organisation and co-


ordination of committee work, within and beyond the existing 19 permanent committees, has become a difficult issue in the European Parliament.34

Finally, the Member States and prospective Member States have organised European Union Affairs Committees in their individual national parliaments which has not only extended the national committee structures but has transformed them a great deal, since these new committees have acquired special rights fundamentally influencing the work of other parliamentary committees.35

In short, parliamentary committees have emerged as vibrant and central institutions of democratic parliaments of today's world and have begun to define new and changing roles for themselves. This publication is devoted to the study and evaluation of these important and still emergent parliamentary developments. It is itself the outcome of a co-ordinated series of international scholarly activities, started in the mid-1990s, which are directed at the systematic study of the new roles of parliamentary committees.

THE B U D A P E S T INTERNATIONAL C O N F E R E N C E AND THE

PARLIAMENTARY C O M M I T T E E INITIATIVE

In the summer of 1996, from 20 to 22 June, 63 scholars from 20 different countries met in Budapest, Hungary to participate in an International Conference on 'The Changing Roles of Parliamentary Committees', presenting 32 original papers and engaging in countless round-table and informal discussions of the topic. This conference was organised by the Research Committee of Legislative Specialists of the International Political Science Association and by the Hungarian Centre for Democracy Studies of the Budapest University of Economic Sciences, with generous assistance from both the RCLS and the Hungarian Centre for Democracy Studies, as well as from the State Development Corporation (Budapest), the Hungarian Higher Education Fund, and the Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung of Germany. The sessions of the international conference were held at the Budapest University of Economic Sciences, with other events at additional Budapest locales, including the Hungarian Parliament. The Co-Chairs of the conference were Lawrence D. Longley of the United States and Attila Ágh of Hungary.

At this Budapest conference, extensive consideration was given not only to the substantive topic of the cross-national changing roles of parliamentary committees, but also to long-term plans concerning the co-ordinated scholarly study of these changes. Earlier in the year, preliminary discussions had resulted in the formation of a Parliamentary Committee Initiative International Steering Committee, an informal group of scholars interested in furthering international collaborative research into contemporary


parliamentary committees. The present members of this Parliamentary Committee Initiative International Steering Committee are:

Professor Lawrence D. Longley, Lawrence University, USA, Chair Professor Attila Ágh, Budapest University of Economic Sciences,

Hungary Professor Roger H. Davidson, University of Maryland, USA Professor Philip Norton, University of Hull, UK Professor David M. Olson, University of North Carolina, Greensboro,

USA Professor Malcolm Shaw, University of Exeter, UK Professor Barbara Sinclair, University of California, Los Angeles,

USA Professor Kaare Strøm, University of California, San Diego, USA Dr Wlodzimierz Wesolowski, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland,

and Dr Drago Zajc, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

The Budapest conference provided numerous opportunities to discuss possible future scholarly interchanges and activities designed to further the international comparative study of parliamentary committees. From these discussions in Budapest and subsequently, the following initiatives were decided upon and set into course:

• Publication of revised versions of many of the papers delivered at the Budapest International Conference would occur in the form of a volume to be published in the RCLS Book Series, Working Papers on Comparative Legislative Studies. This 540-page book, containing 32 original studies of parliamentary committees ranging from Russia to South Africa and from Korea to the United States, was subsequently published in June 1997. (The volumes in the RCLS Book Series thus far, including this 'Budapest Book' volume, are the 1994 'Paris Book' on The Role of Legislatures and Parliaments in Democratizing and Newly Democratic Regimes,36 the 1997 'Budapest Book' on The Changing Roles of Parliamentary Committees,37 and the 1998 'Ljubljana Book' on The New Democratic Parliaments - The First Years.38)

• A September 1997 International Conference would be held in Prague, Czech Republic, on 'The Role of Central European Parliaments in the Process of Integration', sponsored by the University of Economics, Prague, The Research Committee of Legislative Specialists of the International Political Science Association, and other organisations.39


• A May-June 1998 International Workshop on 'Committees in Comparative Perspective: From Conflict to Co-operation' would be organised by Professor David Olson of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA, and Dr. Wlodzimierz Wesolowski of the Polish Academy of Sciences.40

• A 1998 Special Issue of The Journal of Legislative Studies would be devoted to follow-up and original new studies on 'The New Roles of Parliamentary Committees', and this scholarship would subsequently be published as a scholarly book by Frank Cass. (The result of this latter effort, of course, is this publication.)

S U B S T A N T I V E CONCERNS

In planning the 1996 Budapest International Conference, the 1998 Special Issue of The Journal of Legislative Studies, and the various other activities of the Parliamentary Committee Initiative, a series of common substantive inquiries were identified, discussed and dissimulated to the various scholars involved in the Initiative. In so far as appropriate in light of specific national and regional factors, the scholars were invited to consider research concerns grouped into three broad categories:

I. Changes in the Functions of Parliamentary Committees

What functions have the parliamentary committees traditionally played in the parliamentary and larger political system? as legislative workshops? as legislative perfecting institutions? as partisan debating chambers? How have these functions changed - or are changing - in recent years? What are the forces causing such change? What are the controversies over those changes in purpose that have occurred, are occurring, or that are advocated? Have parliamentary committees strengthened or weakened as vital power centres in the parliamentary system and in the regime's political system?

II. Changes in the External Relations of Parliamentary Committees

What are the changes in relations between the parliamentary committees and political parties, both governing and opposing? with parliamentary leadership? with the government? with ministries or departments committees may shadow? What have been the forces behind any recent significant changes in these external relations -especially in the last two very crucial relationships?


III. Changes in the Internal Relations of Parliamentary Committees

What have been the changes in the level of conflict and division within the parliamentary committees? To quote David Olson, To what extent are committees the cockpits of conflict and disagreement?'41 What is the basis of and significant changes in such struggles? What forces serve somewhat to ameliorate committee conflict - and are such forces weakening or strengthening? Has there been a growth of politically significant subcommittees challenging full committees for policy and political relevance? Have committee leaders strengthened or weakened in their leadership capacities over time? Have parliamentary committees obtained resources sufficient to exercise meaningful oversight or legislative evaluative functions? What have been the forces furthering or limiting such committee enhancement of resources?

Do members see committee service and performance as a significant road to legislative and political advancement? How have these perceptions changed, and why? How are committee members recruited and chosen? Have changes in these processes changed the operations of the parliamentary committees - have member purposes changed? Are parliamentary committees made up of members who increasingly - or increasingly do not - share common purposes for being on that committee and common goals they wish to achieve from their committee service? What changes have occurred in the length of tenure of committee membership - and why? Has the tenure of committee chairs also changed - and why?

The hope was that this wide-ranging set of questions concerning the changing nature of parliamentary committees would facilitate and focus the efforts of the various international scholars in their analyses. There was no conception that each study would answer every one of the above questions; some might well not be particularly appropriate to a particular context and, of course, choices in scholarly focus and emphasis must always be made by individual researchers. What is underlying in these and in other related questions is the key point - that structural change alters institutional performance.42 The hope was that in specific studies, scholars would be able to trace this general relationship in specific detail, showing how the parliamentary committees of which they are expert have changed, and the significant results of these changes in terms of institutional, policy and political consequences.

In short, institutions do matter, and committees, as changing parliamentary institutions, have profound consequences not only in terms of how the parliament works, but also in the larger polity. Arendt Lijphart has written: 'Legislatures should probably be regarded as the most important institutions in a democracy' and 'different institutional forms, rules, and practices can


have major consequences both for the degree of democracy in a democratic system and for the effective operation of the system'.43 As Mattson and Str0m point out, 'Parliamentary committees are rarely mandated by constitutions; yet they almost invariably exist'.44 An understanding of the implications of the existence of parliamentary committees, together with the consequences of the changing roles of committees - a key component of 'the most important institutions in a democracy' - is the purpose of the ten studies which follow in this volume.

THE S T U D I E S

Western and Eastern European Parliamentary Committee Contrasts

An important comparative perspective leads off these studies. Norwegian-born scholar Kaare Strøm was the co-author of the landmark examination of 'Parliamentary Committees' recurrently cited in this publication by so many of the other authors, a 1996 study which has provided both intellectual challenge and rich data for the cross-national study of parliamentary committees. In his review of 'Parliamentary Committees in European Democracies' provided here, Str0m adapts and extends his previous work, surveying the structure, procedures, and powers of legislative committees in 18 western European democracies, stressing that 'parliamentary committees are among the most important features of legislative organisation in contemporary democracies'. In this work Str0m has provided an important new landmark cross-national survey in the rapidly emerging literature of comparative parliamentary committees.

The next study, by Hilmar Rommetvedt, comes to us even more directly from Norway and is an examination of 'Norwegian Parliamentary Committees: Performance, Structural Change and External Relations'. Rommetvedt's purpose is more than just to provide a survey of information about Norwegian committees, although key information concerning committee workload, the appointment of committee members, and committee relations with ministries, party groups and lobbyists is presented and assessed, and a detailed analysis is offered of the Norwegian committee reforms which were implemented in 1993. In addition, however, Rommetvedt utilises these data to confront directly and challenge explicitly the assumption that strong committees are a necessary condition for parliamentary significance - the conclusion of many of the other scholars in this publication. Instead, Rommetvedt finds in the case of Norway, counter-intuitively, that the influence of the Norwegian Parliament has increased simultaneously with an increasing level of parliamentary and committee dissent and hence with a poorer functioning of parliamentary standing committees.


Attila Ágh, perhaps the leading parliamentary scholar in east-central Europe, extends our consideration of European parliamentary committees both geographically and substantively in his study of 'Changing Parliamentary Committees in Changing East-Central Europe: Parliamentary Committees as Central Sites of Policy Making'. Ágh notes that in the 1990s all of the newly democratic east-central European parliaments have developed extensive committee systems. Central to all of these new parliaments has also been a European affairs committee, part of each nation's effort to achieve 'political harmonisation' with the European political community. The latest of many studies by Ágh of regional parliamentary and political developments, this work adds valuable additional dimensions to our consideration of the new roles of parliamentary committees throughout Europe, both western and east-central.

The international research consortium of David M. Olson of the United States, Ania van der Meer-Krok-Paszkowska of The Netherlands, Maurice D. Simon of the United States, and Irena Jackiewicz of Poland have combined their rich perspectives and resources to assess 'Committees in the Post-Communist Polish Sejm: Structure, Activity and Members'. The three-nation team bases its study of parliamentary institutionalisation in this newly democratised legislature both on primary documentary sources and on three sets of interviews with members and committee chairmen of the Polish Sejm. Considerable problems in the functioning of committees in the Sejm are found; these problems are seen as related to transitional difficulties of a new democratic system, especially due to changing member characteristics, the uncertainty of both committee membership and leadership relations with parliamentary parties and the government, and confusion surrounding the place of committees in the Polish legislative process. These difficulties are further seen as illustrating parliamentary institutionalisation as an on-going dynamic process. It is a particular delight to be able to include in this publication both this insightful study on Poland as well as the east-central Europe regional synthesis by Ágh; together these studies of the region's new democratic regimes valuably extend the preceding western European reviews by Str0m and Rommetvedt.

New Parliamentary Committee Roles in Longer Established (But Not Static) Regimes

The next two scholarly works illustrate well the point that change in parliamentary systems never really ends, even in the case of parliaments that have been in existence for some considerable period of time. In many ways, the post-institutionalisation change processes of 'mature' parliaments are of particular scholarly interest, for change in this context challenges our understanding of parliamentary evolutionary patterns dictated by traditional


theories of institutionalisation. History does not end with the achievement of some finite stage of parliamentary institutionalisation but rather just enters into new phases of a never-ending process of institutional evolution.45

Colton C. Campbell and Roger H. Davidson consider the pre-eminent example of powerful legislative committees in their study of 'US Congressional Committees: Changing Legislative Workshops'. As they note, committees have been a distinctive feature of the US Congress from its earliest days, and may be argued to be one, if not the most, defining feature of the US legislative system. Scholars offer various explanations for the centrality of committees in the US Congress: some argue that they enable the bicameral chambers of Congress to cope with their complex, ever growing workload; others emphasise that committees respond to each chamber's party organisations; while still others contend that committees serve powerful clientele constituencies. What is especially striking in the Campbell-Davidson work is the authors' emphasis on change in the US congressional committee system. The congressional committees' policy hegemony is increasingly challenged today by strengthened party leaders and by the growth of broad, cross-cutting issues that are often resolved by a combination of committees or by extra-committee entities, including party task forces. It is noteworthy that in the US Congress, traditionally the home of some of the strongest legislative committees to be found world-wide, committees are changing profoundly as they face challenges to their traditional policy-making dominance.

We return to western Europe for the next study - in this case to the 'mother of parliaments', the British House of Commons - a major world parliament of historic influence, but one in the past not marked by the development of strong legislative substantive committees. All this, to a degree, is changing, Philip Norton reports in 'Nascent Institutionalisation: Committees in the British Parliament'. While the British Parliament has always been a chamber-oriented institution, the House of Commons has experienced since 1979 a significant shift in activity from the chamber to the committee. This gradual but significant change has been the result of the creation of a series of departmental committees in 1979 together with a more incremental process of seepage of activity from chamber to committee since then. Overall, Norton argues, what is involved here is a gradual evolution of the British parliament from a nascent legislative institutionalisation to a developed institutionalisation - a change in which newly significant British parliamentary committees are playing a central role.

New Parliamentary Committee Roles in Profoundly Changing Regimes

Reuven Y. Hazan, in his study of 'Political Reform and the Committee System in Israel: Structural and Functional Adaptation', deals with a


relatively newer regime, that of Israel, but one which in its some 50 years of existence has moved through profound changes in its parliamentary and committee structures. In this first academic analysis focusing on the committees of the Israeli Knesset - and the first description of them in English – Hazan urgently suggests that recent changes in Israel's parliamentary committee structures be continued and redirected so as to strengthen parliamentary resources and independence. 'The Knesset must adapt its institutional performance to structural political change', he writes. As part of his examination and advocacy of committee reform, he evolved a series of possible parliamentary reforms grouped accordingly to two overall categories - committee legislation and committee oversight - and presented these suggestions to a number of MKs for their consideration and assessment. This study is indeed fascinating, not only because of its analysis of a parliament still, after almost 50 years, in the process of becoming an institutionalised and structured parliamentary body. It is also important because the scholar authoring the study has taken the valuable next step in applied policy analysis of assessing with care the feasibility of and obstacles to specific political reforms.

Moshe Haspel continues this set of studies with his examination of 'Committees in the Russian State Duma: Continuity and Change in Comparative Perspective'. The Russian parliamentary system has faced varied challenges in recent years, including those uniquely offered by tank and artillery fire. Less dramatically, parliamentary committee internal relations, external relations and functions in the Russian Duma are changing as a result of the growing strength of political parties in that body. While committees in the Duma remain the focal point for legislative activity in the chamber, structural changes, especially involving multiparty representation, have altered institutional performance. Nevertheless, parliamentary committees provide opportunities for necessary inter-party compromise and the accumulation of professional expertise which is so important at a time when Russia needs massive amounts of new and thoughtfully crafted legislation.

In his evaluation of parliamentary committees in Korea, Chan Wook Park offers insights concerning 'The Organisation and Workings of Committees in the Korean National Assembly' and demonstrates how a parliamentary committee system, geographically far removed from many others studied here, can have understanding enriched by perspectives and concepts from the international scholarly community. The study clearly discusses the organisation and working of standing committees in the Korean National Assembly, but further considers why they have not functioned as effectively as prescribed. Key to their limited success is party control over committee appointments and policy deliberation, and the lack


of committee autonomy vis-à-vis the parental parliamentary body as well as the executive. Significant committee differences in member goals, policy environments, decision-making processes and decisional outputs are assessed. Finally, this valuable study advances proposals for the consolidation of the committee system in the Korean National Assembly.

A Global Perspective on Parliamentary Committees

The final study of this volume, by Malcolm Shaw, one of the original pioneers in the comparative study of parliamentary committees, returns to this topic so closely associated over the years with his name to offer a far-reaching synthesis of 'Parliamentary Committees: A Global Perspective'. Shaw's survey starts by considering the nature of committee arrangements in parliaments and various theories concerning committee behaviour. Special attention is devoted to the exceptional case of US congressional committees and then, in a larger focus, to the general movement in the industrial democracies toward more established parliamentary committees replicating executive and ministerial jurisdictions. Supplementing this treatment of Western and developed systems is an innovative and valuable discussion by Shaw of weak committee systems in the traditional and authoritarian Third World and contrasting stronger systems in continuous and intermittent Third World democracies. Shaw concludes, 'Whether established, new, or future democracies are considered, pressures to enhance legislative authority can be seen at the committee level throughout the world'.

It is a special pleasure to be able to conclude this publication with the latest scholarship by Malcolm Shaw, an expert who some years ago challenged us all to address the very questions now considered in the various studies in this collection of international scholarship on the new roles of parliamentary committees.

C O N C L U S I O N S

A phenomenon of the 1990s has been the worldwide emergence of newly democratic or democratising young regimes with their new democratic parliaments, developments which have brought fresh dimensions and challenges to parliamentary research.46 This focus emerges centrally in this publication because scholars of parliaments throughout the globe have devoted their attention increasingly, in the 1990s, to the problems and promises of the new democratic parliaments, together with their newly organised or invigorated committee systems.

Democratic institution building in central and eastern Europe,47 Latin America,48 Asia49 and beyond50 has given renewed incentive to

16 THE NEW ROLES OF. PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES

parliamentary committee research because many of these countries, especially the new democracies of east-central Europe, have strong traditions of parliamentary committee systems. Further, from the very beginning of their fledgling democratic systems, these new democracies have tried to emulate the most developed or strongest Western parliaments in creating parliaments as central institutions of their polity - including their mature parliamentary committee systems.51 This latter development is particularly striking because of the seeming antipathy between a vigorous committee system and traditional parliamentary government. Parliaments are certainly not in decline in the new democratic or newly democratising political systems. On the contrary, parliaments have been the model and mother institutions of democratisation, and their committees have pioneered in the synthesis of democratic politics with effective policy making.

This relationship between politics and policy processes, and the new roles of parliamentary committees in this synthesis, is complex. Mattson and Str0m propose provocatively that 'Strong committees, it appears, are at least a necessary condition for effective parliamentary influence in the policy-making process. Whether they are also a sufficient condition is less obvious'.52 It is our hope that the rich feast of new international scholarship gathered in this publication - and the future research to be stimulated by these studies - will allow scholars of parliamentary systems and committees to be able to resolve better the mysteries of the new roles of parliamentary committees in the quest for effective parliamentary influence in and contribution to democratic government.

NOTES

This article is a revised and extended version of an earlier essay, 'On the Changing Nature of Parliamentary Committees', written with Attila Ágh of the Budapest University of Economic Sciences, Hungary, which first appeared in L. Longley and A. Ágh (eds.), Working Papers on Comparative Legislative Studies II: The Changing Roles of Parliamentary Committees (Appleton, WI: Research Committee of Legislative Specialists, 1997). The initial author of both essays expresses his profound appreciation for the opportunity to collaborate with international scholars of the calibre of Attila Ágh and Roger H. Davidson.

1. G. Copeland and S. Patterson (eds.), Parliaments in the Modern World: Changing Institutions (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1994), p.l.

2. L. Longley, 'Parliaments as Changing Institutions and as Agents of Regime Change: Evolving Perspectives and a New Research Framework', Journal of Legislative Studies, Vol.2, No.2 (Summer 1996), pp.22–44; also in A. Ágh and G. Ilonszki (eds.), The Second Steps: Parliaments and Organized Interests (Budapest: Hungarian Centre for Democracy Studies, 1996), pp.309–21; and [as 'Los parlamentos como instituciones en transformacion y como agentes transformadores de los regímenes políticos'] in Cuadernos Constitucionales [Constitutional Quarterly], Departamento de Derecho Constitucional, Universitat de Valencia, Spain, 2° Época, N° 11/12 (1995), pp.55-75.

3. Copeland and Patterson, Parliaments in the Modern World, p.2.


4. Longley, 'Parliaments as Changing Institutions and as Agents of Regime Change'. 5. I. Mattson and K. Str0m, 'Parliamentary Committees', in H. Döring (ed.), Parliaments and

Majority Rule in Western Europe (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996), pp.249-307. See also revised and updated 1997 and 1998 versions of this study: K. Str0m, 'Parliamentary Committees in European Democracies', in Longley and Ágh, Working Papers on Comparative Legislative Studies II: The Changing Roles of Parliamentary Committees, pp.51–88 (the 1997 version); and K. Str0m, 'Parliamentary Committees in European Democracies', this publication (the 1998 version).

6. M. Shaw, 'Parliamentary Committees: A Global Perspective', this publication; and a slightly earlier 1997 version of this study: M. Shaw, 'Committee Patterns in Parliaments: A Global Perspective', in Longley and Ágh, Working Papers on Comparative Legislative Studies II: The Changing Roles of Parliamentary Committees, pp.505–15; Str0m, 'Parliamentary Committees in European Democracies', both 1997 and 1998 essays.

7. Mattson and Strøm, 'Parliamentary Committees', p.249. 8. P. Norton, 'Nascent Institutionalisation: Committees in the British Parliament', this

publication. See also G. Drewry (ed.), The New Select Committees: A Study of the 1979 Reforms (Oxford: Clarendon Press, for the Study of Parliament Group, 1985).

9. For studies of the changing Westminster model beyond the United Kingdom, see C.E.S. Franks, 'Constraints on the Operations and Reform of Parliamentary Committees in Canada'; R. Calland, 'All Dressed Up With Nowhere To Go? The Rapid Transition of the South African Parliamentary Committee System'; and J. Halligan, J. Power and R. Miller, 'Roles of Parliamentary Committees: A Development Perspective on the Australian System'; each in Longley and Ágh, Working Papers on Comparative Legislative Studies II: The Changing Roles of Parliamentary Committees, pp. 199-238.

10. See G. Loewenberg and S. Patterson, Comparing Legislatures (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1979), pp.125–58.

11. Shaw, 'Parliamentary Committees: A Global Perspective', this publication (subsequently referenced as his 1998 essay); and Shaw, 'Committee Patterns in Parliaments: A Global Perspective', in Longley and Ágh (subsequently referenced as his 1997 essay).

12. W. Wilson, Congressional Government (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1885). 13. Loewenberg and Patterson, Comparing Legislatures, pp. 129-30. 14. For an excellent summary of recent changes in the legislative committees of the United

States Congress, see C. Campbell and R. Davidson, 'US Congressional Committees: Changing Legislative Workshops', this publication. See also S. Smith, 'The Congressional Committee System', in J. Silbey (ed.), The Encyclopedia of the American Legislative System (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994); and J. Owens, 'Curbing the Fiefdoms: Party-Committee Relations in the Contemporary U.S. House of Representatives', in Longley and Ágh, Working Papers on Comparative Legislative Studies II: The Changing Roles of Parliamentary Committees, pp. 183-98.

15. Shaw, 1998 and 1997 essays; Owens, 'Curbing the Fiefdoms: Party-Committee Relations in the Contemporary U.S. House of Representatives'.

16. For an examination of a counter-reform seeking to liberate parliamentary committees from ministerial parallelism, see H. Rommetvedt, 'Norwegian Parliamentary Committees: Performance, Structural Change and External Relations', this publication.

17. J. Lees and M. Shaw (eds.), Committees in Legislatures (Oxford: Martin Robertson, and Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1979).

18. See, for example, D. Olson, Democratic Legislative Institutions: A Comparative View (Armonk and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1994); and the scholarly essays contained in the just-published massive international parliamentary reference work, G. Kurian (ed.), World Encyclopedia of Parliaments and Legislature (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Books, 1998).

19. See S. Benda, 'Committees in Legislatures: A Division of Labor', in Longley and Ágh, Working Papers on Comparative Legislative Studies II: The Changing Roles of Parliamentary Committees, pp. 17-50.

20. Mattson and Str0m, 'Parliamentary Committees', p.303. 21. Str0m, 'Parliamentary Committees in European Democracies', 1998 and 1997 essays; Shaw,

1998 and 1997 essays.


22. Copeland and Patterson, Parliaments in the Modern World, pp. 10–11; see also discussions of these developments in the global-wide parliamentary studies compiled in the World Encyclopedia of Parliaments and Legislatures.

23. Mattson and Str0m, 'Parliamentary Committees', p.251; see also Str0m, 1998 and 1997 essays.

24. Ilonszki, 'Some External and Internal Dimensions of Parliamentary Committees in Hungary: Western Research Frameworks and Central European Experiences', in Longley and Ágh, Working Papers on Comparative Legislative Studies II: The Changing Roles of Parliamentary Committees, pp.471–88.

25. D. Olson and M. Mezey (eds.), Legislatures in the Policy Process: The Dilemmas of Economic Policy (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

26. L. Longley and D. Olson (eds.), Two Into One: The Politics of National Legislative Cameral Change (Boulder, CO, and Oxford: Westview Press, 1991).

27. H. Döring (ed.), Parliaments and Majority Rule in Western Europe (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996).

28. L. Longley, 'Review of Herbert Döring (ed.), Parliaments and Majority Rule in Western Europe', Journal of Politics, Vol.59, No.2 (May 1997).

29. Mattson and Strøm, 'Parliamentary Committees'; see also Str0m, 1998 and 1997 essays. 30. E. Damgaard, 'How Parties Control Committee Members', in Döring, Parliaments and

Majority Rule in Western Europe, pp.308–25. 31. See U. Liebert, 'The Politics of Parliamentary Institutionalization in New Democracies:

Perspectives on Germany, Southern, and Eastern Europe', and B. Rasch, 'Parliamentarism and Legislative Dominance: Democratic Institutionalization in Europe', both in L. Longley and D. Zajc (eds.), Working Papers on Comparative Legislative Studies III: The New Democratic Parliaments - The First Years (Appleton, WI: Research Committee of Legislative Specialists, 1998).

32. See A. Ágh, 'Changing Parliamentary Committees in Changing East-Central Europe: Parliamentary Committees as Central Sites of Policy-Making', this publication. See also the important collection of studies of national institutional responses to Europeanisation first published as a Special Issue of The Journal of Legislative Studies on 'National Parliaments and the European Union', Vol.1, No.3 (Autumn 1995) and subsequently published as a book, P. Norton (ed.), National Parliaments and the European Union (London: Frank Cass, 1995).

Three additional useful recent studies of Europeanisation and its impact on national parliaments are M. Klíma, 'The Europe Agreement and the EU–Czech Republic Joint Parliamentary Committee'; A. Ágh, 'Political Harmonization in the East Central European Parliaments: Parliamentary Committees as Central Sites of Policy-Making'; and A. Ágh, 'Europeanization and Democratization: Hungarian Parliamentary Committees as Central Sites of Policy-Making'; each in Longley and Ágh, Working Papers on Comparative Legislative Studies II: The Changing Roles of Parliamentary Committees, pp.461–70, 89–106 and 443-60 respectively.

33. M. Westlake, A Modern Guide to the European Parliament (London and New York: Pinter Publishers, 1994), p.101.

34. F. Jacobs, R. Corbett, and M. Shackleton, The European Parliament (2nd edn., Harlow: Longman, 1992), pp.97–135; Westlake, A Modern Guide to the European Parliament.

35. Ágh, 'Changing Parliamentary Committees in Changing East-Central Europe'; Norton, National Parliaments and the European Union; Klíma, 'The Europe Agreement and the EU–Czeck Republic Joint Parliamentary Committee'; Ágh, 'Political Harmonization in the East Central European Parliaments'; and Ágh, 'Europeanization and Democratization'.

36. L. Longley (ed.), Working Papers on Comparative Legislative Studies I: The Role of Legislatures and Parliaments in Democratizing and Newly Democratic Regimes (Appleton, WI: Research Committee of Legislative Specialists, 1994). This 456-page book is available from the RCLS, Department of Government, Lawrence University, Appleton, WI 54912, USA; Fax: +1-920-832-6944; E-mail: [email protected].

37. L. Longley and A. Ágh (eds.), Working Papers on Comparative Legislative Studies II: The Changing Roles of Parliamentary Committees (Appleton, WI: Research Committee of Legislative Specialists, 1997). This 540-page book is available from the RCLS, Department

mailto:[email protected]


of Government, Lawrence University, Appleton, WI 54912, USA; Fax: +1-920-832-6944; E-mail: [email protected].

38. L. Longley and D. Zajc (eds.), Working Papers on Comparative Legislative Studies III: The New Democratic Parliaments - The First Years (Appleton, WI: Research Committee of Legislative Specialists, 1998). This 350-page book is available from the RCLS, Department of Government, Lawrence University, Appleton, WI 54912, USA; Fax: +1-920-832-6944; E-mail: [email protected].

39. This conference was held on 12-14 September 1997; additional information is available from Dr Michal Klíma, University of Economics Prague, Czech Republic; Fax +42-02-24-22-0657; E-mail: [email protected].

40. This workshop will be held in May or June of 1998; additional information is available from Professor David Olson, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, USA; Fax +1-910-334-4315 or +1-910-334-3009; E-mail: [email protected].

41. D. Olson, 'Draft Outline of "Committees in Comparative Perspective" Project', 1996. 42. A. Lijphart, 'Foreword: "Cameral Change" and Institutional Conservatism', in Longley and

Olson (eds.), Two Into One: The Politics of National Legislative Cameral Change, p.ix; and M. Collie, 'Legislative Structure and Its Effects', in Silbey (ed.), The Encyclopedia of the American Legislative System, p.565.

43. Lijphart, 'Foreword: "Cameral Change" and Institutional Conservatism', p.ix. 44. Mattson and Strøm, 'Parliamentary Committees', p.250. 45. Longley, 'Parliaments as Changing Institutions and as Agents of Regime Change: Evolving

Perspectives and a New Research Framework'; Longley, 'Review of Herbert Döring (ed.), Parliaments and Majority Rule in Western Europe'.

46. J. Hibbing and L. Longley, 'On Legislatures and Parliaments in Democratizing and Newly Democratic Regimes', in Longley, Working Papers on Comparative Legislative Studies I: The Role of Legislatures and Parliaments in Democratizing and Newly Democratic Regimes, pp.3–11; also in International Newsletter of the Research Committee of Legislative Specialists, Vol.3, No.l (Summer 1994), pp.65–70, and in Volby v Demokracii: Soubor Prednásek [Yearbook of the International Institute for the Study of Politics], Masaryk University Faculty of Law, Brno, Czech Republic, 1995.

See also D. Olson and P. Norton (eds.), The New Parliaments of Central and Eastern Europe, Special Issue of The Journal of Legislative Studies, Vol.2, No.l (Spring 1996), also published as a book, D. Olson and P. Norton (eds.), The New Parliaments of Central and Eastern Europe (Portland, OR, and London: Frank Cass, 1996); and L. Longley. and D. Zajc, 'The First Years of the New Democratic Parliaments', in Longley and Zajc, Working Papers on Comparative Legislative Studies III: The New Democratic Parliaments - The First Years.

47. See D. Olson et al. 'Committees in the Post-Communist Polish Sejm: Structure, Activity, and Members'; A. Ágh, 'Changing Parliamentary Committees in Changing East-Central Europe: Parliamentary Committees as Central Sites of Policy-Making'; and M. Haspel, 'Committees in the Russian State Duma: Continuity and Change in Comparative Perspective'; each in this publication.

48. See A. Rosenbaum and G. Reed, 'The Development of Legislative Bodies as Institutions of Democracy in Central America: Some Participant Observations', and P. Rundquist and C. Wellborn, 'Building Legislatures in Latin America', both in Longley, Working Papers on Comparative Legislative Studies I: The Role of Legislatures and Parliaments in Democratizing and Newly Democratic Regimes, pp.373–406.

49. See C. Park, 'The Organization and Workings of Committees in the Korean National Assembly', this publication.

50. See R. Hazan, 'Political Reform and the Committee System in Israel: Structural and Functional Adaptation' and M. Shaw, 'Parliamentary Committees: A Global Perspective', both in this publication.

51. Longley and Zajc, 'The First Years of the New Democratic Parliaments', in Longley and Zajc, Working Papers on Comparative Legislative Studies III: The New Democratic Parliaments - The First Years; Olson and Norton, The New Parliaments of Central and Eastern Europe; Ilonszki, 'Some External and Internal Dimensions of Parliamentary Committees in Hungary'; and Zajc, 'Functions and Powers of the Committees in the New





2 0 THE NEW ROLES OF PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES

Parliaments: Comparisons Between the East Central and West Central European Countries', in Longley and Ágh, Working Papers on Comparative Legislative Studies II: The Changing Roles of Parliamentary Committees, pp.489-504.

52. Mattson and Strøm, 'Parliamentary Committees', p.250.

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