The Changing Nature of West European Parliaments

From legislators to arenas of agenda setting

Christoffer Green-Pedersen

Associate Professor, Ph.D.

Department of Political Science

University of Aarhus

Bartholins Allé

DK-8000 Århus C

Denmark

phone: +45 8942 1133/1297

fax: +45 8613 9839

email: cgp@ps.au.dk

web: www.ps.au.dk/greenp

Very first draft: Not for quotation or citation without permission

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Introduction1 What do parliaments do? This is a very simple and basic question to which the literature on West-

European parliaments has given a fairly simple answer: They legislative, i.e. legislation is the main

type of parliamentary behaviour. It is hard to disagree with this answer. Parliaments do legislate and

it is obvious that this behaviour should receive considerable attention as law making is a very

central activity in any democracy. However, if one looks at the development of parliamentary

activities in West European parliaments, the answer has become increasingly inaccurate.

Parliaments are still legislators, but in West European countries parliamentary activities such as

questions to the ministers and interpellations, which are not directly related to legislative process,

have grown significantly over the last decades and much more than the number of laws being

passed which has remained largely constant. This indicates a significant change in parliamentary

behaviour. Legislative behaviour was the dominant parliamentary behaviour but today other

parliamentary activities seem just as important for parliamentary actors. The literature on West

European parliament has never paid much attention to activities not directly related to the legislative

process. The limited research on these activities sees them as means of opposition control of the

government and has difficulties explaining the rise in these activities across West European

parliaments (Wiberg 1995). This significant shift in parliamentary behaviour in Western Europe is

thus puzzling for the traditional literature on parliaments.

In order to explain this shift in parliamentary behaviour, this paper takes a different

theoretical starting point than the traditional literature on parliaments in Western Europe. This

literature normally takes an institutional perspective on parliaments focusing on institutional rules

etc. The weakness of this perspective is that the main actors in parliamentary systems namely

political parties have received too little attention. Parliamentary behaviour and activities reflect the

way political parties compete with each other, and when searching for explanations for changes in

parliamentary behaviour, looking at the development of party competition is crucial.

This paper thus argues that the reason for the increase in non-legislative parliamentary

behaviour across Western Europe is that party competition has changed in the direction of party

competition over the political agenda. Due changes in the electorate in the direction of issue voting,

determining which issues should be at the centre of political attention has become increasingly

central for political parties in Western Europe (Green-Pedersen 2005a). Parliamentary activities

such as questions to the minister or interpellation debates are among the central agenda setting

1 Thanks to Rasmus Sørensen for excellent research asssitance

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weapons of especially opposition parties. As influencing the political agenda has become

increasingly central for political parties, such agenda setting weapons have increasingly been used.

The paper starts with a short overview of the traditional literature on West European

parliaments showing how this literature has almost exclusively looked at parliaments as legislators.

The next section develops the theoretical perspective further. The paper then proceeds to the

empirical section showing the increase in non-legislative parliamentary activities across a range of

West European countries and discusses a number of for this development. The final section then

discusses the implications of the argument for the literature on West European parliaments and the

questions for further research that it raises.

Parliaments as legislatures or arenas of agenda setting As already argued, the literature on West European parliaments is a literature on legislators. This is

clear in several ways. Two recent and major volumes on parliamentary behaviour in Western

Europe (Döring 1995 & Döring & Halleberg 2004) focus almost exclusively on legislative

behaviour and how this is affected by agenda setting rules and procedures etc. in parliament. Other

activities receive a single chapter (Wiberg 1995) out of 22 or no attention at all. A major collection

of seminal essay on parliaments, with the title of “Legislatures and Legislators” (Norton 1998a) also

contains no discussion of the activities not directly linked to legislation. Further, if one looks at

classifications of parliaments they are all based on the executive/legislative relationship and thus a

legislative perspective. For instance Mezey’s (1979) sixfold typology of parliaments has the policy

making power of parliaments as the central variable, which basically reflects whether a government

is a majority or a minority government. King’s (1976) famous classification of parliaments is also

based on this variable. Commonly used distinctions between debating and working parliaments and

reactive vs. active parliaments reflect basically the same perspective. 2

There are only a few studies, which have focused on non-legislative activities. There

is a study of questioning in UK (Franklin & Norton 1993), one on the Nordic countries (Wiberg

1994) and a general study by Wiberg (1995). Studies of parliamentariasm in general (see Damgaard

1992 and Norton 1998b) also to some extent cover non-legislative activities. All these studies notice

the tendency towards more “active” parliaments, i.e. a growth in non-legislative activties and offer

possible explanations for the trends in the individual countries, but only Wiberg (1995) discusses

2 It is also worth noticing that the two major journals dealing with parliaments are called Legislative Studies Quarterly (US journal), the Journal of Legislative Studies (UK/European journal).

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the general trend. Thus, there is no extensive theoretical literature from which to build hypotheses

concerning the development of non-legislative activities. However, the studies of individual

countries all discuss a number of potential explanations which will be evaluated more generally in

this paper.

One is that the development in non-legislative activities is linked to the degree of

complexity in society and thus that a rise in non-legislative is the result of a more complex society

implying more government task and thus the need for more parliamentary activities to oversee the

government. This development is linked to the growth of the public sector in Western Europe (e.g.

Wiberg 1994). This hypothesis was tested by Wiberg (1995) in the only general study of non-

legislative activities, but the evidence did not support it. Another plausible hypothesis is that the rise

in parliamentary activities is due to the rise in the number of parties represented in parliament which

many West European countries have experienced. Saalfeld (1998) thus points to the entrance of the

Greens to the German Bundestag as the course of its rising activism. A third possible explanation

would be that more staff to support both individual MPs and the party groups has provided MPs

with the resources for more parliamentary activities. This is argued by Talbert and Potoski (2002)

with regard to the US congress and Mattson (1994) with regard to the Swedish Riksdag. A forth

explanation would link the non-legislative activities to the government/opposition relationship (cf.

Wiberg 1994 and Damgaard 1994) and thus explain the rise in non-legislative activities by changes

in the government/opposition relationship.

This paper also argues that in order to understand the rise in non-legislative

parliamentary activities, one needs to focus on changes in party competition. Several of the studies

of non-legislative activities in individual countries point to intensified party competition as a likely

explanation for a rise in non-legislative activities (cf. Damgaard 1994 Norton 1993). However, the

argument is not spelled out more precisely in theoretical terms.

As argued in Green-Pedersen (2005a), party competition has increasingly moved from

positional competition with regard to a few fixed, mainly left-right issue, to competition through

“selective emphasis” (Budge & Farlie 1983). Party competition for votes used to be mainly about

persuading the electorate that the a party’s position on left-right issues was the right one or moving

the party’s positions so it was in line with the electorate. This positional or spatial view of party

competition for instance is the basis for Downs (1959) famous theory of party competition and also

lies behind the “does politics matter approach” (Schmidt 1999 & Hibbs 1977). According to the

selective emphasis approach, party competition is about drawing attention to political issue where a

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party has an electoral advantage over other parties, for instance if the party has the “issue-

ownership” over the issue (Petrocik 1997). In other words, parties compete over the content of the

political agenda.

The reason why this issue or agenda competition has increased in importance should

be found in changes in the electorate. It is well-documented that class-voting has declined and has

replaced by issue voting and a more volatile electorate. New issues such the environment, refugees

and immigrants and the EU have also gained importance on voters’ agenda and traditional left-right

issue have lost their monopoly position though they are still very important (Dalton 2002 and

Knutsen 2004). If issue voting characterizes the electorate, then issue competition is the logical

response from political parties.

To understand how this change in party competition has affected parliamentary

behaviour, one needs to look at the weapons that individual party has for influencing the party

political agenda, i.e. the agenda of the entire party system. This agenda is basically the sum of the

issues that the parties pay attention to. An individual party can influence it, but it is important to be

aware that the individual party must also respond to the political agenda, i.e. express it views on the

issue that the other parties debate. It is thus also a structure that influences the issues that the

individual party pay attention to and whereby the party reinforces the content of the political agenda

(Green-Pedersen 2005b).

There are number of concrete ways in which an individual party can influence the

party political agenda. It can publish a party document, hold a press conference, publish a press

release or it can ask use parliamentary activities such as asking a question to the minister or ask for

an interpellation. The latter type of activities are not necessarily the most important ones in terms of

influencing the agenda, but especially for opposition parties they have one advantage, namely that

the government has to respond, for instance by taking part in a debate. The government may not

necessarily respond if the opposition sends out a press release etc. Baumgartner’s (1989) study of

agenda setting in France thus showed that such parliamentary activities can be a quite powerful

weapon. Even in what is normally considered a weak parliament such activities could cause the

government to change course or least draw significant attention to an issue. Governments and thus

the parties behind them in parliament have stronger agenda-setting weapons. Most importantly it is

easier for ministers to draw media attention by introducing new bills or through other policy

initiatives.

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Altogether, based on this one should expect increased party competition over the

content of the political agenda to result in increased use of agenda-setting weapons such as non-

legislative activities in parliaments, which are a powerful weapon of the opposition.

Research design In the following, the aim is to analyse the development of parliamentary activities in a number of

West European countries in order to evaluate both the argument of this paper and the competing

explanations discussed above. We have gathered information on the development of the number of

parliamentary activities for a number of West European countries. Below information on eight West

European Countries, Denmark, UK, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden and

Norway will be presented.3 Besides data availability, there are two considerations behind the choice

of countries.

First, a larger number of West European countries has been covered in order to show

that rise in non-legislative activities is a general trend across Western Europe. Second, countries

have been selected on the basis of a “most different systems logic”. Thus, they vary quite

significantly with regard to three variables, namely party system, political system in general and

type of parliament: Party systems in the countries vary from the British two party system to the

Swiss multiparty system. The countries chosen represent both consensual and Westminster type of

political systems in Lijpharts (1999) sense. The parliaments included also represent quite different

types of parliaments from the perspectives of the different classifications of parliaments presented

above. Finally, the structure of their non-legislative activities also varies considerably. In other

words, the research design can rule explanations of the rising parliamentary activity, which will be

documented below, that relate this to developments within the party system, the nature executive-

legislative relations and politics in the specific countries more generally.

For all the countries, the following information has been gathered if available:4

3 The plan is to collect data on France, Austria and Belgium as well. On Belgium, de Winter (1998) points to rising parliamentary activism. 4 For each country the data was gathered partly through the webpages of the parliaments and partly through communication with the staff of the parliaments. For a few countries figures already published by others were also used. For countries with two chambers in parliament, data was only collected to the most important chamber, the House of Commons in the UK, The Second Chamber in the Dutch Parliament, the Bundestag in Germany etc in order to simplify the analysis. Some of the information is still missing for at few countries.

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1) The number of questions to the minister in each parliamentary year back to 1960.

Questions to the minister is a central non-legislative activity which also parliaments in

Western Europe allow for

2) The number of other non-legislative activities than questions back to 1960.5 These other

non-legislative activities vary from country to country. In for instance, the British House of

Commons, there are no such activities but questions to the minister, whereas other

parliaments have both interpellations and motions. For some of the countries some of

activities are of limited interest from the perspective of this paper because the rules

concerning them prohibit significant growth in them. For instance, a questions asked in a

questioning hour with a fixed duration cannot be expected to grow. The same is true for

interpellations which have a vote of confidence attached to them. The opposition can only

use such a weapon a few in times during each parliamentary secession without destroying

its credibility (Helander & Isaksson 1994).

3) The number of laws back to 1960. This information was included because it allows for an

evaluation of the argument about increasing societal complexity as an explanation for the

increase in non-legislative activities. The complexity hypothesis would also predict a rise

in the number of passed laws whereas the argument about the rising agenda competition

would not predict an increasing number of laws. 6

4) The development of the support staff available for individual MPs and their parliamentary

groups in order to evaluate the hypothesis concerning increased staff as an explanation for

the rise in non-legislative activities.

5) Information on any changes in the procedures of the different parliaments that might have

an effect on the number of non-legislative activities. This could for instance be a limitation

to the number of questions that an individual MP can ask Information on new types of non-

legislative activities have also been included.

This research design allows us to evaluate both the argument of this paper, namely that the rise in

non-legislative activities is a result of changes in party competition in the direction of issue

5 Activities related to parliamentary committees have not been included 6 If possible, information on laws that have actually been passed in parliament has been gathered. If this has not been possible, information on laws proposed by the government has been used and if no other figures existed, the total number of proposed laws has been used. The reason for this priority is to avoid that laws proposed by the opposition that have no realistic chance of being passed are included as these may been as an agenda setting weapon. However, in most countries, the vast majority of laws proposed are proposed by the government and are actually passed.

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competition, and the alternative explanations that cannot be evaluated through the choice of

countries. The hypotheses following from this argument would be that we should a steady growth

of only non-legislative activities across all the included countries. Other arguments lead to different

hypotheses. The argument about a more complex society would lead one to expect a similar rise in

both legislative and non legislative activities as regulation of a more complex society would also

require more laws. The argument about increasing number of political parties would only predict

rising non-legislative activities in countries that have seen more parties represented in parliament

and only from the time on that these parties entered parliament. This hypothesis can be evaluated by

looking at the development in the number of non-legislative activities at the time when these parties

entered parliament. Further, if data relating non-legislative activities to the specific parties has been

available, these data allow for a further analysis of whether the rise in non-legislative activities is

due to the new parties entering parliament. The hypotheses about increasing staff level would

predict rising non-legislative activities coming after more staff have become available for the MPs.

The changing West European parliaments The analysis in the following discusses one country at a time. The reason is that the rules, practices

etc. around non-legislative activities vary so much across the ten countries that comparing the actual

figures would be highly precarious. Instead, focus in the following is on the trend found in the

countries which is sufficient to evaluate the different hypotheses.

Denmark

The Danish parliament has three type activities which can be considered non-legislative, namely

questions to the minister, interpellations and parliamentary decisions. Questions to the minister can

either be answered in written, which the vast majority of question are today, or orally during a

weekly question hour. Starting from 1997, the parliaments has also introduced another weekly

questioning hour where the minister cannot prepare answers to the questions in advance.

Interpellation debates may be followed by a declaration on which there is a vote, but it is not

necessarily the case. Parliamentary decisions are always voted on and are binding on the

government and may thus be argued to resemble law making. However, in actual parliamentary

practices the vast majority of parliamentary decision proposals are put forward by the opposition

and die before a vote is made on them. They can, therefore, be seen as an agenda-setting activity

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and are included below.7 As can be seen from figure 1, the number of questions to the minister

(right scale) has risen dramatically from about 100 in 1960 to around 5000 in the parliamentary year

2002 to 2003.8 The number of interpellations and proposals of parliamentary activities has also

risen considerably. The number of passed laws has also increased, but to a much more limited

extend, going from 100 to 200.

Figure 1: Danish parliamentary activities 1960-20041

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1Data from the parliamentary yearbooks of the Danish parliament (Folketingets Årbøger, various years). The years refer to the beginning of the

parliamentary secessions. (2003 =2003-2004)

With regard to the number of parties, the earth-quake election in 1973 doubled the number of

parties from 5 to 10 (Pedersen 1988) and the number of parties has since then remained at a higher

level, 7 to 10. However, figure 1 shows that the rise in non-legislative activities is a much more

constant trend over period and for instance, the dramatic rise in the number of questions to a large

extend took place in the 1990s, long after the increase in the number of parties. In terms of

parliamentary staff, there has bee a considerable expansion as each MPs has gone from hardly

secretarial assistance to 1 approximately one secretary pr. MP (Betænkning 1354, 74-75). The

major expansion took place in the early 1980s and from 1995. However, figure 1 shows that rise in

non-legislative activities has been fairly gradual and not particularly related the times when

assistance to the MPs was increased.

In sum, the Danish shows a gradual expansion of non-legislative activities which does

seem particularly related to the times when the number of parties or the parliamentary staff

7 The procedures of the Danish parliament can be found in English at http://www.ft.dk/?/samling/20042/menu/00000005.htm 8 Questions asked in the new question hour introduced in 1997 are included

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increased. The number of laws has also increased, but the increase has been much more modest than

the rise in the non-legislative activities.

UK9

The British House of Commons has no interpellation activity, but MPs can ask both written and oral

questions.10 Figure 2 shows data on the number of questions asked and on the number of laws

passed. However, data on the number of questions asked are not available before. However, for the

period from 1960 to 1990, Irwin, Kennon, Natlzler and Rogers (1993, 26-27) report a “dramatic

change” in the direction of more questions. Figure 2 shows that the number of questions then

remained at the same level in the 1990s to increase further in the recent three secessions. The

number of laws (right scale) stayed at the same level and even declining a bit. The British House of

Commons has in other words become more in the sense of asking more questions where as its

lawmaking activity has remained largely stable or even declining.

The explanation for this development cannot be found in changes in the party system as the British

party system has been unchanged. In terms of staff support, the information is more limited.

According to the Information Service of the House of Commons, the staff support remained largely

constant until a reform in 2002 improving the support for MPs.

Figure 2: Questions and passed laws (right scale) in the British parliament 1960(1990) to 20031

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1Data is from Sessional Returns of the House Commons

9 Data on the UK has kindly been provided to me by Stephen McGinness from the information office of the House of Commons. 10 Details on the rules for these questions can be found in factsheet P! by the house of commons available at http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_publications_and_archives/factsheets.cfm

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Finland11

The Finnish parliament has historically had two types of non-legislative activities namely written

questions and interpellations.12 Interpellations in the Finnish parliament are, however, somewhat

different from what is found in other parliaments. They are always answered by the prime minister

and followed by a vote of confidence. Especially, the vote of confidence implies that it is an activity

which the opposition can only ask for a few times a year (Helander & Isaksson 1994). It is thus no

surprise that the number of interpellations in Finland has remained constant around 3 to 4 pr. year13,

and focus in the following is on written questions.

Figure 3 shows that the number of written questions has increased considerably

whereas the number of government bills shows a much more limited increase. After a period of

sharp increase the latter half of the 1990s, the number of written questions declined somewhat in

recent years, but are still at a considerably higher level than before the 1990s.

Figure 3: Number of laws and written questions in the Finnish parliament 1960-20041

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1 Data are drawn from the database “Valtiopäiväasioiden käsittelyvaihetietokanta(VEPS)" http://www.eduskunta.fi/thwfakta/vpasia/vepsfakta.htm Finland has always had a multiparty system and though new parties have entered, the number of

parties has largely remained the same and there has been no increase in the number of parties in the

11 Data and information on Finland has kindly been provided by Kriistina Hakala from the Library of the Finnish parliament, Eduskunta. 12 Besides written questions and interpellations, oral questions have existed in the Finnish parliament since 1966. Wiberg (1994) shows how the number of these questions rose until it suddenly dropped significantly from 1986 to 1987 allegedly due a change in the rules concerning these questions (op.cit. 138). The rules concerning oral questions were further changed in 1993, and it thus impossible to look at the long term trends in oral questions. The procedures of Finnish parliament can be found at http://www.eduskunta.fi/efakta/opas/tiedotus/esitesarja/esite_4_englanti.pdf 13 Data drawn from “Valtiopäiväasioiden käsittelyvaihetietokanta” (VEPS).

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late 1990s when the most dramatic rise in the number written questions occurred. Further, Wiberg’s

(1994) detailed study of question behaviour did also not show that increasing question activity was

related to the new parties like the Green party which have entered the Finnish parliament. With

regard to the staff level, part time assistants were introduced in 1997 and full time assistants as of

1999.14 In other words, an increased staff level does not seem to explain the increase in the number

of written questions which peaked at the time the staff support for MPs was introduced and then

actually declined somewhat. Finally, it is also worth noticing that two new types of non-legislative

activities namely debates on topical issues and statements of the prime minister were introduced in

1993.

Altogether, the Finnish case fits the picture of a more active parliament. Written

questions, which is the only non-legislative activity which can be studied in a long-term perspective

shows a significant increase, which is not the case when one looks at the number of government

bills. Further the rise in the written questions cannot be explained by the entrance of new political

parties or by increases in staff support for MPs. Finally, the Finnish parliament has through new

types of non-legislative activities provided MPs with new means through which they can try to

influence the political agenda.

Switzerland

The Swiss federal assembly has non-legislative activities namely interpellation and questions.15

From 1979, questions can be answered either in written or in oral during a question hour.

Unfortunately data on the Swiss federal assembly are somewhat limited as not data before 1976

exist and not data on the number of passed laws have been obtained.16 However, the data back to

1976, figure 4, shows a significant rise in the number of both interpellations and questions since

1976.

14 Information provided by the Finnish parliament 15 The procures of Swiss parliament can be found at http://www.parlament.ch/e/homepage/ra-raete/ra-aufgaben-taetigkeiten-bv/ra-aufgaben-taetigkeiten-bv-parl-verfahren.htm 16 Additional information has kindly been provided by Dr. Ernst Frischknecht from the documentation centre of the Swiss parliament. The Swiss parliament provides data on the number of initiatives by either MPs or the Cantons. However, an initiative can relate to one or many laws, so the number of initiatives does not correspond to the number of laws.

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Figure 4: Number of questions and interpellations in the Swiss Federal Assembly, 1976-20031

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1 Data has been taken from webpage of the Swiss parliament: http://www.parlament.ch/e/homepage/in-statistiken-tabellen/in-st-nr-geschaefte.htm

In terms of the number of parties, the number of parties presented in the federal assembly has gone

from 7 at the 1975 election to 8 at the 1979 election and 9 at the 1987 election. The number of

questions did rise significantly after the 1987 election, but the number of interpellations has been

rising fairly constantly, so the increased number of parties cannot explain the general trend towards

a more active Swiss federal assembly. According to the Swiss parliament, Swiss MPs are only

offered limited assistance by the parliament and it has not been strengthened in the period.

In sum, despite the limitation in available data, the Swiss case does show a significant

increase in non-legislative activities and one that cannot be related to an increased number of parties

or to improved staff support for MPs.

Germany

The German Bundestag has a number of different interpellation and questioning activities.17 There

are three types of interpellations, namely “Grosse Anfragen”, “Kleine Anfragen”, and Aktuelle

Studen. “Grosse Anfragen are traditional interpellations which are answered through a

parliamentary debate while “Kleine Anfragen are answered in written. “Aktuelle Stunde” is a one

hour debate on a topical issue. In terms of questions, both written and oral questions can be tabled

by MPs, though there is a limit to the number of questions which each MP may ask, 4 in writing pr.

month and 2 questions orally pr. week.

17 The rules of procedure of the German Bundestag can be found at http://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/info/rules.pdf

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Figure 5 and 6 show the development in the number of these activities as well as the

number of passed law since 1961. The data are only available for each 4 year period between

elections (Deutcher Bundestag 2003).

Figure 5: Number of passed laws (right scale), “Grosse Anfragen (left scale)” and “Aktuelle

Stunden (left scale)” for each election period, 1961-20021

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Figure 6: Number of questions (left scale) and ”Kleine Anfragen” (right scale) for each election

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All the non-legislative activities have risen considerably in number compared to the 1960s though

the development has been somewhat different. The number of question rose already in the 1970s

and has then declined somewhat again, but to a higher level than in the 1960s. The three other types

of activities remained quite limited in numbers until 1983 where they started to rise considerably.

“Kleine Anfragen” and “Aktuelle stunden” have been rising in number since, whereas “Grosse

Anfragen” declined again form 1987, but are still at a much higher level than before 1983. Thus, the

German Bundestag is considerably more active today than it was in the 1960s and also before 1983

except for the number of questions. In terms of the number of passed laws, they have also risen in

numbers when one compares today with the 1960s, but the rise has been much more limited than

the rise in the non-legislative activities.

As pointed out by Saalfeld (1998), the period after the 1983 election was a turning

point in terms of non-legislative activities. This was the election at which the Green Party entered

the German Bundestag, and if one looks at the parties putting forward the different interpellations,

the party was very active, but as noted by Saalfeld (op.cit), the SPS also became a much more

active opposition party than the CDU/CSU had been before the change of government in 1982.

Further, the forming of the Red-Green coalition in 1998 did not put an end to the more active

German Bundestag (Deutchen Bundestag 1999, 2640-2705). In other words, the entrance of the

Green-Party into parliament may have been important for the change towards a more active German

Bundestag, but the traditional German parties have also become much more active.

Finally, the support staff for the parties in the German Bundestag has also been

increased significantly. In 1970, the number of people employed by the party groups was 663, in

1996 (latest figure) the number was 3929. The rise was particularly strong in the 1980s as the figure

went from 1323 in 1980 to 3682 in 1990 (Deutchen Bundestag 1999, 3263-3264). In other words,

the rise in support staff in the German Bundestag has been quite parallel to the rise in non-

legislative activities.

Altogether, the non-legislative activities of the German parliament have grown and

much more than the number of laws. This development seems partly initiated by the entrance of the

Green Party into the German parliament, though all parties have become more active, and the

development runs parallel to a significant increase in the support staff of the party groups.

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The Netherlands

The Dutch second chamber has three types of non-legislative activities namely oral and written

questions and motions.18 Oral questions are answered during a one hour weekly questioning time

which puts a natural limit to their number, so figure 1 shows only the number of written questions,

proposed laws19 and motions. The figures are average figures for a four year period.

The number of motions has risen fairly constantly over the period. The number of

questions rose already in the later 1960s and continued to rise during the 1970s. It declined

somewhat in the 1980s before it grew again in the 1990s. The number of laws has remained very

constant during the period. In other words, the Dutch second chamber is a much more active

parliament today with regard to non-legislative activities than with regard to laws, which was not

the case in 1960.

Figure 7: Number of proposed laws, motions and written questions in the Dutch second chamber

1960-20031

0200400600800

10001200140016001800

60-63

64-67

68-71

72-75

76-79

80-83

84-87

88-91

92-95

96-99

2000-2003

LawsMotionsQuestions

1 Until 1999, data is from Andeweg & Irwin (2002, 129). Data after 1999 are from the Dutch parliament, http://www.tweedekamer.nl/organisatie/voorlichting/lijsten_overzichten/Index_jaarcijfers.jsp#0

The number of parties in the Dutch parliament rose considerably in the 1960s, from 8 at the 1959

election to 14 at the 1971 (Andewag & Irwin 2002, 63). This might explain the rise in the number

18 The Dutch parliament also has interpellations, but these are used specifically to address the governance of a particular minister and are thus not used as a general agenda-setting weapon. The procedures of the Dutch parliament are available at http://www.houseofrepresentatives.nl/procedures/index.jsp 19 The vast majority of laws in the Netherlands are proposed by the government and are passed by parliament. This may, however, take some time since proposed laws stay can stay on the parliamentary agenda infinitely (Anderweg & Irwin 2002, 121-138).

17

of questions in the late 1960s, but the number of parties in the Dutch parliament today has declined

to 10 (op. cit.), where as the number of questions has risen to an even slightly higher level than

during the 1970s. The number of motions also shows at steady growth in the period, so there is little

support for explaining the increasing activism of the Dutch with the increased number of parties. 20

Sweden

The Swedish parliament has historically had two non-legislative activities, namely written questions

and interpellations. In 1991, a questioning hour with a fixed length was also introduced.21 Figures

from the Swedish parliament show an almost constant increase in the number of both questions and

interpellations since 1960.22 In 1960, 190 interpellations took place and 83 questions were asked. In

the secession 2003-2004, 551 interpellations took place and 1616 questions were asked. This is

quite different from the development in the number of laws. In 1960 190 laws were passed, in 2003-

2004, the number was 181. In other words, the Swedish parliament today is more active with regard

to the non-legislative activities than with regard to legislative activities, which was not the case in

1960.

The number of parties has also increased in Sweden as two new parties, the Green

party and the Christian Democrats have gained parliamentary representation. The Green party

gained representation for the first time in 1988 but dropped out again in 1991 whereas the Christian

Democrats gained representation for the first time in 1991 and since the 1994 election both parties

have been represented in parliament. However, if one breaks down interpellations and questions on

the individual parties, the picture emerging is that the number is increasing for all parties and is not

specifically related to the new parties in parliament.23 Thus, the increasing activism of the Swedish

parliament is not due to the new parties entering parliament.24

Norway

Historically, the Norwegian parliament has two types of non-legislative activities, namely

interpellations and questions for questioning time. As of 1996, written questions were introduced

20 No information has been found on significant changes concerning the relevant rules and procedures regarding non-legislative activities. Information on support staff for MPs is still pending. 21 Procedures of the Swedish Riksdag can be found at http://www.riksdagen.se/english/work/chamber.asp 22 Data are available at http://www.riksdagen.se/arbetar/siffror/antalpro.htm 23 Data are available at http://www.riksdagen.se/arbetar/siffror/antalpro.htm 24 Data on staff support for MPs is has not yet been found, but the parliament reports that a process is currently ongoing where MPs receive increasing support.

18

together with “spontaneous questions” answered during a weekly questioning hour.25 Rasch (1998)

shows how the number of questions has been rising from around 1960 and until the end of the

1980s from around 300 to around 900. Then the number declined somewhat to a level of around

600. The decrease after 1989 may be due to a change of the rules around the questions that limited

the number of questions which each MP could ask to two per week (cf, Rommetvedt 1992). The

number of interpellation has remained fairly stable at around 50 pr. year (Rasch op. cit.) The

number of laws has also remained fairly constant, though rising slightly from around 100 pr. year to

around 120 pr. year.26

The Norwegian party system has also seen an increasing number of parties, mainly

due to the entrance of the Progress Party in 1973. However, the increase in the number of questions

is a general trend that has been taking place both before and long after this election and it seems

hard to relate to the entrance of the Progress Party into the Norwegian parliament. In terms of staff

support, Rommetvedt (1992) reports a doubling of the staff of the party groups during the 1970s,

but then no substantial changes during the 1980s, whereas the rise in parliamentary activism has

been a constant process also taking place during the 1980s.

Altogether, the Norwegian Storing has witnessed many of the same tendencies as the

other countries, namely an increasing number of questions and a fairly stable number of passed

laws. The exception is the stable number of interpellation. The Norwegian parliament has also

witnessed new options for parliamentary activism being introduced during the 1990s. Further, the

rising activism does not seem related to the increased number of parties nor to increased

parliamentary staff.

The general trends

If one looks at the 8 West European countries covered, a number of general tendencies emerge.

First of all, compared to the 1960, all 8 West-European parliaments are much more active in the

sense that the number of non-legislative activities have increased very significantly. This trend

covers all non-legislative activities studied with the exception of interpellations in the Norwegian

Storting.27 In some countries, the growth is still ongoing, for instance, Denmark, the Netherlands

and the UK whereas it seems to have stopped in other countries such as Norway and Finland.

25 Procedures of the Norwegian Storting are available at http://www.stortinget.no/english/rules_of_procedure.html 26 This is based on graphs kindly provided to me by Bjørn Erik Rasch 27 This conclusion does not cover activities that have a natural limit to their number such as questions during a question hour with a fixed duration or interpellations followed by a vote of confidence.

19

Further it is also worth noticing that several countries, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway,

have introduced new question hours and the like in the 1990s thus increasing the agenda setting

weapons at hand for especially opposition MPs.

The fact that the rise in non-legislative activities is a universal trend across West

European parliament, rules out a number of suggested explanations for increasing parliamentary

activism. As argued above, studies of particular countries have pointed to changes in executive-

legislative relations such as changes from majority to minority governments and more broadly to

changes in national politics. However, executive-legislative relation vary considerably across the

countries and the same is trough for national politics and the political system which these

parliaments are a part of, and still the trend towards increased activism can be found in all countries

The same trend cannot be found with regard to the number of laws. Some countries,

such as Finland, Norway, Germany and Denmark have seen limited increases in the number of laws

whereas other countries such as the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK show no tendency in this

direction. In many countries, the number of laws passed in 1960 was the same or higher than the

number of questions asked, whereas today the number of questions asked is 5 o 10 times the

number of laws passed. This development runs contrary to an argument that links increased

activism to a more complex society, a conclusion which was also reached in Wiberg’s (1995) study,

which is the only other cross national study of non-legislative activities. In other words, the strong

focus within parliamentary research on legislative activity was warranted back in the 1960s as

parliamentary behaviour was mainly related directly to legislation, but it has become increasingly

necessary to look at legislative and non-legislative activities. However, the literature on West

European parliaments continuously focus almost all attention on legislative activities

Looking at all 8 countries covered it is also hard to explain the tendency by pointing to

new parties entering parliament and thus increasing the number of parties represented. The trend

towards increased parliamentary activism can also be found in the UK which has seen new parties

entering parliament, and in the countries that have seen new parties the rising activism could not be

linked to these parties. This was shown either by looking at whether a increased trend in

parliamentary activism was visible after the entrance of these parties or, when data made it possible,

by looking at which parties actually put forward questions or demand interpellations. Only in the

German case did the entrance of the Greens seem to play a role, though even in the German case all

parties, not just the Greens, have become more active.

20

The explanation focusing on increased staff support for MPs was harder to evaluate

because of limited data, but the available data provided limited support for the argument with the

exception of the German case. In countries such as the UK, Finland and Denmark reforms aiming at

improving staff support for MPs have taken place in recent years and have thus come after the rise

in non-legislative activities.

It is also questionable how much of an explanation increased staff support for MPs

actually is. First of all, the increased staff support if the result of parliamentary decisions, so one

may asked why parliaments in Western have found it necessary to provide themselves with more

resources. Further, even if MPs have more resources available for them, it still requires an answer

why MPs choose to use these resources to ask more questions for instance rather than for other

parliamentary activities. More support staff probably facilitates the agenda-setting activities of MPs,

and may thus be an intervening variable between the change in the nature of party competition, i.e.

a way through which political parties make increased agenda-setting activities possible for

themselves, but by itself it does offer an explanation for rising parliamentary activism.

Altogether, the explanation offered in the studies discussing rising parliamentary

activism are not able to explain the general trend towards increased parliamentary activism found

across West-European parliaments. Instead, this paper argues that the trend towards increased

parliamentary activism is due to increased importance of “issue-competition” i.e. competition

around the content of the agenda, for party competition. As Baumgarnter’s (1989) study of French

politics showed, non-legislative activities are an important agenda setting weapon for especially

opposition political parties and as agenda-setting has become increasingly important for political

parties across Western Europe (Green-Pedersen 2005a), the number has been rising across all West

European parliament and generally quite steadily over the last three decades as issue competition

has gained importance. Further this perspective also offers an explanation why several parliaments

have introduced new types of non-legislative activities and why many parliaments are expanding

their staff support for MPs. This is the institutional adaptation of parliament to a new type of party

competition.

Conclusions The literature on West European parliaments have always paid very limited attention to non-

legislative activities and has instead focused almost all attention on activities connected to

legislation. If one goes back to the 1960s, this was sensible since the number of non-legislative

21

activities was quite limited, but as these activities have risen across the West-European countries

the lack of attention to these activities is becoming increasingly problematic for the ability of the

literature on West European parliament to provide an understanding of parliamentary politics.

Further, the few studies of the development in non-legislative activities in particular countries that

exist are not able to provide explanations to the general trend towards increased parliamentary

activism. Increasing societal complexity, changes in executive/legislative relation and increased

staff support for MPs cannot explain the trend towards increased activism across all West European

countries studied.

The theoretical explanation offered in this paper and the explorative empirical analysis

is clearly just a first step at a better understanding of non-legislative activities. There are, thus, a

number of questions concerning non-legislative activities which deserve the attention of future

research. First, it is clear, that there is a lot more to say about the trends towards increased

parliamentary activity than just focusing on the rising trend found in all countries. Some activities

have risen more than other and at different times. Certain MPs and individual parties have also been

more active than others. This requires attention from future research (cf. Rasch 1998).

Second, the function of non-legislative activities as agenda-setting weapons needs

further attention. As argued above, such activities are one type of activities among several others

which political parties can make use of to influence the political agenda. Press releases, policy

proposals etc are other activities, but there is little knowledge on what determines partisan use of

different activities. It is clear that non-legislative activities in parliaments are an agenda-setting

activity mainly used by opposition parties, but knowledge beyond that is limited. It is also clear that

non-legislative come in different forms. As the analysis of the different West European parliaments

above showed, the different parliaments have different types of questions, interpellations and

motions that political parties make use of to a different extent and for different agenda-setting

purposes. Asking a questions that is answered in written can be used to show the public that a party

or an MP pays attention to an issue whereas an interpellation leading to a parliamentary debate can

be used to try to force other parties to pay attention to an issues besides attracting attention in

general, but little is known beyond that.

This understanding of how non-legislative activities can be used as agenda-setting

weapons further needs to be related to an understanding of what shapes the political agenda in

Western democracies and how this affects public policy making (cf. Green-Pedersen 2005a). One of

the most pressing questions in this regard is the role and importance of mass media as political

22

communication today almost entirely takes place through the mass media. Therefore, the question

of mass media attention to non-legislative activities is one the questions that deserve significant

attention from future research into non-legislative activities.

This paper does not provide much of an answer to these questions raised above, but

offers a couple of insight from which to develop further work on non-legislative activities. One

insight is theoretical namely that studies of parliamentary activities needs to be grounded in a theory

of the actors in such systems namely political parties rather than a institutional focus on

parliamentary rules and procedures, which characterizes research on West European parliaments

(see Döring 1995, Döring & Hallerberg 2005), very much inspired by US congressional research.

Institutional rules and procedures are obviously important, but if analyses of institutional rules and

procedures are not grounded in theory of partisan behaviour it becomes difficult to understand why

parties change their use of different institutional opportunities and even adapt the institutions The

rise in non-legislative activities across West European parliament is thus not the result of

institutional changes, but of changes in party competition which in some countries have also led

political parties to changes the institutions through for instance new forms of questioning hours or

more staff supports from MPs.

Another insight provided by the paper is the need for comparative research. The

studies of non-legislative activities so far have, with the exception of Wiberg (1995), been single

country studies. The strength of such studies if, of course the detailed knowledge they provide on

non-legislative activities, but the weakness is that one easily loose sight of the general tendencies

found across West European parliaments. Thus, the explanations fittings on particular country were

not able to explain why the same trend can be seen across all West European parliaments. However,

a major obstacle towards comparative work, is the problems involved in comparing non-legislative

activities across countries. The difference in both institutional rules and tradition around the

activities makes a direct comparison dangerous, but measures that for instance can show in which

countries the trend towards increased activism is the strongest are clearly needed to improve the

understanding of non-legislative activities. Hopefully, future research can develop such measures.

23

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