Within the area of comparative federalism, scholarship is turning to questions of territorial organisation of power and democratic accountability of parliaments and governments. On the one hand, decentralisation is claimed to improve democratic government by bringing decisions closer to the people, by opening another arena for political participation and by allowing for decisions that reflect the preferences of the local population. On the other hand, an increase in decentralisation makes coordination between governments of different regions and the centre necessary to avoid duplication of services, for example of health care provision in bordering areas, to prevent negative externalities for bordering areas but also to maximise the benefits from policy experimentation in the regions. While the need for intergovernmental relations is largely acknowledge, it poses challenges to democratic accountability and the relations between parliaments and executives. Since intergovernmental agreements are often negotiated behind closed doors; they lack the transparency of ordinary legislation processes and affect how parliamentarians can perform their role as ‘government watchdog’ and hold the executive to account. The two-level setting opens the opportunity for parliamentarians to use scrutiny instruments to highlight territorial preferences of a region.
We invite a PhD candidate to study the impact of intergovernmental relations on parliamentary scrutiny and accountability from a comparative perspective, addressing key questions that may include the following:
- When do regional parliaments activate which instruments of oversight and scrutiny at their disposal in processes of intergovernmental coordination?
- Are there differences between parties (government / opposition; left-right positioning) in the way parliamentarians use scrutiny instruments?
- Under which conditions do regional parliaments act as government watchdog? Under which conditions do we witness less scrutiny and more support for the regional executive?
- What role does transparency and information-sharing play for the exercise of scrutiny?
We envision that these questions are studied in the UK context in a comparative way between the devolved administrations, however, we are fully prepared to consider strong candidates who have a different comparative case study of scrutiny behaviour of regional parliamentarians in mind.
The results of the comparative study will help us understand the conditions that affect which roles regional parliaments perform in a two-level game and on a theoretical level it sheds light on how assumptions developed for international negotiations compare with negotiations between governments within the same state. The study also has potential to improve our understanding of parliamentary behaviour in a multi-level context where parliamentarians at the regional share party affiliations with government officials of the centre. Finally, in a context of limited trust in elected politicians, studies of parliamentary scrutiny help us understand challenges to democratic accountability and trust in individual representatives in an interdependent world.
Supervisors:
Dr Bettina Petersohn (Department of Political and Cultural Studies)
Dr Matt Wall (Department of Political and Cultural Studies)