Parliamentary Accountability and Reform

Author(s):  
Muiris MacCarthaigh

The assertion that the Irish parliament, Oireachtas Éireann, or more specifically its lower house Dáil Éireann, is poor at if not incapable of fulfilling its constitutional role of holding the government to account is an established feature of the study of Irish politics. In this chapter, the development of parliamentary accountability is examined in constitutional and comparative contexts. This is achieved by first looking at the idea of accountability and its manifestation within the Westminster family of parliamentary systems, including the Oireachtas. The chapter examines the three principal methods through which executive accountability to Dáil Éireann has been pursued, namely debates, questions, and, more recently, committees. An analysis of the parliamentary reforms that have been proposed and introduced to address perceived accountability deficits is then presented. In a final section, important changes that resulted from the outcome of the 2016 general election for the operation of parliamentary accountability are examined.

2021 ◽  
pp. 193-213
Author(s):  
Christopher Cochrane ◽  
Jean-François Godbout ◽  
Jason Vandenbeukel

Canada is a federal parliamentary democracy with a bicameral legislature at the national level. Members of the upper House, styled the Senate, are appointed by the prime minister, and members of the lower House, the House of Commons, are elected in single-member plurality electoral districts. In practice, the House of Commons is by far the more important of the two chambers. This chapter, therefore, investigates access to the floor in the Canadian House of Commons. We find that the age, gender, and experience of MPs have little independent effect on access to the floor. Consistent with the dominant role of parties in Canadian political life, we find that an MP’s role within a party has by far the most significant impact on their access to the floor. Intriguingly, backbenchers in the government party have the least access of all.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-69
Author(s):  
Lalthakima

None of the countries in the world is ‘corruption free country’. Despite the efforts of every country to curb the menace of corruption, the affected countries failed to contain corruption to the level of zero. It becomes a serious threat and challenge to most democratic countries of the world. At present civil societies which bridge the gap between the society and the government come to the forefront to fight against this menace. In Mizoram; for more than a decade, People’s Right to Information and Development Implementing Society of Mizoram (PRISM) involved in fighting against corruption. However, after a prolonged campaign against corruption, the society has turned itself to be a political party on November 3, 2017 and contested election for the Assembly seats in 2018 and also contested an election for a lone seat of Member of Parliament from Mizoram in the lower house of the Parliament in 2019. The name of the erstwhile society was rechristened as ‘People’s Representation for Identity and Status of Mizoram’ and retained the abbreviated form PRISM. Efficiency in governance, changing the political system and corruption free society are the main objectives of PRISM.


Yustitia ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-118
Author(s):  
Suhendar Suhendar ◽  
Riva Rachmi Kusumah

Neutrality is an important capital for the State Civil Apparatus (ASN) as the government organizer. However, it is not easy to realize the principle called neutrality. There are several factors that make it difficult for ASNs to be neutral. First, the massive amount of ASN. ASN has a good understanding of the government's governance policies, as well as the authority possessed by the country's civil apparatus. Various regulations related to elections both in the handling of violations and the state civil apparatus are indeed well structured, but they should be able to reduce the potential behavior of the community, election participants and election organizers, but the potential for violations in the general election yesterday was large enough so that the authors are interested in researching deeper, based on Indonesia being a state of law both the government and its people must obey and abide by existing laws, but unfortunate law made easily by the public is one of the regulations related to general elections, this paper focuses on the role of the state civil apparatus in organizing general elections and handling election violations in the Indramayu district


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 529-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Bräuninger ◽  
Marc Debus ◽  
Fabian Wüst

Various strands of literature in comparative politics suggest that there is a differential impact of the type of government and their supporting legislative coalitions in parliamentary democracies, for example, in terms of their size and ideological heterogeneity, and on their potential to induce policy change. Most studies in this area focus on governments as agenda-setters, possibly neglecting the role of parliaments as a further key actor in policy making. In this article, we address the broader question as to how patterns of conflict within parliament effect legislative activity of governments and parliamentary actors. Through a simultaneous analysis of the success and event history of over 12,000 legislative bills in three parliamentary systems and one semi-presidential system from 1986 until 2003, we show how the interplay of actor motivations and institutional settings has a discriminating impact on the potential of both the government and parliament to induce policy change.


Author(s):  
Liam Weeks

The presence of independents in the Irish political system is unusual from a comparative perspective. Sometimes seen as an idiosyncratic phenomenon, they are analysed in terms of their relation to the party system, and categorized in a manner similar to that applied to party families. Why independents do not form parties is analysed from an institutional and behavioural perspective, showing that there are a number of incentives for political entrepreneurs to remain as independents rather than transition to a new party. The nature of support for independents is assessed through a populist lens, considering if independents take the place of populist parties in the electoral marketplace. It is found that independents have more in common with left-wing progressives than right-wing nativists. The final section examines the role of independents in the government formation process, showing that the levels of stability and output are not as low as might be expected.


2011 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Field

AbstractThe essay examines the British army's transformation from a small professional force into a mass conscript army between 1939 and 1945. Battlefield defeats and criticism of the nation's conduct of the war acted as a stimulus to reform in the early years. Examining such areas as officer selection, discipline, and the expansion of army education services (ABCA), the essay shows how the military adapted to the recruitment of millions of “civilians in uniform” and in some instances worked to contain or resist change. Special attention is given to class conflicts that arose between officers and “other ranks” and situations where perceived indifference to recruits' basic rights provoked protests and strikes, including protests over slow demobilization in 1946. A final section analyzes the role of ABCA and the forces press in creating a space for political discussion; the radical views prevalent among British servicemen; and the contradictions between the official ban on political debate in the forces, the rhetoric of “a people's war,” and the troops' growing focus on postwar reconstruction and the General Election of 1945.


2017 ◽  
pp. 148-159
Author(s):  
V. Papava

This paper analyzes the problem of technological backwardness of economy. In many mostly developing countries their economies use obsolete technologies. This can create the illusion that this or that business is prosperous. At the level of international competition, however, it is obvious that these types of firms do not have any chance for success. Retroeconomics as a theory of technological backwardness and its detrimental effect upon a country’s economy is considered in the paper. The role of the government is very important for overcoming the effects of retroeconomy. The phenomenon of retroeconomy is already quite deep-rooted throughout the world and it is essential to consolidate the attention of economists and politicians on this threat.


2020 ◽  
pp. 75-79
Author(s):  
R. M. Gambarova

Relevance. Grain is the key to strategic products to ensure food security. From this point of view, the creation of large grain farms is a matter for the country's selfsufficiency and it leading to a decrease in financial expense for import. Creation of such farms creates an abundance of productivity from the area and leads to obtaining increased reproductive seeds. The main policy of the government is to minimize dependency from import, create abundance of food and create favorable conditions for export potential.The purpose of the study: the development of grain production in order to ensure food security of the country and strengthen government support for this industry.Methods: comparative analysis, systems approach.Results. As shown in the research, if we pay attention to the activities of private entrepreneurship in the country, we can see result of the implementation of agrarian reforms after which various types of farms have been created in republic.The role of privateentrepreneurshipinthedevelopmentofproduction is great. Тhe article outlines the sowing area, production, productivity, import, export of grain and the level of selfsufficiency in this country from 2015 till 2017.


Author(s):  
Ramnik Kaur

E-governance is a paradigm shift over the traditional approaches in Public Administration which means rendering of government services and information to the public by using electronic means. In the past decades, service quality and responsiveness of the government towards the citizens were least important but with the approach of E-Government the government activities are now well dealt. This paper withdraws experiences from various studies from different countries and projects facing similar challenges which need to be consigned for the successful implementation of e-governance projects. Developing countries like India face poverty and illiteracy as a major obstacle in any form of development which makes it difficult for its government to provide e-services to its people conveniently and fast. It also suggests few suggestions to cope up with the challenges faced while implementing e-projects in India.


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