Overview

Legislative debates make democracy and representation work. Political actors engage in legislative debates to make their voice heard to voters. Parties use debates to shore up their brand. This book makes the most comprehensive study of legislative debates thus far, looking at the politics of legislative debates in 33 liberal democracies in Europe, North America and Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. The book begins with theoretical chapters focused on the key concepts in the study of legislative debates. Michael Laver, Slapin and Proksch, and Taylor examine the politics of legislative debates in parliamentary and presidential democracies. Subsequently, Goplerud makes a critical review of the methodological challenges in the study of legislative debates. Schwalbach and Rauh further discuss the difficulties in the comparative empirical study of debates. Country-chapters offer a wealth of original material organized around structured sections. Each chapter begins with a details discussion of the institutional design, focusing on the electoral system, legislative organization, and party parties, to which a section on the formal and informal rules of legislative debates ensues. Next, each country chapter focuses on analyzing the determinants of floor access, with a particular emphasis on the role of gender, seniority, legislative party positions, among others. In the concluding chapter, the editors explore comparative patterns and point out to multiple research avenues opened by this edited volume. The Oxford Politics of Institutions series is designed to provide in-depth coverage of research on a specific political institution. Each volume includes a mix of theoretical contributions, state-of-the-art research review chapters, comparative empirical chapters, country case study chapters, and chapters aimed at practitioners. Typically, the majority of chapters in each volume comprises of country studies written by country experts. Volumes in the series are aimed at political scientists, students in political science programmes, social scientists more generally, and policy practitioners.Series editors: Shane Martin, Anthony King Chair in Comparative Government and Head of the Department of Government, University of Essex; and Sona N. Golder, Professor of Politics, Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University.

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9780198849063

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Reviews

This is the definitive volume on legislative debates and a must-read text for scholars interested in political institutions and representation. The editors masterfully outline the case for studying legislative speech, and draw together insights from a diverse set of democracies to shed new light on the rules governing debates and factors that determine who speaks in legislatures. * Diana Z. O'Brien, Albert Thomas Associate Professor of Political Science, Rice University * The data generated every time legislators do one of their core activitiesDLspeakingDL is a rich resource for understanding democratic linkages. This volume combines theoretical and methodological insights with case studies from a wide range of contexts around the world, making it essential to advancing research on how democratic institutions function. * Matthew S. Shugart, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of California, Davis * Harmonized analysis for 32 parliamentary, presidential, and semi-presidential democracies around the world offers a major expansion to knowledge about legislator speech-making. Particularly important is the assessment of conditions in which there is a gap in speech between men and women legislators, suggesting many avenues for future research. * Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson, Professor of Political Science, Texas A&M University * The editors have assembled the best authors in the field to offer a collection not only on recent theories of legislative debates, but also on the best methods to analyse them. With a mixture of overview, analysis, and over thirty case studies from legislative debates from around the world, this volume makes an outstanding contribution to the literature and is a must-read for any scholar of legislative studies. * Kenneth Benoit, Professor of Computational Social Science, The London School of Economics and Political Science * Politicians do like to talk but as this volume demonstrates, parliamentary speech is more than sound and fury. Applying contemporary text analysis tools, the contributors analyze speech activity in legislative assemblies from Iceland to Malawi. Audacious in scope and impressive in execution, this is an unrivalled contribution to its field. * Kaare Str/om, Distinguished Professor, University of California, San Diego *

This is the definitive volume on legislative debates and a must-read text for scholars interested in political institutions and representation. The editors masterfully outline the case for studying legislative speech, and draw together insights from a diverse set of democracies to shed new light on the rules governing debates and factors that determine who speaks in legislatures. * Diana Z. O'Brien, Albert Thomas Associate Professor of Political Science, Rice University * The data generated every time legislators do one of their core activities—speaking— is a rich resource for understanding democratic linkages. This volume combines theoretical and methodological insights with case studies from a wide range of contexts around the world, making it essential to advancing research on how democratic institutions function. * Matthew S. Shugart, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of California, Davis * Harmonized analysis for 32 parliamentary, presidential, and semi-presidential democracies around the world offers a major expansion to knowledge about legislator speech-making. Particularly important is the assessment of conditions in which there is a gap in speech between men and women legislators, suggesting many avenues for future research. * Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson, Professor of Political Science, Texas A&M University * The editors have assembled the best authors in the field to offer a collection not only on recent theories of legislative debates, but also on the best methods to analyse them. With a mixture of overview, analysis, and over thirty case studies from legislative debates from around the world, this volume makes an outstanding contribution to the literature and is a must-read for any scholar of legislative studies. * Kenneth Benoit, Professor of Computational Social Science, The London School of Economics and Political Science * Politicians do like to talk but as this volume demonstrates, parliamentary speech is more than sound and fury. Applying contemporary text analysis tools, the contributors analyze speech activity in legislative assemblies from Iceland to Malawi. Audacious in scope and impressive in execution, this is an unrivalled contribution to its field. * Kaare Strøm, Distinguished Professor, University of California, San Diego *

This is the definitive volume on legislative debates and a must-read text for scholars interested in political institutions and representation. The editors masterfully outline the case for studying legislative speech, and draw together insights from a diverse set of democracies to shed new light on the rules governing debates and factors that determine who speaks in legislatures. * Diana Z. O'Brien, Albert Thomas Associate Professor of Political Science, Rice University * The data generated every time legislators do one of their core activities-speaking- is a rich resource for understanding democratic linkages. This volume combines theoretical and methodological insights with case studies from a wide range of contexts around the world, making it essential to advancing research on how democratic institutions function. * Matthew S. Shugart, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of California, Davis * Harmonized analysis for 32 parliamentary, presidential, and semi-presidential democracies around the world offers a major expansion to knowledge about legislator speech-making. Particularly important is the assessment of conditions in which there is a gap in speech between men and women legislators, suggesting many avenues for future research. * Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson, Professor of Political Science, Texas A&M University * The editors have assembled the best authors in the field to offer a collection not only on recent theories of legislative debates, but also on the best methods to analyse them. With a mixture of overview, analysis, and over thirty case studies from legislative debates from around the world, this volume makes an outstanding contribution to the literature and is a must-read for any scholar of legislative studies. * Kenneth Benoit, Professor of Computational Social Science, The London School of Economics and Political Science * Politicians do like to talk but as this volume demonstrates, parliamentary speech is more than sound and fury. Applying contemporary text analysis tools, the contributors analyze speech activity in legislative assemblies from Iceland to Malawi. Audacious in scope and impressive in execution, this is an unrivalled contribution to its field. * Kaare Strom, Distinguished Professor, University of California, San Diego *

This is the definitive volume on legislative debates and a must-read text for scholars interested in political institutions and representation. The editors masterfully outline the case for studying legislative speech, and draw together insights from a diverse set of democracies to shed new light on the rules governing debates and factors that determine who speaks in legislatures. * Diana Z. O'Brien, Albert Thomas Associate Professor of Political Science, Rice University * The data generated every time legislators do one of their core activities—speaking— is a rich resource for understanding democratic linkages. This volume combines theoretical and methodological insights with case studies from a wide range of contexts around the world, making it essential to advancing research on how democratic institutions function. * Matthew S. Shugart, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of California, Davis * Harmonized analysis for 32 parliamentary, presidential, and semi-presidential democracies around the world offers a major expansion to knowledge about legislator speech-making. Particularly important is the assessment of conditions in which there is a gap in speech between men and women legislators, suggesting many avenues for future research. * Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson, Professor of Political Science, Texas A&M University * The editors have assembled the best authors in the field to offer a collection not only on recent theories of legislative debates, but also on the best methods to analyse them. With a mixture of overview, analysis, and over thirty case studies from legislative debates from around the world, this volume makes an outstanding contribution to the literature and is a must-read for any scholar of legislative studies. * Kenneth Benoit, Professor of Computational Social Science, The London School of Economics and Political Science * Politicians do like to talk but as this volume demonstrates, parliamentary speech is more than sound and fury. Applying contemporary text analysis tools, the contributors analyze speech activity in legislative assemblies from Iceland to Malawi. Audacious in scope and impressive in execution, this is an unrivalled contribution to its field. * Kaare Str/om, Distinguished Professor, University of California, San Diego * The Politics of Legislative Debates not only makes a significant contribution on its own, but also complements other handbooks that scholars in parliamentary and legislative studies have been treated with in recent years. * Caroline Bhattacharya, Austrian Journal of Political Science *

Author Information

Hanna Bäck is a Professor of Political Science at Lund University, Sweden. She received her PhD from Uppsala University, and has previously held a position at University of Mannheim. Her research mainly focuses on political parties, legislators, governments, and cabinet ministers in parliamentary democracies. She has published extensively on these topics, for example in journals such as British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of Political Research, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and Political Science Research and Methods. She is the co-author of the book, Parties, Parliaments and Legislative Speechmaking (Palgrave Macmillan). Marc Debus is Professor of Comparative Government at the University of Mannheim, Germany. He studied Political Science, Sociology, History and Methods of Empirical Social Research at the Universities of Marburg and Mannheim and received his PhD from the University of Konstanz in 2006. His research interests include political institutions, in particular in multilevel systems, and their effects on the political behavior of voters and legislators, as well as party competition, coalition politics and decision making within parliaments and governments. His publications appeared, amongst others, in the Journal of Politics, the European Journal of Political Research, Party Politics, Political Science Research and Methods, Public Choice, West European Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly. Jorge M. Fernandes is Assistant Research Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal. Jorge received his PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute, Florence. His main interests are representation, electoral systems, legislatures, political parties, and party competition. He has published extensively on these topics in inter allia, Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of Political Research, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and Party Politics. He is the co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Portuguese Politics.

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