RC08 - Legislative Specialists

The business meeting of RC08-Legislative Specialist was held on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2014 in Montréal. Here are the minutes of the meeting.

Call for Papers: 2nd Notice The IPSA Research Committee of Legislative Specialists (RCLS) invites papers to be presented at a CWC (conference within a conference) Saturday 5th October in association with the Australasian Study of Parliament Group (ASPG) 2013 Conference 2nd to 4th October, in Perth, Western Australia. We encourage papers proposals on topics related to the following three panels:

• Parliamentary committees (e.g. the changing roles of Parliamentary Committees; Committee roles in the Legislative Process; Effectiveness of Committees)
• Public participation and communication between lawmakers and citizens (e.g. community participation; media roles; use of social media)
• Constituency Development Funds

The CWC will be held in the Ibis Hotel (334 Murray Street, Perth)in the Sugar Function Room. There will be a working lunch option for delegates at a cost of AUD23.00 per person which includes a selection of gourmet sandwiches and rolls, fruit platter, sweets selection and soft drink and juices. Please submit proposals to Ken Coghill, Monash University (ken.coghill@monash.edu) and Peverill Squire, University of Missouri (squirep@missouri.edu). A descriptive title will be sufficient. If you will attend the CWC, whether or not you submit a proposal, please also advise Ken Coghill, Monash University (ken.coghill@monash.edu), to assist with planning catering. Please submit your proposal not later than Friday 19th July.

The Research Committee of Legislative Specialists will organize a number of panels at the IPSA World Congress. We would like to discuss ideas for panel topics and welcome proposals focusing on any aspect of legislatures and parliamentary government.

Please send a short outline of the panel proposal as soon as possible to RCLS Program Chair Hilmar Rommetvedt, email: hilmar.rommetvedt@iris.no. For information on the World Congress, see here.

RCLS members have met in Madrid where they had several panels. In an extensive business meeting they have elected new officers. Peverill Squire from University of Missouri and Zdenka Mansfeldová from the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic are the new Co-Chairs. Hilmar Rommetvedt was elected Program Chair. Werner J. Patzelt from Dresden University of Technology is officially holding the office of past-co-chair. (See here for contact information). In the future, maybe at the IPSA World Congress in Montreal, RCLS can consider ways of bringing closer colleagues from Asia in a similar way like the colleagues in the US.This would help to increase the visibility of RC08. The RC08 is interested in strengthening the linkages to the national political science associations, as more links between RC08 and domestic political scientists leads to higher RCLS exposure. Another issue is the possible attempt to try to find funding possibilities for comparative initiatives in the future. See here for the business minutes.

RCLS met in Prague together with RECON WP3 for a workshop on "Changing Modes of Parliamentary Representation". The conference underlined the great variety of parliamentary research in both theoretical and methodological terms: Papers dealt with national parliaments and the EU, the EP, parliaments in the process of democratization and institutionalization, the theory of institutional evolution, the theory and practices of representation in Europe, France and Germany, socialization of newly elected MPs, corporatism and the revival of parliaments. The presented research dealt with purely theoretical topics, some relied on a heavily quantitative, others on a purely qualitative methodology, and some sought to combine both approaches.
RCLS had a business meeting on Friday. Here are the minutes.
Social events with lively discussions on politics and papers included a nice dinner with a spectacular outlook on the beautiful city of Prague. The well organized conference and the friendly team from the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences turned the good and fruitful conference into an excellent one. Na shledanou, Česká republika!

On the IPSA Congress in Madrid 2012 RCLS will organize three panels: (1) The role of parliamentary opposition in the legislative process; (2) The role of representative assemblies in autocratic and semi-democratic systems; (3) The costs and benefits of organized interest representation in the parliamentary process. Non members of RCs are encouraged to participate in RC sessions. The names of the RCs and an invitation to non-members to submit paper proposals to the RC Chairs will be displayed on the IPSA Congress website as of August 31, 2011. Deadline to submit RC panel proposals is August 18, 2011. For panel abstracts and application rule see here.

Workshop organized by IPSA’s Research Committee on Legislative Specialists (RC08) and 6th FP project RECON – Reconstituting Democracy in Europe, WP3 Host Institution: Institute of Sociology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The workshop will take place at the Academic Conference Center, Prague 1, Jilská 4a on 14-15 October 2011. The purpose of the workshop is to address the current issues in parliamentary research and broaden the research agenda. Organizational issues of the workshop include discussion of the final results and theoretical contributions of the WP3 “Representation and Institutional Make-up” to the REON Project and RCLS Meeting aimed at discussing practical and organizational aspects of RC LS such as future events, publications etc. Deadline for paper proposals is May 15 - see our Upcomin section for further details.

The RCLS has pleasure in appending a call for proposals to the 82nd SPSA annual meeting, being held at New Orleans, Louisiana on January 6-8, 2011. We ask the scholars of legislatures to again consider the issue of legislative institution building. We are especially interested in papers that allow for practical implications of research. See Call for Papers SPSA Meeting 2011here.

On the IPSA 2010 Conference in Luxemburg "Is There a European Model of Governance? A Comparative Perspective" RCLS had a panel "Democratic Representation in European Model of Governance". The proposed panel concentrated on the principles of democratic representation in European Model of governance. See panel details, title and authors of the paper, and the full program of the IPSA conference at the our Past Activities section.

(Not only) as far as RCLS is concerned, the IPSA congress in Santiago has been a great success. All our four panels were well attended, and inspiring papers were presented. Many thanks once more to our (now) past program chair, Ron Hedlund, who has done a great and demanding job in pulling our program together! Here you will find the minutes of our business meeting with some relevant news. They include, among other things, the names of our new officers and of the new executive committee of RCLS. The officers are:

• co-chairs: Werner J. Patzelt, Peverill Squire
• program chair: Zdenka Mansfeldová
• treasurer: Ned Schneier

(Contact data of our new officers can be found here.) In addition, two of our members have been elected by the IPSA council into IPSA’s executive committee: Irmina Matonyte (second term), Werner J. Patzelt (first term).