Panel Proposal for the 25th World Congress of Political Science for RCLS / RC 08 Legislative Specialists (21-26 July 2018, Brisbane)

Convenor & Chair: Zdenka Mansfeldová, Czech Academy of Sciences; Discussant: Petra Guasti, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt

The processes of globalization and Europeanization fundamentally influence the role and functioning of national parliaments. Electoral and political participation continue to wane, negatively affecting input legitimacy, the ability of the national parliaments legislate is limited by supranational rules, their input into supranational (i.e. for Europe EU) legislation procedurally constrained. In the wake of growing populism and calls for direct democracy, we ask – are we seeing the inevitable decline of representative democracy and its institutions (parliaments)? Parliaments adopt various strategies to address these issues - increasing transparency, procedural and output legitimacy. One example is the direct interaction between parliaments and organized interests during the legislative process. This panel focuses on the interaction between the parliament and organized interest groups, posing the question whether strengthening these forms of interactions has the potential to strengthen the legitimacy of national parliaments by bridging the gap between citizens and institutions of representative democracy.

This panel welcomes comparative papers that contribute to the broader comparative research on the interaction between national parliaments and organized interests (civil society, trade unions, and lobby groups). We particularly welcome comparisons between CEE and other transition countries around the world, but theoretically driven papers with single case studies are also welcome.

Please send your paper proposal to Zdenka Mansfeldová (zdenka.mansfeldova[at]soc.cas.cz) by 15 August 2017.