Legislative Assemblies: Voters, Members, and Leaders

By whatever name they are known (Parliaments, Legislatures, or Assemblies, to name but three) legislative assemblies in democratic societies face the twin challenges of institutional capacity and accountability to their citizens. In addressing these challenges, assemblies vary in the extent to which they serve the respective interests of three critical sets of actors: their members, party leaders, and voters. In this book, Shane Martin and Kaare W. Str m identify three ideal types of democratic assemblies - the members’ assembly, the leaders’ assembly, and the voters’ assembly - and analyze national legislative assemblies in the world’s 68 most populous democracies, from Finland to Papua New Guinea, in light of these models. Based on extensive new cross-national data, they trace the implications of the three assembly types for the design, internal organization, resources, and powers of democratic national assemblies, develop indices of each assembly type, and score each of the 68 legislative assemblies on these indices. The analysis of legislative re-election rates in these countries reveals that the fate of incumbents depends on member resources as well as on leadership control, but is ultimately constrained by voter confidence. In conclusion, the authors discuss the past and future trajectories of legislative assemblies, including their susceptibility to democratic backsliding.

Shane Martin, Dean of Postgraduate Research and Education and Anthony King Chair in Comparative Government, University of Essex, Kaare Strøm, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, University of California, San Diego

Shane Martin is Dean of Postgraduate Research and Education at the University of Essex where he also holds the Anthony King Chair in Comparative Government. His research focuses on legislative organization and in particular on how electoral incentives shape representatives’ preferences, the internal structures of parliaments, executive oversight and the production of public policy. He maintains a strong interest in Irish politics. He previously taught at the University of Leicester, Dublin City University, the Pennsylvania State University, and the University of California, San Diego. Awards include a Government of Ireland Research Fellowship and a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship.

Kaare W. Strøm is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego, having previously taught at Michigan State University, the University of Bergen, and the University of Minnesota. His research interests include political parties, coalition theory, European politics, and legislative institutions. He has held fellowships at the Hoover Institution on War, Peace and Revolution, the Norwegian Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Rockefeller Foundation at Bellagio, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS). He is a Fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Arts and Sciences and also a Fellow of the Royal Norwegian Society of Science and Letters.