The role of legislative committees in parliamentary governments’ accountability: a comparative analysis of the United Kingdom and Turkey
Author(s)
Advisor
Date
2018-07Publisher
Bilkent University
Language
English
Type
ThesisItem Usage Stats
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Abstract
Present study examines the role of legislative committees in single party majority
and coalition governments’ accountability in the U.K. and Turkey. The literature
discusses both legislatures’ contribution to policymaking as “marginal” or
“ineffective” vis-a-vis governments, and their committees are expected to reflect this
tendency. This approach equates formal capabilities (potential) with scrutiny
behavior (influence), and claims that weak legislatures cannot substantially influence
their governments’ legislation. In contrast, this research argues that legislative
committees function as accountability mechanisms when they activate their formal
capabilities and change the content of government bills. Rather than a description of
formal capabilities, this study uses scrutiny powers and committee amendments as
direct empirical measures to estimate the impact of legislative committees on
governments. It also argues that committees’ scrutiny of government bills depends on the government control over the committees changing according to government
type. The overall findings based on an original dataset suggest that both in the U.K.
and Turkey, legislative committees can and do amend the content of government
bills, and their likelihood of making substantial amendments to government bills
increases when they base their intervention on their scrutiny powers. In both cases,
committees during the coalition government term were more open and inclusive to
actors outside the parliament leading committees to be affected by this knowledge
and information in their scrutiny of government bills. In contrast, committees during
single majority government term remained majoritarian and based their amendments
on the information provided by the government representatives in committees.