How to be a Parliamentary Researcher

How to be a Parliamentary Researcher PDF Author: Robert Dale
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781849549301
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
To some, 'staffers' are the unsung heroes of the British Parliamentary system. In Westminster and back in the constituencies, they do the dirty work, allowing the MP to focus on his or her main job - performing. To others, there is a growing sense that staffers use their roles as the first rung on the ladder to becoming Members of Parliament themselves. Indeed, around 30% of the current Cabinet previously worked for an MP. This book tells the story of how the MP's office has developed over recent decades, to the point at which staff now account for 78% of the overall members' expenses budget, not to mention the army of unofficial and unpaid interns. It explains what staffers do, how they operate and to whom they are accountable, as well as why there has been an enormous increase in their numbers.

How to be a Parliamentary Researcher

How to be a Parliamentary Researcher PDF Author: Robert Dale
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781849549301
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book

Book Description
To some, 'staffers' are the unsung heroes of the British Parliamentary system. In Westminster and back in the constituencies, they do the dirty work, allowing the MP to focus on his or her main job - performing. To others, there is a growing sense that staffers use their roles as the first rung on the ladder to becoming Members of Parliament themselves. Indeed, around 30% of the current Cabinet previously worked for an MP. This book tells the story of how the MP's office has developed over recent decades, to the point at which staff now account for 78% of the overall members' expenses budget, not to mention the army of unofficial and unpaid interns. It explains what staffers do, how they operate and to whom they are accountable, as well as why there has been an enormous increase in their numbers.

How to Be a Parliamentary Researcher

How to Be a Parliamentary Researcher PDF Author: Robert Dale
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
ISBN: 1849549737
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
To some, they are the graduates grasping the first rung on the ladder to power, to others, the unsung heroes of the British parliamentary system. But whether your notion of parliamentary researchers is more The Thick of It than The West Wing, more Yes Minister than House of Cards, there is no doubt that these individuals play an essential role in keeping the giant (and, let's be honest, slightly creaky) machine that drives British politics from juddering to a halt. Branded bag-carriers while actually performing vital duties like drafting speeches and Parliamentary Questions, handling the media and engaging with constituents online, parliamentary researchers do the dirty work behind the scenes, allowing their bosses to focus on their main job - performing. With the help of case studies and guest writers, Robert Dale, himself a former parliamentary researcher, tells the fascinating story of how the MP's office has developed over recent decades, and combines practical advice with acute personal observations on how to get ahead as a researcher. If you're a graduate looking to take your first step into politics, or simply interested in the job around a third of our current Cabinet had before becoming an MP, How to Be a Parliamentary Researcher offers a compelling insight into how the British political system really operates.

Spatial Models of Parliamentary Voting

Spatial Models of Parliamentary Voting PDF Author: Keith T. Poole
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781139446754
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
This book presents a simple geometric model of voting as a tool to analyze parliamentary roll call data. Each legislator is represented by one point and each roll call is represented by two points that correspond to the policy consequences of voting Yea or Nay. On every roll call each legislator votes for the closer outcome point, at least probabilistically. These points form a spatial map that summarizes the roll calls. In this sense a spatial map is much like a road map because it visually depicts the political world of a legislature. The closeness of two legislators on the map shows how similar their voting records are, and the distribution of legislators shows what the dimensions are. These maps can be used to study a wide variety of topics including how political parties evolve over time, the existence of sophisticated voting and how an executive influences legislative outcomes.

Handbook of Parliamentary Studies

Handbook of Parliamentary Studies PDF Author: Cyril Benoît
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1789906512
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
This comprehensive Handbook takes a multidisciplinary approach to the study of parliaments, offering novel insights into the key aspects of legislatures, legislative institutions and legislative politics. Connecting rich and diverse fields of inquiry, it illuminates how the study of parliaments has shaped a wider understanding surrounding politics and society over the past decades.

The Theory and Practice of Developing Parliamentary Research and Information Services

The Theory and Practice of Developing Parliamentary Research and Information Services PDF Author: Parliamentary Library Staff
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780975201510
Category : Information services
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description


European Parliament Ascendant

European Parliament Ascendant PDF Author: Adrienne Héritier
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030167771
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
"If one wants to understand why, from its modest beginnings, the European Parliament has become a major player in EU decision-making, look no further than this book. It presents, to date, the theoretically most compelling, methodologically disciplined and empirically richest account of parliamentary self-empowerment over time, across key functions and policy areas. This volume will be a main point of reference for work on the European Parliament, the dynamics of inter-institutional politics, and EU integration more generally for years to come."—Berthold Rittberger, Professor of International Relations, University of Munich, Germany “Anyone interested in the rise of the European Parliament as a significant actor in the EU should read this book. It offers a fascinating insight into the strategies used by the Parliament to achieve its aims and the conditions for its success or failure. It ranges widely across time and policy areas to give a comprehensive analysis of the Parliament’s changing institutional position.”—Michael Shackleton, Professor of European Institutions, Maastricht University, The Netherlands, and former EP official This book analyses the European Parliament’s strategies of self-empowerment over time stretching across cases of new institutional prerogatives as well as substantive policy areas. It considers why and how the Parliament has managed to gain formal and informal powers in this wide variety of cases. The book provides a systematic and comparative analysis of the European Parliament’s formal and informal empowerment in two broad sets of cases: on the one hand, it examines the EP’s empowerment since the Treaty of Rome in three areas that are characteristic of parliamentary democracies, namely legislation, the budget, and the investiture of the executive. On the other hand, it analyses the European Parliament’s role in highly politicised policy areas, namely Economic and Monetary Governance and the shaping of EU trade agreements.

How to Be a Government Whip

How to Be a Government Whip PDF Author: Helen Jones
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
ISBN: 1785900803
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
One of the most misunderstood and oft-caricatured jobs in British politics whips are the unseen unsung heroes of the parliamentary system without whom governments would doubtless crumble and legislative business would almost certainly grind to a halt. Whips are shrouded in mystery however often portrayed in the media and by colleagues as a brutish bullying bunch of thugs with a reputation for using blackmail and torture to achieve party discipline and get legislation through the House. How to Be a Government Whip is a frank and light-hearted guide to the forgotten engine room of Parliament perfect for those who aspire to be amongst their ranks as well as those just hoping to avoid them. From the mind-numbing tedium of debates to the dark arts of dealing with rebellious or disaffected members of their 'flock' former whip Helen Jones reveals how they really get business done - and what they say about their colleagues behind the closed door of the Whips' Office.

Parliamentary Oversight Tools

Parliamentary Oversight Tools PDF Author: Riccardo Pelizzo
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136517243
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
This book investigates Parliaments’ capacity to oversee government activities, policies and expenditures. Utilising a comparative approach, the book presents a new examination of oversight tools and discusses the conditions under which such tools are employed effectively. The result of a 9-year collaboration between the authors, this book draws from the findings of survey data collected by the World Bank Institute and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, analysing information from 120 parliaments. The book represents a rigorous attempt to test whether international organizations are correct in claiming that the quality of democracy and good governance can be improved by strengthening the oversight capacity of legislatures. It discusses the tools available to parliaments worldwide, and taking a comparative approach considers which tools are more or less common, how oversight capacity can be estimated, how oversight capacity is related to other institutional and constitutional factors, and above all what ensures that oversight tools are used effectively. This analysis reveals that while the quality of democracy and good governance benefit from effective oversight, oversight effectiveness cannot be reduced to oversight capacity. The book urges policy makers and reformers to change their approach from strengthening capacity to securing that the capacity is put to good use. Parliamentary Oversight Tools will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners of legislative politics and governance.

Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons

Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons PDF Author: Cherry M. Miller
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030642399
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
This book explores the reproduction of gender ‘beneath the spectacle’ – that is, beneath ceremonial displays of power, in the UK House of Commons. Contributing to a fascinating literature on gender and parliaments, the book conceives of the House of Commons as a workplace, as well as a representative arena. It explores the everyday consequences for gendered power relations that this unique environment entails, as parliamentary actors perform their careers, citizenship, and public service. The book firstly explores ways to conceive of and to study gender in parliaments. Parliamentary ethnography – that is, spending time observing and engaging with parliamentary actors, is presented as an unparalleled methodology to better understand gender, power, and agency. The chapters that follow provide in-depth portrayals of gender and the parliamentary workplace. The book connects multiple actors in the House of Commons: MPs, officials, parliamentary researchers, and the (in)formal rules that structure the relationships between them.

A Treatise Upon the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament

A Treatise Upon the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament PDF Author: Thomas Erskine May
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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Book Description