PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY - Inter-Parliamentary Union

xii I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
■ to exercise more effective oversight of the executive, including in the
increasingly important field of international policy;
■ to be more active in transnational collaboration, so as to provide a more
effective parliamentary component in regional and international organisations,
and in the resolution of violent conflicts.
The many examples of democratic practice given in the Guide are not
intended to skate over problems or to minimise the challenges which all
parliaments currently face; nor to understate the difficulties of realising a
genuine democracy in practice. What they can do is provide clear evidence
that democratic change is possible, and offer some very practical illustrations
of how it might be brought about. In this way, the Guide seeks to make its own
contribution to realising a more securely democratic future.