PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY - Inter-Parliamentary Union

2 I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
and circumstances. As the body entrusted with the oversight of government,
they are responsible for ensuring that governments are fully accountable
to the people.
In the process parliaments are themselves undergoing considerable change,
as they seek to adapt to the challenges of a new century. The past few years
have witnessed numerous efforts across many parliaments to engage more
effectively with the public and to improve the way they work: to become more
genuinely representative of their electorates, more accessible and accountable
to them, more open and transparent in their procedures, and more effective in
their key tasks of legislation and oversight of government. As a guide to these
initiatives, this book is partly an attempt to provide a contemporary picture of
the contribution that parliaments are making to consolidating and strengthening
democracy. At the same time it is more than simply a record; it also has an
aspirational purpose. In presenting what parliaments themselves see as good
examples of democratic practice, it builds up a profile of what a democratic
parliament actually looks like, and how it might better become so. The term
‘Guide’ embraces both these purposes, aspirational as well as descriptive.
Multiple audiences
Who, then, is the Guide designed for? In the first instance it is addressed to
parliamentarians, who are concerned to respond to the challenges of the contemporary
world, and to provide effective leadership in meeting them.
Although each parliament has its own national traditions and distinctive character,
all are well used to exchanging experiences across parliaments, and
using ideas from elsewhere about possible solutions to common problems,
once appropriately adapted to their domestic circumstances. The Guide forms
a contribution to this mutual learning process, in what is a very rapidly changing
scene. Hopefully, every parliamentary reader will find at least one good
idea or example of good practice within its covers which could be usefully
‘domesticated’.
The Guide is also addressed to concerned citizens and activists in any country.
It is impossible to ignore the fact that, while individual parliamentary representatives
at the constituency level may be respected, parliaments as an
institution and politicians as a group do not rate highly in public esteem in
many countries. This is partly because of the one-sided way in which they are
often presented in the media. ‘The media tend to focus more on proceedings
which are adversarial and on matters such as travel and expenses,’ notes one
of our submissions. It also has to be said that some parliamentarians contribute
to their own negative image as a self-serving elite, being more responsive to