What Future for Parliaments - Public Administration International

What Future for Parliaments?Technical Assistance in Uncertain TimesDr. Geoffrey WoodAbstractThis paper discusses the issues of technical assistance to new or reforming parliaments or tocountries which are considering introducing genuine parliamentary systems. It therefore raisesimportant questions not only regarding the issues around such transfers and exchanges ofexpertise but also necessarily on the role of parliaments in contemporary polities. Initially thepaper examines the somewhat paradoxical situation of parliaments today and attempts todefine fundamental parliamentary functions and how these are rooted institutionally. A casestudy of one parliament is then examined in some detail to understand what defines successand failure in the technical assistance process, with special regard to the importance ofunderstanding cultural factors, and specifically the parliament as a culture. The final section ismore speculative and examines the ways in which parliaments may have to adapt to newsocial forces.

IntroductionAssistance in setting up new or renewed parliamentary institutions has called on expertisefrom many sources and many countries. The United Kingdom has played a positive role inthis activity worldwide, from its long experience as a parliamentary democracy. Its familiarrole as ‘the mother of parliaments’ was consolidated after the Second World War, with itsnurturing role to post-colonial parliaments and its work in the de-nazification of Germany.This has extended to many other countries, particularly to the ex-communist states in Centraland Eastern Europe after 1989. But how successful has such assistance been and how shouldit continue, mindful of a rapidly changing and ever more complex world?The argument here relies particularly on the author’s experience in the countries of Centraland Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia over the last 12 years. This is inevitably limitedand others may comment more precisely on specific countries in the region and certainly withmore familiarity on states within Africa, South America or the Far East. This paper thereforeaims to be just one starting point of a much needed discussion not just on parliamentarytechnical assistance but on the role of parliaments in democratic states.In the 1960s and 1970s it was common for academic literature to talk of the ‘decline ofparliaments’ in Western and Northern Europe and there is still a tendency to think in this way,with governments, public bodies and organised economic interests being considered as themajor political players, with critical voices coming from sections of the media and interestgroups. A number of factors have tended to diminish rather than augment the influence ofparliament. As Peter Riddell said in his ‘Parliament Under Pressure’:“The real malaise at Westminster is a sense of exclusion, a belief that the realpolitical debate and decision-making are elsewhere - in European institutions,in the courts, the media, the Bank of England and financial markets, and in thedecisions of regulators and those who run quangos” (note 1).Declining voting figures and lessening newspaper coverage of Westminster appear to bepessimistic confirmations of this tendency while the new Scottish Parliament gets muchnegative coverage. There are certainly major problems of how representative Westminster isas low election turn-outs inevitably confer less legitimacy, and the major parties find that theirolder, once clearly identifiable social class bases are increasingly fragmented.Alternatively it has been suggested that the present time is the ‘age of parliaments’ (note 2).The growth of democratic demands and human rights legislation across the world presumesthe need for efficient and effective means of representation, checks on government activityand arenas for civic dialogue. The fall of dictatorial regimes entails their replacement by someform of representative government. Fifteen years after the collapse of Soviet-stylecommunism in1989 we now have democratic parliaments in almost every country acrossEurope; and not only national parliaments but also regional parliaments in most of these, witha European Union parliament which will soon be representing 25 nations. Interest inparliamentary forms is also alive and well elsewhere across the world from Africa to SouthEast Asia and South America.Philip Norton, asking ‘Does Parliament Matter?’ in the early 1990s gave a guardedly positivereply to his question:-

“Parliament matters. It is a vital part of the body politic. In recent years it hasshown a capacity to meet, more than before, the popular expectations held ofit. By doing so it appears to have encouraged even greater expectations. Tomeet them it has to strengthen the resources at its disposal. That requires politicalwill”(note 3).In Western Europe we are habituated to parliaments and we are expecting them to delivermore in circumstances which are less propitious and where both governments and parliamentshave much less control. Declining media interest is parliament is probably part of a largerdeclining interest in serious issues generally as celebrity, entertainment and consumer issuestake up more space. In many states across the world, people welcome new freedoms and aparliament which results from a free and fair election is probably the best symbolicrepresentation of that. But the expectations of new democratic institutions can soon turn tochagrin and resentment. It is noticeable in some Central and East European states that citizenssoon move from the euphoria of a ‘real’ parliament to disappointment and suspicion aspolitical realities become evident and petty squabbles, incapacities and inefficiencies arise. Inthese cases, also, the ‘heads-down’ political will to get into the European Union as soon aspossible has tended to warp parliaments into becoming legislative machines for reproducingthe ‘Acquis Communautaire’ in their own country.We need to recall that the realm of politics is not straightforward. In his extremely usefulbook ‘In Defence of Politics’, Bernard Crick described “(politics’) most characteristic features(as) compromise, conciliation, uncertainty, conflict...its necessary ambivalence or tensionbetween preservation and creation...its curious movements between bureaucratic anonymityand the magnification of personality in politicians”(note 4). It is therefore easy to becomedisappointed. The French poet Paul Valery hit an accurate note when he noted: “Politics is theart of preventing people taking part in affairs which properly concern them.” The feeling ofmany citizens in the renewed democracies is that they have handed over power to anapparently representative body and yet seem to have lost control over their own lives onceagain.One very basic point of technical transfers of parliamentary knowledge is to share a simpletruth - that developing and maintaining a democratic parliament is not easy even for thosecountries with a long history such as the United Kingdom. There is always some comfort insharing troubles and even more so when some key areas for easy improvement can bepinpointed, as is usually the case. And the advantages are not only to the recipients - that theycan hopefully ease the transition and improve their parliamentary structures - but also to thedonors as the process enables those from older parliaments such as Westminster to rethink oldhabits and to consider new solutions.What is a Parliament?By definition a national parliament is a unique institution within a state (note 5). Members ofthe parliament are chosen by election not by appointment and, together with the executive,play the key roles in the public affairs of the country, along with devolved elected bodies thatwork at regional or local level and an active civil society that includes a range of interestgroups. A democratic political system relies on a free and fair electoral system, the existenceof parties of different political views, a set of procedural rules, a way of selecting agovernment and an elected parliament.

This paper refers to national parliaments as key players since they still have, at leastnotionally, a great deal of autonomy over a wide space. This is not say that other levels ofparliamentary government do not need assistance and I shall return to this point later. Despiteoft-repeated views that national states, and therefore parliaments in Europe might disappear,swallowed up between an aggrandised European Union with a more powerful parliament onthe one hand, and the regions accruing more competencies from below on the other, it seemsthat national identities are still very strong. Indeed the few strong regions such as Cataluña -and one could add Scotland - gain their political strength from the existence of strongnationalistic sentiments and the ambition of many of their citizens for their region to becomean independent nation. Germany meanwhile has strong regional governments but they areintegrated firmly into a federal system.A national parliament, elected by fair and open elections in a multi-party system, must besomewhere at the centre of any democratic society. It is the fundamental sign of authoritybeing vested in the people. This applies also to parliaments at lower levels within nations,which are closer to the citizens within their specified areas, and also to the newer supranationalbodies which deliberate on behalf of large conglomerations of peoples, such as theParliament of the European Union. A good working parliament is the crucial set of keys to ademocratic polity in providing access to a range of political views which are not merelyrepresented, but which proceed to engage in argument and debate on a public stage.Parliaments give voice to informed opinion and the discussion of policy, they publicisepolitical debate. Parliaments give life and authority to law. Parliament also provides a trainingground for those who might take future positions in the Government. Historically parliamentshave emerged from periodic crises where people attempt to query, limit and hold theirgovernments to account. The need for this fundamental scrutiny process to continue and to beas effective as possible is as urgent in the older democracies as in newly formed states.It is to a parliament that people look to be the final arbiter of fairness to individual citizensand groups and it is to a good parliament that one can point as a measure of the quality ofpublic life. For it also has an exemplary role, ideally showing a realm of good politicalpractice, a check on corruption, and a visible place of political dialogue - what John StuartMill called ‘a sounding-board for the nation’. The parliament is the active conscience of thebody politic.But all this must be substantiated by efficiency, effectiveness and by scrupulous honesty onthe part of parliamentarians; and parliaments have to show all this, to publicise their role andwhat they do. This means having to compete for media interest, be seen as a crucial part of the‘res publica’, and to engage with the citizens. This is hard enough in a country with arelatively sound and stable parliamentary history. It means that new democracies cannot taketheir parliaments for granted but need to ensure not only that they are effective but that theyare visible.This very impressive set of credentials might be considered an ideal but without ideals it isdifficult to reach standards. These political functions indicate that appropriate assistance to aparliament can have profound effects within the country and be a stimulant to reforms moregenerally, that an effective parliament becomes the lever through which other reforms can bepublicised, discussed, accepted and developed. This ‘value-added’ element is one very solidreason why aid to parliaments is so crucial for aid to other parts of a society. It is a way ofseeding societies with the means of making informed and open decisions in an increasinglyfast-moving, dangerous and uncertain world.

Technical assistance to parliaments is therefore a vital form of aid transaction, and the‘techniques’ must include reaching out to the public in positive ways to facilitate dialogue.Politicians in Central and Eastern Europe have often talked about citizen demands and thevoices of interest groups as a kind of noise. Of course such dialogue must clearly bestructured so that parliament-citizen and parliament-group communication can be as effectiveas possible but also parliamentarians have to reach out and explain what they are doing andinvite opinion and discussion. Many new parliaments are quiet places, suspiciously quiet forwhat should be centres of democratic life. Few of the new parliaments give time to suchdialogue other than at election time.Fundamentally a battery of techniques and strategies for a new parliament must be backed upthrough conceptual and philosophical thinking about what a parliament is and what thereforeis required in terms of services and resources. As Lenin once talked of communism as‘electrification plus soviets’, we might talk of parliamentary democracy as ‘democraticrationality plus outreach.’ But this is not just a mechanical suiting of means to ends. Allorganisations develop a certain culture whether they want to or not and it is particularlyimportant to nurture the culture of parliaments in positive ways.Parliaments have diverse forms of institution and process and what suits one country mightnot suit another, just as there are different election systems. But it is important at the outset todetermine a common set of features that constitute a parliament and a common set ofstructures and processes that, though they may take variable formats, must essentially be inplace. From what has been said above we can tabulate the bare bones of these as follows:-1. an effective way of scrutinising legislation;2. an effective system of scrutinising government activity;3. a set of rules and procedures;4. a system of management of the parliament and of parliamentary business;5. office and staffing support for MPs;6. good information and research services;7. services for the public: information, publications, clear access to the parliament, regularrelations with the media, education services;8. structured ways of citizens meeting with Members both in the House and in theconstituencies;9. fair codes of conduct for MPs and staff and independent procedures for dealing withinfractions;10. structured relations with parliaments abroad, with lower levels of representativedemocracy and with civil society.The devil lies in the adjectives. A parliament might have all these elements institutionalisedbut they may be neither structured nor effective nor efficient nor might their character orpurpose be evident to those outside or indeed to many of those inside. Though many statesnow claim to have parliaments as a sine qua non of statehood, these are often in realitynotional bodies, ghostly institutions that are subservient to the executive power and indeed arefrequently a part of the government rather than acting as an independent institution and acheck on government. These token flags of parliamentarism can be waved at internationalorganisations to show apparently democratic credentials.

Parliaments are familiar as institutions but their real import is as a set of processes. They arenot merely the theatre and stage, but also the scripts and the acting, and the behind-the-scenemechanics of political drama. They are complex networks with their own support systems.Each parliament also forms its own particular culture, its particular intrinsic manners andmores, its style. Parliaments perform difficult but essential political functions but constantlyrequire to adapt to changing needs and the multiple demands of modern societies so they alsoneed to build in the capacity to adapt to change. Technical assistance is therefore veryimportant but also not easy.Technical Assistance to Parliaments: A Case-StudyThe Westminster Parliament has always been an adversarial system, with Government andOpposition built into the very architecture of the building, and this ‘Westminster model’ hasbeen an influence particularly in Commonwealth countries but other nations work on differentmodels. Most European countries work on the principle of coalition governments withproportional representation electoral systems. To take one brief example, the German system,with its tradition of ‘Fraktionen’ (party caucuses) and strict party loyalty shows someconsiderable differences. The German MP prides him/herself on being a professional in a‘working parliament’ rather than a ‘debating parliament’ so the character of the Bundestag,working in terms of consensus and gaining opposition agreement, is rather different incharacter to the more public life of Westminster with its debates, questions and potentialcross-voting.It is an assumption in what follows that, despite their faults, the Anglo-Saxon andScandinavian parliaments offer good models and that parliaments such as those of France andItaly are marred, to different degrees, by the acceptability of clientelism and cronyism.Although it wasn’t a parliamentary incident, the occasion on which the European Commissionresigned en masse in 1999 showed a clear gulf between political values and assumptionsroughly between the northern and the southern states which have effects on both governmentsand parliaments.Scotland is unusual in being a ‘national parliament’ within the ‘four-nations-in-one’ UnitedKingdom. It is a new parliament and has taken a very different route to that of Westminster.As it is so recent it makes a good exemplar for technical assistance programmes, particularlybecause (a) it has followed a very rational approach in setting up its structures and (b) it hastaken a very distinctive line in being a very open parliament, a parliament which belongs to‘the people’. In a large programme of assistance to the Slovak National Council,‘Strengthening Parliamentary Processes’ (note 6) the Scottish Parliament gave its assistancealong with Westminster and proved a very positive stimulus, enthusing many of the Membersand staff of the Slovak National Council concerning the possibilities for their own assembly -yet the programme had limited success. This makes a valuable case-study for examining thestrengths and weaknesses of technical aid programmes to parliaments.Technical assistance programmes to parliaments have taken several forms. Frequently theyhave provided foreign visitors with a general overview of Westminster system. Manytechnical areas have been examined more precisely, for example legislative drafting, researchand information services, or information systems. Precise units such as that of the EuropeanScrutiny system can be dealt with as a specific set of processes and skills in smallprogrammes. Alternatively, policy areas can be the subjects through which newparliamentarians learn. For example, two large programmes of assistance to the Ukrainian

Parliament by the UK and the EU respectively, in 1995 and 1996, took subject areas such asFinance, Education, Defence and Regional Organisation, showing how Westminster dealtwith these issues.The Programme focusing on the Slovak National Council (the Slovak Parliament) effectivelyconsidered the Slovak Parliament as a whole, using both Westminster and the ScottishParliament as comparators, with emphasis on key functions - Scrutiny, Legislation, Coalitionand Opposition, Research and Information Services, Outreach, and Support Services forMembers. Over a period of two years, a number of exchange visits were made in the course ofthe programme, by consultants to Bratislava, by Slovak groups to Edinburgh and London;documents were translated and exchanged; relevant persons outside the parliament, such aspolitical journalists, were also included in some of the discussions. Training was given to thenew Assistants to the Members after the 2002 election.The Westminster Parliament is used to such programmes and, despite the continual pressureof so many visitors, its Members and staff are always willing and enthusiastic to assist foreignparliaments where they can. But its tradition, size and unusual features can be a dauntingfeature to those from smaller parliaments such as the Slovak. The Scottish Parliament proveduseful initially for its comparable size, 129 MPs (Slovakia has 150). The country has a similarpopulation of 5 - 6 million. Both the Scottish and the Slovak parliaments are also unicameraland they operate with coalitions. It was also most useful that the Scottish Parliament was anew parliament, again somewhat like the Slovak one, which is a national parliament for thefirst time; the Czech and Slovak Republics had amicably split from their unity asCzechoslovakia in 1993. However, while it was evident that the Slovak National Council hadcontinued much as before, when it had a kind of regional role, the Scottish Parliament had theopportunity of thinking itself into a rebirth which had little in common, apart from the allimportantconsideration of nationality, with the last Scottish Parliament of three centuriesbefore. It too had taken lessons from parliaments of other small countries, and from regionswithin Europe such as Cataluña and Bavaria, to define itself and it was rather different toWestminster.The big lesson of the Scottish Parliament was that it had systematically thought through itsrole as a parliament that would be open to the people. This enabled it to have a clear statementof basic values and purpose, with key principles and a planned deployment of departmentsand personnel which would then work out their particular mission statements and specificstrategies to fulfil their commitments. This rational sequence, the clarity of objectives and thespecific design of appropriate resources and staffing to fulfil these objectives helped to definethe co-operative culture of the Parliament. Its openness to the public was developed throughdiverse activities: a sophisticated Public Information Centre in the Parliament itself; a Partner-Library System which could carry information and Internet access at local levels throughoutthe country; a Civic Forum which enables public debates on key issues; a weekly newsletterwhich tells what is happening in the Parliament; and a network of out-reach services whichprovide regular talks, conferences and educational facilities. The culture is open, both inrespect to the public and in terms of its internal co-operative and interdepartmentalorganisation.Without going into further details of the Scottish system at this point, it is evident that thelessons from both Scotland and Westminster as technical assistance donors can take twoforms: firstly, taking up specific elements and possibly adapting them to the host country, viz.elements which are ‘technical’ and in which very specific ‘know how’ can be communicated;

secondly, trying to develop a comparable culture in which these technical elements have theirplace. Trying to adapt to the Westminster culture is difficult and not to be recommended as itso specific to the United Kingdom and so different in tradition to other European parliaments,yet many of the technical elements, such as the research facilities or the European Scrutinyprocess, (bearing in mind the large difference in size and resources) appear to be possible asroutine ‘know how’ transfers. But the Scottish model, with its commitment to openness, itsrational schema of suiting mission statement to aims, aims to strategy, strategy to plan, itscross-departmental processes looks like something that can be used as a good model of a‘parliamentary culture’.However it would naive to see a parliament as consisting of a ‘hard core’ of largely legislativeactivity and support systems with a kind of ‘add-on’ culture round the edges. The culture isnot just the icing on the cake. It is the culture which runs through and informs all the practicesand it is the quality of the culture that can make or break any specific, seemingly technicalreforms.All the Slovak visitors to Edinburgh, including MPs and members of the staff in all thegroups, were impressed by specific ways of working but most also commented on theirperception of the parliamentary culture, with the clarity and knowledge of the MSPs, its busybut co-operative working practices, its welcoming visitor centre, its clear explanations of allaspects of the parliament in its information services to the public. But of course they and weare aware that one cannot adapt a culture that easily. A culture is rooted in a soil and growssomewhat slowly. The Scottish Parliament had something of an advantage in starting fromscratch, a kind of hothouse in which to grow their parliament quickly using very experiencedstaff and developing a culture drawn from work in other organisations, not only otherparliaments. However, it has to be said that, even with this efficient start, the publicperception of the Scottish Parliament has not been particularly kind, especially as the mediaconcentrate, unsurprisingly, on aspects such as the growing expense of Holyrood and themistakes of some of the MSPs: matters which obviously should be brought to public attentionbut are a part of a larger picture.Rather than attempt some kind of Year Zero ‘makeover’ the Slovak participants on theProgramme saw sensibly that they might move gradually towards a more informative, moreco-operative and more successful parliamentary culture by adapting aspects of the Scottishmodel. Since there were new parliamentary buildings being constructed in Bratislava, a moreexciting information centre was planned, incorporating a shop on the Scottish model. A logowas invented to show the uniqueness of the Slovak Parliament. A partner-library system onthe Scottish model was started in all eight of the Slovak regions. The research facility adoptedsome facets of the Scottish system. This last feature was already working fairly well, thanksto earlier House of Commons influence, but it is an example of where the wider parliamentaryculture diminished its efficacy by not making enough use of its work and not realising thatinterdepartmental meetings could assist further. A European Union Scrutiny Committee wasestablished in the National Council using staff from different departments to make a strongsupport team, whose bright young members took guidance particularly from the House ofCommons as well as from Scandinavian models. Here was good use of an interdepartmentalstrategy but how well it will eventually work will depend on a number of factors: the qualityof the MPs who become members of the committee, for example, or developing goodrelations with the Government in obtaining documents in good time. There was also interestin the Westminster Code of Conduct for Members and this will hopefully influence their own

evised Code - though Slovak Members are keen to retain their privileges which they see asintegral to their authority.It is evident from the above examples that technical assistance was most successful where itcould be used in discrete areas without disturbing the general status quo. However this is adubious kind of success since these changes should really have changed related areas as well.Since departments worked quite separately it seems that frustrations will occur. To be reallysuccessful, these changes needed the oversight of a manager or preferably a small team(composed of both MPs and staff) reporting to senior management, who could then informothers of the developments and indicate how further parallel changes in related departmentsmight be made. Reforms need to be made in the organisational model so there would be a‘ripple effect’ of changes but for various reasons, discussed below, the management structureis fairly rigid. So there is a danger of small bodies of improvement existing in isolation andpossibly withering as the related areas of activity fail to respond. Already we could see staffwho worked well in their own particular area but were disillusioned because their work couldnot be effective.An example of where reforms could be effective and possibly more successful set of reforms,was in the advice provided to Members’ Assistants, a new body of mainly young people whowere very keen to learn from Scottish and Westminster experience. It was initially veryinstructive to see how they were initially welcomed into the National Council. They weredefined by the senior management as a new set of problems with which existing staff wouldhave to cope, rather than being seen as a very positive step forward. But in the Programmeseminars it was evident that the new Assistants were very keen on the prospects of their roleand eager to know that they were doing the right kind of thing - as judged by westernparliaments. It was possible to give much advice and we were sure that the Members wouldbenefit from their Assistants’ knowledge and growing expertise and skills. Each workingdirectly with a Member on a continuous basis, their skills and knowledge and a culture ofworking together could develop an improved environment. However, even here we noted,quite incidentally, a potential problem. Assistants were paid far better than most of theparliamentary staff and this has produced bad feeling from staff which could make theirworking relationships difficult as well as developing a leakage of experienced and talentedindividuals from the parliamentary service. This is a useful reminder that terms and conditionsof employment as well as working practices are part of the culture of a parliament andcontribute to the quality of its work.In terms of legislative matters, Slovak MPs were eager to discuss their procedures with theUK and Scottish systems but in general little that happened on the floor of the chamber or incommittees could change. Indeed reforms could not happen easily since changes in the Rulesof Procedure would be required (note 7). The big issues here were such as convincing theNational Council to consider the matter of scrutiny of the executive and its administration as apriority, and to encourage MPs to develop better relationships with the public. Since there is alist system with the whole country treated as one large constituency, there was no realincentive here though it is instructive to note that one of the new parties that made real gainsin the 2002 election had a definite policy of meeting with the public.Another aspect was management of the secretariat. The very experienced Manager of theResearch and Information Group in the Scottish Parliament, Ms Janet Seaton made a visit aspart of the Programme and produced an extremely useful and wide-ranging report.Recommendations included suggestions for making the National Council more welcoming

and convenient for citizens to visit; and for changes to a more flexible management styleincluding management training, regular meetings, sharing of information, regularconsultation, team-building exercises, etc. Most of these suggestions proved difficult to takeup. Tracking down the progress of reports, it seemed frequently they are just filed away ratherthan read, discussed and the perhaps acted on.The question for the future then is how far the discrete technical changes may be thebeginnings of further reforms of the National Council more generally and how far theenthusiasm and work of particular staff and MPs committed to a more modern and responsiveparliament can develop the momentum for cultural change within the National Council in amore holistic way. It is evident that a number of MPs need training with public speaking,policy development, office organisation. Here again technical skills training such as computertraining or language learning are available but what is missing is learning the essential parts ofbeing a parliamentarian - efficient and effective representation. It is instructive to note thatthose Slovaks working on the programme from NGOs were more alive to the nature of debateand argument, running meetings and management tasks generally than the higherparliamentary staff or MPs. There are indeed some highly intelligent and well motivated staffwho are committed to parliamentary work but their enthusiasm will easily develop intofrustration if more radical changes do not take place. If their contributions are neglected,good staff will be lost to the business sector, to NGOs or to the European Union, and theNational Council will be the loser.Dealing With the ProblemsThe question then is how can substantial change be effected in a parliament such as theSlovak National Council. Piecemeal changes can be useful but what is missing is not just a setof further changes but the sense of the overall design of the parliament as a project ofeffective representation and correspondingly a culture which reflects this. The experienceover the last few years of passing the Acquis Communautaire into Slovak law has furtherconsolidated the Slovak perception of the National Council as an engine for law-making, somuch so that MPs, who may introduce Private Members Bills, are putting bills forward whenthey would be far better considered as subjects for further research, policy development anddebate rather than a rush into frequently aborted legislation. Some of the legislation is of lowquality, not only because of drafting problems but because of the lack of proper research andconsultation.The effect is that Slovak citizens hold the National Council in low esteem and have lowexpectations of its changing. The Slovak National Council has moved in a decade from beinga communist puppet parliament to becoming a slave to the demands of EU entry. It hasunfortunately missed out on the chance of rethinking itself - at least so far. And what is true ofthe Slovak experience is also true of other neighbouring parliaments. Obviously this is not topresume that our UK models represent any kind of perfect parliament. Rather it recognisesthat changes in the world have made citizens, certainly in the older democratic world,increasingly demand from their parliaments, and indeed from other forms of representation,expecting more communication with their representatives, and presuming theserepresentatives to be accessible and knowledgeable, to have the capacities to listen, and toargue well from a knowledgeable base. Citizens have a clear democratic stake in theirparliaments and so the institutions and their personnel need to build in responsiveness and cooperation.As the Central and Eastern European states come into the European Union and

their citizens have more contact with the west, it is likely that these publics too will demandmore.As noted above, it is true that the efficacy of the Westminster Parliament has been seriouslyquestioned in recent years. Apart from the big movements of devolution and the reform of theHouse of Lords, suggestions in a number of other areas have been mooted and in some casescarried out. There is a ‘Modernisation Committee’ in operation, something seen initially astemporary but which may usefully be considered a permanent feature. Among other problemsit is recognised that relations with the public must be improved. Typically the former Leaderof the Commons put a commonly held view when he said: “Parliament is too distant from thepeople. This is creating a crisis of democratic legitimacy in politics”(note 8). At least theproblems are recognised and efforts made to improve the situation. The initiation ofsomething like a Modernisation Committee was suggested for the Slovak National Councilbut the suggestion has not been taken up. There are obviously structural and cultural problemsnot only in the Slovak case but in other parliaments in the region and probably elsewhere.These problems include a very limited view of what a parliament does, the corporatisttradition, the electoral system and the perceived hierarchies in Slovak society.There is a very limited notion of the role of the Slovak National Council. It is seen as alegislative body with little or no attention paid to the crucial role of scrutiny of the executive.This is reflected in the wider society to a great extent so any criticism of the parliament tendsto focus on the play of parties, the activities of individual MPs and substantive issues ofparticular legislation. The National Council is regarded as merely the place where theseactivities take place not as an institution sui generis. This reproduces the way in which manyparliaments in Central Europe worked between the wars where laws were made primarily tofacilitate administration, what a commentator of that time, the political theorist Carl Schmittcalled ‘motorised legislation’.That this is a widespread view be seen by looking at a professional view from the outside. Anauthoritative annual review is published each year with sections written by a number ofSlovak experts. ‘Slovakia 2001’, subtitled a ‘Global Report on the State of Society’ deals withthe National Council wholly in incidental terms, in the sections on (i) the political parties, (ii)legislative activity, and (iii) the administration (note 9). There is no sense of the parliamentbeing a unique institution in its own right, one which may itself have a changing history.Instead it is regarded as merely the arena where political parties play out legislative games,according to constitutionally derived rules, as one administrative function of government. TheNational Council should be treated as an entity separate from this system as it represents thepeople and indeed it has a duty to its citizens to be a scrutineer of government andadministration. It is not surprising then that the National Council has a low level of trustamong the population (note 10).This view of the limited role of the parliament also reflects the neo-corporatist nature of theSlovak political system which affects not just the role of parliament but the political status ofcitizens. Rather like the Austrian system and a little like the United Kingdom as it was in the1950s and 1960s, the Slovak system runs according to a tripartite system which incorporatesbusiness and labour into regular talks and gives their main associations privileged discussionson policy through ‘Social Dialogue’.The introduction to the section on ‘Organised Interests’ begins as follows:-

“In Slovakia, organised interests have become a part of the political scene,being the link which connects civil society to politics, through interactionwith political parties, parliament and cabinet. The main aim of these variousinterest groups is to influence political decision-making”(note 11).This sounds fine but the discussion in the chapter that follows is all about Labour andBusiness. There is a clear sleight of hand in defining ‘Organised Interests’ initially verywidely and then talking solely of the political interaction of the ‘Social Partners’, viz. Capitaland Labour. There are in fact some NGOs which exist to monitor levels of democracy and thepolitical process. But is not surprising perhaps to see in the later chapter on interest groupsthat the Slovak people give those groups concerned with building democracy the lowestesteem and also that “protest in Slovakia is limited by cultural factors.” It is true that the‘Third Sector’ (civil society) is well-stocked with non-governmental associations which arerightly regarded as intrinsic to democracy and also some dialogue between politicians andNGO activists clearly happens at local levels. But it seems these NGOs are expected to havelittle or no impact on the central political institutions, including the parliament. There is aninteresting contradiction here to which I shall return later since some interests are indeedhighly developed, with some environmentalist groups having been successful in theirinfluence even in the communist period.The Slovak view of political representation is a plebiscitary one, that elections are the momentwhere citizens choose, and having chosen have no subsequent role until the next election.Since the Slovak electoral system is a National List system, there is no presumption thatprospective parliamentary candidates need to meet the people. But it is instructive to note thatthe two most trusted politicians over the last five years or are the two men who travel thecountry regularly, giving speeches and meeting people. They lead two quite different parties,a nationalist party and a ‘Third Way’ party. Vladimir Meciar was, until last year, the leader ofHZDS, a revanchiste nationalist party which gathers a lot of votes among the rural populationand older people. Robert Fico is the leader of SMER, a relatively new party, popular amongyounger people, and is a very inventive politician (note 12). They both have approval ratingssignificantly higher than any others. They have nothing in common - apart from theirvisibility. Whatever one may think of their political views, they both connect with citizens ina way that their colleagues do not and this seems to have a positive effect on their relativesuccess.Most Slovak MPs (with some notable exceptions) see themselves as important personages andadopt an authoritarian air with citizens. This is again also evident in many of the neighbouringstates. Of course MPs are important people but their importance is owing to theirrepresentative capacity and their effectiveness in this role, not some natural superiority. Thiscomes out clearly in ways of talking and is a cultural hangover not only from the days ofcommunism but also probably from the days of empire in Central and Eastern Europe. Thishas been frequently noted by other close observers (note 13). The other side of this pomposityis the tendency to concomitant submissive and compliant attitudes in those members of thepublic who humbly ‘beseech’ the MPs or other authority figures in the manner of beggarsrather than as citizens with a right to talk to their representatives. Of course this is even morea problem in a National List system where there is no clear link between any particular MPsand a geographical area. The frequent problem of the Member’s often rather pompous selfesteemalso tends to make them despise the idea of being ‘trained’. This is whereparliamentary assistance programmes are different to others for officials and it often provokesa tension in groups where the MPs want to treat the session as a political exchange rather than

a technical one. Again I should make the caveat that this applies only to some MPs and notall. There are a significant number who welcome seminars in order to do their job better. Andof course pomposity is not entirely missing in the United Kingdom: among ‘the great and thegood’ there are those whose authoritarian performance is not matched by their administrativecompetence.So there is evidently a network of factors which effectively keep perceptions of the NationalCouncil’s role as a limited one, largely closed off to citizens, and acting as an agent for thegovernment. This view is soon physically confirmed by anyone who visits the NationalCouncil, in a building originally designed under the communist regime and tucked away tothe side of the castle on the hill above the city itself. There is no activity outside the building,no queue of people waiting to hear debates, no network of signposts even to the otherbuildings in the parliament complex. Visitors are not expected unless invited. This relates tothe closed culture of the National Council in its ways of working: it is strictly hierarchicallyorganised in itself and regards itself as above the people.Parliaments easily become private institutions where other people are perceived to have nobusiness. The parliament comes to be ‘owned’ by its bosses and to be of little relevance tocitizens. Citizens need access to parliament. They need to feel that the parliament trulyrepresents their interests and that they own it. They need to be encouraged to find out how itworks, to see it in session, both plenary and committee. This means mechanisms for access,viewing sessions, publication of policy papers for public and expert comment, and publicationnot only of legislation but of events and processes happening within the institution. Youngpeople need to learn about it and to feel that the political process needs their support.Education services need to be developed and links made with teachers and the curriculum.These are crucial to encouraging future generations to become active within the legitimatepolitical processes. Visits to a building are not enough, they need to feel engaged in theprocesses not just view the structure. Politicians should be encouraged to work onprogrammes involving young people. It is relatively easy to organise small conferences onpolicy subjects for schoolchildren or develop mock parliamentary debates using the Chamber.Beneath this almost closed Slovak parliamentary culture is a mechanistic work culture whichneeds assistance before it can develop more dynamic parliamentary features. The newfunction of MPs’ Assistants can help with the Members but a more co-operative culture ofworking relationships is required in the Chancellery. Team-working, collaboration betweendepartments, participating in meetings rather than obeying orders passed down, makingagendas, developing work-plans, information flows, newsletters and so on. It is the lacunae atthis basic level of work organisation which prevents the substantive work being done or,where it is done efficiently, prevents it being shared and influential. This is where technicalassistance programmes must take first steps in developing the rationality of means to ends, inasking what one’s function is and how it fits into a larger system.So it is a matter of starting at different ends of the problem at the same time: to ask the bigquestion: what a parliament is for, and the small questions of what part your office plays in it.The activities which build this up and can also hopefully begin to build up a wider concept ofthe parliament’s role and the greater socialisation of the office life. It is worth remarking thatmany of the visitors to Edinburgh or London said how welcome it was to meet and talk withcolleagues for the first time. But one should not have to travel to another country to do this.

To enable all this to happen means that the partnership must involve the people in charge ofthe parliament. The Slovak project foundered as a whole because it did not ‘buy in’ the peopleat the top. It is those in the top functions who have the real capacity to reform the system andto give an authoritative push to cultural change. These top managers are currently lessfrequently old apparatchiks than younger people who are using the same management model,mostly without any formal management training. Those in the middle echelons, even wherethey would recommend change, are not likely to because they rightly fear for their jobs. In thecase of Slovakia a civil service reform was being passed (note14) at the time of theparliamentary project and middle managers in the Chancellery felt a sense of threat so theydid not want to get out of line. At the same time they did not feel the need for managementtraining.Deepening the Democratic ModelA parliament must be one of the great inventions of the human race. A parliamentary cultureshould embody fundamental values of democratic life and perhaps be the symbol ofdemocracy. But parliament is of course not the only place where politics happens.The Scottish Parliament seems to have organised its values, aims and culture from scratch.But of course it didn’t really. It had the Westminster Parliament as a reference point and keypersonnel developing the Scottish Parliament had already had extensive experience inWestminster (note 15). What is more there is a continuing tradition of intellectual inquirywider than parliament and politics. This is strong in universities, in public administration, inlaw and so on, and it goes back to the ‘Scottish enlightenment’ of Adam Smith, Ferguson,David Hume and others. In contrast, Slovakia had been communist since 1945 with itsintellectual life muffled. Its parliamentary life as Czechoslovakia between the wars was briefand before that it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire - again a rich intellectual traditionbut less empirical and without a national parliamentary element.As suggested above, the way forward for the Slovak National Council must be, at the sametime as reforming its structures and processes internally, to grasp the nettle of engagementwith the public, taking up not only consideration of models in the UK and elsewhere butdeveloping dialogue with its own recent tradition of a ‘politicised’ civil society.In the United Kingdom this process is relatively recent, effectively from the later 1960s and1970s. The rise of various kinds of organised interests which have contact with parliamentand the development of more methodical and welcoming constituency contacts betweencitizens and individual MPs are the two strands which have produced a new kind ofparliament. They increase the legitimacy of parliament and maintain its popular support. Butin Slovakia also there is that short tradition of a politicised civil society which grew up undercommunism and flourished in the 1989-90 period and which then moved into the ‘ThirdSector’ of non-governmental organisations, probably owing to both the still moribundpolitical apparatus and the attractions of a more dynamic civil society still representingsomething of an alternative politics. There is a sense then in which the Slovak NationalCouncil has to catch up with its civil society development under communism (which ofcourse had itself provided a stimulus to the west in the 1980s in the creation of bodies such asCharter 88).The politicisation of civil society under communism tended to produce a parallel politicalculture, one which unsurprisingly did not have regular communication with the communist

apparatuses and so was only occasionally overtly oppositional. There is not space to go intodetail of the political and existential thought of those like Vaclav Havel or Adam Michnikhere but it should be noted that the development of dissidence produced a particular traditionof political thought, a growth in the space of citizenship in opposition to the dominant partyrule. Although many individuals from this tradition went into orthodox politics after1989, theparties that were formed were modelled on western models, particularly concerned withmarket sector reforms, and others preferred to continue in the NGO sector which seemed tooffer better chances of a public citizenship.Mary Kaldor and Zdenek Kavan put this clearly in a useful essay:“..democracy was conceived as a formal set of values, a method of selectingand legitimizing rulers who could implement what were considered to benecessary economic reforms”(note16).But although much needed institutional bases of democracy were achieved:“For this democracy to become rooted and habitual in the post-communistcultures democratic habits and frames of mind needed to be developed. Awell-functioning civil society is indispensable to this project”(note17).What is a well-functioning civil society? Since the development of ‘consumer society’, theapparent failure of socialist alternatives and the concomitant thrust of a sharper capitalism, thecontinued rise of both consumerism and individualism has produced an even more enhancedcreed of the individual as private, with an outside ‘public’ life devoted increasingly toactivities such as entertainment, sports and shopping rather than involvement in the ‘respublica’ - ‘the public thing’. Politics is easily squeezed out and voting activity, at least forcertain age-ranges is higher for shows like ‘Big Brother’ or ‘Pop Idol’ than for parliamentary,local or European elections. Of course many active citizens do engage in issue-politics and therise in the number of pressure groups, interest groups and more formal NGOs since the 1960sstems very much from the seeming failure of the system of parliamentary government to getto grips with the relevant issues. Despite the loss of a ‘public sphere’ in many respects in thewest, this apparent failure of the part of parliaments twenty years ago has usefully producedexemplary elements in civil society and helped to democratise the polity in new ways.Parliaments in the United Kingdom can and do engage productively with these groups, to usethem as valuable resources for information and for policy development while the groupsthemselves benefit from real input into policy. In Slovakia one very positive project would befor the National Council to reach out to the NGO sector, to work with it and makes use of itsideas, energy and capacities.What Future for Parliaments?In Slovakia, the corporatist model itself is probably increasingly inappropriate for the wayboth economy and society have changed through the last thirty years. Both Germany andSweden are corporatist states which have been very successful in the past but now finddifficulties in adapting to a new economic environment. Changing work patterns, deregulationof financial services, problems of funding social services and industrial decline all require amore open and mobile polity. But where we do have a more adaptive polity, the result seemsstill to be a distinct lack of real freedoms. While freedom increasingly comes to mean‘freedom of choice’ among consumer products of all kinds, the kind of democratic controls of

so many spheres of life which produce real political freedoms seem to be missing. Localservices are often not run by local authorities as they used to be, people feel a lack of say intheir pension funds and other investments, in transport policies, in health services, and in somany of the areas covered many new agencies. Corruption in private bodies is increasing ormore visible, perhaps both. Incompetence is more and more evident as firms take over areasof public life for which they have no history of expertise. Many still poor people do not feelthey have a stake in apparently rich societies and many distrust managers and experts becauseof repeated failures. It has been suggested that the idea of ‘stakeholders’ might be developedfurther in terms of representative bodies in the now somewhat blurred public/private sector.Since large corporations are now all important and no one seems to want them run by thestate, they surely need some forceful representation of citizens as both consumers andemployees. This argument has been put cogently by Paul Hirst and others and suggests a rolefor lower level representative bodies and a new role for the national parliament, which couldbe a referral point for the reports and deliberations of such bodies (note 18).A related point is the failure of all parliaments is to look forward to future generations. This isa built-in inability and unwillingness. The parliamentary gaze is rarely much more than thenext election away, a scope of maybe four or five years at most. Environmental, medical andscientific matters point to a need for parliaments to build in ways of looking to the long-term,even across generations. The role of civil society has been very strong here, with large NGOsconcerned with these matters. But perhaps what is required is something more to link thenational, civil and private realm. This might suggest, for example, a role for a non-partyelected second chamber in the United Kingdom. Perhaps even the role of party itself, a 19thcentury creation, has to change dramatically, given the current tendency of mainstreampolitical parties to huddle together in an increasingly tight and uncomfortable ideologicalspace.It may well be that parliaments have to accept more limited roles, and yet these limits mustsurely tend to diminish the credibility of democracy itself unless substitutes are found. At thebeginning of this third millennium there is an even greater urgency to making parliamentseffective, dynamic, efficient, truly representative, more open and more respected. The growthof the globalised economy, the effects of new technologies and the moral and social issuesthey raise, the concerns over changing environments, the friction of diverse belief-systemsacross the world, and the challenges of poverty and grossly unequal life-chances have allmade politics much more problematic and suggest an enhanced role for parliaments. Whilethe growth of the non-governmental sector over the last fifty years and the broadening ofpolitics coverage in the media - often at the expense of parliament itself - have beenresponses, parliaments also need to adjust to these challenges.These elements come to the fore whenever one embarks on a parliamentary assistance project.For many new or renewed states, it is a matter of just gaining basic democratic credentials toplay a more effective game economically and politically on the world stage. Althoughmotives of local actors are inevitably mixed, these projects are frequently driven by the stateand new institutions can often look tawdry when examined for their real meaning and importwithin political life. Where technical assistance programmes are sought or suggested, theremust be a real commitment to positive change from the higher echelons and an attention tovalues, aims and working patterns, to organisation and culture.But serious questions have also to be asked about the variability of parliamentary models andwhether other systems of democratic governance are possible. How far does it make sense to

introduce a national parliament in a multi-ethnic or multi-religious state which is not just newbut largely averse to democracy? The trappings of a centralising state along with arepresentative parliament is not necessarily appropriate and frequently may worsen thesituation. Perhaps lower level civil bodies would be a more appropriate priority, or mediationcommittees to establish some kind of peace between competing groups along withencouragement of basic trading patterns, retaining positive elements of the existing economy(note 19). To what extent can parliaments be commensurate with Islam or other theocracies.What more traditional forms of representation (such as Councils of Elders) can be adaptedwhere a western state has engaged in ‘regime change’?In current market economies, ideas such as ‘Associative Democracy’ or ‘CivicRepublicanism’ can possibly be developed as a way to regain real power for stakeholders inrespect of market choices, welfare provision, security in old age and fairness of income. Howthen would these involve national and regional parliaments? In any pluralistic society and in amulti-vocal world, there cannot, by definition, be one centre for politics. But nationalparliaments must continue to provide key voices of rational discussion and informed policy.Parliaments need to check that they are playing their basic roles effectively - but also need toensure that they are developing new roles where necessary. And parliaments should not beseen in isolation. Civil society can be encouraged to develop a more public life; new subnationalrepresentative forms can be developed which are not regional but public servicespecific.‘State-building’ incorporating parliaments is not the panacea for all critical political situationsbut, given the basic criteria that (i) either a parliament exists in some form already, or (b) thatthere are the institutional, social and cultural foundations - and the political will - for aparliament to be formed, then the development of effective parliaments must be seen as afundamental requirement for assistance programmes. It is not merely an optional ‘add-on’ oran ‘also-ran’ but both a central feature in itself and also a powerful factor in producing a‘multiplier’ effect across a whole society which, if we can all get it right, produces manifoldbeneficial effects.

NOTES1 Peter Riddell, Parliament Under Pressure, Victor Gollancz, 1998, p.122 Gary V.W Copeland and Samuel C. Patterson, Parliaments in the Modern World, AnnArbor, University of Michigan Press, 1994, p.13 Philip Norton, Does Parliament Matter?, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993, p. 2134 Bernard Crick, In Defence of Politics, Penguin Books, 1964, p.165)5 Of course Scotland is an exception here in being a ‘national parliament’ though it does nothave sovereignty as Scotland is still part of the United Kingdom.6 ‘Strengthening Parliamentary Processes: Slovakia’ was funded by the Department forInternational Development and organised by a partnership between the Parliamentary Instituteof the Slovak National Council, and Public Administration International, London.7 Though changes were being considered in the procedure for Parliamentary Questions as aresult of a House of Commons Senior Clerk’s advice - again a discrete issue which could be apositive technical change.8 Interview with Robin Cook, The Times, 10 September 2003.9 Grigorij Meseznikov et al. (eds) Slovakia 2001: A Global Report on the State of SocietyInstitute for Public Affairs, Bratislava, 2002,10 30% in 2001, 1% higher than trust in the Government, Ibid, p. 20911 ibid., p.18912 The acronym SMER stands (in Slovak) for ‘Alliance of the New Citizen’, and ‘Smer’ alsomeans ‘direction’ or ‘way’ in Slovak.13 See for example, Mary Kaldor and Zdenek Kavan ‘Democracy and Civil Society inCentral and Eastern Europe’ in Roland Aztmann, Balancing Democracy, London, Continuum,200114 A DfID project, again led by Public Administration, London15 Barry Winetrobe who was one of the leaders in the ‘Strengthening ParliamentaryProcesses’ project and Janet Seaton, a consultant on the project, were both part of this initialteam.16 Kaldor and Kavan, op. cit., p. 24817 ibid., p. 24918 see Paul Hirst, Associative Democracy, Cambridge, Polity, 1994 and Paul Hirst,‘Democracy and Civil Society’ in Hirst and Khilnani, Reinventing Democracy, Oxford,Blackwell, 199619 see for example, Anatol Lieven ‘Back to the Future’ The Sunday Times 23 December2001.Biographical noteDr Geoffrey Wood studied at Birkbeck College, University of London where he also taughtpolitics and sociology. Since 1992 he has worked in many countries in Central and EasternEurope and Asia on technical assistance programmes, including work with national andregional parliaments, non-governmental organisations and citizens’ groups and universities.