{ "item_title" : "Parliaments in Time", "item_author" : [" Michael Koss "], "item_description" : "Parliaments in Western Europe are noteworthy for several reasons. Their institutional designs differ remarkably, with distinct consequences for their policy-output. Scholars have diagnosed the decline of legislatures for over a century now. This book sheds light on the institutional development of four (emerging) West European parliaments. Based on a model of distributive bargaining over legislative procedures, it engages in a comparative process-tracing analysis of 90 reforms, which restructured control over the plenary agenda and committee power in Britain, France, Sweden, and Germany between 1866 and 2015. The analysis presented here suggests that legislators in Western Europe rationalize procedures as a response to growing levels of legislative workload. As a consequence, they evolve towards one of two procedural ideal types: talking or working legislatures. In talking legislatures, governments enjoy privileges in legislative agenda-setting (resulting in centralized agenda control) and committees are weak. In contrast, working legislatures combine decentralized agenda control with powerful committees. Which path legislators choose is determined by the appearance of anti-system obstruction. If anti-system parties obstruct legislative business, legislators surrender ancient procedural privileges and agree to a centralization of agenda control. Otherwise, their demand for legislative mega-seats on committees triggers the evolution of working legislatures. If legislators fail to respond to an anti-system threat, legislative procedures break down. For this reason, the central aim of procedural reforms in West European parliaments is to maintain legislative democracy. Rather than a decline of legislatures, talking legislatures which successfully overcame an anti-system threat indicate the resilience of legislative democracy. Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The series is edited by Emilie van Haute, Professor of Political Science, Universite libre de Bruxelles; Ferdinand Muller-Rommel, Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Leuphana University; and Susan Scarrow, John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Political Science, University of Houston.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/19/182/115/0191821152_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "93.00", "online_price" : "93.00", "our_price" : "93.00", "club_price" : "93.00", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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