TY  - UNPB
PB  - UCL (University College London)
N1  - Copyright © The Author 2020. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author?s request.
Y1  - 2020/01/28/
ID  - discovery10090111
TI  - Questioning Prime Ministers: Procedures, Practices and Functions in Parliamentary Democracies
M1  - Doctoral
UR  - https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10090111/
A1  - Serban, Ruxandra
N2  - This thesis investigates parliamentary oral questioning mechanisms that involve prime ministers in
parliamentary democracies. Considering the fact that prime ministers are powerful and visible actors in
parliamentary democracies, and that accountability is a key component of democratic politics, it maps
the mechanisms through which parliamentarians may question prime ministers in different countries,
and explores the extent to which these mechanisms contribute to accountability, and the extent to which
they perform other functions.
The first research component is a survey of procedural rules regarding mechanisms through which
parliamentarians may question prime ministers in 31 parliamentary democracies. It draws on an indepth examination of parliamentary rules of procedure, followed by a consultation with practitioners and
officials in each country to uncover aspects of convention and practice. Subsequently, questioning
mechanisms are classified based on dimensions such as their collective or individualised nature, the
extent to which procedures allow more open or closed participation, as well as the degree of questioning
exposure to which prime ministers are subjected. It then discusses how these dimensions might affect
the practice of questioning.
Drawing on these classifications, the second research component investigates the practice of questioning
prime ministers in four countries: two using collective questioning mechanisms, where prime ministers
are questioned together with ministers (Question Period in Canada, Question Time in Australia); and two
using individualised mechanisms, where prime ministers are questioned alone (Prime Minister?s
Questions in the UK, Oral Questions to the Taoiseach in Ireland). This second component relies on
quantitative and qualitative content analysis of transcripts of parliamentary debates for each case study
country. Departing from the assumption that parliamentary questioning mechanisms are designed to
facilitate accountability, it investigates the degree to which they do so, and the degree to which they
perform other functions, such as facilitating the expression of conflict, support, or territorial
representation.
AV  - public
EP  - 286
ER  -