IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/epplan/v69y2018icp130-138.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Parliamentarians’ strategies for policy evaluations

Author

Listed:
  • Bundi, Pirmin

Abstract

This article considers the question of which strategies parliamentarians pursue when they use parliamentary requests demanding an evaluation. In order to be re-elected or to achieve desirable policies, parliamentarians can either appeal to their constituency or to their party by adopting legislative roles. The study is based on twelve case studies of parliamentary requests from the Swiss parliament between 2010 and 2014. The analysis shows that parliamentarians of legislative committees submit parliamentary requests to oppose a policy, while parliamentarians of oversight committees submit parliamentary requests to obtain information on specific policies. On the contrary, the party membership of the responsible Federal Councillor does not influence the strategy. These findings suggest that parliamentarians use evaluations as an instrument rather than using the actual findings. This conclusion might be very relevant to understand how evaluations are used in the political process.

Suggested Citation

  • Bundi, Pirmin, 2018. "Parliamentarians’ strategies for policy evaluations," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 130-138.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:epplan:v:69:y:2018:i:c:p:130-138
    DOI: 10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2017.02.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149718916301112
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2017.02.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carol H. Weiss, 1989. "Congressional committees as users of analysis," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(3), pages 411-431.
    2. Joshua D. Clinton & Adam Meirowitz, 2004. "Testing Explanations of Strategic Voting in Legislatures: A Reexamination of the Compromise of 1790," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(4), pages 675-689, October.
    3. Shane Martin, 2011. "Using Parliamentary Questions to Measure Constituency Focus: An Application to the Irish Case," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 59(2), pages 472-488, June.
    4. Linder, Stephen H. & Peters, B. Guy, 1990. "Policy formulation and the challenge of conscious design," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 303-311, January.
    5. Searing, Donald D., 1991. "Roles, Rules, and Rationality in the New Institutionalism," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 85(4), pages 1239-1260, December.
    6. Kellermann, Michael, 2013. "Sponsoring Early Day Motions in the British House of Commons as a Response to Electoral Vulnerability," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(2), pages 263-280, December.
    7. Bowler, Shaun & Farrell, David M., 1995. "The Organizing of the European Parliament: Committees, Specialization and Co-ordination," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(2), pages 219-243, April.
    8. Bjørn Rasch, 2014. "Insincere voting under the successive procedure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 499-511, March.
    9. Tsebelis, George, 1994. "The Power of the European Parliament as a Conditional Agenda Setter," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(1), pages 128-142, March.
    10. Roger Scully & David M. Farrell, 2003. "MEPs as Representatives: Individual and Institutional Roles," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 269-288, April.
    11. Jeremy Richardson, 2000. "Government, Interest Groups and Policy Change," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1006-1025, December.
    12. Patton, Michael Quinn & Horton, Douglas, 2008. "Utilization-focused evaluation for agricultural innovation," ILAC Briefs 52533, Institutional Learning and Change (ILAC) Initiative.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Isabelle Guinaudeau & Olivier Costa, 2022. "Issue Politicization in the European Parliament. An Analysis of Parliamentary Questions for Oral Answer (2004–19)," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 507-525, May.
    2. Keith Dowding, 2000. "Institutionalist Research on the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 1(1), pages 125-144, February.
    3. repec:bla:jcmkts:v:48:y:2010:i::p:811-833 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Sara Hagemann & Bjørn Høyland, 2010. "Bicameral Politics in the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(4), pages 811-833, September.
    5. Miriam Sorace, 2018. "Legislative Participation in the EU: An analysis of questions, speeches, motions and declarations in the 7th European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 19(2), pages 299-320, June.
    6. Răzvan V. BALABAN, 2021. "Case study: The impact on the Romanian State Budget in the case of EU adoption of the CCCTB Directive," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania / Editura Economica, vol. 0(2(627), S), pages 135-154, Summer.
    7. Gianluca Misuraca & Clelia Colombo & Csaba Kucsera & Stephanie Carretero & Margherita Bacigalupo & Raluca Radescu, 2015. "ICT-enabled Social Innovation in support of the Implementation of the Social Investment Package (IESI) - Mapping and Analysis of ICT-enabled Social Innovation Initiatives promoting Social Investment t," JRC Research Reports JRC97467, Joint Research Centre.
    8. Giliberto Capano & Andrea Lippi, 2017. "How policy instruments are chosen: patterns of decision makers’ choices," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 50(2), pages 269-293, June.
    9. Will Somerville & Sara Wallace Goodman, 2010. "The Role of Networks in the Development of UK Migration Policy," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58(5), pages 951-970, December.
    10. Mika Widgrén, 2008. "The Impact of Council's Internal Decision-Making Rules on the Future EU," Discussion Papers 26, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    11. Michal Ovádek, 2021. "Procedural Politics Revisited: Institutional Incentives and Jurisdictional Ambiguity in EU Competence Disputes," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(6), pages 1381-1399, November.
    12. Jonathan Lewallen & Sean M. Theriault & Bryan D. Jones, 2016. "Congressional dysfunction: An information processing perspective," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 10(2), pages 179-190, June.
    13. Abdul Ghafar Noury & Gérard Roland, 2002. "More power to the European Parliament?," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/7760, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    14. Robert Inman & Daniel Rubinfeld, 2002. "Subsidiarity, governance, and EU economic policy," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 3(04), pages 3-11, October.
    15. Le Breton, Michel & Montero, Maria & Zaporozhets, Vera, 2012. "Voting power in the EU council of ministers and fair decision making in distributive politics," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 159-173.
    16. Lifshitz, Chen Chana, 2017. "Fostering employability among youth at-risk in a multi-cultural context: Insights from a pilot intervention program," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 20-34.
    17. Thomas König & Daniel Finke, 2007. "Reforming the equilibrium? Veto players and policy change in the European constitution-building process," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 2(2), pages 153-176, June.
    18. Stefan Napel & Mika Widgrén, 2011. "Strategic versus non-strategic voting power in the EU Council of Ministers: the consultation procedure," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 37(3), pages 511-541, September.
    19. LaVelle, John M. & Davies, Randall, 2021. "Seeking consensus: Defining foundational concepts for a graduate level introductory program evaluation course," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    20. Pannell, David J., 2004. "Effectively communicating economics to policy makers," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 48(3), pages 1-21.
    21. Melz, Heidi & Fromknecht, Anne E. & Masters, Loren D. & Richards, Tammy & Sun, Jing, 2023. "Incorporating multiple data sources to assess changes in organizational capacity in child welfare systems," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:epplan:v:69:y:2018:i:c:p:130-138. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/evalprogplan .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.