This report assesses the state of gender equality in the European Parliament and in national parliaments in the European Union (EU). Achieving gender-sensitive parliaments requires prioritising gender equality as a social, political and economic objective and transforming parliaments' culture,...

In most countries, Parliament has the constitutional mandate to both oversee government and to hold government to account; often, audit institutions, ombuds and anti-corruption agencies report to parliament, as a means of ensuring both their independence from government and reinforcing...

Subsidiarity constitutes a guiding principle of the EU exercising power and the idea of involving national parliaments in the EU legislative procedure was seen as the best solution to increase democracy and transparency of the EU decision-making process at the European Convention established in...

Despite the wide variety of agendas used in legislative settings, the literature on sophisticated voting has focused on two formats, the so-called Euro-Latin and Anglo-American agendas. In the current paper, I introduce a broad class of agendas whose defining structural features,...

Purpose - This study aims to deal with the evaluation of institutional development and effectiveness of regional parliaments; it provides a scientific contribution to the development of the field of parliamentary studies by developing a set of indicators to present a parameter for evaluating...

Purpose - Theoretically, the quality of representation is likely to be enhanced when more societal segments are included in formal political structures. An interesting question, however, is whether a similar correlation holds empirically outside established Western democracies. In the 2015...

Purpose - This paper aims to scrutinize some determinants that affect the functions and roles of contemporary parliaments. In particular, such parliaments attempt to involve in new areas that were not represented in parliamentary study and to play new roles in the areas of development,...