The Politics of Legislative Debates The Oxford Politics of Institutions Series

Legislative debates make democracy and representation work. Political actors engage in legislative debates to make their voice heard to voters. Parties use debates to shore up their brand. This book makes the most comprehensive study of legislative debates thus far, looking at the politics of legislative debates in 33 liberal democracies in Europe, North America and Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. The book begins with theoretical chapters focused on the key concepts in the study of legislative debates. Michael Laver, Slapin and Proksch, and Taylor examine the politics of legislative debates in parliamentary and presidential democracies. Subsequently, Goplerud makes a critical review of the methodological challenges in the study of legislative debates. Schwalbach and Rauh further discuss the difficulties in the comparative empirical study of debates. Country-chapters offer a wealth of original material organized around structured sections. Each chapter begins with a details discussion of the institutional design, focusing on the electoral system, legislative organization, and party parties, to which a section on the formal and informal rules of legislative debates ensues. Next, each country chapter focuses on analyzing the determinants of floor access, with a particular emphasis on the role of gender, seniority, legislative party positions, among others. In the concluding chapter, the editors explore comparative patterns and point out to multiple research avenues opened by this edited volume. The Oxford Politics of Institutions series is designed to provide in-depth coverage of research on a specific political institution. Each volume includes a mix of theoretical contributions, state-of-the-art research review chapters, comparative empirical chapters, country case study chapters, and chapters aimed at practitioners. Typically, the majority of chapters in each volume comprises of country studies written by country experts. Volumes in the series are aimed at political scientists, students in political science programmes, social scientists more generally, and policy practitioners. Series editors: Shane Martin, Anthony King Chair in Comparative Government and Head of the Department of Government, University of Essex; and Sona N. Golder, Professor of Politics, Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University.

Hanna Bäck is a Professor of Political Science at Lund University, Sweden. She received her PhD from Uppsala University, and has previously held a position at University of Mannheim. Her research mainly focuses on political parties, legislators, governments, and cabinet ministers in parliamentary democracies. She has published extensively on these topics, for example in journals such as British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of Political Research, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and Political Science Research and Methods. She is the co-author of the book, Parties, Parliaments and Legislative Speechmaking (Palgrave Macmillan). Marc Debus is Professor of Comparative Government at the University of Mannheim, Germany. He studied Political Science, Sociology, History and Methods of Empirical Social Research at the Universities of Marburg and Mannheim and received his PhD from the University of Konstanz in 2006. His research interests include political institutions, in particular in multilevel systems, and their effects on the political behavior of voters and legislators, as well as party competition, coalition politics and decision making within parliaments and governments. His publications appeared, amongst others, in the Journal of Politics, the European Journal of Political Research, Party Politics, Political Science Research and Methods, Public Choice, West European Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly. Jorge M. Fernandes is Assistant Research Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal. Jorge received his PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute, Florence. His main interests are representation, electoral systems, legislatures, political parties, and party competition. He has published extensively on these topics in inter allia, Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of Political Research, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and Party Politics. H