Parliamentary Oversight of the Executives: Tools and Procedures in Europe

✍ Scribed by Elena Griglio

• Publisher: Hart Publishing
• Year: 2020
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 287
• Series: Parliamentary Democracy in Europe
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The oversight of the executive is a key function of parliament, and is central to the relationship between branches of government. Recently, however, the influence of parliament on policymaking has been diluted. This book plots trends in parliaments across Europe to illustrate points of convergence and divergence. It compares the tools and methods developed by parliaments to bolster their crucial oversight role, and it demonstrates that oversight of the executive itself – more than lawmaking – is the pivotal dimension of parliaments in Europe for regaining their spheres of influence and democratic control over decision-making.
Volume 4 in the series Parliamentary Democracy in Europe

✦ Table of Contents

Table of Contents
PART I: CONSTITUTIONAL FEATURES OF PARLIAMENTARY
OVERSIGHT IN EUROPE
1. Introduction: Oversight of the Executives. A European Approach
I. What Parliamentary Oversight Serves: In Search of a Definition
II. Placing the Oversight Function in the European Constitutional Legal Order
III. A Selective Approach to Parliamentary Oversight
IV. The Fortune of the Oversight Function in Scholarship
2. Oversight as a Relational Function Linking Parliaments to Executives
I. At the Origins of Parliamentarism in Europe
II. Oversight or Scrutiny? A Comparison with Presidential Experiences
III. Oversight in Contemporary European Forms of Government
IV. The Influence of the Executive-Parties Dimension
V. Oversight Serving the Requirements of Executive Accountability
VI. The Problem of Enforcement: Comparing Hard and Soft Oversight
3. Instances of Parliamentary Oversight: In Dialogue with Other Parliamentary
Functions
I. Parliamentary Appraisal of Executive Appointments in Government Formation: Oversight or Elective Function?
II. Ex Ante Parliamentary Oversight: Setting the Political Direction
III. The Ex Post Dimension of Parliamentary Oversight: Post-Legislative Scrutiny and the Evaluation of Public Policies
IV. Oversight Through Parliamentary Information: Publicity and Communication
4. Classifying Oversight Tools According to Parliamentary Practice
I. Pairing Oversight Tools and Procedures According to Parliamentary Practice
II. Oversight: A Realm for the Plenary or for Parliamentary Committees?
III. Informative Tools Instrumental to Oversight
IV. Oversight Tools Preceding Government Action
V. Questioning the Government: A Hybrid Oversight Tool
VI. Oversight Tools Following Government Action
5. Parliamentary Oversight in Bicameral Systems: What Role for Upper Houses?
I. Oversight in Symmetric Bicameralism: The Informal Search for Influence by the Italian Senate
II. When Asymmetric Bicameralism Does Not Hinder the Influence Capacity of the Upper House: Oversight by the House of Lords
III. Oversight as a Means of (Administrative) Territorial Influence in the German Bundesrat
IV. Explaining National Variations in Upper Houses' Parliamentary Oversight
PART II: INSTANCES OF PARLIAMENTARY OVERSIGHT
IN SECTORIAL POLICY FIELDS
6. Parliaments in International Affairs: Fostering Democracy Through the Oversight of Government Action
I. Introduction. The Role of Parliaments in International Affairs: Overcoming the Idea of ‘Executive Dominance'
II. How Parliaments Oversee Government Foreign Policy at the
Domestic Level: A Comparative Overview
III. Political Versus Judicial Interpretation of the Executive–Legislative Balance of Powers in International Affairs
IV. The Non-Binding Potential of Parliamentary Oversight in International Affairs
7. Parliamentary Oversight in the EU Constitutional Dimension: The Polycentric
Paradigm
I. Parliamentary Oversight of the EU 'Fragmented' Executive
II. The Oversight Module Centred on the European Parliament
III. Indirect Oversight by National Parliaments and National Forms of Government
IV. Filling the Gaps of Parliamentary Oversight Through Interparliamentary Cooperation
V. The Hybridisation of Parliamentary Oversight in the EU
8. Parliamentary Oversight of Budget: A Trade-Off with Budgetary
Decision-Making?
I. How Parliaments Relate to Budgeting
II. Parliamentary Oversight of Budget: Alternative Models
III. The Impact of European Economic Governance
IV. The Trade-Off between Budgetary Decision-Making and Oversight: Unchallenged by the European Parliament
9. Conclusions: From Law-Making to Oversight? A Concrete Perspective
for European Parliamentarism
Bibliography
Index