TY - JOUR A1 - Wegmann, Simone A1 - Evequoz, Aurelien T1 - Legislative functions in newly democratised countries: the use of parliamentary questions in Kenya and Zambia JF - The Journal of Legislative Studies N2 - A large literature exists examining the functions of legislatures and the behaviour of MPs in established democracies. But little efforts have been made to observe how MPs behave in new democratic assemblies. This article seeks to address this shortcoming through an exploration of the use of parliamentary questions in two new democracies: Kenya and Zambia. Analysing an innovative dataset we offer one of the few attempts to directly measure legislative behaviour in new democracies. We examine how the factors found in the literature on parliamentary questions in liberal democracies react to this shift of context and to what degree legislatures in these countries fulfil their core functions. Results show that opposition MPs are not necessarily among the most active but that electoral incentives such as the margin by which MPs have won their seats or the number of voters they represent explain the use and content of parliamentary questions. KW - Parliamentary questions KW - new democracies KW - opposition KW - Sub-Sahara Africa Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2019.1697057 SN - 1357-2334 SN - 1743-9337 VL - 25 IS - 4 SP - 443 EP - 465 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - GEN A1 - Wegmann, Simone T1 - Policy-making power of opposition players BT - a comparative institutional perspective T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - The organisation of legislative chambers and the consequences of parliamentary procedures have been among the most prominent research questions in legislative studies. Even though democratic elections not only lead to the formation of a government but also result in an opposition, the literature has mostly neglected oppositions and their role in legislative chambers. This paper proposes to fill this gap by looking at the legislative organisation from the perspective of opposition players. The paper focuses on the potential influence of opposition players in the policy-making process and presents data on more than 50 legislative chambers. The paper shows considerable variance of the formal power granted to opposition players. Furthermore, the degree of institutionalisation of opposition rights is connected to electoral systems and not necessarily correlated with other institutional characteristics such as regime type or the size of legislative chambers. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe - 187 KW - Legislative organisation KW - parliamentary opposition KW - power KW - policy-making Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-566516 SN - 1867-5808 IS - 1 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wegmann, Simone T1 - Policy-making power of opposition players BT - a comparative institutional perspective JF - The Journal of Legislative Studies N2 - The organisation of legislative chambers and the consequences of parliamentary procedures have been among the most prominent research questions in legislative studies. Even though democratic elections not only lead to the formation of a government but also result in an opposition, the literature has mostly neglected oppositions and their role in legislative chambers. This paper proposes to fill this gap by looking at the legislative organisation from the perspective of opposition players. The paper focuses on the potential influence of opposition players in the policy-making process and presents data on more than 50 legislative chambers. The paper shows considerable variance of the formal power granted to opposition players. Furthermore, the degree of institutionalisation of opposition rights is connected to electoral systems and not necessarily correlated with other institutional characteristics such as regime type or the size of legislative chambers. KW - Legislative organisation KW - parliamentary opposition KW - power KW - policy-making Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2020.1843233 SN - 1357-2334 SN - 1743-9337 VL - 28 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 25 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wegmann, Simone T1 - Sven Siefken und Hilmar Rommetvedt (Hrsg.). 2021. Parliamentary committees in the policy process JF - Zeitschrift für vergleichende Politikwissenschaft Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s12286-022-00553-5 SN - 1865-2646 SN - 1865-2654 VL - 16 IS - 4 SP - 769 EP - 772 PB - VS Verl. für Sozialwissenschaften CY - Wiesbaden ER - TY - BOOK A1 - Wegmann, Simone T1 - The power of opposition BT - how legislative organization influences democratic consolidation N2 - Proposing a novel way to look at the consolidation of democratic regimes, this book presents important theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of democratic consolidation, legislative organization, and public opinion. Theoretically, Simone Wegmann brings legislatures into focus as the main body representing both winners and losers of democratic elections. Empirically, Wegmann shows that the degree of policy-making power of opposition players varies considerably between countries. Using survey data from the CSES, the ESS, and the LAPOP and systematically analyzing more than 50 legislatures across the world and the specific rights they grant to opposition players during the policy-making process, Wegmann demonstrates that neglecting the curial role of the legislature in a democratic setting can only lead to an incomplete assessment of the importance of institutions for democratic consolidation. The Power of Opposition will be of great interest to scholars of comparative politics, especially those working on questions related to legislative organization, democratic consolidation, and/or public opinion. Y1 - 2022 SN - 978-0-367-43731-2 SN - 978-1-032-28245-9 SN - 978-1-003-00536-0 SN - 978-1-000-59828-5 SN - 978-1-000-59832-2 U6 - https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003005360 PB - Routledge CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tuttnauer, Or A1 - Wegmann, Simone T1 - Voting for Votes BT - opposition parties' legislative activity and electoral outcomes JF - American political science review N2 - Scholars frequently expect parties to act strategically in parliament, hoping to affect their electoral fortunes. Voters assumingly assess parties by their activity and vote accordingly. However, the retrospective voting literature looks mostly at the government's outcomes, leaving the opposition understudied. We argue that, for opposition parties, legislative voting constitutes an effective vote-seeking activity as a signaling tool of their attitude toward the government. We suggest that conflictual voting behavior affects voters through two mechanisms: as a signal of opposition valence and as means of ideological differentiation from the government. We present both aggregate- and individual-level analyses, leveraging a dataset of 169 party observations from 10 democracies and linking it to the CSES survey data of 27,371 respondents. The findings provide support for the existence of both mechanisms. Parliamentary conflict on legislative votes has a general positive effect on opposition parties' electoral performance, conditional on systemic and party-specific factors. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055422000338 SN - 0003-0554 SN - 1537-5943 VL - 116 IS - 4 SP - 1357 EP - 1374 PB - Cambridge Univ. Press CY - New York ER -