ZParl Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen

The Rules of Procedure of the German Parliaments grant parliamentary parties the right to request a parliamentary hearing. Is it unconstitutional to violate this right? The State Constitutional Court of Saxony decided that it is indeed...

Petitions against measures by official authorities are usually filed by individuals or groups to the responsible departments or parliaments . These requests or complaints are examined mostly without public debate by the petitions committee or the...

In 1985, German expatriates were given the right to vote in parliamentary elections . In 2012, the election law governing this right was challenged before the German Constitu- tional Court, which ruled that, among others, a mandatory residence...

Italian party pluralism is rooted in its constitutional history . On the basis of its three phases (1949 - 1994; 1994 - 2013; since 2013), both the relationship between electoral law and political parties and the ‘serious’ transformation of the...

The general elections on June 26, 2016 were the second elections within seven months . Already on December 20, 2015, the Spanish citizens were asked to elect a new government . The elections in December can be seen as a political watershed, which...

Since 2005, the German Bundestag offers the possibility to submit individual petitions through the use of an Internet form . In 2009, following a pilot experiment, it established the category of “public petitions” for issues of common interest,...

The electoral success of the new party „NEOS - Das Neue Österreich und Liberales Fo- rum“ has consequences for the Austrian party system . Drawing on data from the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES) that cover the political supply side...

Germany’s two-vote system - effective at the federal level since 1953 and adopted by most of the 16 states thereafter - shows several deficits . For instance, due to the fact that the electorate does not base its electoral choice on the local...

The German minority is concentrated in the area of Opole Silesia and is an important po- litical factor in this region . The Germans regularly gain many seats in the municipality, city and county councils, mostly in rural areas in the Eastern part...

In the campaigns prior to the election in Hesse in 2013 the expansion of the Frankfurt Airport was one of the dominating issues. It was also considered to be the main obstacle for the then emerging option of a coalition of the CDU and the Greens in...

The article is concerned with learning how the research services of German parliaments support members of parliaments in carrying out their duties in an independent and professional manner. Starting point of the analysis is the statement that the...

The article analyses the mayoral and district administrator’s elections in Saxony from 1994 to 2015. In these elections the Christian Democratic Party (CDU) won nearly all mandates with only a few exceptions and currently holds all district...

The analysis of voting behaviour - and particularly the reasons for the increasing vote share of the National Socialists (NSDAP) - in the Weimar Republic and the socio-structural composition of the electorate of the party have been scrutinized by...