ZParl Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen

The failure of the FDP to re-enter parliament after the 2013 Bundestag elections as well asthe influx of over more than 200 new parliamentarians led to a shift in the occupationalstructure of the German Bundestag. Using Adalbert Hess’...

In the fall of 2009 a hardly known form of policy advice received public attention: Foryears, a number of federal ministries contracted law firms with the drafting of bills. Althoughconcerns have been raised about democratic legitimacy and the...

The German Bundestag is considered as being among the national parliaments with themost extensive “war powers” worldwide. However, its influence on decisions about the foreigndeployment of the German armed forces, the Bundeswehr, is not only...

Iceland experienced a hard financial crisis, but could employ a rather successful crisis management.The country, however, generated international admiration because of the deliberativeconstitutional reform attempt, which finally shipwrecked...

Turkey’s accession to the European Union is a contentious issue and led to explicitly controversialdebates in the German Bundestag during the period of the red-green coalitionbetween 1998 und 2005. The historical and moral responsibility as well...

The concept of European elections as second-order national elections serves as the basis fordeveloping seven hypotheses about the orientations as well as the turnout and the electoralbehaviour at European elections in comparison to national...

Home Affairs is one of the most controversial policy fields both within nation states andthe European Union. Moreover, the NSA affair has led to an increasing awareness of internalsecurity based on information and communication technology (ICT)....

The dispute about the use of referenda has intensified and meanwhile takes centre stagewith the increasing problems of policy intermediation and implementation. It is about thealleged democratic deficit of the German representative political...

Two central questions arise with the first being how national parties and interest groups,which have in common the ambition to influence their national state on behalf of theircitizens, operate and change at the EU level. The second question is...

The election to the European Parliament (EP) in Germany was not only influenced by thesuccessful appearance of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), a right-wing populist andeuro-sceptical party. It was also influenced by the modification of the...

Since 1968 Members of the German Bundestag (MdB) are entitled to old-age benefits, which since 1977 are the equivalent to those of civil servants. In 2011, the “Independent Commission on Legal Issues of Members of Parliament” (Unabhängige...

Members of the German Bundestag and members of the state legislatures (Landesparlamente) receive a salary for their mandate (so-called remuneration). They are also entitled to so-called Members’ allowances (Amtsausstattung), which consist of...

In the election to the Bavarian state parliament on September 2013, Premier Horst Seehofer and his Christian Social Union (CSU) won 47.7 percent of the total vote. They are once again able to form a majority/one-party government in the Bavarian...

Although Hesse had left the brief interregnum of so-called “Hessian peculiarities” after the 2009 state elections and returned to a bloc-based black-yellow government of CDU and FDP, the legislative term was nevertheless turbulent. Roland Koch...

The referendum of the SPD on the coalition agreement between CDU/CSU and SPD for the Federal Government in the autumn 2012 raises several questions. Should it also be used on other matters and in other political parties? After the Federal...