ZParl Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen

The 2024 U.S. elections did not only produce with Donald Trump a new (and also old) president, at the same time the entire House of Representatives as well as a third of the Senate were re-elected. The Republicans managed to keep their thin majority...

Together with the banning of political parties and the destruction of parliamentarism, National Socialism transformed the referendum, ostensibly to strengthen the people, into an instrument of approval democracy without the opportunity for...

Around 1970, the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 in numerous countries in the western world. However, previous studies dedicated to the voting age were limited to a national framework of analysis and neglected international developments. Using...

Donald Trump not only won a convincing victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, but also managed to attract a large number of voters outside the Republican core electorate. The article discusses this development with a special focus on...

Lawmaking requires specific skills that must be learned and taught – no one is born a policy maker and legal drafter. The state acts in central areas through lawmaking, and every technical flaw causes enormous socio-economic costs. In order to...

This article examines the effects of the new electoral law for the 2025 federal election, in particular the problem of “uncovered constituencies”. The new second-vote coverage procedure means that direct candidates only receive a mandate if...