ZParl Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen

On the 19th December 2023, the verdict of the BVerfG on the Berlin Chaos election of 26th September 2021 was issued . The verdict only refers to the Bundestag election, which took place on that day together with the elections to the Berlin House of...

Berlin’s state parliament approved of a comprehensive reform of its question rights at the start of 2014: So-called big questions were abolished, and the oral questions were reduced to a spontaneous form . Since then, there have been only simple...

The right-wing party AfD was successful in being re-elected to the German Bundestag in the year 2021, even though – compared with the previous parliamentary elections (2017) – with a smaller vote share (10 .3 percent instead of 12 .6 percent)...

The election of the mayor of the city of Kassel in March 2023 was special in two respects: firstly, in the first round of voting, a candidate from the SPD ran against the incumbent mayor, who was also a member of the SPD but was running as an...

The Bavarian election on October 8, 2023, has led to a shift to the right . The Free Voters and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) are the election winners and are once again making significant gains compared to 2018 . The parties of the Berlin...

The Hesse state election on October 8, 2023, took place in a polarized political context that was characterized by a decreasing support for the parties of the federal government and the several implications of Russia’s attack on Ukraine for German...

The 8th state parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has 79 members in six parlia- mentary party groups, which are represented with the following numbers of seats: SPD 34, AfD 14, CDU 12, Left Party 9, Greens and FDP with 5 each . A dispute...

The relationship between federalism and parliamentary democracy was long considered to be susceptible to functional problems, and thus in parts incompatible . Accordingly, cross- level political coordination, which is necessary for federalism in...

The majority of German state parliaments offer simulation games for adolescents . These events are designed to teach young people about the processes of intra-parliamentary will formation and decision-making . This article presents a survey of the...

In empirical research on political representation, the congruence between the attitudes of voters and those elected is considered a good measure of political responsiveness . Using the example of four selected political orientations, this article...

Italy has a thirty-year tradition of populist parties, starting with the foundation of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI) in 1993 . Since then, the Italian parliament has counted anoth- er three major populist parties – Northern League (Lega...

The parliamentary culture in the three levels of government in Switzerland (federal, can- tonal, and municipal) differs in various ways from the parliamentary customs and practices in other European countries, particularly in Germany and Austria ....

The political system of Switzerland is a decentralized, federalist, multiparty-system in which power-sharing plays an important role . The separation of powers is strong, so that Parlia- ment (Federal Assembly) assumes its functions independently...

The cantonal parliaments were an important organ of the liberal revolution in the 19th century to democratize Switzerland . There was even a parliamentary supremacy in the cen- tury before last . But what has become of this powerful position? For...

Communes form the third tier of the Swiss state structure and are organized differently from a political perspective . Parliaments are one possibility . In some Cantons, parliaments are the mandatory organizational form, while other Cantons lack the...

From 2020 to 2023, Spain was governed for the first time since the Second Republic (1931 – 1939) by a coalition of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) and the left-wing alliance Unidas Podemos (UP) . Despite, or perhaps because of, their...

The parliamentary and presidential elections in Turkey of May 14, 2023, were considered crucial . Contrary to pollsters’ predictions, the expected swing did not materialize, and the AKP secured an absolute parliamentary majority through a...

Like (almost) all other areas of life, the parliamentary public sphere is also being signifi- cantly changed by digitalization . Many work processes benefit from digital possibilities, but it is precisely the “social” networks that contribute to...