ZParl Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen

Parallel to the rise of the Fridays-For-Future-movement in 2018, the German party “Alliance 90/The Greens” was swept up in a wave of success . The influx of members and the electoral successes achieved are attributed to the professional...

Taking a proposal of a parliamentary group in the Landtag of the Saarland as a starting point, the paper discusses pros and cons as well as legal options to criminalize bribery in the context of party meetings that select candidates for general...

Inquiry committees are the opposition’s sharpest sword in the German Bundestag . In con- trast to the European Parliament, the U .S . Congress, and other international examples, however, TV or Internet transmissions of witness hearings are not...

Appointing vice presidents to the German state parliaments, as well as to the Bundestag, has come under greater public attention since the AfD has gained parliamentary representation . The AfD has often complained that it is prevented from...

The German voting advice application “Wahl-Kompass” allows the positioning of political parties in a political landscape with the two dimensions “conservative-traditional versus progressive ecological” and “redistribution versus personal...

Demands for allowing audio and visual recordings during sessions of parliamentary inquiry committees to ensure better public information have been brought forward not only since the introduction of legislation on these commission some 20 years ago ....

Tue 2022 legislative elections in France saw a new political player: NUPES, who won about a fourth of the National Assembly seats. Tuis ad hoc alliance of the four main parties of the left-wing political spectrum (socialists, greens, communists,...

President Emmanuel Macron hesitated about his renewed presidential candidacy. According to the polls, an election victory in the second round against his fiercest rival, the far-right Marine Le Pen, was by no means certain. Tue election campaign was...

Tue 2022 state election in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) was dominated by problems that lay beyond the reach of state politics: the climate crisis, Covid-19, the war in Eastern Europe, and inflation rates. Regarding state issues, many voters rated...

Tue SPD fully lived up to its role as favorite and won the Saarland state election in March 2022 with an absolute majority of the seats in the state parliament. As has often been the case in recent state elections, the popularity of top candidates...

Following the 2017 state election, Schleswig-Holstein had been governed by a stable coalition of the CDU, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, and the FDP, known as “Jamaica” coalition. However, what the state parliament would look like after the elections...

Between July 4th, 2021 and July 4th, 2022, a Constitutional Convention met in Santiago de Chile to draft a new constitution for the Republic of Chile. Tue convening of this body was preceded by social unrest in October 2019, which fundamentally...

Not even two years after his electoral victory, US President Joe Biden finds himself in a rather dire position. While irritated allies and the humiliating Taliban takeover of Afghanistan taint his foreign policy record, his domestic agenda has been...

Tuis article extends the existing documentation of interest group activities in the commit- tees of the German Bundestag for the 18th election period. Tue documentation goes beyond previous ones by including sub-committees and taking into account...

Representative surveys among local councilors in North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, and Lower Saxony showed the enormous effect the Covid-19 pandemic had on local politics as well as the demand for more alternative digital participatory instruments....

In April 2022, the electoral reform commission, implemented by the Bundestag, started to work. Tue commission’s essential task is to develop proposals suited to prevent the Bundes- tag’s augmentation. Tue parties CDU and CSU have suggested...

For decades, political parties have accompanied and pushed for the integration of the European Union. Now, it is time for the next step: pan-European parties. Although they do not exist yet they could represent the direct strand of legitimacy best...

Cross-Party decision-making is an exception in the parliamentary culture of the Federal Republic of Germany, since the governmental majority and the opposition face each other in parliament due to their functional difference . The article examines...