The Politics of Parliamentary Procedure

这个项目将分析英国下议院改变议会规则的过程，以评估这一过程在多大程度上--以及为什么--受到政府的控制。议会规则具有重要的政治后果，因为它们塑造了议会的运作方式，并在议员之间分配权力和资源。除其他事项外，这些规则构成了立法、政治辩论和政府问责的过程。然而，议会程序并不是一成不变的。相反，议员们往往能够建立新的规则并修改现有的规则。因此，许多学者试图解释议会规则是如何选择和改变的。一个广泛存在的论点是，议会规则的选择过程由政府主导。这是关于英国议会的常见说法，也是对其他立法机构进行比较研究时的常见假设。这些主张很重要，因为它们表明，各国政府可能会重写议会规则，以符合自己的利益。这可能会限制议员们仔细审查和质疑部长们的机会，或者提出他们自己的政策选择。此外，这不仅仅是一种抽象的假设性担忧--近年来，在英国脱欧和疫情期间，英国多次批评政府对议会的运作拥有太多控制权。然而，现有的关于这一主题的学术工作存在一些局限性。最重要的是，很少有著作系统地描述和解释改变议会程序的过程。比较文学和以英国为中心的文学都是如此。一些量化工作分析了改革的时机或跨国程序的变化。其他定性研究也探索了改革的具体情节。但我们缺乏一个清晰的总体图景，即政府控制议会规则的程度、原因和后果。因此，该项目将评估政府对英国下议院程序的控制的程度、来源和后果，并提出潜在的改革途径。我将通过三个具体目标来实现这一目标。首先，我将系统地描述英国下议院的程序变化过程是如何展开的，开发和测试对这些模式的解释，并确定它们的后果。为此，我将总结19世纪以来的正式改革模式，并利用访谈和委员会报告更详细地分析自2005年以来的改革进程。这种结合将使我能够探索政府的角色是如何随着时间的推移而演变的，以及该系统目前是如何运行的。第二，我将概述在更广泛的议会民主政体中审议程序改革的正式规则。这将使我能够了解组织这一重要政治进程的各种选择。第三，我将把前两个组成部分结合起来，为英国提出切实可行的改革建议，概述下议院如何确保它真正能够选择自己的内部规则。这个项目将带来许多好处。首先，它将有助于更彻底地了解英国议会规则的选择和修改方式，从而揭示哪些行为者主导了这一过程，他们为什么这样做，以及后果是什么。其次，它将帮助政策制定者、研究人员和公民了解英国改变议会程序的制度可能如何改革，提供有关当前方法如何运作的证据，以及哪些替代方法可用。最后，该项目将为其他希望了解英国和其他地方议会改革进程的研究人员提供有价值的新数据，从而有助于探索有关民主机构如何组织的进一步重要问题。

This project will analyse the process by which parliamentary rules are changed in the UK House of Commons, to assess how far - and why - this process is controlled by the government.Parliamentary rules have important political consequences, because they shape how parliament operates and distribute power and resources between MPs. Among other things, these rules structure the processes of law-making, political debate, and government accountability. However, parliamentary procedures are not set in stone. Instead, MPs are often able to establish new rules and amend existing ones. As a result, many academics have tried to explain how parliamentary rules are chosen and changed.A widespread existing argument is that the process of choosing parliamentary rules is dominated by the government. This is a frequent claim about the UK parliament, and a common assumption in comparative studies of other legislatures. Such claims are important, because they suggest that governments may rewrite parliaments' rules to suit their own interests. This could limit opportunities for MPs to scrutinise and challenge ministers, or to present their own policy alternatives. Moreover, this isn't just an abstract hypothetical concern - recent years have seen much criticism in the UK, during Brexit and the pandemic, that the government has too much control over how parliament operates.However, existing academic work on this subject has a number of limitations. Most importantly, very little work systematically describes and explains the process by which parliamentary procedures are changed. This is true of both comparative and UK-focused literature. Some quantitative work analyses the timing of reforms or cross-national procedural variation. Other qualitative studies have explored specific episodes of reform. But we lack a clear overall picture of exactly how far, why, and with what consequences, the government controls parliamentary rules.This project will thus assess the extent, sources, and consequences of government control over procedures in the UK House of Commons, and suggest potential avenues for reform. I will pursue this aim through three specific objectives. First, I will systematically describe how the process of procedural change unfolds in the UK House of Commons, develop and test an explanation for these patterns, and identify their consequences. I will do this by summarizing formal reform patterns since the nineteenth-century, and by using interviews and committee reports for a more detailed analysis of reform processes since 2005. This combination will allow me to explore how the government's role has evolved over time, as well as how the system currently operates. Second, I will establish an overview of the formal rules governing the consideration of procedural reforms in a wider set of parliamentary democracies. This will allow me to understand the variety of options that exist for organising this important political process. Third, I will draw together the previous two components to produce practical reform proposals for the UK, outlining how the House of Commons might ensure it is genuinely able to choose its own internal rules.This project will have a number of benefits. First, it will help provide a more thorough understanding of the way in which parliamentary rules are chosen and changed in the UK, shedding light on which actors dominate this process, why they do so, and with what consequences. Second, it will help policymakers, researchers, and citizens understand how the UK's system for changing parliamentary procedures might be reformed, by providing evidence about how the current approach works, and what alternative approaches are available. Finally, the project will provide valuable new data for other researchers who want to understand the process of parliamentary reform in the UK and elsewhere, thus allowing exploration of further important questions about how democratic institutions are organised.