Dramas at Westminster (eBook)

Select committees and the quest for accountability

Marc Geddes (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2019
200 Seiten
Manchester University Press (Verlag)
978-1-5261-3682-4 (ISBN)

Infos

This is a book that provokes a debate about accountability in the House of Commons. Based on unprecedented access, it reveals different ways that MPs and officials interpret scrutiny. Some of their approaches are more conducive to effective scrutiny than others, which raises interesting questions about the effectiveness of Parliament.

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Based on unprecedented access to the UK Parliament, this book challenges how we understand and think about accountability between government and Parliament.

Drawing on three months of research in Westminster, and over forty-five interviews, this book focuses on the everyday practices of Members of Parliament and officials to reveal how parliamentarians perform their scrutiny roles. Some MPs become specialists while others act as lone wolves; some are there to try to defend their party while others want to learn about policy. Amongst these different styles, chairs of committees have to try to reconcile these interpretations and either act as committee-orientated catalysts or attempt to impose order as leadership-orientated chieftains. All of this pushes and pulls scrutiny in competing directions, and tells us that accountability depends on individual beliefs, everyday practices and the negotiation of dilemmas. In this way, MPs and officials create a drama or spectacle of accountability and use their performance on the parliamentary stage to hold government to account.

Dramas at Westminster: Select committees and the quest for accountability offers the most up-to-date and detailed research on committee practices in the House of Commons, following a range of reforms since 2010.

Autor

Marc Geddes is Lecturer in British Politics at the University of Edinburgh

Inhalt

1 The quest for accountability
2 Perspectives on Parliament
3 Performing scrutiny
4 Catalysts versus chieftains
5 Hidden servants
6 Scenes of scrutiny
7 Building webs of scrutiny
8 Dramas at Westminster

Annex: Methodological reflections
References
Index

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 6.12.2019
• Reihe/Serie: Political Ethnography
• Mitarbeit: Herausgeber (Serie): Rod Rhodes
• Zusatzinfo: 8 tables
• Verlagsort: Manchester
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte
• Themenwelt: Recht / Steuern ► EU / Internationales Recht
• Themenwelt: Recht / Steuern ► Öffentliches Recht
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Staat / Verwaltung
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Vergleichende Politikwissenschaften
• Schlagworte: Accountability • British politics • committees • House of Commons • interpretive political science • parliament • scrutiny
• ISBN-10: 1-5261-3682-1 / 1526136821
• ISBN-13: 978-1-5261-3682-4 / 9781526136824