Undersøgelse af parlamentsmandatet baseret på svar på IPU-spørgeskema fra 134 parlamenter. Svarene er sammenlignet systematisk med de respektive forfatninger, lovgivning og parlamentsforretningsordener.

Notwithstanding its contemporary critics, political representation remains at the core of democratic politics. Based on a comparative research project that gathered data from observations, surveys, experiments and expert interviews, this book examines the process and the quality of political representation in France and Germany from a dual perspective. First, it analyzes MPs’ behavior during their district activities. Second, it investigates the perceptions and evaluations of the represented, the French and German citizens. In ten chapters different facets of MPs’ activities as well as citizens’ attitudes are comparatively investigated. The book is relevant for Politics scholars and practitioners at national parliaments to better understand representative democracies, and it may also contribute to improve representation itself.

This bold venture into political theory and comparative politics combines traditional concerns about democracy with modern analytical methods. It asks how contemporary democracies work, an essential stage in asking how they can be justified. An answer to both questions is found in the idea of the median mandate. The voter in the middle - the voice of the majority - empowers the centre party in parliament to translate his or her preferences into public policy. The median mandateprovides a unified theory of democracy - pluralist, consensus, majoritarian, liberal, and populist - by replacing each qualified 'vision' with an integrated account of how representative institutions work. The unified theory is put to the test with comprehensive cross-national evidence covering 21democracies from 1950 through to 1995.This exciting book will be of interest to specialists and general readers alike, representing as it does a reaffirmation of traditional democratic practice in an uncertain and threatening world.Comparative Politics is a series for students and teachers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. The General Editors are Max Kaase, Professor of Political Science, Vice President and Dean, School of Humanities and Social Science, International University, Bremen, Germany; and Kenneth Newton, Professor of Comparative Politics, University of Southampton. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for PoliticalResearch.

The Handbook provides a broad introduction to Swedish politics, and how Sweden's political system and policies have evolved over the past few decades.

Legislatures are arguably the most important political institution in modern democracies. The Oxford Handbook of Legislative Studies, written by some of the most distinguished legislative scholars in political science, provides a comprehensive and up-to-date description and critical assessment of the state of the art in this key area.

Abstract: This article analyzes the relations between political parties and parliament, and the specific issue of the parliamentary mandate. It examines the issue of the increasing influence of political parties and how this causes the weakening of modern parliaments, and also changes the nature of the parliamentary mandate from a free to an almost imperative mandate. We focus on the specific instruments political parties have developed to establish and maintain full control over their representatives. We look into the specific experience of Montenegro and Serbia and the way these countries have changed their political system during the transition from communism. Among other factors that influence the weakening of the parliament, we focus primarily on the electoral system. The current proportional electoral system (proportional with closed lists) in both countries causes a lack of legitimacy for the members of parliament (MPs), which is why we analyze the effects of an electoral reform in or