From Georgia to Indonesia: Legal frameworks and meaningful public participation

8 November 2023

Speakers: Lumina Mentari (Expert Staff, The House of Representatives, Republic of Indonesia); Nanuka Kruashvili (representative of the Georgian Young Lawyer’s Association, Georgia)

Chair: Dr Sarah Moulds, University of South Australia and member of the IPEN Executive Team

This Public Engagement Hub seminar, jointly organised by the IPU and IPEN, will explore the crucial role of legal frameworks for public participation in the work of parliament and delve into the concept of “meaningful engagement”. 

There is great diversity among political parliaments, laws, and practices concerning public participation. Some countries rely on established practices, while others have enshrined public participation in the legal framework.

The existence of legal safeguards for public engagement, among other things, enables courts to define the essence of “meaningful engagement,” setting a standard that makes public participation a substantive reality.

The webinar will draw upon a comparative analysis of legal provisions from 30 countries about the role of laws in fostering effective public engagement in parliamentary proceedings. 

Two national examples will go further into the issue. A distinguished member of parliament from Georgia will discuss the role of constitutional and legal provisions in securing public engagement, while a representative from the parliament of Indonesia will share insights into a landmark constitutional court judgement that concerns the meaningful public engagement in the legislative process.

The seminar will take place on Zoom and is open to anyone with an interest in public engagement with parliaments.

It will will be presented in English. Translation will be available from/to French and Spanish.

This seminar is jointly organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN). The event is part of a series of webinars hosted by the Public Engagement Hub.

Find out more and register here.

Special Issue roundtable on ‘Public Engagement in the Work of Parliaments: Global Practitioner Perspectives’

Screenshots of speakers talking on MS Teams

25 October 2023

A Special Issue of the Journal of Legislative Studies on the theme of Public Engagement in the Work of Parliaments: Global Practitioner Perspectives — featuring a range of papers by IPEN members — has recently been published.

Co-edited by IPEN members Alex Prior and Maya Kornberg, the Special Edition is based on research conducted for the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s latest Global Parliamentary Report on Public Engagement in the Work of Parliament (co-published with the UNDP).

This IPEN roundtable event will bring together some of the contributors to the Special Edition, who will share their research and engage in discussion around some of the key themes and issues featured in their journal papers. They will be joined by a representative from the IPU.

Speakers include: Tamar Chugoshvili (Inter-Parliamentary Union); Cristina Leston-Bandeira (University of Leeds); Temitayo Odeyemi (University of Leeds); Christine Sheldon (University of Oxford); Sven T. Siefken (Federal University of Applied Administrative Sciences, Germany)

Co-Chairs: Alex Prior (London South Bank University) and Maya Kornberg (New York University).

This online event is open to all members of the International Parliament Engagement Network. Find out more about the network.

Cristina Leston-Bandeira features in Committee Corridor podcast on parliamentary petitions

Petitions Committee sign on a wooden door

Committee Corridor is a pilot podcast series from the House of Commons select committees, which aims to open a door into the world of scrutiny through the lens of some of the UK’s most pressing concerns.

Hosted by select committee chairs, each episode features an insight interview with a leading figure combined with updates from MPs on the work of their different select committees across Parliament.

In July, Cristina Leston-Bandeira (Chair of the International Parliament Engagement Network and Professor of Politics at the University of Leeds) took part in a UK Parliament Committee Corridor podcast exploring what happens to parliamentary petitions.

Around a quarter of the UK’s adult population have signed a petition to Parliament, as a way to alert Members of Parliament to concerns that matter to them and try to make their voices heard.

Since launching eight years ago, more than 30,000 petitions have been created on the UK Parliament e-petitions site, attracting more than 110 million signatures. 350 of them have been debated by MPs.

“Around a quarter of the UK’s adult population have signed a petition to Parliament.”

UK Parliament website

Hosted by Catherine McKinnell MP (then Chair of the Petitions Committee in the House of Commons), the podcast looked at how the process works and how petitions can make a difference.

Discussing their experience of petitioning were campaigner Andy Airey, one of the 3 Dads Walking who petitioned the UK Parliament to make suicide prevention a compulsory part of the school curriculum, and Nick Fletcher MP, the Member of the Petitions Committee who opened the debate on Andy’s petition in the House of Commons.

The podcast explores Andy Airey’s experiences of petitioning and the wider area of campaigning to affect change. Describing themselves as ‘accidental campaigners’, 3 Dads Walking – Andy, Mike Palmer and Tim Owen – came together to raise awareness of suicide prevention and of Papyrus (a charity dedicated to the prevention of suicide and promotion of mental health and wellbeing in young people).

Andy describes how they set up their petition, having been advised that it would be a useful tool to raise awareness, and talks of the activities they undertook as part of their campaign to get the message out to engage others with the issue. He highlights the challenges of needing to get at least 10,000 signatures to get a response from government and 100,000 for it to be considered for debate.

Nick Fletcher MP further discusses how petitions can raise awareness of serious issues and how they can be used as a springboard for further work. He outlines how the UK Parliament debated the petition in March 2023 and the outcome, which included a review of the Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) curriculum.

Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira works on how parliaments engage the public, particularly through petitions. In the podcast, she sets out why petitions are important and how the UK compares to other countries and legislatures.

Leston-Bandeira says of the importance of petitions:

“Petitions are one of the easiest ways to get involved in politics. So, even just that should show why petitions are so important for our societies as a way of people bringing in issues, things that they really care about.

“It doesn’t take a lot of effort and they’re easy to collect, to go round and get your friends and people you know.

“Another reason is that it becomes a key channel to bring issues to Parliament that MPs may not be aware of. MPs often have a very good close relationship with their constituents – they’ll have issues brought to them, but they don’t necessarily get that overall picture of how much is it affecting constituents at the national level.

“It’s what we often refer to as the fire alarm function of petitions to bring those matters to Parliament. A really good example of that was a petition that we had on maternity care during lockdown. This petition was asking for an extension of maternity leave in light of the circumstances created by covid-19, but it led to a much wider inquiry by the Committee.

“Through a series of public engagement initiatives, a number of unpredicted consequences from the rapidly arranged regulations to deal with covid-19 were unveiled. These meant that, for instance, it was easier for a new father to go down to the pub than to accompany their partner to hospital when their baby was born. The actions from the Committee would eventually lead the government to amend their regulations in the second lockdown wave.

“Petitions are also a way of the citizens shaping the parliamentary agenda and bringing issues outside of party politics that citizens care about to Parliament.”

“If the people do not understand the process, they can’t necessarily be involved and put on the pressure at the right moments.”

Cristina Leston-Bandeira

Cristina outlines four key challenges for people looking to use a parliamentary petition to bring about change, based on her research:

“One of the challenges is what I would refer to as democracy literacy, in that a lot of people do not necessarily understand how Parliament works or the parliamentary processes associated with petitions. If the people do not understand the process, they can’t necessarily be involved and put on the pressure at the right moments.

“Another challenge is IT literacy or digital poverty.

“And then there’s a process of making your petition matter – achieving high thresholds of signatures is not necessarily that easy. People need campaigning skills that they may not necessarily have, so to get noticed amidst the thousands and thousands of other petitions is actually quite difficult.

“I would say the final challenge is about generating the campaign around the petition. I often say the petition itself is just a hook: the petition itself doesn’t make a change. It’s what you do with the petition, how you campaign with it.

“And that’s why the process associated with the petition is so important. But again, it’s a challenge for someone who’s not necessarily used to doing campaigning.”

After highlighting some of the many frustrations that citizens have with the petitions process, Cristina wraps up the podcast with some suggestions for how to improve things – specifically around strengthening the understanding about petitioning and the processes involved, and better integration with other parliamentary business.

Listen to the full podcast on the House of Commons website.

About Cristina Leston-Bandeira

Cristina Leston-Bandeira is Chair of the International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN) and a Professor of Politics in the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds. She has conducted research on Parliaments for nearly 30 years. Her research focuses on the relationship between Parliament and citizens, particularly public and digital engagement.

Images

Courtesy of Cristina Leston-Bandeira

Article published 27 September 2023

The development of public engagement as a core institutional role for parliaments

Group of people

A research paper co-authored by International Parliament Engagement Network members Cristina Leston-Bandeira (University of Leeds, UK) and Sven T. Siefken (Federal University of Applied Administrative Sciences, Germany) has been published in The Journal of Legislative Studies.

Public engagement has become a noticeable activity for parliaments across the world. However, there is a lack of understanding of its role despite considerable developments in scholarly work on public engagement in the sciences and on deliberative and participatory democracy by social scientists. 

The development of public engagement as a core institutional role for parliaments provides an overall contextual understanding of the role of public engagement performed by parliaments today. It draws from the authors’ extensive research in this area, as well as from their practice working closely with practitioners.

The article provides a framework to understand the significance of parliamentary public engagement and to evaluate its effectiveness. It explains how parliamentary public engagement has emerged because of a representational shift in who is doing the representing in parliament and in what is represented, following key societal changes.

Leston-Bandeira and Siefken define parliamentary public engagement, showing the importance of differentiating between the activity, its effects and broader democratic ideals. They identify information and education as the types of engagement activity most developed by parliaments, with much still to do in consultation and participation activities. 

Engaging the public in political decision-making is a key prerequisite for modern democratic governance – and parliaments are in a unique position to carry out this important task. 

Cristina Leston-Bandeira and Sven T. Siefken

The authors conclude the article with a discussion of seven key challenges in developing and implementing effective institutional parliamentary public engagement practices.

Cristina Leston-Bandeira said:

“We wrote this article because public engagement is often talked about, but meaning very different things to different people.

“We thought it was important to unpack the concept of public engagement, to show that it refers to different types of activities, but also to differentiate between the activity and its potential effect.

“We also thought it was important to reflect about why public engagement has become such an important part of 21st century politics; and consequently why it matters so much for parliaments around the world.”

The development of public engagement as a core institutional role for parliaments by Cristina Leston-Bandeira and Sven T. Siefken was published via open access in The Journal of Legislative Studies on 18 July 2023.

About the authors

Cristina Leston-Bandeira is Chair of IPEN and a Professor of Politics in the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds. She has conducted research on Parliaments for nearly 30 years. Her research focuses on the relationship between Parliament and citizens, particularly public and digital engagement.

Sven T. Siefken is a political scientist, political advisor and management consultant. He is Professor of Political Science at the German Federal University of Applied Administrative Sciences and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Parliamentary Research (IParl) in Berlin, Germany. His current work investigates coalition politics, parliamentary committees, parliaments in the pandemic and the future of democratic representation. 

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Source: Pixabay

Article published: 27 September 2023

International Parliament Engagement Network featured in The Parliamentarian

Cartoon drawing of parliament buildings

The International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN) was featured in the latest edition of The Parliamentarian – the quarterly journal of Commonwealth Parliaments published by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA).

The journal features articles, news and legislative reports written by Members of Parliament, parliamentary staff and international experts across the Commonwealth about a wide range of global issues.

Published in June 2023, this year’s second issue focused on parliamentary learning from networks across the Commonwealth. Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira, Dr Sarah Moulds and Dr Elise Uberoi — all key members of IPEN’s Executive Team — were invited to share how the International Parliament Engagement Network offers collegiality and practical support for parliamentary staff.

The article gives an in-depth overview of IPEN, starting with how and why it was created in 2020 as a collaboration between the Centre for Democratic Politics at the University of Leeds and the UK House of Commons Service:

“The growing impetus to connect the people with their Parliaments has generated a flurry of activity and investment in the last few years, both inside and outside of parliamentary settings. Elected Members of Parliament, senior parliamentary staff, community organisations and commentators are all hungry to learn more about what works and why.

“This appetite for evidence-based information about parliamentary public engagement and the need for a safe forum for sharing best practice gave rise to the establishment of the International Parliament Engagement Network (known as ‘IPEN’) and has fuelled its rapid expansion and impact ever since.”

The network now has 300 members from over 50 countries across the world, combining academics, parliamentary officials and representatives of civil society organisations. The article explains how “IPEN provides a virtual network to facilitate research and develop evidence-based resources for parliamentary staff seeking to engage the public with Parliaments’ work”, noting that this is “an area of increased public and academic interest in the context of a decline in trust and a rise in populism and political disengagement.”

Leston-Bandeira, Moulds and Uberoi explore some of the ways parliaments deliver public engagement activities, and highlight some examples from across the globe. It is acknowledged how many do so with only small budgets and teams who may be new to this emerging area, and how this generates a need for lesson learning and sharing resources.

“This is where the International Parliament Engagement Network comes in. IPEN aims to facilitate knowledge exchange and collaboration between officials, civil society representatives and academics from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, to enhance research and practice in parliamentary public engagement.

“IPEN connects its members through the sharing of research and reports, facilitating introductions, discussions and exchanges via MS Teams and hosting professional development seminars online.”

A key focus of the article is on promoting the activities of the network – from pioneering conferences, seminars (some co-hosted with the Inter-Parliamentary Union), workshops, bespoke resources such as a public engagement toolkit and online ‘escape-room’ (Terra Nova), and an online community hosted on MS Teams for further engagement between members.

Drawing of three people holding a sign with the words public engagement toolkit

The article ends with a call for new members to the network:

Membership is open to parliamentary officials from all jurisdictions who are invited to join as individuals (with or without associated membership from their respective institution), in addition to academics and third sector organisations working in the area of public engagement with Parliaments.

“These unique features of IPEN mean that it offers both formal and informal opportunities for people to connect, removing barriers sometimes associated with institutional hierarchy and enabling empowering, supportive professional relationships to form between scholars and practitioners from around the world.”

The Parliamentarian (2023, Volume 104, Issue 2) can be downloaded here from the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association website. You will find the article — International Parliament Engagement Network offers collegiality for members and practical support for Parliaments — on page 142.

A shorter version of the article is also available here on ISSU.

Find out how to join the International Parliament Engagement Network.

About the authors

Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira is Chair of IPEN and a Professor of Politics at the University of Leeds. She has conducted research on Parliaments for nearly 30 years. Her research focuses on the relationship between Parliament and citizens, particularly public and digital engagement.

Dr Sarah Moulds is a senior lecturer at the University of South Australia and an Executive member of IPEN. She is the editor of the Australasian Parliamentary Review and her most recent book ‘Committees of Influence’ explores the important role that Parliamentary Committees play in rights protection in Australia.

Dr Elise Uberoi is a statistics researcher in the UK Parliament and Deputy Chair of IPEN. She works on statistics on elections and the UK Parliament, including public engagement.

Article published 31 August 2023

IPEN promotes the creation of a working on parliamentary public engagement with legislatures in Spain

Photograph of Eva Campos-Domínguez and Cristina Leston-Bandeira

Members of the International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN) have taken the lead on the creation of a new working group to support Spanish speaking parliamentary staff and academics.

Back in March, IPEN organised an online seminar with staff from legislatures in Spain to analyse the situation of parliamentary public engagement in the country.

The seminar brought together staff from various legislatures such as the Parliament of Catalonia, the Basque Parliament, the Parliament of Aragon, the Parliament of Galicia and the Spanish Senate. Representatives of other Spanish parliaments and the coordinators of the Parliamentary Advisory Office in the Congress of Deputies also took part in the meeting.

The seminar was organised by IPEN member Eva Campos-Domínguez (Senior Lecturer in Communication, University of Valladolid, Spain) with input from IPEN Chair Cristina Leston-Bandeira (Professor of Politics at the University of Leeds).

Discussions in the meeting revolved around issues such as where Spanish parliaments stand in terms of parliamentary public engagement, and challenges and difficulties encountered by workers.

At the end of the event, the participants agreed to create a Spanish speaking working group, with the support of the parliaments represented in the seminar, to further promote the development of parliamentary public engagement. All the participants agreed on the need to share experiences on the activities they are carrying out in Spain and to lay the foundations for the elaboration of a guide of good practices.

Plans are now under way for the group to meet again to organise its work and define a strategy for its operation.

Eva Campos-Domínguez said:

“This new group aims to share good practices in Spanish parliaments, share experiences and create a space for training and learning to continue advancing in parliamentary public engagement. We welcome other Spanish speaking parliamentary staff and academics to join us for future meetings.”

Cristina Leston-Bandeira said:

“It is great to see IPEN inspiring staff in these parliaments to learn more about parliamentary public engagement and enhance practice further, and we look forward to learning from their own practices.”

For more information about this new work group, please email Eva Campos-Domínguez at eva.campos@uva.es.

Article published: 21 July 2023

Public petitions: case studies from Nigeria

National Assembly Building with Mace Abuja Nigeria

4 October 2023

Speakers: Hon Uzoma Nkem-Abonta (Chair, Nigerian House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions, 2015–2019); Oke Epia (Founder and Executive Director of OrderPaper, Nigeria)

Chair: Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira (University of Leeds and Chair of IPEN)

This Public Engagement Hub seminar, jointly organised by the IPU and IPEN, will focus on public petitions. Through an in-conversation format, it will address the processes and challenges arising from petitions submitted to the lower chamber of Nigeria’s national legislature.

We will hear from Hon Nkem-Abonta, a four-term member of the House of Representatives (2007–2019), and chair of the House Standing Committee on Public Petitions (2015–2019) about efforts made by his team to enhance and institutionalise public petitions in the context of Nigeria’s emerging legislature. Hon Nkem-Abonta will highlight the challenges in the process and how they worked with civil society, in particular, towards strengthening the process.

From a civil society perspective, we will also hear from an important voice in Nigeria’s civic space, Oke Epia, about initiatives to promote public engagement with parliament through the instrumentality of the petitions process.

The seminar will take place on Zoom and is open to anyone with an interest in public engagement with parliaments.

It will will be presented in English. Translation will be available from/to French and Spanish.

This seminar is jointly organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN). The event is part of a series of webinars hosted by the Public Engagement Hub.

Find out more and register here.

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Image: Nigeria’s National Assembly. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Call for entries for Elgar Encyclopedia of Parliamentary Studies

Selective Focus Photography of White Softbound Book

The Elgar Encyclopedia of Parliamentary Studies is a new project instigated by IPEN members Cristiane Brum Bernardes and Emma Crewe, which aims to work with contributors from around the globe.

The encyclopedia will provide a background of the literature around parliamentary studies and a theoretical introduction, followed by a range of examples of themes, issues, experiences and structures that are central to parliaments.

Funded by the European Research Council, the publication will be Open Access and will be of benefit to academics, students and parliaments round the world.

Experts in legislative studies, ethnography of parliaments, parliamentary communication, digital democracy, political engagement and other related fields are invited to participate in the project by writing entries for the encyclopedia.

The Elgar Encyclopedia of Parliamentary Studies will explore a list of given themes such as ‘parliamentary committees’ and ‘access to information in parliaments’. Some of the topics yet to be covered include ‘inter-parliamentary bodies and monitoring organisations’ and ‘leaders and leadership’.

The idea of the encyclopedia came out of the research Global Ethnographies of Parliaments, Politicians and People: representation, relationships and ruptures (EoPPP), coordinated by Emma Crewe (Professor of Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London). Cristiane Brum Bernardes – who holds a PhD in Political Science and works as a civil servant at the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies – is responsible for the Brazilian team working on the project.

Cristiane and Emma said:

“As much as possible, we would like author representation from across the globe and from different disciplines, whilst acknowledging that we are unlikely to cover all countries and issues comprehensively within the scope of the project.

“We expect the encyclopedia entries to give an overview of exciting scholarship on the topic, with examples from a range of different parliaments. The idea is to give students and researchers interesting approaches for studying and/or researching parliaments rather than just to provide information and knowledge about parliaments/legislatures.

“To accomplish this task, we thought a brief theoretical introduction to the topic would be useful to readers, showing the latest and most exciting research being done in different parts of the world.

“We are putting out a call to others to complement this with some data and insights from their own research, or briefly outline some case studies, narratives or findings to provide some examples and depth.”

If you are interested in contributing to the Elgar Encyclopedia of Parliamentary Studies, please contact Cristiane or Emma directly by email for further guidelines and a list of topics available: cris.brum@gmail.com and emma.crewe@gmail.com.

Article published: 20 July 2023

Teacher training by parliaments: case studies from Brazil and the UK

Presentation slides for Pedagogic Mission at the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies and the UK Parliament Teacher Training Programme

6 September 2023

Speakers: Corina Castro e Silva Braga de Oliveira and Maria Alice Gomes de Oliveira (Coordination of Education for Democracy, Chamber of Deputies, Brazil); David Carr (Senior Teacher Training Specialist, Education and Engagement, UK Parliament)

Chair: Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira (University of Leeds and Chair of IPEN)

This Public Engagement Hub seminar will focus on teacher training by parliaments. It will showcase how two parliaments have tried to amplify their education provision by investing in teacher training programmes.

We will hear about how the Chamber of Deputies in the Brazilian Congress and the UK Parliament have approached teacher training – including the Pedagogic Mission programme in Brazil and the Teacher Ambassador programme in the UK.

The seminar will address the provision they offer specifically aimed at teachers, what works particularly well, and where challenges remain.

The seminar will take place on Zoom and is open to anyone with an interest in public engagement with parliaments.

It will will be presented in English. Translation will be available from/to French and Spanish.

This seminar is jointly organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN). The event is part of a series of webinars hosted by the Public Engagement Hub.

Find out more and register here.

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Presentation slides for Pedagogic Mission at the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies and the UK Parliament Teacher Training Programme.

Youth parliaments

11 July 2023

Speakers: Honourable Emma Theofelus (Parliament of Namibia); Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira (University of Leeds, Chair of IPEN); staff from the IPU

Chair: Derek Dignam (Head of Communications, Houses of the Oireachtas, Ireland and IPEN Executive Team)

This Public Engagement Hub seminar will focus on Youth Parliaments.

Youth Parliaments are one of the main public engagement tools used by parliaments across the world. Their formats and models vary considerably. Whilst they introduce parliamentary politics to many young people, it is also not always clear whether they enhance youth engagement with parliament and politics.

The seminar will hear from specific practices and explore different models of Youth Parliaments, to reflect on their effectiveness.

Speakers will include staff from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU),  Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira (University of Leeds & Chair of IPEN) and a third contributor to be confirmed (who will present a Youth Parliament specific case study). The seminar will be chaired by Derek Dignam (Head of Communications, Houses of the Oireachtas & IPEN Executive Team).

The seminar will take place on Zoom and is open to anyone with an interest in public engagement with parliaments. Further details including how to register will be announced soon.

It will will be presented in English. Translation will be available from/to French and Spanish.

This seminar is jointly organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN). The event is part of a series of webinars hosted by the Public Engagement Hub.

Find out more and register here.