chapter V engagement. First, and most logical, the reforms that tend to stick are those that have a tangible benefit for the public and members of parliament. The most obvious example within the report is the development of CDFs in various countries. The public like a fund that is specifically designed to promote local growth and development, partly because it offers the potential of direct and material benefit for them. For MPs, meanwhile, CDFs provide an additional resource, giving them greater authority and influence locally. As noted in Chapter IV, the rationale used to justify certain CDFs was specifically to ‘empower the local MP’ by giving him or her greater decision-making power to respond to the needs of local communities. However, CDFs appeal to MPs at a partisan level because they are also used for re-election purposes and, for that and other reasons, they remain contentious. It is also clear that initiatives designed to bring citizens into parliament, to broadcast parliamentary proceedings, to improve consultation and to generate more accountability from MPs work best where MPs and citizens are convinced of the benefit of such measures. Second, the combination of internal and external pressure for change increases the likelihood that reforms will be enacted. As we argue, parliaments have shown themselves to be generally responsive to public pressure. However, in some circumstances, reforms have emerged often in response to a political crisis or loss of public trust, as the accepted solution to a commonly understood problem, starting with pressure building outside parliament and then being taken up and championed by MPs themselves. The growth in the number of codes of conduct in parliaments reflects this trend. In most instances, such codes are the result either of an incidence of corruption or of momentum building behind public concern over a general slide in political standards. The need to ‘do something’ has thus most frequently resulted in both MPs and the public focusing on a tightening of the regime under which MPs operate. Third, internal momentum for change is driven by a diverse coalition of interests and therefore often works best when dealing with several issues at once. In his work on parliamentary change in Africa, Joel Barkan has suggested that successful parliamentary strengthening needs to build a coalition for change that 78
Conclusion: Parliamentary Reform – Resilience and Renewal
combines ‘reformers’ and ‘opportunists’ – that is to say, those who genuinely believe in the need for a stronger and more responsive parliament and those whose support can be won through appeals to their self-interest (i.e., through more resources, salary and staff ). As such, successful reform programmes combine several changes at once rather than one thing at a time, so that the package of measures appeals to the broadest range of MPs possible. Fourth, the reforms that have the most impact are those which change behaviour and not just institutional structure. The purpose of all of the initiatives described in this report is to change how the public engages with parliament – which requires altering how the public and politicians behave. This should be selfevident, but too many parliamentary reforms focus on the process instead of the desired outcomes. Simply creating opportunities for greater public involvement in the parliamentary process, making more information available or establishing constituency offices is pointless, unless the public utilises these opportunities. Strategies will therefore need to respond the trends in voters’ expectations, the changing nature of political representation and the growth of external bodies that provide a public commentary on the role and work of parliament. Ultimately, the long-term relationship between parliaments and citizens will depend less on institutional reform and outreach initiatives and more on how new patterns of behaviour are established inside and outside parliament.
5.4. Parliamentary Futures: Responsiveness, Resilience and Renewal At the outset of the report, we stressed that the point of this analysis was not to attempt a definitive conclusion about the state of parliaments globally. The intention has been to examine how the relationship between parliaments and citizens is changing, illustrating how parliaments and politicians are responding to public pressure for greater information, involvement, accountability and service. We have focused on examples, innovations and experiments in each of these areas to show how those pressures are manifesting themselves and how parliamentary representation is evolving.