ABSTRACT
Just as almost every nation claims to have a national assembly, every national assembly has a speaker or other permanent presiding officer. Notwithstanding some similarities in the powers of speakers, there are striking differences in the character of this office when viewed from a comparative perspective. These differences can have important implications for the distribution of power within the assembly, and for the capacity of the majority power or coalition to control the assembly’s agenda and dominate its proceedings. This essay identifies several dimensions of the office, draws two sharply contrasting conceptions of the role of speaker, and then compares the offices of speaker in the British House of Commons and the US House of Representatives with each other and with the same offices in other democratic assemblies. The essay concludes by discussing the implications of its analysis for new assemblies in which speakers are often tempted to mix their political interests with their institutional responsibilities, especially in their conduct of plenary sessions.
