ABSTRACT
The thesis about a ‘decline of legislatures’ is nothing new to political scientists. As early as 1921, Bryce was claiming that the ‘admiration of and confidence in the system of representative democracy’ had experienced a phase of decline (Bryce 1921: 367), even though the sources of this alleged decline were of a different nature than those that fuel the contemporary debate about ‘de-parliamentarisation’ in advanced industrial democracies. Yet, despite an increase of public interest in political affairs in general, this growing interest does not translate into activities traditionally associated with support for representative, parliamentary democracy. Evidence of a ‘spreading dissatisfaction with the institutions and processes of representative democracy’ (Dalton et al. 2003: 1) is reflected in declining turnout at elections, a creeping erosion of the membership base of political parties and waning confidence in politicians, political parties and political institutions.2 Underlying this growing public disaffection with the model of representative, parliamentary democracy is what might be called an expectations-capability gap from which parliamentary institutions in advanced industrial democracies suffer and which contributes to the above-mentioned crisis symptoms. While publics in democratic polities across the world (still) consider parliaments to be the ‘major basis for legitimising political authority and legislation’ (Burns 2000), they appear to be increasingly ill-equipped to meet public demands and expectations. Parliamentary institutions around the world are said to be increasingly marginalised and displaced from major legislative and policy-making activities as a consequence of socio-economic and political forces which continue to transform the conditions under which policy-making takes place. For instance, the growing scientification of politics and the tendency to increasingly rely on expertise, and – in a world characterised by socio-economic interdependencies – the expanding role of governmental and, more importantly, non-governmental organisations and transnational corporations, have produced a situation in which ‘major legislative and policy-making activities are being substantially displaced from parliamentary bodies’ (Burns 2000). Ralf Dahrendorf sums up the contemporary mood, claiming that ‘representative government is no longer as compelling a proposition as it once was. Instead, a search for new institutional forms to express conflicts of interest has begun’ (Dahrendorf 2000: 311). At the same time, democratic decision-making ‘is moving toward new forms of more direct involvement in the political process’ (Dalton et al. 2003: 2) with publics and political groups placing more emphasis on direct forms of citizen participation through citizen initiatives and referenda as well as on improving the possibilities for citizen consultation and public hearings.
