What is it about?
Assemblies and parliaments are much older institutions than conventional wisdom claims. This is the first issue dealt with in the text. Next it is demonstrated how this history still affects modern parliaments and their political roles. Third, analytical tools are provided to read institutional history analytically. These tools come from generalized evolutionary theory. In sum, the text gives an example of how to do 'evolutionary political science'.
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Why is it important?
For long, politicians have tried to make Western parliamentary institutions well-working and beneficial also for Non-Western countries. Oftentimes these attempts at 'institutional export' have failed, leading to rubber-stamp legislatures or mere facade assemblies. Yet other types of assemblies flourish, or have flourished, in Non-Western cultures. The reason seems to be that the type of a Western parliament or legislature is a unique product of occidental institutional evolution. As such, this type cannot take firm roots where there is no real need for the functions it can excellently fulfill. Likewise, this institutional type cannot simply replace assemblies that have evolved differently or in a different politico-cultural environment. In addition, no lessons whatsoever can be learned from history unless we are able to detect the 'grammar' of historical processes. Exactly this can be hoped for by using evolutionary theory.
Perspectives
For decades I have devoted public lectures and many academic books to making understood that parliaments and assemblies are central institutions for political regimes that do not only want to practice responsiveness, but also strive at political leadership based on processes of deliberation and institutional learning. I learned to understand this potential of parliaments doing comparative analyses of present and past assemblies, and I found the key to more than mere descriptions in evolutionary theory. This is why, together with a research team, I have developed 'Evolutionary Institutionalism' over the years. This article gives a brief and hopefully inviting illustration of the intellectual and political benefits of this new approach.
Prof. Dr. Werner J. Patzelt
Technische Universität Dresden
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Parliaments and their Evolution, International Journal of Parliamentary Studies, February 2023, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/26668912-03010001.
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