Parliaments

Although the comparative legislatures literature has historically ignored parliamentary second chambers, recent research suggests that governments do not have the same luxury, as second chambers are becoming increasingly willing to defeat government legislature. These defeats are particularly relevant for policymaking, because they often result in policy concessions, particularly in policy areas where the second chamber is viewed as possessing policy expertise. If expertise provides opportunities for second chambers to enhance their bargaining leverage vis-à-vis governments, second chambers theoretically have incentives to cultivate policy expertise to enhance their policy influence and this paper investigates this process within a context where European parliamentary second chambers should have both the incentives and opportunities to cultivate policy expertise: Europeanization. Using a comparative case study approach, I find that whether the second chamber has procedures in place to aid in policy refinement (i.e., institutional fit) and whether members have incentives to use these tools (i.e., member incentives), shape the ability of second chambers to create new niches of expertise. 2 | F i s k

Legislative trust considered as the level of public trust and support in Parliament is critical to the functioning of democracy. Of the challenges that African democracies face, none would be more formidable than the lack of legislative trust, as the lack of it in the past had contributed to the numerous military interventions and political instability that was witnessed before the third wave of democratization began in Africa. Despite the challenge that public distrust for Parliament poses for nascent African democracies, both the contemporary diagnostic and studies on African democratic practice have so far not problematised the issue of legislative trust.
While some have criticised the concept of trust as amorphous, others have acknowledged its benefits and linkages in representative institutions, and still, others have begun to explore the sources and causes of its decline in political institutions. Nearly all of them have yet to systematically examine legislative trust and its determinants in Africa. This study, therefore, investigates the seemingly declining legislative trust in Ghana. Along with the growing number of political scientists and legislative studies scholars, an analytical framework based on the theoretical foundation of trust has been developed to investigate the causes of the decline in legislative trust in Ghana. The central issue is that legislative trust is a function of parliamentary performance, and a legislature that performs satisfactorily is more likely to gain the trust and support of the people than a legislature that underperforms. The study utilises evidence from the Afrobarometer survey data, a survey of visitors to Parliament and in-depth elite inter-view with MPs and Parliamentary officials.
The thesis found that the decline in legislative trust could be situated in the context of historical, organisational, cultural and institutional performance dimensions as well as institutional constraints that have created expectations gaps in what the public expects from the legislature and what the legislature can offer. The ability of the legislature to narrow the expectation gap increases legislative trust considerably. Although generalised trust in political institutions has a long history, the present study would contribute to its robustness in extending the theory to capture legislative institutions in nascent democracies in Africa.

Introduction: This essay discusses three different approaches to the study of deliberation in parliaments: empirical, rhetorical and systemic. Materials and Methods: Through a critical review of the scientific literature, this work addresses some conceptual and analytical problems of the empirical-quantitative strategies aimed at measuring parliamentary deliberation, emphasizing the utility of the rhetorical and systemic approaches to grasp the agonist component of parliamentary debates and also their embeddedness within the broader political system. Results: The paper shows that deliberative dynamics within the democratic chambers cannot be reduced to a formal, closed and quantifiable debate. Hence, it proposes an alternative model for the analysis of deliberative processes in this institution. Discussion: The heterogeneous nature of parliaments recommends studying the deliberative phenomenon in different moments and instances, which includes formal debates, closed door meetings and even informal exchanges outside the plenary and committees. This view challenges the dominance of the empirical-quantitative framing of parliamentary deliberation in the scientific literature and supports a more holistic research strategy based on the combination of the empirical, rhetorical and systemic approaches .

"ABSTRACT Como se anticipa en la presentación liminar, este libro se compone de tres partes  muy definidas. Una primera, que constituye el núcleo del trabajo en la que ofrecemos  algunos elementos teóricos sobre la cuestión del bicameralismo y las Camaras  altas. A continuación nos centramos en interpretar las respuestas dadas por los  senadores, agrupándolas bajo ejes temáticos. Antes que buscar la construcción de  modelos estadísticos complejos (la naturaleza de los datos lo permitiría) hemos  preferido presentar los datos en el estado menos elaborado posible para que el lector  cuente con más elementos de juicio para hacer sus propias interpretaciones y  contrastarlas con las nuestras, muchas de las cuales ya han sido anticipadas en otros
avances de la investigación que hemos ido haciendo públicos. Este ánimo de difusión  de resultados nos ha llevado a incluir, como decíamos, todos los marginales  estadísticos obtenidos del procesamiento de los cuestionarios. Nos entusiasma la idea
de socializar el conocimiento poniendo los datos a disposición de la comunidad  científica."

El artículo expone una recapitulación sobre la naturaleza y significado de los derechos políticos y la lucha de las mujeres para que se les reconocieran dichos derechos. De igual manera, reseña el proceso histórico de los derechos políticos de las mujeres en México. Finalmente, examina la participación política femenil a nivel local, en especial en el Congreso de Guerrero. Se concluye que a pesar de la existencia legal de la paridad, todavía prevalece desigualdad entre el trabajo parlamentario de las mujeres y de los hombres

The report was developed based on the methodology approved within the framework of the Central Public Administration Reform and includes the following:
- functional review of the Parliament carried out through functional review questionnaires, interviews and repeated discussions with the heads of the relevant divisions,
- analysis of the business processes within the Parliament through interviews, reproduction of the information production flow,
- analysis of skills, knowledge, and needs of human resources through filling in detailed CVs in EU format, and discussions with the management of the Parliament Apparatus;
- evaluation of Parliament products’ quality perception and expectations about the Parliament products through interviews with the main beneficiaries, including from the governmental and nongovernmental sector;
- financial analysis of the processes, products, and institution through Parliament financial reports’ analysis;
- interviews with the Parliament management and divisions, discussions and consultations with the international consultant;
- revision and analysis of secondary sources, especially the Parliament evaluation reports produced by experts and consultants;
- study of relevant international practices on Parliament activities;
- the report of the international experts served as an important source for recommendations’ and findings’ analysis.

The Public Accounts Committee is the oldest and, reputedly, most influential oversight committee in the British parliament. Since 2012, the government has published an unprecedented volume of data explaining its actions in response to the PAC's inquiries. By tracking all 615 of the Committee's recommendations from 2010-12 across the first fourteen of these "progress reports," we explore how effectively this novel reporting mechanism serves to inform parliament about the executive's responsiveness to scrutiny. We find the reports to yield rich data on the fate of many individual recommendations, but only limited information on the overall timeliness and quality of implementation. Flexibilities and inconsistencies in reporting style also make the arrangements vulnerable to gaming. We identify potential improvements and research opportunities.

TBMM’nin 19. Yasama Dönemi 20 Ekim 1991’de başlamış ve 24 Aralık 1995’te yapılan erken genel seçimleri ile son bulmuştur. Aşağıda, önce, bu dönemin genel bir siyasi görünümü siyasi partiler, seçim sistemi ve sonuçları ile başlıca siyasi gelişmeler çerçevesinde anlatılacaktır. İkinci bölümde, 19. Dönem TBMM’nin oluşumu, yönetimi ile yasama ve
denetim faaliyetleri irdelenecektir. Son bölümde, bu dönemde TBMM’nin Türk siyasal yaşamındaki yeri ve önemi değerlendirilecektir.

Legislative trust considered as the level of public trust and support in Parliament is critical to the functioning of democracy. Of the challenges that African democracies face, none would be more formidable than the lack of legislative trust, as the lack of it in the past had contributed to the numerous military interventions and political instability that was witnessed before the third wave of democratization began in Africa. Despite the challenge that public distrust for Parliament poses for nascent African democracies, both the contemporary diagnostic and studies on African democratic practice have so far not problematised the issue of legislative trust. While some have criticised the concept of trust as amorphous, others have acknowledged its benefits and linkages in representative institutions, and still, others have begun to explore the sources and causes of its decline in political institutions. Nearly all of them have yet to systematically examine legislative trust and its determinants in Africa. This study, therefore, investigates the seemingly declining legislative trust in Ghana. Along with the growing number of political scientists and legislative studies scholars, an analytical framework based on the theoretical foundation of trust has been developed to investigate the causes of the decline in legislative trust in Ghana. The central issue is that legislative trust is a function of parliamentary performance, and a legislature that performs satisfactorily is more likely to gain the trust and support of the people than a legislature that underperforms. The study utilises evidence from the Afrobarometer survey data, a survey of visitors to Parliament and in-depth elite inter-view with MPs and Parliamentary officials. The thesis found that the decline in legislative trust could be situated in the context of historical, organisational, cultural and institutional performance dimensions as well as institutional constraints that have created expectations gaps in what the public expects from the legislature and what the legislature can offer. The ability of the legislature to narrow the expectation gap increases legislative trust considerably. Although generalised trust in political institutions has a long history, the present study would contribute to its robustness in extending the theory to capture legislative institutions in nascent democracies in Africa.

This article seeks to test whether Twitter is contributing to the appearance of new opinion leaders or empowering already visible political leaders. The study is based on a data set spanning from
January 1, 2013 to March 31, 2014 that covers all relationships (4,516), retweets (6,045) and mentions (19,507) of Catalan parliamentarians. The data sustains that having a parliamentarian position increases the probability of being an opinion leader of the following–follower and
mention networks, but not so much of the retweet network. Although Twitter parliamentary networks reproduce leaderships “as usual,” the most central opinion leaders in the retweet network are not official party leaders. Twitter activity, not official leadership, is a stronger predictor
of centrality for both retweets and mentions received.

Tras el «giro empírico» de la teoría deliberativa, el renovado interés por la deliberación en los Parlamentos ha venido de la mano de investigaciones de tipo cuantitativo centradas en el análisis de los discursos emitidos en las Cámaras. A estos estudios cabe contraponer una línea de análisis más cualitativo basada en la dimensión retórica del debate parlamentario. Sin embargo, ambas aproximaciones resultan insuficientes por sí solas para captar la interconexión del Parlamento con otros elementos del sistema político y explicar los condicionantes internos y externos que determinan los márgenes para la deliberación en este foro. En este sentido, un enfoque sistémico en línea con el modelo de Habermas (1998) ofrece una visión más amplia de la aportación de los Parlamentos a la deliberación en la esfera pública.

The monograph 'Parliamentary Oversight of the Executives. Tools and Procedures in Europe' (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2020) by Elena Griglio will be presented on Tuesday 19 January 2021 from 11:00 to 12:30. 

Oversight of executives has always been a key function of parliaments and one that is central to developing the relationship between the executive and legislative branches of government. However, in reality governments are taking a more pronounced role in controlling legislation, diluting the influence of parliament. This book plots this trend in parliaments across Europe, to illustrate points of convergence and divergence. In so doing, it suggest tools and methods that parliaments can develop to bolster their crucial oversight role.

https://www.eui.eu/events/detail?eventid=535452

¿Qué tanto sabemos de la relación normativa entre los partidos políticos y los grupos parlamentarios en América Latina?.? -, el objetivo es dilucidar la situación del nexo entre ambos en los países de la región, si se encuentran disposiciones constitucionales que los reconozcan y si regulan o limitan el actuar de los partidos políticos dentro de los grupos parlamentarios o con relación a ellos.

In this article, we extend empirical understandings of feminist institutionalism by outlining a new methodological approach to the study of parliament as a gendered workplace. We argue that while a localised approach to studying institutional change allows a more nuanced appreciation of the role of local cultural context, internationalised norms can be an interesting starting point to work back from. A case study of the New Zealand parliament’s ‘family-friendly’ workplace practices illustrates this methodological approach. By tracing the establishment
of family-friendly practices in this parliament, our study shines a light on
the intractable nature of local institutional context in global norm diffusion and hints at the next phase of work required to further the agenda of transformational gender-sensitive parliaments.

"19th century members of the German Imperial parliament, the Reichstag, were not allowed to receive any salary or other compensation for their work, unlike members of the state diets. The only benefit was, curiously, a free permanent ticket for railroad travel. This small privilege became an important factor for centralized and coordinated election campaigning and the nationalization of political parties.

GERMAN/DEUTSCH Reichstagsabgeordnete im Kaiserreich erhielten jahrzehntelang keine Diäten. Ihr Trostpreis: ein Freifahrtschein für die Eisenbahn. Mit dem Gratisticket kam Dampf auf den Kessel koordinierter Wahlkämpfe und nationaler Parteiverbände.
Schlagwörter: Abgeordnetenentschädigung, Diäten, Dreiklassenwahlrecht, Eisenbahn, Freifahrtschein, Landtag, Nationalisierung, Parlament, Reden, Rednerdienst, Reichstagsabgeordnete, Reichstagswahl, Reichsverfassung, Reisen, Versammlungen, Wahlkampf, Wahlkreis, Wahlrecht, Zensuswahlrecht
Organisationen: Bundesrat, Freisinnige Partei, Konservative Partei, Landtag (Preußen), Nationalliberale Partei, Reichstag, SPD, Zentrum
Personen: Margaret Anderson, August Bebel, Otto von Bismarck, Bernhard von Bülow, Hermann Butzer, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Thomas Mergel, Eugen Richter, Heinrich Rickert, Ludwig Windthorst
Publikationen: Kladderadatsch"

Este artículo analiza el papel de los parlamentos latinoamericanos en los procesos de elaboración e implementación de políticas públicas durante el presente período democrático. Se toma como punto de partida la caracterización de los parlamentos de la región como legislaturas reactivas. Dicha caracterización reconoce, por un lado, que la iniciativa legislativa recae en general en el Presidente y, por otro, que las reacciones de los parlamentos no sólo pueden variar sino que el espectro de tal variación es bastante amplio. A continuación, se destaca aquí la multifuncionalidad de los parlamentos, esto es, su participación tanto en la elaboración de las leyes como en el desempeño de funciones de control político, lo cual no ha sido suficientemente resaltado en la literatura sobre el tema. PaLabras cLave: parlamentos – América Latina – legislaturas reactivas – políticas públicas – democratización. Abstract This article analyzes the role of Latin American parliaments in the processes of ...

The “Politics of Dissensus” inverts the traditional perspective on the study of parliamentary politics by focusing on its less obvious and less well-known aspects. Dissensus instead of consensus becomes the condition for the intelligibility of parliamentary politics. Such politics is indebted to the rhetorical culture of addressing issues from opposite perspectives and debating the alternatives pro et contra: no motion is approved without a thorough examination of, and confrontation among, imaginable alternatives. Establishing the openness of political debating, parliamentarism has become a distinctive historical contribution to the rise of parliamentary democracy. ”Parliament in Debate” refers to the paradigmatic institution for political deliberation, the debates surrounding its legislative activity, as well as the supervision of government and administration. Parliament has become a fascinating object of scrutiny as a political institution adopted and developed by different political traditions. In a nutshell, the book retrieves the study of parliamentary politics to present political theory and action in the parliamentary mode. It is a book on the relevance of parliamentarism to the study of politics and a book on the comparative conceptual and institutional history of parliamentary politics.

Since the 1990s, parliaments in many democracies have become more involved in the formulation and implementation of security policy. A growing number of studies in comparative politics and international relations address this phenomenon and examine the role of parliaments in decisions on war and peace, particularly on the deployment of military forces. This article reviews and summarizes this research and identifies three major trends in recent contributions. Research increasingly moves beyond a focus on formal competences and the right of parliaments to veto deployments, beyond treating parliaments as unitary actors, and beyond an exclusive focus on individual national parliaments.

This article focuses on the patterns of parliamentary representation and careers in post-communist Ukraine. The data includes individual information on 1768 members (with substitutes) of the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, from the parliamentary elections in 1990 through to 2007. Low chances for the social upward mobility of socio-demographic groups such as women and poorly-educated people were identified, as well as the high impact of social status on inclusion in the political ruling strata, as exemplified by business elites. Furthermore, MPs with an entrepreneurial background have a greater chance of staying in parliament for three or more legislative terms. The chances of remaining in the Verkhovna Rada are also greater for former Supreme Council parliamentarians, while a high-ranking nomenklatura position has no significant effect on the status of an incumbent. Experience in a political party is crucial for a career in parliament. Parliamentarians with leading party experience prior to their recruitment are likely to obtain an incumbent status, while MPs who substitute their elected colleagues have lower chances of becoming long-standing incumbents.

Turkey has been going through a political system and/or regime change. The President’s legislative powers (decree authority) vis-a-vis the Parliament have been expanded, and the oversight of the executive (presidency) by the Parliament has been subject to qualified parliamentary majorities which are difficult to generate. The constitutional referendum of April 2017 transformed the parliamentary
system to a unique presidential model which has been in effect since the
early presidential and parliamentary elections held June 24, 2018. The recent amendments to the Rules of Procedure (ROP) also aimed to accelerate the legislative process by eliminating some of the preventive instruments that the opposition resorted to. Based on the analysis of documents and the data from semi-structured interviews with eight members of the GNAT (four current and four former members and two senior legislative experts) on the parliamentary capacity development the chapter discusses the influence of available to legislators’
legislative resources on the institutional capacity of a legislature. The chapter then proceeds with the analysis of the role of institutional and international aid projects and programs in building the institutional capacity of the Turkish legislature.

In most European countries, it is stated that H. Kelsen's concept was used almost in its purest form, with one exception: the powers to directly protect constitutional rights and freedoms were given to a separate judicial authority. The extension of the appropriate model of judicial constitutional control and the formation of constitutional courts fell in the second half of the twentieth century, when the need to prevent the return of Nazism caused a qualitatively new level of attention to the phenomenon of constitutional justice. The formation of new postwar constitutional-democratic regimes in Germany, Italy, Austria, and later in Spain and Greece, provided for the creation of a mechanism by conferring on the constitutional courts powers to protect constitutional rights and freedoms from usurpa-tion of public power. Постановка проблеми. Парламентаризм, теоретичні витоки якого беруть початок у навчаннях про народний і національний суверенітети, цілком логічно пов'язаний з утвердженням принципів верховенства права і демократизму в суспільстві й державі, впровадженням ефективних механізмів гарантування консти-туційних прав людини, а також формуванням таких інститутів держави, які б забезпечували найбільш повне і всебічне здійснення його функцій та реалізацію потреб суспільства. Аналіз останніх досліджень і публікацій засвідчив, що проблему двопалатного парламенту в Україні вивчали М.М. Воронов, О.В. Скрипнюк, Г.В. Зубенко, О.Д. Святоцький, Ю.М. Тодика та інші науковці. Метою статті визначено аналіз особливостей становлення двопалатного парламенту в умовах консти-туційної демократії. Виклад основного матеріалу. Європогенна за своєю суттю ідеологія парламентаризму, вперше обґрун-тована в працях таких мислителів, як Ж. Боден, Т. Гобі, Л. Дюгі, І. Кант, Д. Локк, Ш. Монтеск'є, А. Дайсі і багатьох інших, нині отримала свій розвиток не тільки в країнах з давніми традиціями народного представ-ництва, а й у державах, де парламентаризм почав утверджуватися одночасно з першими конституціями і кон-ституційними актами, починаючи з другої половини XX століття. Для пострадянських і постсоціалістичних країн ідеологія парламентаризму, після розпаду колишнього СРСР і руйнування радянської державно-право-вої доктрини, в основі якої лежала ідея домінування в державі «системи рад усіх рівнів» 1 , стала фундамен-том їх демократичного інституційного розвитку й продовжує залишатися ним. Український парламентаризм має давні історичні корені. Сучасні правознавці вважають предтечею національного парламентаризму вічову демократію і феодальні з'їзди в Київській Русі, козацькі ради і козацьку демократію в загальному, діяльність Центральної Ради та навіть певною мірою «парламентаризм» радянської епохи. Втім, утвердження і розвиток повноцінного національного парламентаризму стало мож-ливим лише після проголошення незалежності України в 1991 році 2. За 28 років незалежності український парламентаризм мав певні досягнення й деякі прорахунки. При цьому XXI ст. поставило перед ним серйозні виклики, ставши своєрідним «екзаменатором» ефективності організації та діяльності національного парламенту в умовах конституційно-правової реформи, перші спро-би здійснення якої можна пов'язати з проведенням всеукраїнського референдуму 16 квітня 2000 року. Нага-даємо, що цей референдум, серед іншого, мав на меті з'ясувати громадську думку щодо формування двопа-латного парламенту, одна з палат якого представляла б інтереси регіонів України. Не меншим випробуванням для вітчизняного парламентаризму стала й конституційно-правова реформа 2004-2008 рр., зміст якої передбачав перехід України до парламентсько-президентської форми правління, підвищення ролі й авторитету національного парламенту в державі і політично структурованому громадян-ському суспільстві країни 3. На жаль, перманентна політико-правова криза останніх років не сприяла задово-ленню високих запитів сучасного суспільства та здійснення належного законодавчого забезпечення новітніх державотворчих процесів в Україні. Свідомо уникаючи політико-правових оцінок організації та діяльності Верховної Ради України V-VI скликань, вважаємо за доцільне зазначити, що вдосконалення концепції сучасного українського парламента-ризму та оптимізація організації й діяльності національного парламенту нині є пріоритетним напрямом кон-ституційної реформи в 2008 р. та наступних роках 4. На нашу думку, одним із пріоритетних шляхів реформу-вання українського парламентаризму сьогодні є запровадження бікамералізму як теорії і практики функціо-нування в державі двопалатного парламенту. 136

• Parliamentary sovereignty should be understood as an institutionally oriented-doctrine and in this context the 'political limits' on parliamentary sovereignty can be understood.
• Challenges to Parliamentary sovereignty stem from the increasingly fragmented nature of authority in constitutional orders today. Such a problem is not unique to the UK. In this context, while Parliament can claim superior democratic legitimacy vis-à-vis constitutional authorities such as the courts, or the Monarch as was historically the case, the same is not necessarily the case in relation to other authorities such as the devolved institutions.
• In particular, parliament should be particularly aware of the limits of the democratic legitimacy of parliamentary sovereignty in relation to referendums and the emergence of 'the people' as an alternative source of authority. In this regard, the idea of 'constituent power' can illuminate many of the current challenges facing parliamentary sovereignty today.
• Parliamentary sovereignty performs much of the functions that 'constituent power'—the unlimited power to create and establish a constitutional order— performs in other constitutional orders. However, while constituent power is often considered to be vested in 'the people' Parliament's claim to the constituent power in the UK reveals a potential tension between Parliament and 'the People'. Parliament must be aware of, and take account of this tension if its claim to the constituent power is to be maintained and legitimated.
• In turn, this concept of constituent power can illuminate discussion of who 'the people' in the UK actually are and whether the UK is a unitary or 'plurinational' polity.

This chapter examines and analyses the evolution and role of the House
of Representatives. In the first instance, it briefly charts the historical development
of the institution and outlines the crucial turning points of this development,
considering the domestic environment shaping parliamentary practice in
Cyprus. The second section deals with the two main functions of the House,
law-making and parliamentary oversight of the executive. The third section
examines the organisation of the House, discussing the various characteristics of
parliamentary committees, largely thought to be the epitome of parliamentary
organisation and the chief underlying factor of legislative power. The fourth
section highlights the importance of party groups in parliament, drawing
some conclusions about voting and procedural issues.

En el artículo se comparan el autoposicionamiento ideológico de los senadores en cuatro países sudamericanos ¿Argentina, Brasil, Chile y Uruguay¿ en una escala izquierdaderecha y sus opiniones sobre diferentes temas socioeconómicos. Se confrontan las actitudes a nivel de la élite parlamentaria (incluyendo los diputados) con resultados de encuestas de opinión pública.

Selectorate theory has been used to hypothesize about many different outcomes. I examine selectorate theory and its predictions for MIDs and foreign policy events within parliamentary systems as sending states. Using parliamentary governments as the time-series and sender-target dyads as the units of analysis within cross-national study, I find that the size of the winning coalition does not robustly behave as predicted by selectorate theory.

This article focuses on the patterns of parliamentary representation and careers in post-communist Ukraine. The data includes individual information on 1768 members (with substitutes) of the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, from the parliamentary elections in 1990 through to 2007. Low chances for the social upward mobility of sociodemographic groups such as women and poorly educated people were identified, as well as the high impact of social status on inclusion in the political ruling strata, as exemplified by business elites. Furthermore, MPs with an entrepreneurial background have a greater chance of staying in parliament for three or more legislative terms. The chances of remaining in the Verkhovna Rada are also greater for former Supreme Council parliamentarians, while a high-ranking nomenklatura position has no significant effect on the status of an incumbent. Experience in a political party is crucial for a career in parliament. Parliamentarians with leading party ex...

En el artículo se comparan el autoposicionamiento ideológico de los senadores en cuatro países sudamericanos ¿Argentina, Brasil, Chile y Uruguay¿ en una escala izquierdaderecha y sus opiniones sobre diferentes temas socioeconómicos. Se confrontan las actitudes a nivel de la élite parlamentaria (incluyendo los diputados) con resultados de encuestas de opinión pública.

Following the 2018 election and a long phase of negotiations, Lega and the Five Star Movement (FSM) appointed the first cabinet in Western Europe that does not include any mainstream party family. The ‘elective affinities’ between the electorates of these two challenger parties had been quite evident for some time, but in the present work we argue that there are further traits that the two parties had shared well before 2018 that could help to further prove their proximity. We propose a new dimension of analysis that should be taken into consideration when studying (new) challenger parties: their relationship vis-à-vis the other opposition parties. We would expect them to enter parliament for the first time with both the goals usually related to the two different opposition status (temporary vs. permanent) in mind: leaving the opposition and exploiting the opposition. Furthermore, we would expect them to stand apart from the other parties, no matter whether the latter are in governm...