October 2024

The Institutionalisation of parliamentary party groups so far has either been side-lined or bundled under the concept of institutionalised parliaments and parties, which implies some conceptual confusion.  In their article for the Journal of Legislative Studies Danny Schindler and Oliver Kannenberg introduce a framework to study the institutionalisation of PPGs that can be applied to a broad variety of regime types.

In their contribution to the Föderalismus Jahrbuch 2024 Calixte Bloquet and Franziska Carstensen examine how members of the German Bundesrat view their role as representatives. They show that, while they primarily represent their Länder, members of the Bundesrat also engage in a variety of different representative relationships. Their understanding of representation is a deeply political one, focused on influencing law-making, and challenges the notion of the Bundesrat as purely technocratic.