Faculty and staff are invited to attend Colorado College Visiting Professor of German & Political Science Sven Siefken’s Faculty Lunch talk on “Hot or Cold Politics? Political Decision Making in a Parliamentary Democracy”. How does an idea become a law? This fundamental question of political decision making will be analyzed for the parliamentary democracy of…
On July 30, the Constitutional Court of Germany made a decision on the contested reform of electoral law. Sven T. Siefken explains the new law and discusses the reform process in his analysis on the end of a never-ending story. This is the electoral law that will be applied in the upcoming 2025 Bundestag election….
An edited volume, published in 2024, brings together analyses made at the outset of the new traffic light coalition in Germany. Most of the contributions have previously been published in the Journal German Politics and Society. Sven T. Siefken wrote a chapter on the continuing formalization of coalition formation. Details about the new book can…
In a surprise move, French President Emmanuel Macron has called new parliamentary elections. Join us for a discussion with expert Dr. Calixte Bloquet about reasons, dynamics and possible consequences. Hosted by IPSA’s Research Committee of Legislative Specialist (RC08), moderated by Sven T. Siefken, June 28 (9 AM New York, 3 PM Paris). Here is a…
The academic journal „The Theory and Practice of Legislation“ has published a new special issue titled „How much legislating in a legislature? Democratisation, de-democratisation and beyond“. It compiles various case studies on recent development of democracy, among them Poland, Indonesia, India and Bolivia. They shine a light on how parliaments suffer from processes of de-democratization,…
Having conducted a thorough literature review, analyzed legal documents and interviewed numerous parliamentary practitioners, the interdisciplinary team held a first workshop on the „Cartography of the Legislative Process“. Held in Berlin, the workshop brought together practitioners from the German Bundestag and the Ministry of Justice with academics and designers. The goal of the project is…
An ongoing cooperation of political scientists and designers is mapping the legislative process, from first ideas to the promulgation of laws. The special focus is on integrating both formal and informal components. Sven T. Siefken presented and discussed findings of this ongoing research project at the brown bag seminar of the University of Applied Administrative…
The international collaboration on Parliaments in the Pandemic (PiP) convened for its fifth academic workshop in Prague. It was the first in-person meeting since PiP was established in 2020 in the middle of the Covid pandemic. Based on a unique country expert panel study, PiP is a comprehensive study of what happened to parliaments around…
Graphic descriptions of the legislative process usually focus on what is going on “in” parliament – while neglecting the preparliamentary phases of bill preparation. But there is a lot of coordination, negotiation and public engagement happening in this less formalized phase. Bringing together the special skills of designers (with an interest in politics) and political…
Coalition negotiations play a key role in government formation, but they have not been analyzed much in detail. In Germany, the past decades have seen an ongoing differentiation of their organization, leading to a complex multi-level negotiation structure with a policy-oriented division of labor. Studying the working group on health policy in the coalition negotiations…
Engaging the public in the work of parliament has been long practiced. To be in close exchange with the people is indeed a precondition for a successful parliament. In recent years, instruments and processes have been developed, tested and compared that institutionalize engagement. A special issues of the Journal of Legislative Studies looks at thoses…
Are democratic institutions and bureaucracy losing their functionality? This were key topics of a conference held at the Akademie für politische Bildung in Tutzing. Sven T. Siefken gave a talk on informality in politics, analyzing coalition negotiations, expert advisory commissions and coalition management. More about the conference can be found here https://www.apb-tutzing.de/Tagungsprogramme/2023/39-4-23-programm.pdf
Based on data compiled for the Global Parliamentary Report, Maya Kornberg and Sven T. Siefken study the role of committee hearings for public engagement by parliaments. They discuss how hearings have evolved and which mechanisms are in use and how new approaches change the practices, for example through digital hearings or field hearings. The article…
The edited volume on Parliamentary Committees in the Policy Process, edited by Sven T. Siefken and Hilmar Rommetvedt, is now available in paperback. It brings together parliamentary experts from around the world to report on the state of knowledge about what is going on in committees and how relevant they really are. More here https://www.routledge.com/Parliamentary-Committees-in-the-Policy-Process/Siefken-Rommetvedt/p/book/9780367617950
The international collaboration on Parliaments in the Pandemic (PiP) started to gather information on how the Covid-19 pandemic influenced parliaments around the globe. On March 13, it is holding its fourth Academic Workshop, continuing to analyze the data – this time with a special focus on oversight, legislation and parliamentary performance. Sven T. Siefken is…
The Institute for Parliamentary Research (IParl), Berlin, and Sven T. Siefken brought together a large group of scholars for a workshop discussing current threats to parliamentary democracy. The meeting was held at the Reichstag building in an open format to debate the various developments in democracies around Europe and grapple with the question how to…
What impact did the pandemic and other crises have on the work of parliaments, both at the member state and the European level? First findings on the topic from various ongoing research projects were brought together in an outreach workshop in Wrocław, Poland, by Professor Aleksandra Maatsch, The Jean Monnet Chair at the Centre for…
In May 2022, the Academy of Sciences organized a workshop Revisiting Parliaments in Pandemics. Keynote speaker Sven T. Siefken presented first findings of the second wave of a global expert survey ‘Parliaments in Pandemics’. Conducted in 2020, 2021, and 2022, the survey focused on how the pandemic changed the legislatures’ roles and, in particular, electoral, legislative, oversight, communication and representation…