À partir de l'étude de la constitution et de l'histoire des archives du parlement de Paris et de leur traitement archivistique, ainsi que des multiples collections de copies et d'extraits dont elles ont été l'objet, cet article propose une réflexion sur la manière dont ce fonds d'archives, qui allie une exceptionnelle importance matérielle et historique et une particulière complexité, a pu être traité par les archivistes et utilisé par les chercheurs, ainsi que sur les perspectives qu'il peut ouvrir à (...) la recherche. Ces archives du Parlement illustrent en effet toute la gamme des problèmes de conservation, de traitement, de communication au public et d'exploitation et rendent particulièrement manifeste la complémentarité et l'interpénétration nécessaires, voire la confusion, des approches historique et archivistique ; elles démontrent que la connaissance par les chercheurs de l'histoire du fonds d'archives va bien au-delà de la simple pratique archivistique et contribue à la perception de la documentation comme« source» d'histoire. (shrink)

It is unquestionable that the European Parliament has contributed to the creation of a community policy in environmental matters and has given all its support to the first initiatives of the Community in thisrespect. Furthermore, it has adopted a series of specific resolutions. The European Parliament has not had a decisive infiuence, however, in the implementation of the Action Programme of the Community by the adoption of directives. Although the Commission generally approved suggestions made by parliamentarians, the Council hardly ever (...) followed them through. Through the procedure of parliamentary questions, possibly followed by the adoption of a resolution, the Parliament has nevertheless contributed to making a number of problems known. In future, strengthening of the moral «authority» of the European Parliament by the very fact of its being directly elected seems to be of crucial importance. On the other hand it is conceivable that a great number of procedural changes in the Community can and must further the development of the European Parliament's role in environmentalpolicies. (shrink)

The Belgian constitutional system is based upon the classic principle of the trias politica, which means that there is a separation of powers, but also a balanced cooperation between them. This article focuses on the Belgian federal Parliament, which bas been, together with the reform of the state from a unitary to a federal state, radically reformed.The Belgian Parliament nowadays is much better equipped to fulfil the function of checks and balances than thirty years ago. The number of staff and (...) the material equipment has increased considerably. At the same time, the emphasis in parliamentary activity bas shifted from the plenary session to the committees. The control upon the budget was long time a nearly empty box. Since the reform of 1989, it has become a much stronger instrument to hold the government to account. The annual debate on the budget is rather a genera/political evaluation of the government policy and is always ended by a vote of confidence.As for the law-making function, the share of the government in adopted laws is much higher than that of Parliament. Parliament bas still the power to amend government bills, but this power is limited because there is often already an agreement between the government and the parliamentary party of the coalition-parties. Nevertheless, several important amendments have been adopted in the last legislature.The control function bas evolved in different directions. Due to an enormous increase in the number of interpellations, they have lost a great part of their importance. They constitute no langer a real threaten to the survival of the government. On the other hand, there are more oral and written questions than before and the use of parliamentary inquiry committees has augmented considerably. Despite their inherent shortages, these committees play, an important role in preparing and correcting policy.The new challenges for Parliament in the future are serving as forum of the nation and the evaluation of laws. The core business of the trias politica, namely budgetary, law-making and controlling duties, also remain to befulfilled by Parliament. (shrink)

The results of the first European elections reflect the general distribution of the European electorate slightly center-right oriented, even if the abstentionism of almost 40 % caused some distorsions as in the case of United Kingdom. After the comparison of the results, state by state, it appears globally that the socialists and liberals regressed, the gaullists and their allies suffered a serious defeat, white the christian democrats and the communists progressed and some minor parties entered the European Parliament.The second part (...) contains a portrait of the new European Parliament which is younger than its predecessor, has more women including its president and has many high personnalities. As in the past, the political groupsplay a central and dynamic role. The question is to know if they will be capable of maintaining their cohesion. The examined cases give no evidence of the existence of the center-right majority in front of the left opposition. In fact, there were changing coalitions and voting constellations according to different problems, ideological options or concrete choices. The recent vote rejecting the proposed budget expresses a will of the European Parliament to impose its style and its democratic control on the European Community. (shrink)

Research concerning the Belgian delegates to the European Parliament from 1979 tot 1984, confirms the «law of weak parliaments» earlier put foward in a study by W. Dewachter and L. De Winter concerning the European Parliament from 1952 to 1979. Besides the importance as an institutional platform for the European integration, this parliament attracts weak candidates. The elections of 1984 have apparently not stimulated the efforts towards the European integration.

Cette contribution examine les rapports entre le matérialisme des intérêts que revendique Bakounine dans ses derniers textes et la critique qu’il propose des notions d’intérêt général, de représentation politique et de centralisation dans La théologie politique de Mazzini et l’Internationale. Son objet est de montrer que la prise en compte du rôle social et historique des intérêts rend caduque toute possibilité d’un intérêt général qui viendrait à son tour fonder la légitimité d’une représentation politique dans une assemblée centraliste. La première (...) partie de l’article examine le rapport entre ce matérialisme des intérêts et la conception matérialiste de l’histoire proposée par Marx et Engels. La seconde insiste sur la critique de l’intérêt général comme fiction et sur l’impossibilité qui en découle de toute représentation dans le cadre d’un système centralisé, la reconnaissance de cette impossibilité débouchant même sur une critique du mandat impératif. (shrink)

Avec un taux de 31 % de députées au Bundestag, l’Allemagne est loin de la parité en politique. Cet article vise à éclairer les raisons, tant institutionnelles que discursives, qui participent de cet état de fait. Dans un premier temps, il sera question des mécanismes qui freinent l’accès des femmes à la députation : la femme cantonnée à la sphère privée, l’image de la femme apolitique, les pratiques au sein des partis ainsi que le mode de scrutin. Au niveau institutionnel, (...) des solutions concrètes émergent, à l'image des quotas paritaires mis en place au sein des partis. D’autres solutions sont actuellement discutées, notamment un éventuel changement du mode de scrutin. Dans un second temps, nous verrons que même une fois ce premier pas vers la députation franchi, l’activité des députées demeure liée à des problématiques spécifiques de genre qui se manifestent sur le plan linguistique, par exemple au travers d'interruptions sexistes pendant leurs discours. (shrink)

This article analyses the complex relationships between the elected parliament and the government.Firstly, effective political participation of the constituency in the election of its parliamentary representatives is limited because of the pre-selection of the candidates by the parties themselves. Secondly, the freedom of the parliament is restricted by the complex network of pressures and counterpressures between legislature and executive. Parliament has recently tried to regain some of its influence by organising special parliamentary inquiry committees and by resorting to professional help (...) for assistance in its legislative work. However, the growing professionalisation might become yet another restriction to the parliamentarians' freedom of political action. Thirdly, parliamentary legislative power is undermined by the subtile way governmental decision making ends in legislation.The mass media seem increasingly unable to translate this complexity to the public. As a result the public becomes more and more indifferent to the functioning of the system, which could endanger the genuine democratic influence of the people in the parliamentary system. (shrink)

The management of conflicts in society is perhaps the main function of parliamentary systems. lts success, as estimated by the extent of problem-solving and by the limitation of conflict costs, has to be explainedby the mildness of the challenge to the system and/or by the strength of its response. Among the resources available to the system too little credit is given to the factional elements in political culture, especially to the ideology of the decision-makers. The most promising feature appears to (...) be the differentiation of the ideological space in which political conflict-managers have to operate.The ideological space of the membership of parliament is «differentiated» when it is pluridimensional, when none of these ideological dimensions attains dominating salience, and when the most sensitive political issues are located on different dimensions. The data from a comparative research project show that the Italian parliament with its notoriously weak conflict-management record, fails the first and crucial test: its ideological space is strongly unidimensional. The Swiss parliamentary system with its excellent record passes all the tests. Belgium features a pluridimensional space which is impaired by the dominating salience of one of its dimensions. Other aspects of this space can only partially compensate this weakness. This might contribute to explain the mixed record of political conflict-management in our country. (shrink)

This article covers the voting behaviow- of the three major belgian parties: CVP, BSP and PVV during three legislatures in which all three partieswere twice in government and once in the opposition.The cohesion between the government parties bas been very high. This is also the case within each party. Deviations from the so-called «partyline» are minimal, especially within the socialist party.Looking at the final votes, two voting patterns dominate : government versus opposition and unanimity.All amendments, except those introduced by the (...) government, were rejected. The major conclusion is that the role of the public session of the House is reduced to a mere registration function. (shrink)

Although there is a consensus about the representative parliamentary system throughout Europe, it is in a state of crisis.To renovate Parliament means to restore the essential functions of that institution : budgetary power, legislative action and control of the government.In the field of budget a reform to institute a general budget on expenditure and to impose stricter rules on the funds as well as a very tight budgetary schedule for the government, beside the budget on revenues, was passed by the (...) House at the end of March 1989.In the legislative sphere new approaches should be considered so as to enable Parliament to reduce the complexity of the legislation, to correct badly written texts and to get rid altogether of superfluous texts.The citizens' rights can only be fully safeguarded by a well functioning legislative assembly. A rationalisation of the control on governmental action is necessary in the field of parliamentary commissions and particularly the commissions of enquiry, petitions and the scrutiny of State expenditure.To conclude it should be noted that the renovation of Parliament must go hand in hand with better relations with the common citizen. (shrink)

This article focuses on opinions of 185 Flemish members of Parliament on the functioning of Parliament, the position of Parliament in the decision making process and their task as a member of Parliament. For that purpose, members of Parliament were not interviewed, hut other sources were used, such as papers, papers of political parties and parliamentary documents. They all were situated in the period 1977-1987.The study shows that members of Parliament do not wish to affect a revaluation of Parliament because (...) of different opinions of opposition and majority members conceming its position in the decision making process. Nevertheless, they extensively discussed this theme. In this way they want to express their concern for the functioning of parliamentary democracy, in which Parliament constitutionally is focused in the center. (shrink)

Dans cet article, nous nous questionnons sur la manière dont le terrorisme est représenté en tant que référent créé en discours par les commissions du Parlement européen de la législation en cours. Tout en adoptant une approche de lexicologie discursive, qui est également redevable de l’analyse du discours « à la française », nous mènerons une enquête pour cerner les contours de l’utilisation discursive des mots « terrorisme » et « terroriste » ainsi que de quelques mots qui y (...) sont liés. Bien au-delà de l’existence de référents sociaux circulant dans les discours français de l’Hexagone, le discours tissé par le Parlement européen autour du terrorisme construit et réitère un référent discursif qui se produit dans des conditions de production discursive précises et est donc influencé par les procédures de « lissage » de la matérialité discursive typique de ce type de discours institutionnel. (shrink)

In this contribution we confront the results ofa research on the Flemish Parliament with two hypotheses regarding the request for more wamen in parliament. First, we ask whether female MPs do defend wamen's interests. The research indicates that taking care of women's interests was indeed part of the task of female MPs. Supported by other scholars, we argue that the actual and future role of male MPs in defending women's interests deserves further empirical investigation. Second, we focus on the often-assumed (...) difference that female MPs would make regarding their role orientation. Although there were major similarities in the role orientations of female and male MPs, a number of relative differences were found with regard to representational style, priorities and conception of the relations between majority and minority. (shrink)

During the last two years Belgian television has broadcast five parliamentary debates in full and live. They were either the first appearance of a new government or important government declarations. These broadcasts were encouraged by the president of the Lower House, who hoped to familiarize a large part of the electorate with the work of its members.Audience research has shown however that interest is low and is decreasing. On the other hand, cameras have definitely influenced members' conduct : they attuned (...) their appearances to the television audience, in tone, in wording and in argumentation. Sessions were also drastically prolonged.Conclusion : neither the broadcasting authority nor parliament have any interest in the live and full broadcasting of parliamentary debates. It is much to be preferred to limit them to a summary, put in an appropriate context in a special program. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

This article is related with the linguistic conflict in Belgium and the role of the parties and parties factions in the Parliament during the period 1873-1914. As a contribution to the history of the belgian Parliament, it illustrates the way the flemish claims for more autonomy were transformed in complex agreements in which non-linguistic matters, related to the system of cleavages of the belgian society, somestimes played a crucial role.

The purpose of this paper is to devote, from the viewpoint of mass communication research and persuasion strategy, some reflections on thepolitical propaganda campaign conducted after an unexpected dissolutionof the Parliament. The analysis starts from a operational communicationmodel.The unexpected character of the dissolution carriers several problems of communication strategy : the basic data of the marketing situation are deficient, the delimitation of target audiences is problematic, the choice of manipulative variables becomes a matter of pure experience.In this context the author (...) gives bis opinion about the campaigns elaborated on the occasion of the last parliamentary elections in Belgium : he ascertains a normal link to the actual social and cultural problems of the Belgian society, an orientation to a large and heterogeneous audience, but also a lack of central themes in the propaganda.The proposed operational model, in part inspired by advertising theories, seems to be a useful complement to the classic lists of practical recommendations drawn up in propaganda literature. (shrink)

The distribution of the seats in European Parliament which is most probably to result from the European elections in Belgium, on June 10, 1979 is forecasted.The extrapolation is based on the results of the general elections for the House of Representatives, which took place on April 17, 1977 and December 17, 1978.The mode of allocation of seats among the different political formations is influenced not only by the options taken by the parties themselves, whether they form a coalition with a (...) like-minded party or not,but also by some characteristics of the electoral systems.Alternative systems lead to a different distribution than the one that is most likely to come out. (shrink)

The first general elections for the Flemish Parliament have given this institution a new dynamic. In its first session several ambitious reforms were approved in order to modernise the internalfunctioning of the Flemish Parliament. It has become a place for debate beyond party borders. In its classic functions like voting laws and controlling government improvement is also visible. However, there are some disappointing results: the attraction of the plenary session stays low and the number of interpellations is still considerable.In its (...) second session the Flemish Parliament was very active in trying to improve democracy in Flanders. Those innovations have still to be implemented in 1997 and 1998. The modernizing of Flemish Parliament in the last two years has structural characteristics. The end of 1997 and 1998 must show if that is sufficientfor a lasting change in mentality. (shrink)

The «law of weak parliaments» states that parliaments with small competences only attract weak candidates, which in turn weakens the parliament even more.Research concerning the Belgian delegates to the European Parliament from 1952 to 1979, confirmed this law, but also qualified it by showing that the downward trend can be crosscut when the parliament gains importance as an institutional platform for a social movement, in this case for the European integration.

The European People's Party - with its 11 Members in 7 countries - represents, according to the latest legislative elections in the member countries of the EEC, about 40 million voters, and 28 % of the totalEEC electorate. Presenting itself as multi-classis! and open to individual adhesions, it refers also directly to the traditional values of Christian Democracy.Signs of heterogeneity can be seen, however, on three main levels - «ideological», political and economical -, which give the EPP a bipolar aspect (...) : on the one hand, the traditional Christian-Democrat Parties of Italy and the Benelux, all playing a major role in their respective countries, and all backed by strong trade-unions; on the other hand, the German CDU/CSU and the French CDS, less concentrated onconfessional options, and more «right-wing». Between the two, the Fine Gail, only party to have joined the Christian-Democrat Group after the first enlargement.This heterogeneity is, however, compensated by strong pro-European options, which make the EPP the best organized political family on the European level, and enable its leaders to express strong hopes for the election in June. (shrink)

Nowadays, in Belgium, a majority of acts of Parliament are no longer automatically applied but have to be completed by orders in council. In fact, a number of laws may remain without effect for a certain time, theexecutive power, in charge of the implementation of laws, having not prepared the drafts in acceptable delay.This phenomenon seems to arise from today's crisis in the relations between Parliament and government, which arrogates to itself the right to keep at bay the legislator's work (...) and opposes a real veto.The suppression of the phenomenon actually appears to be difficult although the members of Parliament have at times been aware of the inertness of the executive power.An award of the Supreme Court, in Belgium, dated 23 April 1971, has nevertheless penalized the failure and accepted the principle of government's responsibility due to the abstention to regulate. (shrink)