Edward Elgar Publishing Handbook of Parliamentary Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Legislatures

Product Description This comprehensive Handbook takes a multidisciplinary approach to the study of parliaments, offering novel insights into the key aspects of legislatures, legislative institutions and legislative politics. Connecting rich and diverse fields of inquiry, it illuminates how the study of parliaments has shaped a wider understanding surrounding politics and society over the past decades. Through 26 thematic chapters, expert contributors analyse parliamentary institutions from various disciplinary perspectives (history, law, political science, political economy, sociology and anthropology). A wide range of approaches is covered, including the sociological study of members of parliaments, gender studies and the mathematical conceptualisation of legislatures. Exploring the history of parliament, the concepts and theories of parliamentarism, constitutional law, and the linkages between parliaments and the administrative state or with populism, this incisive Handbook provides a panoramic view of this institution. Chapters also map the main trends, patterns of developments and controversies related to parliaments, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of current research and identifying a range of promising avenues for further study. Drawing together international and comparative approaches, the Handbook of Parliamentary Studies will be a critical resource for academics and students of parliamentary politics, political science, political economy, public law and political history. It also provides a vital foundation for researchers of legislative and political institutions. Review 'This intriguing volume brings together a remarkably rich and diverse set of perspectives on parliamentary politics from a variety of scholarly disciplines and traditions. There is much to appreciate and celebrate, and from here on there is no excuse for parliamentary studies to be dull or parochial.' About the Author Edited by Cyril Benoît, CNRS Researcher and Olivier Rozenberg, Associate Professor, Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics, Sciences Po, France