As Roskin (2008) has pointed out legislatures are accustomed to being engaged in helping their constituents. The reasons are that they are elected by people and the more they serve their constituents the better chances for them to be reelected. They not merely have to pay attention to public opinion on numerous issues at home, but also may have to provide service to individuals. It is impossible for the legislatures to handle these matters unless they have assistants or staff members. Parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany can be seen as the best example; each legislature has a personal secretary.
Supervision and Criticism of Government (it is also called the overseeing function) is potentially the most important role of modern legislatures, in which the legislature keeps a sharp and critical eye on the executive branch. Systems such as Question Hour and Impeachment Proceedings are some kinds of overseeing function. In order to make sure whether or not the government’s activities are in line with the nation’s interest, working correctly, and functioning effectively, the legislature has to monitor the government’s affairs. Thanks to overseeing and criticizing the government the legislature can affect the work of government (Roskin, 2008). In authoritarian countries just like Myanmar and Somalia, there is no way for the legislatures to perform this type of action towards their governments. However, as for democratic countries, in times of the Question Hour members of Parliament are allowed to interrogate ministers. Unless the legislature has chances to monitor and criticize the executive, its power and roles will become less important.
If the legislature does not educate the people about the works of government, on its own, it is impossible for the legislature to make the government behave properly. Thus, informing and instructing the people on the affairs of government is also the important role for the legislature to carry out; thanks to calling public attention to problems the legislature create mass demands. In this respect, the mass media are the best tools for legislatures to educate their citizens in terms of the activities of government. For instance, in the mid-1960s, Senator J. William Fulbright, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, informed. Americans about the Vietnam War by means of televising his committee’s hearings. (Roskin, 2008)
As the legislators are elected by people they are responsible to people—not to the party leaders or the executive branch, and so, they do have to represent those who vote for them. As Chuang (2009) has pointed out there are three types of representatives: delegates, who represent the interests of their constituents; trustees, who represent their constituents according to their own conscience or their best judgment; and politicos, who are a mixture of delegates and trustees. Besides, according to Chuang’s other viewpoint, legislators can represent their constituents, their own political party, their countries, and their own interests. However, even though it seems hard to point out what interests the representatives represent, the existence of the legislature is important symbolically. By some means, it might bestow a degree of legitimacy on the regime. Thus even in dictatorship countries, the institution of Legislature is still kept. Myanmar can serve as the best example; we can see the People’s Assembly of Myanmar still exists up to this day though it has no power.
On all accounts, in comparison with the executive branch the roles and power of the legislature are in decline. Even though there are many causes for the decline of the legislative I will discuss only five crucial elements: Structural Disadvantages, Lack of Expertise, Psychological Disadvantages, Absentee Problem, and Lack of Turnover. From my perspectives, the main and primary causes for the decline of legislatives are based on these matters.
In both parliamentary systems and presidential systems there are structural disadvantages. We can take notice that in parliamentary systems (mainly in European parliaments) party discipline is strong, and hence legislators obey party whips and the parliamentary affairs does not seem to be interesting in the eyes of the mass media and public. Unless coalitions break up or when members of one party defect to another, things can be predictable and uninteresting. Though the European parliaments are more rational and efficient than the U.S. Congress, they are less influential and exciting. By way of contrast, in the U.S. Congress the party discipline is weak, and legislators can deadlock with the executive. Therefore, Congress is lively and important though it is inefficient. But owing to the legislators have right to “talk back” to the executive and even override a presidential veto, there are problems in reaching agreements; this delays and often prevents agreement. But the final decision rests on the shoulder of presidents. Therefore, based on these two parliamentary systems, the structural disadvantages have impact on the decline of legislatures. (Roskin, 2008)
When it comes to dealing with technical, military, economic, and social problems, only few legislators in the position to cope with these issues. Apart from European parliaments, which have fewer lawyers and more schoolteachers, journalists, and full-time party people, most of the parliaments’ legislators are not experts and only few professionals are assigned to deal with matters such as intelligence estimates, medical care, international currency fluctuations, and environmental pollution. As a result, the legislators have to rely on experts from the executive branch or interest groups in times of conducting research or applying laws due to being lack of expertise. Then it gives ways for the executive branch and interest groups to obtain the roles and power from the legislatures, and thus they end up losing their roles and power gradually. (Roskin, 2009)
The roles of legislatures are also affected by the psychological disadvantages. People appear to be more impressed with presidents or prime ministers rather than with parliaments (Roskin, 2008). A president can have charisma but a legislator cannot—to all appearances. In parliamentary systems, members of the parliaments have tendency to follow their party leaders, and hence this behavior lead them to become “president worship.” Therefore, the roles of legislatures become smaller and smaller as a result of losing the attention from people and following the head of the largest party.
Most of the legislators are not in the mood of giving time to be in session because of having many other things to do such as helping, visiting constituents, and talking with interest groups. According to various parliamentary systems, whether or not being present is not a problem; what legislatures have to do is only to vote. Hence, the legislators do not bother to be present. However, here the impact is so huge: the legislatures end up either saying that they do not regard legislating as their chief function or admitting that they are not important. (Roskin, 2008)
The roles of legislature might be in decline due to being lack of turnover as well. Although there are the limits on congressional terms only few members put them into practical practice. In both parliamentary systems and presidential systems, the members of parliaments consider themselves as career lifetime legislators and once elected they usually get reelected as long as they wish to serve. The opportunity for newcomers to enter parliament with new ideas seems to be out of consideration; the newcomers only have little chance to win a place in parliament. In consequences, in time of having to innovate and respond to new currents in public opinion the legislators become inefficient. (Roskin, 2008)
From my own personal viewpoint, I feel inclined to claim that lawmaking and the so-called overseeing function are the most important roles for legislatures to play in the political process even though there are many salient functions for legislatures.
The reason why these two functions become more important than other roles is that: unless legislatures get engaged in lawmaking and become involved in supervising and criticizing the executive branch, we can say that the legislatures are only existing but not alive. The more chances and opportunities legislatures acquire in lawmaking and overseeing the government, the better chances for them to maintain their roles and power, and be able to make them alive. As a direct, the roles of legislature definitely will be in decline.
In this respect, according to Handbook of National Legislatures (2009), the legislatures in Germany, Italy and Mongolia significantly have powerful roles in their political systems in comparison with other countries. In these countries, legislatures not only can have effective powers oversight over the agencies of coercion and can establish committees of inquiry to investigate the executive or prime minister but also vote no confidence in the government and can remove the prime minister or the executive without a vote of no confidence. In addition, in these countries, in terms of lawmaking, the legislature also are in the position to control the resources that finance its own internal operation and provide for the perquisites of its own members as well as any executive initiative on legislation requires ratification or approval by the legislature before it takes effect and laws passed by the legislature are veto-proof. Therefore, lawmaking and overseeing functions are vitally important for legislatures to preserve their roles and power and make their statuses alive.
In short summary, I am sure to state that even though the legislature plays important roles as the executive does in the political processes, the legislature does not possess power as much as the executive possesses. In my essay, I have mentioned the roles of legislatures concerning: Lawmaking, Constituency Work, Supervision and Criticism of Government, Education, and Representation, and then analyze the roles of legislatures are in decline owing to: Structural Disadvantages, Lack of Expertise, Psychological Disadvantages, Absentee Problem, and Lack of Turnover, in addition to discussing the most important roles for legislatures, in particular, Lawmaking and Overseeing, and why they are crucial in the political process compared to other factors.
References:
Michael G. Rosking, R. L. (2008). Political Science. New Jersey: Pearson Education.
Chuang, R. Y. (2009). SS201. Hong Kong: The Open University of Hong Kong.
Handbook of National Legislatures. (2009). Retrieved August 7, 2010, from
