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Abstract:
This report presents the Roundtable entitled "Legislative Oversight: Theories and Practices," organized by the editors as part of the Southern Political Science Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, USA, January 7-10, 2004.

The papers presented herein reflect the papers presented at that Roundtable. The paper by Pelizzo and Stapenhurst presents the data collected from a survey of 83 countries by the Inter-Parliamentary Union in collaboration with the World Bank Institute. The data analysis reveals that legislatures in parliamentary systems are generally better equipped to oversee government activities than legislatures in presidential and semipresidential systems. The paper also investigates the role of legislatures in preparing and approving the budget. The analysis reveals that legislatures in presidential systems are generally the most active legislatures in the preparation of the budget, while parliaments are the most active legislatures in approving the budget. Thomas F. Reminton's paper examines the use of de facto oversight mechanisms by the Russian Federal Assembly and relates them to institutional performance in the postcommunist Russian state. The paper finds that by contrast with the early 1990s, policy making has become much more efficient. David M. Olson's paper argues that the Polish Sejm is currently the most active post-communist parliament in oversight and administrative review. In the light of the Polish experience, the paper suggests that post-communist parliaments will have increasing capacity to be active in oversight as a result of both the budgeting process and growing international influences upon policy choices. Edward Schneier's paper investigates why the post-reforms Indonesian parliament has not put mechanisms of legislative oversight to effective use. The problem is partially by three sets of factors, namely the legislature's own failure to institutionalize, endemic problems of corruption and a lingering tendency to defer to entrenched elites. Scott W. Desposato's paper investigates how legislatures' ability to engage in effective oversight activities is significantly related to both the formal institutional framework and informal institutional incentives. The paper investigates the impact of the informal institutional incentives on state assemblies'ability to oversee executive activities in Brazil. Mark Shepard argues that in spite of the House of Commons' awareness of its limitations in administrative review and oversight, change has been slow and hampered by the constitutional frame-work, executive hegemony and strong partisanship in the British Parliament. The author further argues that although there have been some important concessions recently, many of the successful reforms have focused on improving efficiency of oversight rather than effectiveness of oversight per se. Timothy J. Power's paper addresses one of the most important issues that constitutional engineers and practitioners are confronted with, that is: is executive dominance irreversible? After discussing some of the historical factors that have created the conditions for executive dominance, Power illustrates how the Brazilian congress managed to do the unthinkable: to reduce the President's authority to issue emergency decrees and, by doing so, to reduce substantially the power of the executive. Keith Schulz's paper raises an interesting issue. He notes that while international agencies' involvement in legislative capacity building represents one of the most critical aspects of their activities, it is not at all clear how the impact of internationally funded programs should be measured. The author also discusses how USAID has attempted in the past couple of years to re-spond to this dearth of knowledge and information.

Legislatures, Parliament, Oversight, Russia, Poland, Indonesia, Brazil, United Kingdom

Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to discuss why and how ethics reforms have been enacted by many parliaments in the course of the past decade. Our argument is fairly straightforward. Politicians' perceived irresponsiveness, various forms of misconduct and corruption scandals have eroded voters' trust in politicians and political institutions. In order to induce a more ethical behavior among politicians as well as to rebuild public trust in political institutions, ethics regimes have been adopted by several legislatures. Such regimes have generally taken two main forms: ethics codes and conduct codes. Ethics codes tend to be fairly general documents: they formulate broad principles of behavior but they do not define what is appropriate and what is inappropriate behavior, nor do they establish sanctions for violations of the code. By contrast, codes of conduct tend to contain very specific provisions with clear sanctions for those who violate the dispositions of the code. Terminological confusion arises, however, because some parliamentary ethics codes include dispositions and sanctions that are more commonly found in codes of conduct. This paper attempts to clear this terminological confusion, reviewing the dispositions and sanctions that may included in both ethics and conduct codes, with special attention to probable success factors. It underlines the importance of cultural factors, suggesting that one of the success factors is whether the individuals that the code is regulates actually share the same ethical standards, have a common understanding of what is appropriate behavior and a common understanding of what constitutes misconduct.

Parliament, Legislature, Code of Conduct. Code of Ethics

Abstract:
During the 1990s, more than a quarter of the countries of the world revised their constitutions to include an expand the role of their legislatures. This paper examines one of the most important roles for legislatures - that of financial oversight - and considers some of the lessons emerging from a decade of legislative development and reform.

Legislature, Parliament, Budget, Oversight

Abstract:
This report comprises papers presented at a Roundtable on "The role of Parliaments in the Budget Process" at the Southern Political Science Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, USA, January 5-9, 2005.

In the first paper Joachim Wehner examines data from 43 countries to explain the different institutional arrangements to oversee the budget process. He argues that what determines the division of labor between the legislative and executive branch is not the presidential or parliamentarian mode of government, but the access to information, federalist structures and constitutional provisions affected by colonial rule. Zdenka Mansfeldová and Petra Rakušanová analyse the bargaining process in the legislature of the Czech Republic. Indeed over recent years, the budget process has undergone some great changes. Although the distribution of party-power in the Parliament and the Budget Committee remains of crucial importance, joining the European Union has led Parliament to seek a greater profile and strengthen its auditing functions, and professionalisation of the deputies on the Budgets Committee, has greatly increased the Committee's influence and prestige.

Carolyn Forestiere's and Riccardo Pelizzo's paper studies the role of the Italian parliament to examine how institutional and political conditions influence the legislative power over the budget. Drawing on institutional and party system theories, they argue that procedures and ideology provide the greatest incentives for parliaments to deviate from unilaterally supporting their governments during the passage of the national budget. Finally Barry Anderson's paper discusses the potential value of independent analytical budget units for the legislature in increasing the transparency, credibility and accountability of the budget process. After examining a couple of country specific cases, he comes to the conclusion that for them to successfully fulfill a set of core functions, such units need to be at least non-partisan, independent, and objective

Parliament, Legislature, Budget Process, Israel, Budget Office, Italy, Czech Republic