The Politics of Legislative Debates

Abstract

The contribution of this chapter to our volume is fourfold. First, we look at why we should study legislative debates and how scholars may benefit from representation, legislative politics, party politics, and electoral studies by incorporating debates in their analysis. In so doing, we unpack their functions in liberal democracies. Second, the chapter offers a state of the art of the burgeoning field of legislative debates. We focus on the normative scholarly discussion about legislative debates and their importance for deliberation and democratic outputs. In addition, we dwell on Proksch and Slapin’s model as a watershed in the empirical study of legislative debates, particularly due to its capacity to travel and its usefulness in understanding how different institutional settings have an impact of speechmaking. Third, the chapter presents the theoretical framework, the key hypotheses guiding the volume, and our empirical approach to legislative debates. Fourth, the chapter concludes with the plan of the book.