Parliaments are places of intense competition between government and opposition parties – and within political parties. At the same time, they are collegiate bodies where collective decisions often have to be made across party lines, where cooperation has to co-exist with competition. This opens up a further functional tension: while a certain amount of consensus in parliaments may aid effective decision-making, it may also contribute to the appearance of a political elite whose priorities and language are removed from those people members of parliament were elected to represent.

 

The LACAN project will examine how, and under what circumstances, legislatures display collective agency against the backdrop of unfavorable competitive conditions. Students of parliaments have discovered evidence of the existence of common beliefs and ‘we-attitudes’ in legislatures to complement more competitive, hierarchical and majoritarian modes of interaction. However, this evidence has usually consisted of small-n or cross-sectional studies.

 

The LACAN project seeks to break new ground by examining to what extent, and how, members of legislative assemblies develop and reproduce such an esprit de corps in the face of highly competitive and often adversary interactions in the chamber. What theoretical mechanisms help us understand how they develop and sustain a certain amount of collegiality regardless of the competitive and hierarchical nature of legislative organization and the dominance of majoritarian decision-making? The emergence and persistence of collective agency may vary across legislatures and time and may have beneficial and problematic effects from a normative perspective. On the positive side, it may enhance the deliberative and discursive quality of legislative politics, support the search for compromise solutions under supermajority requirements and maintain a certain amount of institutional resilience vis-à-vis party leaders and executives even under conditions of national emergency. On the more problematic side, it may contribute to the development of an unrepresentative political class whose discourse is unrepresentative of the concerns of the broader citizenry.