On 23 October 2024, an AGORA Parliamentary Development Community of Practice held a workshop on Measuring Parliaments’ Effectiveness within Democracy, co-organised by INTER PARES | Parliaments in Partnership – the EU Global Project to Strengthen the Capacity of Parliaments, and International Idea’s Democracy Assessment team .
The workshop brought together parliamentary research and development practitioners, and scholars in an open and interactive online environment that enabled sharing, learning and connecting with peers: the event gathered some 70 participants from around the globe.
The meeting began by focusing on two tools from International IDEA for assessing the state of democracy globally: the Global State of Democracy (GSoD) Indices and the Democracy Tracker, with a breakout-group based workshop to test these tools. The discussion also covered the roles of parliaments in democracy, the challenges of measuring their performance, and the need for a more comprehensive approach.
Jonathan Murphy, Head of Programme at INTER PARES welcomed the community with brief opening remarks and introductions.
Giovanni Rizzoni, Head of the Parliamentary Support and Capacity Building Unit at the Italian Chamber of Deputies started the discussion with opening comments on knowledge and parliamentarism.
"Normally we tend to see parliaments as political institutions, ... But we tend to neglect the fact that the parliaments are also producers of research. They not only incorporate knowledge information from outside, but they produce new knowledge…They organize, distill, and systematize information, allowing its understanding and interpretation. Only through this process, information becomes knowledge that becomes politically meaningful," said Rizzoni
On the Impact of technology on parliamentary knowledge, he said: "The advent of the Internet for parliaments offered the opportunity and practically obliged parliaments to set up parliamentary websites. These websites forced parliaments to organize their implicit knowledge, making them the contemporary encyclopedia of parliamentary knowledge…Now, even ChatGPT ... can provide reliable responses only by accessing the high-quality, verified data offered by parliaments. So, I think that the encyclopedic endeavor of parliaments as architects of political knowledge will be necessary even in the future."
After this address, participants learned about tracking democratic performance and how parliaments can use available tools from Alexander Hudson, Senior Adviser, Democracy Assessment, International IDEA. Hudson highlighted that the Global State of Democracy Indices measure democratic performance by aggregating data across multiple sources to provide insights into areas such as representation, rights, rule of law, and participation without reducing these to a single score for each country. The enables users to see trends at global and regional levels.
Presentation available here.
Then Atsuko Hirakawa, the Democracy Tracker Coordinator, International explained that the Democracy Tracker provides near real-time, monthly reports on events impacting democracy and human rights, offering specific, country-level insights to inform policy decisions and actions. She provided a live demonstration of the tool showcasing country profiles, regional analyses and parliamentary themes.
Presentation available here.
As is the practice at AGORA Parliamentary Development Community of Practice events, the conversation continued with a workshop to test these tools. Participants divided into three breakout rooms, each guided by an expert, providing space for interaction between participants and practical questions.
After the breakout sessions, participants discussed the fundamental roles of parliaments in democratic governance and how they are currently incorporated within overall measures of democratic performance. The speakers argued that opportunities exist to enhance comparative measurement of parliamentary performance, to provide better performance data for parliaments and, thus, citizens.
In this final discussion of the workshop, Jonathan Murphy, examined how parliaments fit into the overall democratic framework. Seema Shah, Head of Democracy Assessment Unit, International IDEA, elaborated on understanding and measuring the roles of parliaments in democracy and rule of law. She also mentioned that indicators for measuring parliaments will improve with upcoming adjustments to the democracy tracker. In final remarks, Giovanni Rizzoni returned to theme of measuring parliamentary functions, wholistically and with the intertwined political institutions such as political parties. Speakers and participants emphasized the importance of strengthening parliaments within the context of development funding. Currently, aid to parliaments and political parties are a very low proportion of current funding flows. Prioritizing funding to parliaments to strengthen their oversite functions, among others, could improve effectiveness of broader democracy support.
Murphy’s presentation available here.
Workshop Programme is available here
Video recording is available on YouTube.