Can the principle of opposition be constitutionalized? Danny Schindler’s study on all African constitutions reveals a wide array of rules to recognize and empower the parliamentary opposition. In general, the dividends of nominally democratic rules might be smaller than expected.

Following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the effectiveness of parliamentary oversight of the Bundestag and the Assemblée nationale was criticised. While the criticism in France focussed primarily on legal obstacles, in Germany the work of the opposition was judged to be inadequate. The article examines the question of which criteria can be used for a more systematic assessment of parliamentary control in times of crisis.

Are representative democracies able to fight climate change? And how does climate change affect the viability of democracy? Those questions were adressed by politicians, scholars, represenatives of civil society and the media during a roundtable debate organized by Das Progressive Zentrum on May 10. Among the selected guests, IParl was represented by its director Danny Schindler.

On 22 February 2022, Chancellor Olaf Scholz proclaimed a "Zeitenwende" (turning point) in German foreign policy in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The seminar, organised by the GSA, the IASGP and the IParl, will explore the question of whether it is possible to speak of a turning point in German politics beyond foreign policy. Proposals can be submitted until 3 March.

Three panels with IParl participation will take place at the IPSA Conference 2023 in Buenos Aires. Anyone interested in parliamentary party groups (PPGs), second chambers or parliamentarism in conditions of crisis can now apply with their paper. The deadline is 18 January 2023 and we are looking forward to receiving numerous proposals.

The European Parliament has been active in supporting and strengthening parliaments around the globe. Looking back at 10 years of activities, the EP Democracy Support and Election Coordination Group organized a high-level-conference in Brussels to discuss experiences and the way forward, November 29 to 30, 2022. Sven T. Siefken participated as an academic commentator, his remarks can be viewed in the videocast below, starting at 16.37 min.

Oxford Handbooks provide relevant and up-to-date overviews of the state of research in various disciplines. In their contribution to the Oxford Handbook of German Politics, Suzanne S. Schüttemeyer and Sven T. Siefken examine the German Bundestag as a "core institution" at the center of the constitutional order of the German political system.

Parliamentary Party Groups (PPGs) are the central institutional link between voters, parties, and parliaments. In its current composition, no less than 16 PPGs are present in the Croatian Parliament (Sabor), a peak value in European comparison. The trend towards fractionalization in Sabor has steadily increased in recent years. The article explores the causes, compares „PPG Thresholds“ internationally and outlines reform options.

On 27 June 2022, the Office of the European Parliament, the Jean Monnet Chair of European Politics at the University of Wroclaw, in partnership with the Institute for Parliamentary Research, is organising a workshop on "Representative Democracy in Times of Crisis: Challenges and Opportunities". Registrations for the hybrid workshop are still open.

The digitalization of human life has impacted many aspects of politics in the last two decades. Intra-party decision-making is one of them. However, not much is known about how intra-party selectorates evaluate the digitalization of a crucial decision-making process. Calixte Bloquet, Isabelle Borucki and Benjamin Höhne ask whether party members who participate in candidate selection support online consultations - or not.

A new chapter in German history begins with the country’s first three-party coalition government since the 1950s, the ‘Ampel’ coalition, emerging from the 2021 elections. The seminar, sponsored by the AICGS and the IParl, will focus on the challenges ahead, using the new coalition as departure point for considering current developments as well as the long-term evolution of German political institutions and political culture. Please submit your proposals until March 14, 2022.

What spurs or hampers contested district nominations for the Bundestag? Our new article provides some answers: Determinants for competitive conferences are a vacant candidacy, extra-parliamentary parties, and the involvement of several regional party units. Interestingly, there is a vast demand for more contested nominations among the selectorates. However, some ‘coronations’ are caused by early withdrawals of aspirants due to the leadership’s influence.

The left-wing movement "Aufstehen" was a political experiment that received a lot of media attention in a relatively short period of time. In his article, Benjamin Höhne traces the development of the self-proclaimed movement, places it in the German party landscape and draws conclusions from its rapid failure for new "movement parties" in Germany.

Digital, interdisciplinary and exciting. The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) hosted an inspiring symposium on the political work of the SPD’s parliamentary group in the German Bundestag. We participated with initial findings from our SOPiP-Project on the development of standing orders of parliamentary groups.

The IParl's newsletter informs all interested readers about new publications, selected media contributions and upcoming and past events. You can subscribe to our distribution list via the registration link. The newsletter is sent out in German.

In his contribution in "Recht und Politik", Daniel Hellmann examines the decision-making practice of the Federal Election Committee concerning the admission of parties to the 2017 federal elections. From this, he derives threshold values as of when it is possible to speak of a party. In particular, the existence of state associations and at least 40 members were prerequisites for determining the party status.

The web conference "Key Challenges and Lessons for Parliaments in Context of Coronavirus Pandemic" with international experts and parliamentarians was organized by USAID as part of the IParl cooperation with the Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada).

Invited by the Federal Foreign Office and in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut, a delegation of Brazilian experts visited IParl to discuss the consequences of digitisation for democracy in general and the German Bundestag in particular.

For a decade, young scholars from various regions of Europe meet once a year at the “Graduate Conference Party Research” at the Institut für Deutsches und Internationales Parteienrecht und Parteienforschung (PRuF) based at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf. After two instructive days in Düsseldorf, it can be concluded that there will be certainly no lack of creative approaches in international party studies in the future.

From 22^nd to 25^th August the 8^th ECPR General Conference took place. At this international convention about 2.000 scholars and nearly 500 panels were present and so was the IParl with first results from the candidate nomination study. The Topic of the IParl paper were the Factors of Success.

The ninth Graduate Conference on Party Research in Düsseldorf took place from 2^nd to 3^rd February 2018. It gives interested doctoral candidates in Party Research an international platform for their research.

The lecture series is organized in cooperation with IParl. Every Wednesday in the winter term 2017/2018, 6p.m. - 8 p.m., Melanchthonianum, room XV.

The weekly in-house newspaper of the German Bundestag (Das Parlament) reported on the results of IParl’s research project in the paper’s special issue about the Parliamentary Election in Germany.

If no candidate has a majority after the third vote, a decision will be made based on chance. For the Green Party in Bavaria, this came in the form of a coin-toss. In addition to this relatively rare spectacle, the party list convention in Augsburg on the 9th and 10th of December brought a few other surprises as well.

Who didn’t report on the scandal: F.A.Z, Süddeutsche, Der Spiegel... the SWR tweeted: „Candidate casting for the #SPD Bitburg-Prüm”. The story was even featured on the nightly television news. For the three small district associations of the Social Democratic Party which share Parliamentary Constituency No. 203 „Bitburg” in Rhineland-Palatinate, the media’s response came as a surprise. How has the extraordinary search for a candidate gone?

Twenty-five members of the project team – primarily research associates, doctoral and master students as well as alumni of the Halle Political Science programme – convened on the 23rd of September 2016 for a full-day conference, to familiarize themselves with the content of the project as well as to plan field research.