Nationale Parlamentarier im Europarat

Due to the increasing shift in political decision-making from national parliaments to international organisations, the rise of international government is often assumed to be accompanied by the decline of national parliaments. As a reaction, several international organisations have established transnational parliamentary assemblies to increase parliamentarians’ participation in international negotiations. But their dual mandate reveals some contradictions: Why would national parliamentarians take on an additional time-consuming subsidiary job despite its low public and media attention and without any financial compensation? This study focuses on the motivation and parliamentary behaviour of national representatives from the 47 member states in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe by evaluating three original data collections: interviews, an online survey and an analysis of plenary protocols.