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13 Rev. Eur. Stud. 14 (2021)
The Frequency of Use of Legislative and Non-Legislative Tools in Five Countries

handle is hein.journals/rveurost13 and id is 272 raw text is: Review of European Studies; Vol. 13, No.3; 2021 ISSN 1918-7173 E-ISSN 1918-7181 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education The Frequency of Use of Legislative and Non-Legislative Tools in Five Countries Osnat Akirav Correspondence: Western Galilee College, The head of the department of political science, Israel. E-mail: osnatak@bezeqint.net Received: May 23, 2021 Accepted: June 20, 2021 Online Published: July 12, 2021 doi:10.5539/res.v13n3p14 URL: https://doi.org/10.5539/res.v13n3p14 Abstract This study analyzes the use of legislative and non-legislative tools, which has rarely been done simultaneously. I collected data about the frequency of use of legislative tools (presenting and passing legislation) and non-legislative tools (making one-minute speeches, written and oral parliamentary questions and motions for the agenda) in five countries: the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and Israel. The results confirm my three hypotheses. Legislators from Australia, the UK and Canada use fewer legislative tools because their use is more constrained than in the US and Israel. Legislators use more semi or unconstrained tools that involve publicity than those that simply appear on the record. Finally, opposition members use more non-legislative tools while government members use more legislative tools. However, the degree of constraint on the use of the tool moderates this finding. The study provides a comprehensive understanding of the legislators' strategic use of legislative and non-legislative tools. Keywords: legislative tools, non-legislative tools, opposition members, cost-benefit analysis 1. Introduction Legislative behavior has received a great deal of research attention whether it looked at one country (Koger 2003; Tuttnauer 2020) or compared several countries (Back and Debus 2016; Jenkins and Monroe 2016; Wegmann 2020). The research has focused on the determinants of introducing and voting on legal proposals, on the length of time such proposals are in the legislative process and on voting behavior using roll calls. In addition, the literature analyzes agenda setting, productivity and effectiveness using the legislative process (Bowler 2010; Doring 2017; Sulkin et al. 2015). Other studies have investigated the use of non-legislative tools such as parliamentary questions (by country and comparatively) (Kellermann 2016; Otjes and Louwerse 2018; Saalfeld and Bischof 2013; Zittel et al. 2019) and one-minute speeches and early day motions but only in a single country (one-minute speeches in the US, early day motions in the UK and motions for the agenda in Israel) (Akirav 2021; Kellermann 2013; Pearson and Dancey 2011). In recent years there has been a new focus on legislative speech making (Back and Debus 2016; Proksch and Slapin 2015). However, the investigation of both legislative and non-legislative tools together has been neglected. This study will fill the gap in the comparative literature on legislators' behavior by analyzing the use of both legislative and non-legislative tools simultaneously (Akirav 2014; Proksch and Slapin 2015; Sorace 2018). The current study analyzes the frequency of use of legislative and non-legislative tools in five countries: the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and Israel. There are several explanations for this choice. First, Israel, Canada and Australia have all four legislative and non-legislative tools: legislation, parliamentary questions, one-minute speeches and motions. The UK has three of them (legislation, parliamentary questions and motions). The US has legislation and one-minute speeches. Therefore, we can compare two of the most neglected non-legislative tools: one-minute speeches and motions. Furthermore, as demonstrated previously, in all four countries the procedures governing one-minute speeches are similar and it is considered an easy, unconstrained parliamentary tool to use. Hence, the comparison between the four countries based just on one-minute speeches can provide useful insights. Second, as previous studies noted, electoral systems have several critical implications for the political lives of legislators (Dassonneville et al. 2017; Heitshusen et al. 2005; Strom 1997). Hence, I considered the similarities and differences in the electoral systems of the five countries. Australia, Canada and the UK are relatively similar in their social, cultural and political characteristics. All are well-established representative democracies with a bi-cameral legislature dominated by two major and at least one minor party. All three countries use single member constituencies and an electoral system based on variants of the Westminster model (Heitshusen et al. 2005). However, there are differences. Canada and the UK have first-past-the-post systems, while Australia uses the single member district 14

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