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The trap of self-evident statistics: parliamentary monitoring tools in Romania. Open Legislative Data in Paris Session 3: Roll Call Votes and Accountability Mihail Chiru , Marina Popescu , Ceu Budapest & Mrc Bucharest. Party competition in Romania.
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The trap of self-evident statistics: parliamentary monitoring tools in Romania Open Legislative Data in Paris Session 3: Roll Call Votes and Accountability MihailChiru, Marina Popescu, Ceu Budapest & Mrc Bucharest
Party competition in Romania Political competition is highly personalized & polarized on symbolic issues Very limited commitment to policy positions & weak programmatic linkages with citizens Vote mobilization through clientelistic networks and practices Ever growing distrust and disengagement from politics
What has been done – existing PMT ‘Alesiivoteaza’ www.alesiivoteaza.ro Very informative (roll-calls; attendance; initiatives) and easy to use. Emphasis on raw data and quantity – figures are covered uncritically by the media Need to move further Our PMT will monitor behavior on policy domains, i.e. linking individual votes/PQ/ bills with the MP’s and the party’s broader position on policy issues
Bringing policy back to the core of politics ·Discuss and deliberate salient issues on the agenda (following the Deliberatorium model ) · Crowd-sourcing
Helping to Create and Engage Issue Publics • Example of using the platform: • X enters the portal to learn more about healthcare reform. She starts reading what experts and fellow citizens have to say about it on the debate platform. • She can check the current and past positions of the parties on the issue tracker • She evaluates her MP’s activities on the matter: both an aggregated policy score and raw data (e.g. roll-call votes) • She takes the ‘testvot’ to learn her compatibility on this and other issues with the main parties
MP tracker It derives legislators’ policy score on major issues from roll-call votes, parliamentary questions and bill initiatives (inspired by the British Public Whip) . All votes are weighted by importance, parliamentary questions weigh almost as much as votes, while initiatives would weigh the highest of all. Compares the MPs’ current positions with their policy stances taken up during the electoral campaign (CCS). Compares the MPs’ positions with the official party standing – scaling techniques – help citizens visualize… Additional function: keeps track of the MP’s engagement in constituency service (via PQs and bill initiatives)
