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Monitoring parliamentarians: promises, barriers and dilemmas of parliamentary

openness

EGPA Study Group on Information and communications technologies in Public Administration

Conference 10-12 September 2014, Speyer, Germany

Arthur Edwards*

Dennis de Kool

Charlotte van Ooijen

edwards@fsw.eur.nl

*Corresponding author

Erasmus University Rotterdam

Department of Public Administration

P.O. Box 1738

Room T17-34

3000 DR Rotterdam

Abstract: This paper focuses on the monitoring of individual parliamentarians and parliamentary groups

by independent Parliamentary Monitoring Organizations. Five parliamentary monitoring websites

(PMWs) in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are compared regarding their

usefulness and democratic value for the monitorial citizen. Our findings indicate that PMWs have

democratic value. They have positive effects on accountability and expose weaknesses in the

functioning of parliamentarians with regard to integrity and conflicts of interest. However, there are

some important barriers regarding usefulness. The existing scholarly knowledge about how voters

gather and process information should be better taken into account in the approach to information

provision on PMWs. The drive to monitor parliamentarians can have certain perverse effects on the

behaviour of parliamentarians. The value of parliamentary monitoring for the quality of parliamentary

work deserves further research.

DRAFT: please, do not cite without permission of the corresponding author. Comments are

welcome!

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1.Introduction

‘Parliamentary openness’ has become a central concern within the international parliamentary

community. The principle involves ‘that information produced by or for the parliament belongs

to the citizen’.1 Parliamentary openness refers to a wide range of efforts in providing

information on parliamentary processes. It involves the active dissemination of information by

parliaments themselves as well as the efforts of civil society actors in accessing, processing and

publishing parliamentary data. This paper focuses on parliamentary monitoring, i.e. the

monitoring of individual parliamentarians and parliamentary groups by independent

information intermediaries, including ‘Parliamentary Monitoring Organizations’ (Mandelbaum

2011). The objects of parliamentary monitoring include voting behaviour and other

parliamentary activities, expenses and non-parliamentary incomes, unethical conduct and

potential conflicts of interest. As a matter of course, information and communication

technologies (ICTs) greatly facilitate parliamentary monitoring, because of their capabilities to

store, organize and aggregate information from various sources, and to create platforms for

interaction between citizens and politicians. Parliamentary openness and parliamentary

monitoring can been related to several democratic aims. The basic expectation is that they

further the public knowledge about the functioning of parliaments and their individual

members. This could serve other democratic aims, including holding parliamentarians

accountable, empowering civil society and encouraging citizen participation. We encompass

those aims under the heading of ‘democratic value’ (Hilbert, 2009; Moss and Coleman 2014),

which we define as the added value of parliamentary monitoring for democratic practices

within a configuration of interacting (representative and more direct) forms of democracy. This

paper aims at a critical exploration of the promises, barriers and dilemmas of parliamentary

monitoring. We investigate how PMOs select and present information on Parliamentary

Monitoring Websites (PMWs), which design choices are thereby made and how these choices

affect the democratic value of PMWs. The central question is: What is the democratic value of

Parliamentary Monitoring Websites? Our research is structured around three sub questions:

(1) How can the democratic value of parliamentary monitoring be conceptualized?

(2) Which conditions regarding usefulness have to be fulfilled for the realization of this

democratic potential?

(3) How are usefulness and democratic value realized on PMWs?

The first two questions are dealt with in the theoretical framework. We start by discussing key

conditions with regard to the usefulness of parliamentary information for citizens. Usefulness is

a necessary condition for the realization of the democratic value of parliamentary data.

1 Declaration on Parliamentary Openness (2012). Opening Parliament.org

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Democratic value is conceptualized within the framework of models of democracy.

Representative democracy is the primary domain within which this democratic potential is

discussed. Pluralist democracy, deliberative democracy and direct democracy are taken into

consideration as well. The notion of ‘monitorial citizenship’ will be used as a lens to investigate

how mechanisms from these models of democracy interact with parliamentary monitoring. For

instance, within representative democracy the usage of information provided on PMWs

assumes vigilant ‘monitorial voters’. How are monitorial voters facilitated by PMWs? The

democratic value of PMWs in representative democracy can also be assessed in terms of the

quality and integrity of parliamentary work. This dimension of democratic value will be

discussed within the framework of accountability, but not investigated in further detail.

The research is based on case studies of five PMWs in France, Germany, the Netherlands and

the United Kingdom. These countries represent a variety of political systems which serves our

exploratory aims. In section 2, we present our theoretical framework and research design. In

section 3, we provide a description of the selected websites. We present a comparative analysis

of the websites in section 4, followed by an assessment of their democratic value in section 5.

In section 6, we formulate our conclusions.

2. Theoretical framework and research design

Figure 1: conceptual model

Figure 1 presents our conceptual model. For parliamentary data to actually be used by citizens,

certain conditions with regard to the usefulness of the data have to be fulfilled. Information

general conditions for

usefulness of

parliamentary data

democratic value of parliamentary data:

representative, pluralist, deliberative, direct democracy

information

intermediaries

usage by information and preference

intermediaries

usage by citizens

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intermediaries (PMOs as well as journalists) have a crucial role in this. With regard to

democratic value, the role of intermediaries has to be highlighted as well, not only in processing

and presenting the data as such, but also in interpreting the data in relation to political

preferences. The democratic value of parliamentary monitoring depends not only on the work

of journalists but also advocacy groups and political parties (‘preference intermediaries’;

Edwards, 2006a).

2.1 Usefulness

The drive to increase openness and transparency by means of information access and

dissemination entails various problems and tensions. Usefulness is one of the primary principles

that should guide decisions about how parliamentary information has to be made available

(Dawes, 2010). The principle involves that the disseminated information is relevant to its

intended users and is made available in such a way that it can be used in an easy manner.

Janssen et al (2012) discuss a number of ‘myths’ concerning ‘open data’ and ‘open

government’. ‘Myths’ are ‘seductive tales’, which tend to idealize a specific endeavour by

looking at the advantages without sufficient attention to possible drawbacks (Bekkers and

Homburg, 2007). Meijer (2009) argues that computer-mediated transparency has some

characteristics that can actually threaten trust. Computer-mediated transparency tends to be

decontextualized, highly selective and biased toward quantitative information and non-

interactive. Grimmelikhuijsen (2012) established that the direct effect of transparency on trust

is very limited. On the basis of their discussion of myths, Janssen et al. (2012: 264-266)

formulated some recommendations. An important one is to get insight into the users’

perspective and information needs. Dawes (2002) specified a number of ‘usefulness proposals’.

The following three design principles for PMWs are partly based upon their work.

1. Appropriate consideration should be given to the objects of monitoring, the information

about these objects and the kind of data. At least three problems can be noted. Firstly,

information provision is always selective. The choices made with regard to the

parliamentary activities to be monitored can affect the voters’ assessment of their

representatives. Second, the publicizing of some information and data can result in a

misleading or biased picture of the situation. For instance, without contextual

information about the political position of the party (in the opposition or in the

government), and compromises made in case of coalition governments, simple

performance ratings of political groups according to their enactment of election

promises can be misleading. Third, publication of certain data can lead to misuse and

other undesirable side effects. For instance, rankings of parliamentarians according to

their interventions in debates can result in strategic behaviour.

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2. The publicizing of parliamentary data needs to be accompanied by an infrastructure

which is able to handle the data in an easy-to-use way. An example is a concise grouping

of data in a ‘profile’ of each representative. Such an infrastructure should lower the

barriers for users to find the right information, to analyse it and to draw conclusions.

Specifically, the provision of meta-data for searching, analysing and interpreting data is

essential. The composition of these metadata (e.g., a categorization of data in policy

areas) should be carefully considered.

3. The information needs and capabilities of users have to be taken into account. This

design principle should be linked to the extensive literature about how voters gather

and process political information. Sniderman et al. (1990) argued that both well-

educated and low educated voters can be seen as rational decision makers, in the sense

that the well-educated are ‘optimizers’ and the less educated are ‘satisficers’.The

accompanying infrastructure should provide appropriate supporting facilities in terms of

guidance, visualization, annotation, and features for specific target groups. Mechanisms

for user feedback are also important.

These design principles underline the importance of efforts of PMOs in gathering, processing

and presenting parliamentary data with a view to usefulness. The principles can be regarded as

complementary perspectives on usefulness, because they address the ‘what’ and ‘how’ aspects

of information provision from different angles. The principles suggest that a ‘service-hatch’

approach to parliamentary monitoring, by which only raw data is provided, is inappropriate. In

an ideal-typical approach, the opposite of the service-hatch position is custom made

information, tailored to the political information needs of every individual citizen on a one-to-

one basis. In theory, again, there are two approaches to personalization: (1) personalization

manufactured by the information system which may become more within reach according as

the system ‘knows’ more about the characteristics and preferences of individual persons, and

(2) personalization on the basis of the notion of ‘do-it-yourself-citizenship’ (Dahlberg, 2010).

Without dismissing possibilities for personalization, it seems more practical to look at

information needs of different user categories rather than individual users. In this context,

another consideration is relevant. The information provided by a PMW does not need to be the

appropriate end product for all user categories. A further selection and processing of

information by journalists will be required for reaching those citizens, who perform their

monitorial role at a greater distance from the political system. The division of labour between

PMOs and the media deserves further attention.

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2.2 Democratic value

We link our conceptualization of the democratic value of parliamentary monitoring with the

notion of monitorial citizenship. This concept has been introduced by Schudson (1998) and has

obtained a foothold in the literature on democracy and citizenship, particularly in the context of

the information society. Monitorial citizens scan their informational environment. ‘Reading the

headlines’ will suffice most of the time. When they consider key interests at stake, they may

decide to intervene and gain access to further information. Representative democracy is the

primary domain in which monitorial citizenship is exercised. However, other democratic

mechanisms are also relevant. Figure 2 presents an overall picture of the ‘models of

democracy’ through which monitorial citizenship can be exercised. We consider these models

not as rivalling conceptions of democracy, but as dimensions of a democratic political system,

which (depending on the institutional arrangements in a country) coexist and interact in specific

ways (Lonford and Patten, 2007).

Figure 2: Models of democracy for exercising monitorial citizenship

Selecting elected representatives, monitoring their activities and holding them accountable in

the next election are the traditional tasks of voters in a representative democracy. The concept

(‘Accelerated’)

pluralist democracy

Representative

democracy

Deliberative

democracy (agenda-

setting)

Direct democracy

(corrective

referendum)

Deliberative

democracy (forum)

moni-

torial

citizen-

ship

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of monitorial citizenship suggests that voters discharge their monitorial role ‘by keeping an eye

on the scene’ (Schudson, 1998:311). They rely on trusted sources via the news media, peers

and other sources. During elections, voters use various economizing strategies and shortcuts

for gathering, analysing and evaluating political information about candidates and parties

(Downs, 1957; Ferejohn & Kuklinski, 1990). Ideology is one example, past performance is

another, because voters can base their assessments on their own experience of their

circumstances of life during a candidate’s incumbency. ‘Political signalling’, i.e. taking cues from

‘insiders’ (e.g., interest groups), is also important. Performance data and voting records can be

used by candidates and parties in election campaigns in their attacks on opponents. The use of

shortcuts can be supplemented by consulting voting records, e.g. on specific key issue domains.

Lastly, ‘retrospective voter advice applications’ based on voting records can be useful for

voters. One of the PMOs in the Dutch case provided such a device in 2006. The effects of

parliamentary monitoring on parliamentary work are difficult to assess. In line with its aims, the

main desired effect is that it would make MPs feel accountable, which would in turn encourage

openness to citizen input, procedural fairness and responsiveness, and would counter unethical

conduct. From research on performance measurement in the public sector, however, we know

that transparency can have perverse effects and lead to strategic behaviour (De Bruijn, 2007

The exercise of monitorial citizenship is triggered and facilitated further by mechanisms and

intermediaries within the pluralist, deliberative and direct models of democracy. Pluralism

allows for different interpretations, also in terms of views of parliament (Taylor & Burt, 1999).

In a monitorial reading of the pluralist model of democracy, citizens are called to action by ad

hoc groups of volunteers or by a more or less established special interest group which foresees

a crisis like situation, and believes that some action must be taken in response. We adopt this

idea from Hurwitz (1999), who emphasizes the initiating role of volunteers: ‘The organizations

for such actions are typically ephemeral and initially rely on word of mouth to publicize their

cause.’ (p.660). The proliferation of single issue groups and the rapid mobilization made

possible by the internet have been coined by Bimber (1998) as ‘accelerated pluralism’. In the

last decade we witness the use of social media by citizens who mobilize their own social

networks in ‘connective action’, thereby producing a snowball effect with political impact

(Bennett & Segerberg, 2012). Above, we referred to the ‘signalling’ function of information

providers. Special interest groups can play an important role in this by aggregating and

evaluating performance data and votes. Since decades, interest groups in the United States

issue congressional voting ‘report cards’ to tell voters how their lawmakers are doing. Interest

groups use them to choose which Members of Congress to back financially, to mobilize grass-

roots supporters and to lobby Congress directly. Members of Congress (MCs) can be captured

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by threats that a specific vote will be included as a ‘key vote’ in the scorecards.2 The American

PMO VoteSmart includes interest group ratings in their overviews of performance evaluations.

On the website it is pointed out that ratings done by interest groups are biased and that some

groups even select votes that tend to favour members of one political party over another.

However, they can be very useful ‘especially when ratings by groups on all sides of an issue are

compared.’ 3

The deliberative model is also pertinent for monitorial citizenship. Here we draw upon Zaller’s

notion of the ‘Burglar Alarm’ as an alternative standard for the quality of news for the ‘Full

News’ standard (Zaller, 2003). The Burglar Alarm standard ‘would motivate news that would

catch the attention of the Monitorial Citizen’, thereby facilitating his opinion formation (p.122).

Partly drawing upon Arnold’s research on the role of the press in holding MCs to account

(Arnold, 2004), Zaller identifies four kinds of ‘stories’ which would call for coverage under the

Burglar Alarm standard: (1) recorded votes on controversial elements of the president’s

agenda, (2) efforts by individual MCs to prevent a major federal program or activity in their

district from shutting down, (3) credible allegations that a MC broke the law or violated ethics

standards and (4) cases in which a MC voted against the apparent interests of his constituents

(p. 125). Except the violations of law and ethics standards, three of these ‘stories’ can be

included in voting records. We consider the Burglar Alarm standard as applying to the agenda-

setting role of deliberative democracy. The objection that monitorial citizenship, and especially

the Burglar Alarm standard, involves the danger of stimulating a ‘democracy of rejection’, in

contrast to a ‘democracy of proposition’ (Moss and Coleman, 2014, following Rosanvallon,

2008), has to be conceded. On the other hand, the expenses scandal in the British House of

Commons in 2009 seems to allow for a more optimistic assessment. According to the Speaker

of the House of Commons, addressing the Hansard Society as chairman of the Speaker’s

Commission on Digital Democracy on 27 November 2013, the scandal ‘had rocked parliament

to its very foundations’, but has also staged ‘an unexpected recovery’. 4 However, we agree

with Moss and Coleman (2014:418) when they suggest that the forms of monitorial citizenship

facilitated by open government should be supplemented by deliberative practices ‘that provide

an opportunity to reflect on the nuances and complexities of policy and which can make

constructive links with policy formation and decision-making’. The agenda-setting function of

pluralist and deliberative democracy has therefore to be supplemented by deliberative

arrangements where citizens can trigger appeal. The importance of forums for monitorial

2 http://public.cq.com/docs/weeklyreport/weeklyreport-000004207216.html?src=db

3 http://votesmart.org/

4 http://www.parliament.uk/business/commons/the-speaker/speeches/speeches/designing-a-parliament-for-the-

21st-century/

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citizenship is also underlined by Van den Hoven (2005). Where can these forums be localized?

The media can fulfil these roles but their performance may not be sufficient. For instance,

Arnold (2004) established that MCs’ explanations for their votes were seldom or only

intermittently covered. Public hearings and citizen juries are candidates, but (again) their

political resonance depends on the media. Citizen juries face a range of problems with regard to

media coverage (Smith, 2009: 102-105).

Lastly, in countries where such an institution exists, the ‘corrective referendum’ in which the

citizens can veto legislation that has been passed in parliament, is a formal device in the hands

of monitorial citizens.

2.3 Research design

The research is based on case studies of websites in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the

United Kingdom. These countries represent different ‘state traditions’ (the Napoleonic,

Germanic and Anglo-Saxon state traditions; Loughlin, 1994), electoral systems and relationships

between parliament and government. Five websites were selected. NosDéputés (France),

Parliament Watch (Germany) and TheyWorkForYou (UK) we consider the most important

PMWs in these countries. The two Dutch PMWs (‘No Words’ and Politix) do not exist anymore

but they represent interesting ‘extreme cases’ regarding their design. All websites differ in their

objects of monitoring. Some websites also focus on expenses and non-parliamentary incomes,

and potential conflicts of interest. This variety allows for a broad approach in terms of

democratic value. Our data are derived from various sources. We conducted an analysis of web

content. We derived data from scientific articles and reports. In some cases user surveys were

also available. As for ‘No Words’ an extensive data set was available from earlier research

(Edwards, 2006). An additional interview was conducted with one of the initiators of Politix.

3. Case description

3.1 Netherlands

In the Netherlands, election campaigns have a strong prospective orientation. The political

parties formulate their election programmes; the election leaders express their most salient

promises. Newspapers and civil society organizations publish comparisons between the election

programmes or provide voting advice systems on the Internet that are based on election

programs. The Dutch StemWijzer is widely known (Garzia & Marschall, 2014). There is no

tradition of comparing the past performance of political parties in parliament, let alone of

individual representatives. Institutional characteristics of the Dutch political system, among

which the electoral system of proportional representation, can account for this (Edwards,

2006). A few attempts have been made to introduce systems of parliamentary monitoring. An

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early attempt was the project ‘No Words’ (GeenWoorden) during the election campaign in

2002. The website provided assessments of the enactment of election promises by the political

parties represented in the Second Chamber (House of Representatives) of Dutch Parliament. In

2006, the website Politix.nl was launched, which provided data about the voting behaviour of

the party groups in the Second Chamber.

3.1.1 GeenWoorden.nl

- Background

Six weeks before the Dutch parliamentary elections in 2002, the website GeenWoorden.nl (‘No

Words’) was launched: an initiative of the Institute for Public and Politics (IPP) and the Catholic

Broadcasting Association (KRO). The project had two aims. The first aim was to provide the

voters with information about the past performance of the political parties in parliament; the

second aim was to promote a practice of holding politicians accountable for their deeds in

office. The KRO broadcasted a number of programs on radio and TV that took up the idea of the

project. For instance, on a few TV programs a politician (not a parliamentarian but a member of

government) was invited to undergo a ‘job evaluation interview’ with experts from the field

(Edwards, 2006).

- Objects, infrastructure

Within six selected policy areas (multi-cultural society, education, transportation, public health,

moral issues, and democracy), two specific themes were chosen. The project staff made

summaries of the 1998 election programs on the selected themes. The parliamentary parties

were asked to indicate what they had done to fulfil their promises (in 200 words on each

theme). Experts (staff from interest groups, academic experts and ‘experience experts’ from the

field) were asked to evaluate the truthfulness and effectiveness of the reported deeds. The

summaries, reported deeds and evaluations were placed side by side on the web pages,

searchable by political party and theme. A discussion forum was also provided

This website exhibited several design choices with regard to the selection of areas and themes,

the gathering of data and the ways of aggregating and assessing these data. With regard to the

selection of areas, ‘moral issues’ and ‘democracy’ were priority areas for the KRO and IPP

respectively. The other areas were selected because of their saliency in the public discussion.5

An important feature of this project was that the gathering and selection of the performance

data was left to the politicians themselves. The project managers considered that parties

5 However, combating crime and ensuring safety, the policy area that the Dutch voters regarded as the most

important priority at that time, was not included (Van Praag, 2003).

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should be given the opportunity ‘to profile themselves’. Obviously, this resulted in all kinds of

biases. For instance, on issues of the multi-cultural society, which enjoyed an extremely high

saliency at that time6, several political parties reported deeds that were more restrictive toward

immigrants than their 1998 election promises. These discrepancies were noticed by the

academic expert, and explained by him to be the result of changes in the public opinion. The

data were assessed in panels which provided qualitative evaluations from different angles.

Journalists urged for easy to digest ‘report marks’. The project manager tentatively composed

these figures on the basis of the panel evaluations and published them in the KRO’s magazine.

Most report marks found themselves within a narrow bandwidth. The average report mark for

all parties on all themes came to 5.4 (in the usual 1-10 scale).

-Usage, impact

In the six weeks of its existence, the website counted 60,000 visitors (about 0.5 percent of the

adult population). In her evaluation, the project manager concluded that the website was

probably too cumbersome for the users (‘too many words’). The television broadcasts attracted

on average 750,000 viewers, i.e. a market share of about 13%, which was considered as rather

high. The vast majority of people visited the website to acquire information, not to conduct

discussions on the forum. Nevertheless, on the issue of the multicultural society a lively

discussion ensued. Politicians were in these discussions almost absent (Edwards, 2006). In her

evaluation of the project, the project manager indicated that many reported deeds would

require further research on their actual effects on social problems. However, the information

on the website was barely used by the journalists for research or comment.

3.1.2 Politix.nl

- Background

Politix.nl, launched in 2004 by two individual citizens, was the first website in the Netherlands

that provided information about the voting behaviour of national parliamentarians. The

initiators had two aims (source: interview). Firstly, they aimed to enhance the quality of the

public debate in the Netherlands about politics. Information about the voting behaviour of the

political groups in the Dutch House of Representatives was considered to be a necessary

precondition to conduct this debate on a higher level. In view of this aim, the website’s primary

target group were the journalists. Secondly, the website was meant as a means to facilitate

public accountability regarding parliamentary action. Being a private initiative of two citizens,

an update of the website was supported in 2008 by a foundation and by a new website

(watstemtmijnraad.nl) that provided the same information on votes in local councils of a

6 The election campaign in 2002 witnessed the rise of Pim Fortuyn.

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number of Dutch municipalities, and was financially supported by the Ministry of the Interior.

The website was terminated in 2011.

- Objects, infrastructure

The website provided data on votes on bills and amendments. Each bill and amendment was

presented by a summary with a link to the original document. Overviews of the votes were

provided per week, per theme (within a menu of twelve themes) and per party. In line with the

initiators’ main objective, the website also offered a facility for users to conduct a discussion

about proposals, to add arguments, to vote or even to formulate an alternative proposal.

- Usage, impact

The website reached an average number of 800-1000 visitors a day. The website was frequently

visited by members of the Second Chamber, and also by local politicians, for whom this website

provided up-to-date information about decision-making in the national parliament (source:

interview). In a few cases, journalists and bloggers used the data on the website und published

their results (source: interview). The use by ordinary citizens seems to have been rather

modest.

3.2 Germany: Abgeordnetenwatch.de

- Background

The website abgeordnetenwatch.de (‘Parliament Watch’) was set up in 2004 by political

activists in the city state of Hamburg when a more personalized proportional electoral system

was adopted for the regional parliament. According to Pautz (2010), the establishment of the

website was stimulated by the activists’ concern that if the system was carried through, ‘voters

would find it difficult to actually know what the candidates stood for, to communicate with

them, and to evaluate their voting behaviour in the legislature’ (Pautz, 2010, p. 158). The

website was set up to facilitate citizens to put questions directly to politicians standing for

election to the parliament. After 2004 the website’s reach was expanded to other German

States and 60 municipal councils. Parliament Watch is financed by donations of its users and

sponsors. In addition, candidates may upgrade their profiles to include certain features in

return for a once-off payment up to € 200. Basic details such as name, party, constituency and

professional qualification, are available as standard and are free of charge. An oversight of all

income and expenses can be downloaded from the website.

- Objects, infrastructure

The website presents a profile of all individual members of the Bundestag. This profile provides

information about:

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- Person and function of the parliamentarian. Data include date of birth, place of

residence, professional qualification, electoral district, place on party list, election result,

functions held as a parliamentarian.

- Parliamentary activity: voting behaviour on selected issues (in chronological order, with

background information), membership of committees, and in a number of cases also

speeches (with video).

- Additional jobs: paid jobs and functions in associations, interest groups and foundations.

The main function of the website is to enable citizens to put public questions to their

representatives. All questions and answers are permanently archived, categorized in twenty

policy areas. For each representative, the website indicates the number of questions asked and

answered. Each year an ‘answer check’ is published in a ranking order. Parliament Watch aims

to serve a verification function, since ‘public statements must match the voting behaviour.’ 7

However, the actual verification would have to be accomplished by the users (or by journalists

and interest groups). This comes down to comparing two data sets. This juxtaposition is not

easy, because the votes are not categorized by themes.

-Usage, impact

The number of visitors in 2012 and 2013 was about 2.5 million per year. There is a very strong

overrepresentation of males (about 80%) and a rather strong overrepresentation of high

educated people among the users (about 40%, against 27% among the population8) (Albrecht &

Trénel, 2010). Since the start of Parliament Watch, more than 160,000 questions were asked,

out of which more than 130,000 have been answered so far. The percentage of answered

questions is about 80% since 2009. Parliament Watch is very active in campaigning for

transparency in party financing and in disclosing perquisites.9 In 2013, it initiated a petition on

transparency of perquisites. The website has several partnerships with prominent national

online media (spiegel.de, t-online.de, sueddeutsche.de) and approximately 50 regional

newspaper portals. According to the Annual Report 2013, the website has become an

important research source for journalists. For example, research concerning the additional

income of the parliamentarian and party leader of the Christian Democrat Michael Fuchs

(published in January 2013 in the German weekly Stern) got a lot of attention in the media (see

footnote 9).

7https://www.abgeordnetenwatch.de/sites/abgeordnetenwatch.de/files/aw_annual_report2013_english_web.pdf

8 http://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/zahlen-und-fakten/soziale-situation-in-deutschland/61656/bildungsstand

9 See for instance: https://www.abgeordnetenwatch.de/blog/nebeneinkunfte-abgeordnete-kassieren-mehrere-

millionen-euro-aus-unbekannten-quellen

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3.3 United Kingdom: TheyWorkForYou.com

- Background

TheyWorkForYou.com, launched in 2004, provides information on the members of all

parliaments and assemblies in the United Kingdom. In 2006 the website became a MySociety

project. MySociety’s work is funded by a variety of means: grants from charitable foundations,

donations from private individuals, and commercial income from its trading entities. The main

goal of the website is to provide unbiased, non-partisan information about what members of

parliament have been doing, saying and voting on. Specifically, the website aims to make it easy

for people to keep tabs on their representatives. This would enable them to pass a fair

judgment of MPs, thereby making MPs feel accountable (Escher, 2011: 8-9).

- Objects, infrastructure

For every Member of Parliament, the information available includes records of voting

behaviour, recent appearances, expenses as well as a register of interests, such as remunerated

employment, office and profession, and sponsorships. A feature ‘Numerology’ specifies (among

other things) the number of debates in which the MP has spoken in the last year, the number of

written questions asked in the last year, and participation in votes. In each case it also indicated

whether the number is above or below average amongst MPs. It is indicated that these number

do not measure quality and that ‘representatives may do other things not currently covered by

this site’. Voting records are aggregated within 10 issue domains, including a miscellaneous

category. Within each domain a number of themes (policies) are distinguished. Votes are

aggregated within these policies according to the scale very strongly for/against, strongly

for/against and moderately for/against (sometimes also ‘a mixture of for and against’). The

policies and aggregations are made by The Public Whip, a website that focuses on MPs votes

and voting patterns. A Policy is defined as ‘a set of votes that represent a view on a particular

issue.’ An example is the policy European Union-For 10 Users can participate in the maintenance

of policies, edit them (for instance, when new votes have appeared) or propose a new policy.

The MP’s votes count towards a weighted average where the most important votes get 50 points, less

important votes get 10 points, and less important votes for which the MP was absent get 2 points. In

important votes the MP gets awarded the full 50 points for voting the same as the policy, no points for

voting against the policy, and 25 points for not voting. In less important votes, the MP gets 10 points for

voting with the policy, no points for voting against, and 1 (out of 2) if absent. The voting behaviour of

10

http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/faq.php#policies

15

Labour MP Diane Abbott on the European Union is evaluated as ‘voted moderately for more EU

integration’ by scoring 68.4 for the policy European Union-For 11.

- Usage, impact

TheyWorkForYou receives on average between 200,000 and 300,000 visits every month (Escher,

2011). Noticeable usage peaks occurred in May 2009 during the height of the MP expenses

scandal when many people visited the site to see the expenses records of their MPs (450,000

visits within one month). About half of the overall audience are regular users that come to the

site repeatedly. By far the most popular content is the section with information about the

House of Commons, and in particular the section with the profiles of individual MPs. In terms of

demographics there is a strong male bias and a very strong overrepresentation of people with a

higher education degree (64% as compared with 27% of Internet users). Escher indicates that

this bias in education is much stronger than the one generally reported for those who are

politically active. People above the age of 54 tend to be over-represented, while those younger

than 45 are under-represented in comparison to the Internet population. The share of retired

people is even twice as high as the Internet average (Escher, 2011). User satisfaction is, first of

all, related to whether use of the site was successful, which is defined as ‘the user having been

able to find the information that was reached for’ (Escher, 2011: 28). On the teaser question

used for recruiting respondents ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’, 59% answered in the

affirmative. In the survey sample this was substantially more (80%). Escher did not probe

further into the reasons of not finding the desired information. Almost all respondents

answered that the site provides information in an unbiased and non-partisan way. The site

improved the knowledge of 89% of the users about their representative. For 54% this improved

knowledge has ‘improved my opinion about my representative’.12

In 2006, The Times argued that the statistics about the number of times an MP has spoken in

debates would result in an increase of ‘unnecessary interventions’. The reporting of these

statistics was subsequently changed to indicate rough trends (above/below average: see above)

(Escher, 2011: 44). This issue has several times been raised again. According to the Speaker’s

Commission on Digital Democracy set up in 2013, ‘some features of PMOs’ activities may

provide perverse incentives for MPs to behave in particular ways that are driven by statistics

11

The Public Whip (23 July 2014): http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpid=40289&dmp=1065 12

If we interpret this statement as ‘my opinion about my representative has become more positive’, this would be an interesting result, in view of the discussion about the effects of transparency on trust (Grimmelikhuijsen, 2012). However, the question also allows for an interpretation in terms of ‘quality of judgment’.

16

and the appearance of activity rather than the needs of people they were elected to

represent’.13

3.3 France

-Background

On the website NosDéputés.fr (our deputies) the French citizen organization ‘Regards Citoyens’,

meaning ‘the citizens’ gaze’, monitors several activities of the members of the national

assembly.14 The website carries the subtitle Observatoire citoyen de l’activité parlementaire,

meaning ‘Citizen observatory of parliamentary activity’. The aims of NosDéputés.fr are stated

on its homepage: ‘providing citizens with new means to understand and analyse the work of

their representatives’ as well as providing a ‘platform mediating between citizens and

deputies’.15 Regards Citoyens has been promoting public open date in France since 2009

(Ooghe, 2011a). They have created several web projects using open data and open source

software, among which this PMW (Ooghe,2011b). The Regards Citoyens collective consists of

eleven citizens. They do their work on a voluntary basis. To finance their endeavour, Regards

Citoyens partially relies on support from the regional government of Île de France for

participating in a research project led by the SciencesPo University, and partially on gifts.

The French parliament consists of two chambers: the National Assembly (l’Assemblée

nationale) and the Senate (le Sénat). All 557 members of the national assembly are elected

directly by the French people for a period of five years. For the purpose of the elections, France

and the overseas territories are divided into constituencies. Within each constituency one

candidate can be chosen after a maximum of two rounds of elections (Assemblée nationale,

2012).16 The National Assembly’s power to control the government has increased considerably

as a result of a change of the constitution in 2008 (Ibid.).

- Objects, infrastructure

The information about the deputies’ activities is copied from the National Assembly’s website

and from the Journal official, which lists all official legal and regulatory documents. The 13

http://www.parliament.uk/business/commons/the-speaker/speakers-commission-on-digital-democracy/digital-scrutiny/background-to-digital-scrutiny/ 14

Regards Citoyens has developed another website to monitor the activities of the French senators: NosSénateurs.fr (our senators). This website has the same structure and a similar purpose as the NosDéputés website. For purposes of clarity, we only discuss the NosDéputés initiative. 15

Translation of following original text: ‘[…] ce site essaie de donner aux citoyens de nouveaux outils pour comprendre et analyser le travail de leurs représentants. […] comme une plateforme de médiation entre citoyens et députés […]’ 16

In the second round age can be the deciding factor for a candidate to be elected: ‘Article L 126 of the Electoral code states that "in case of an equal number of votes cast between the two candidates, the elder candidate is elected".’ (Assemblée nationale, 2012).

17

homepage shows a picture of the ‘deputy of the day’ along with a link to his or her profile page.

The next item is a search engine, in which postal code, municipality or a deputy’s name can be

entered in order to find one’s own deputy. Furthermore, there’s a frame showing key words

which have recently been discussed in the National Assembly, which provide access to the

documents in which they appear. The homepage also displays a graph which summarizes

parliamentary activity over the last twelve months. The last item is a frame featuring the most

recent comments by users.

On the website, each deputy has a profile page. This profile page presents the following

information:

- Person and function of the parliamentarian. Data include professional qualification,

electoral district, party affiliation, parliamentary responsibilities and links to their pages on

Wikipedia and the National Assembly’s website.

- Parliamentary activity:

1. Quantitative information

Graph displaying the deputy’s participation over the last twelve months and icons indicating:

the number of active weeks, presence in commission reunions, interventions in commission

meetings, long interventions in parliament (more than 20 words), signed amendments, signed

and adopted bills, written and oral questions, written reports (in total ten items).

2. Qualitative information

Listing of the latest bills, reports, questions to the government and interventions the deputy is

involved in with links to the actual texts, including the reactions and responses by other

deputies and members of the government

- Users’ comments: the most recent comments by registered users on files linked to the

deputy, such as bills, questions to the government or interventions in parliament.

As for the quantitative information, a separate page features a synthesis of the parliamentary

activity in the last twelve months, consisting of three parts. First, there’s a table listing all

deputies and parliamentary activities. Next to the ten activities which are also listed on each

deputy’s profile page, two more activities are counted: short interventions in parliament (of

less than 20 words) and adopted amendments. It is not clear why these two categories are

lacking on the individual profile pages. A second table displays the average deputy activity per

political group in each category over the last twelve months. The third element of the synthesis

is a graph which is meant to display the repartition of parliamentary activity per group over the

last twelve months. Surprisingly, only nine categories of activity are displayed, of which several

18

have slightly different labels than elsewhere on the website. For example, it is not clear

whether the category ‘bills’ here refers to written or signed bills. The qualitative information

about the deputies’ activities can also be accessed through the part of the website listing all

files parliamentarians have been working on. Users can find lists of the most recent files, the

files which have been most discussed in parliament and the files which have received the most

comments by website users.

Contrary to PMWs in other countries, NosDéputés doesn’t report about voting records. In the

FAQ-section on the website, Regards Citoyens mentions that they haven’t found the time to

include voting records and this would require considerable work, because not all voting records

are public. On 5 February 2014 the president of the National Assembly announced that there is

going to be complete transparency of votes (Assemblée Nationale, 2014b). Regards Citoyens

responded sceptically to this announcement by pointing out that still no information will be

made available on the delegation of votes, thereby depriving citizens of important information

concerning the functioning of parliament (Regards Citoyens, 2014c).

- Usage, impact

In 2010, NosDéputés had between 15,000 and 20,000 visitors per month (Petiot, 2010). Based

on a 2011 survey among NosDéputés users, Ostling (2012) points out that in several respects

they are not representative for the French population. Men and highly educated people are

over-represented. Guillaud (2011) states that the majority of the website’s users consists of

parliamentary assistants, because the information is more accessible than on the national

assembly’s website.

There are 4217 registered users, of whom 911 people left a total of 2203 comments since the

start of the current parliament on 20 June 2012 (Regards Citoyens, 2014). Comments are being

moderated (Ostling, 2012: 290). Only now and then the moderator reports misplaced posts or

irrelevant information or removes posts which are in violation of the French law. Users are only

allowed to post comments to concrete activities of deputies, such as speeches in the National

assembly or a signed bill, and not to the person as such. Ostling (2012) conducted a survey

among NosDéputés users, which shows that deputies at times respond to user comments in a

constructive way. The evidence on the actual political impact of NosDéputés user comments is

rather limited though. Any interaction between users and deputies takes place outside of the

website, and is as such difficult to trace. It is not clear to what extent users take into account

the information on this website during election time. Some candidates have used the statistics

in their campaigns or even counter-campaigns. However, according to an analysis of Le Monde,

the usage of this parliamentary information has had no effect on election results (Le Monde,

2012).

19

NosDéputés has managed to cause some political commotion on several occasions, especially

regarding the absenteeism of parliamentarians. In 2010 and 2011, NosDéputés published a

study on absenteeism of deputies, which evoked a strong reaction from the president of the

National assembly and which was picked up by several media. In Le Figaro Regards Citoyens

stated they were strictly applying ‘the criteria as specified by the rules and the bureau of the

National assembly’ (Huet, 2010). Even though Regards Citoyens doesn’t aim at making an

evaluative classification of deputies, the calculations they present can be used for this purpose.

Up to two times, the local newspaper Sud-Ouest presented a list of the deputies who have the

best attendance record, based on data from NosDéputés. In August 2012, the French Minister

for parliamentary relations Vidalies expressed concern about the degrading effects on law

making of websites such as NosDéputés:

‘[…] networks which scrutinise parliamentary activity have dangerous, even pernicious effects on

parliamentary work in considerable proportions […] Today, in commission, there were up to 30 deputies

who intervened one after the other to make exactly the same point, just to increase their presence

statistics.’ 17 (Le Lab, 2012)

Later on in Le Monde (2012) he states that it’s especially the usage by the media and social

networks which worries him, and which should be dealt with in a more precautionary way. In

the same article, parliamentarians from several political parties reveal to Le Monde that they

are very much aware of the existence of the NosDéputés website and have noticed an increase

in presence and activity of parliamentarians. Regards Citoyens, on the other hand, states they

haven’t noticed significant changes in the deputies’ behaviour since the emergence of the

website (Le Lab, 2012; Le Monde, 2012; Regards Citoyens, 2012). In 2014, the debate on

absenteeism of French parliamentarians resulted in the abolishment of the system of

delegation of votes during a public voting, meaning that deputies have to be present in order to

be able to cast a vote. According to Regards Citoyens, this is a good start for more transparency,

but there’s still a lot to be won.

4. Analysis regarding usefulness

4.1 Objects and infrastructure

PMWs are widely different regarding the activities on which they provide information, methods

of aggregation and evaluation. An overview is given in Table 1.

17

‘ […] les réseaux qui scrutent l’activité parlementaire, ont des effets dangereux voire pernicieux sur le travail parlementaire [et cela] dans des proportions qui sont considérables […] Aujourd'hui, en commission, on voit jusqu'à 30 députés qui interviennent les uns après les autres pour défendre exactement la même chose, uniquement pour alimenter leur compteur de présence.’

20

Table 1: Information provision on PMWs

Politix ‘Parliament

Watch’

Nosdéputés ‘NoWords’ TheyWorkForYou

Object Voting on

bills and

amend-

ments

Voting

Answers to

citizens’

questions

Interests

Presence in parliament

and commissions

Interventions

Signed and adopted

amendments

Written and signed bills

Written and oral

questions

Reports written

Past perfor-

mance:

enactment of

election

pledges

Voting

Appearances

Expenses

Interests

Categorization

of performan-

ce data

Per party

group, 12

policy areas

Votes: per MP

in chronologi-

cal order

Questions/

answers: per

MP, 20 themes

Repartition of activities

between party groups

Per party

group, 2

selected

themes per 6

selected

policy areas

Votes: 50-70

‘policies’,

10 policy areas, per

MP

Aggregation No Votes: No

Answers: ratio

of answered

questions per

MP

Application of the rules

for absenteeism to

records of attendance.

No Votes: per MP

calculation by

importance of votes

(per policy)

Appearances: per

MP quantitative

overviews

Evaluation No Votes: No

Answers:

ranking of MPs

(from ‘very

good’ to

‘unsatis-

factory’)

No Qualitative:

academic

experts,

experts from

the field,

interest

groups

Votes: Per MP

Policy Agreement

Ratio

Appearances: Per

MP ‘above’/’below

average’

Additional

facilities

Voting,

discussing,

adding

argumen-

tation,

proposals

Newsletter Comments by users Forum E-mail alerts on

MPs or specific

subjects

In terms of information supply, TheyWorkForYou is the most extensive one. The infrastructure

is clear. The Policy Agreement Ratio provides some guidance for making political assessments,

21

which is also facilitated by the fact that the policies are indicated in a straightforward manner.

However, it is not always easy for a user with a specific ‘question’ to find the right policy for an

‘answer’. In such cases, ‘finding what one is looking for’ requires much background knowledge

and search abilities. In other words, the analytical approach by policy areas may not fit well

with the information capabilities and search strategies of ordinary citizens. Except for very

salient issues (e.g. for or against the European Union) this is a problematic aspect of websites,

which aim to present performance data on the full range of political issues. The two Dutch

websites represent ‘extreme’ cases regarding kind of data and infrastructure. Although both

websites provided performance information, Politix only provided the raw data of votes on bills

and amendments. No contextual information was provided and only a minimal infrastructure to

analyse the data and draw conclusions. In contrast, NoWords focused on qualitative evaluations

of the fulfilment of election pledges. In this case, there was a proliferation of sources of bias

with regard to the selection of policy areas and themes, data provision and assessments. Politix

followed the service-hatch approach; on the other hand, this allows for do-it-yourself activity by

citizens. The qualitative approach of NoWords had also its drawbacks. In this case, a dilemma is

visible between providing ‘rich’, textual information and ease of use. However, ‘report marks’

are straightforward (and in that sense useful) but misleading. In the German case, we

established that the verification function of comparing parliamentarians’ answers’ to citizen

questions with their voting behaviour is somewhat hampered by the fact that the votes (in

contrast to the answers) are not categorized by themes. Sometimes, deciding not to publish

certain information can be the right thing to do from the perspective of usefulness. This can be

seen in the French case, where information about parliamentary voting is absent from the

PMW. The French parliamentary voting system is rather complicated and voting records are

only partially available. Publishing these records on the PMW would give a distorted image of

parliamentary voting, especially if no context information were to be provided. As for the

information on other parliamentary activities, there is an appropriate infrastructure to access

the information through several ways. Yet, there is a problem regarding the consistency of the

presentation of information. In various sections of the website, different numbers and labels of

activity categories appear, making it difficult for the user to interpret the given information.

Pictures and graphs make for an attractive presentation. User feedback mechanisms, however,

are lacking.

4.2 Information needs

To what extent fulfil these websites the voters’ information needs? This question requires more

research in view of the scholarly literature. One could hypothesize that the information offered

on PMWs tends to meet the information needs of the well-educated ‘optimizers’ (Sniderman et

al., 1990). In view of Zaller’s account of ‘kinds of stories’ which would call for coverage under

the Burglar Alarm standard, none of the five websites provides an answer to the

22

straightforward question ‘what did my representative or party achieve for people like me or my

fellow-constituents in this district?’ This requires a methodological approach according to

cultural, geographical and socioeconomic identities.

4.3 Role of information intermediaries

With regard to the PMOs we see different patterns of involvement. In the TheyWorkForYou

case, the raw data of votes are aggregated on ThePublicWhip. The algorithm and the

assessment of votes according to ‘importance’ are design choices and therefore biased. The

website is transparent about the algorithm and the calculation within each policy but not about

the decisions about the importance of individual votes. On the other hand, users can

participate in the maintenance of policies. The two Dutch websites exhibit very different

patterns of involvement. The Politix editors had almost no role in the gathering, aggregation

and evaluation of the data (except the classification in policy areas), whereas the NoWords

editors, and by their design decisions also the external evaluators and the political parties, were

heavily involved in these activities. The service hatch approach of Politix presumes that other

information intermediaries, notably journalists use the material, process it in certain ways and

present their results to the public. This occurred in a few cases. However, also in the NoWords

project, in which a PMO and a broadcasting association cooperated, the project managers were

disappointed by the fact that journalists hardly used the material on the website for comments

and further research. The German case provides another and potentially promising model,

because of the partnerships with prominent German online media. As for the French case,

Regards Citoyens explicitly refrains from interpreting the data they present or making

evaluations. They want to let this up to the website users.

5. Assessment of democratic value

What is the empirical evidence for the democratic value of PMWs? The two Dutch cases were

too limited in usage and impact to have any discernible effects on the voters’ information base.

NoWords was a very interesting project in its approach and design. One can only speculate

about the effect of the provided information about the enactment of election promises if the

website would have had more media resonance. The average report mark of 5.4 (calculated

provisionally by the project manager) is not that different from Thomson’s finding that ‘at least

some policy action was taken on 61 percent of the 574 [investigated] pledges made by parties

that subsequently entered Dutch coalition governments’ (Thomson, 1999: 223)). He concludes

that ‘it cannot be argued that parties do not fulfil their election pledges’ (p.224). This would

imply that if appropriate contextual information is provided, the monitoring of ‘promissory

representation’ (Mansbridge, 2003) can produce credible performance information with some

23

democratic value. Furthermore, the media activities of the broadcasting association, and in

particular the quite successful ‘job evaluation interviews’ with politicians were interesting

instances of the forum function of deliberative democracy (see figure 2), although no

connection was made with the information on the website. Politix was explicitly aimed at

improving public discussions about politics but it had no strategy for pursuing this deliberative

aim. The two Dutch cases rather demonstrate that the introduction of monitoring practices

within a political system which is institutionally not attuned to this, runs up against many

obstacles.

The British case shows some evidence on accountability effects. In Escher’s survey, a substantial

proportion of the site users indicated that the website had improved their knowledge about

their representative, and also improved their opinion. This result can be taken as an indication

that the aim to enable citizens to pass a fair judgment of representatives, with the supposed

indirect effect of making MPs feel accountable, is attainable. A drawback has been revealed of

the quantitative performance indicators used on the website. They may have perverse effects

on the quality of parliamentary work.

Apart from questions answered, the German website is weaker in accountability on

performance but stronger in how it enhances the connection between parliamentarians and

their constituency. Moreover, Parliament Watch has been active for transparency in party

financing and perquisites. Some successful ‘burglar alarms’ concerning ethical conduct can be

noted. The website is also strong in its media partnerships. These are important resources for

its role in democracy.

According to one of the founders of NosDéputés ‘France is behind’ regarding access to

information (Petiot, 2010). This is certainly the case when it comes to voting records. Contrary

to the other PMWs no voting records are published, because of difficulties in acquiring the

necessary information. Recently, the National assembly has made the first steps into making

the voting more transparent. The PMW has played a role in the accountability for deputies’

absence in parliament. At the same time, just as in the British case, there’s some evidence of

strategic behaviour from parliamentarians to influence the website’s statistics.

Except as evaluators in the NoWords panel, we did not come across any evidence of

involvement of interest groups in parliamentary monitoring, in contrast to their very strong

involvement in the United States.

6. Concluding remarks

Although the evidence is somewhat patchy, we conclude that PMWs do have democratic value.

They have positive effects on different elements of accountability and expose weaknesses in

24

the functioning of parliamentarians with regard to integrity and conflicts of interests. In order

to enhance these effects, more encompassing strategies are required in terms of aims, objects,

infrastructure and partnerships. We found some important barriers regarding usefulness. The

existing scholarly knowledge about how voters gather and process information should be better

taken into account in the approach to information provision on PMWs. The information needs

and information seeking strategies of ordinary users have to be taken more into account.

Particularly, innovative information provision strategies are needed to attract less educated

voters. Much can still be done to improve the infrastructure in which the information is

embedded and to tailor additional facilities to the interests and capabilities of different user

categories. Examples are visualization techniques and facilities for serious gaming. We conclude

that the professionalization of PMOs deserves attention. Universities could fulfil a role in this

respect.

The role of PMWs and the media as information intermediaries is crucial. A fundamental

dilemma is that the more extensive are their efforts to improve usefulness, the more biases

their information provision will exhibit. Transparency about design choices and pluralism of

information intermediaries are ways for coping with this dilemma. ‘Do-it-yourself citizenship’

can promote this pluralism if groups of citizens process parliamentary data in different ways.

The drive to monitor parliamentarians entails all kinds of unintentional side-effects.

Quantitative data and statistics about parliamentary activities can induce strategic behaviour of

parliamentarians. In view of the exploratory character of our paper, several themes deserve

further investigation. In addition to the themes indicated above, we suggest further research

into the value of parliamentary monitoring for the quality of parliamentary work. In this paper,

we only discussed the perverse side effects, but what is the added value of PMWs for

parliamentarians themselves? And how do they perceive and evaluate the democratic value of

parliamentary monitoring?

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