The Challenges of the External Vote

UID/CPO/04627/2019Over the last few decades, emigrants all over the world have gained expanded voting rights. Despite the normative debates about this issue, there are few empirical studies on why states decide to implement external voting and how electoral systems perform. This chapter seeks to fill this gap by looking at the Portuguese case. Our study suggests that a combination of political and socio-economic factors explains the implementa tion of external voting. On the other hand, the interests of political parties and the low level of civil society engagement are key factors in the failure of both electoral reforms and attempts to overcome the shortcomings of external voting.publishersversionpublishe

Is There a Populist Turn in the Italian Parliament? Continuity and Discontinuity in the Non-Legislative Procedures

This chapter provides a critical analysis of whether and how the populist turn of Italian politics has affected the performance of the non-legislative functions of the Parliament. In particular, after a brief review of how populist forces can influence the status of members of Parliament, the chapter deals with the expressive-informing functions of the Parliament, linked to the transparency and publicity of its activity and to the ability to act as a representative institution. It then explores the impact of populist forces on the parliamentary function of scrutiny and oversight, in particular on whether this has been exercised in continuity with the past, of a Parliament not very keen to fully exploit its tools and of governments inclined to escape parliamentary control