Conflictual behaviour in legislatures: Exploring and explaining adversarial remarks in oral questions to prime ministers
| Published date | 01 May 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13691481231189381 |
| Author | Ruxandra Serban |
| Date | 01 May 2024 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481231189381
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2024, Vol. 26(2) 548 –568
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/13691481231189381
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Conflictual behaviour in
legislatures: Exploring and
explaining adversarial remarks
in oral questions to prime
ministers
Ruxandra Serban
Abstract
Questioning mechanisms such as Prime Minister’s Questions in the United Kingdom and Question
Time in Australia are notoriously adversarial. Much less is known about whether and how
questioning facilitates conflict in other legislatures. This question is particularly important given
the criticism that excessive adversarialism may hinder the performance of accountability, and
hence may be detrimental to the work of legislatures. Building on legislative studies literature,
this article presents the first comparative study of conflict in oral parliamentary questions; in
so doing, it explores patterns of conflictual remarks in questions addressed to prime ministers
in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and Ireland. It posits that institutional culture, party
discipline, government and opposition status and the authority of the Speaker are key factors in
explaining the performance of conflict, and that rules of procedure alone are not enough to curb
the manifestation of conflict in legislatures where questioning is a known opportunity for criticism.
Keywords
adversarial language, comparative case studies, legislatures, parliamentary questions, PMQs,
prime ministers
Introduction
In parliamentary democracies, the executive derives its authority from and is directly
accountable to parliament. Although parliamentary questions fulfil a wide range of func-
tions, their primary role is ostensibly to allow parliamentarians to hold the government
to account by requesting information and explanations. Accountability inherently
involves a degree of criticism, as government decisions may be contested by the opposi-
tion, and policy inadequacies demonstrated. But some questioning mechanisms have
been criticised for the excessively adversarial nature of exchanges, with the implication
Department of Methodology, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK
Corresponding author:
Ruxandra Serban, Department of Methodology, London School of Economics and Political Science,
Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK.
Emails: r.serban@lse.ac.uk; ruxandra.serban.13@ucl.ac.uk
1189381BPI0010.1177/13691481231189381The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsSerban
research-article2023
Original Article
Serban 549
that conflict is detrimental to accountability. Notably, the United Kingdom’s Prime
Minister’s Questions and Question Time in Australia have been described as overly con-
frontational and consequently inadequate mechanisms for holding the government to
account. But how conflictual are parliamentary questions in different legislatures? What
is the role of conflict in questions, and which actors perform it?
In terms of potential negative effects of adversarial behaviour in parliament, evidence
about public attitudes towards questioning mechanisms is puzzling. In the United Kingdom,
surveys and focus groups (Hansard Society, 2014, 2015) reported that the aggressive nature
of PMQs puts members of the public off politics. But in a study of oral questions in 22 coun-
tries, Salmond (2014) found that parliamentary questioning mechanisms that allow open,
spontaneous and adversarial exchanges increase engagement with and attention to politics.
In a recent survey experiment, Convery et al. (2021) found that exposure to PMQs does not
decrease trust in parliament and has the positive effect of making citizens feel better equipped
to understand politics. In Germany, the weekly Question Time was regarded as ‘boring’ (The
Economist, 2014), with a more animated PMQs-style mechanism considered desirable.
Alongside accountability and representation, conflict management is hence also a key
function of legislatures: parliaments provide an arena for conflict to be expressed. Within
legislatures, some procedures may facilitate the manifestation of conflict more than oth-
ers, and oral questions, in particular, allow parliamentarians to express disagreement pub-
licly. Criticising the government is primarily an attribute of the opposition, but government
parliamentarians may also make critical remarks. Given the visible, public nature of oral
questioning, conflict may also take a performative form, with each side wanting to appear
as having won against the other. Considering the criticism levelled against conflictual
interactions in questioning, this article uses evidence from four case studies to explore the
extent to which conflict is manifested in different oral questioning mechanisms, and how.
Parliaments as a space for the expression of conflict
Conflict management as a function of parliaments
Parliaments perform multiple functions in the political system, such as linking citizens
and governments, providing an arena for debate, recruiting and socialising politicians
(Loewenberg, 2015; Loewenberg and Patterson, 1979; Mezey, 1979; Packenham, 1970),
policy-making, accountability (Kreppel, 2010; Packenham, 1970) and conflict manage-
ment (Loewenberg and Patterson, 1979; Mezey, 1979). Importantly, legislatures provide
mechanisms and forums for disagreement to be expressed: conflict management is espe-
cially carried out through procedures that facilitate debate between government and
opposition (Olson, 1994). While conflict management primarily refers to disagreement
over policy (Loewenberg and Patterson, 1979), parliaments also allow other types of
expression of conflict. Debates and parliamentary questions offer parliamentarians the
opportunity to express disagreement and to criticise the government. These micro-level,
intra-parliamentary forms of conflict manifested in various procedures contribute to what
Packenham (1970) describes as the ‘safety-valve’ or ‘tension-release’ function. Conflict,
in its various forms, is hence part of the routine work of legislatures.
Expression of conflict as a function of parliamentary questions
The functions of parliamentary questions have long been an important area of research in
legislative studies (S. Martin, 2011; Rozenberg and Martin, 2011). A series of studies
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