Through quantitative and qualitative elements we looked at the work of deputies and senators of the Italian parliament to verify their political and legislative efficiency. The 2016 edition of the index of parliamentary productivity highlights even more the importance of specific key positions in parliament.
Index of parliamentary productivity. The first release in 2011 was the result of a urgent need to add a qualitative element in the assessment of the activity of elected representatives. Newer editions kept the original structure of the index, while trying to identify the main changes, both political and procedural, that took place with the following grand coalition governments.
The distribution of productivity. There are many points worth mentioning when analyzing the activity of the Italian parliament. First of all the distribution of productivity is not homogenous. Out of approximately 950 members of parliament, the vast majority have a little role in the legislative production of the two chambers. Most of them usually limit their contribution to a high attendance to voting sessions, an element that is not sufficient to achieve a high score.
The importance of key positions. A high attendance rate does not equal a high score in the index of parliament productivity. What seems to really have an impact is the role or position held in parliament. Through our years of work on the index we discovered that specific key positions have more chances to influence legislative work. We are mainly talking about presidents and vice presidents of parliamentary committees, and the chairman of each political group. These MPs usually end up being spokesmen/rapporteurs of the main bills being discussed in parliament.
Ranking. The goal of this study is not to determine winners or losers, rather to create tools to better understand how the chamber of deputies and the senate actually work. In this year’s edition of the index of parliamentary productivity we attempted to further even more our analysis of key positions, adding to the previous study of single MPs, one connected to political groups. Therefore we calculated the average score of each group, as well but the difference between members that have a key role and those that do not.
Daily updates. The MiniDossier analyzed parliamentary data up until novembre 21st 2016. The score and general activity of each member of parliament is updated on a daily basis at www.openparlamento.it
For more information:
