The Silence of the Shepherds: How the Austrian Parliament Informs its Citizens on European Issues

Abstract

Since the legislative and control functions of national parliaments have largely fallen prey to party politics in domestic as well as in European Union (EU) politics, the information function could be a last resort for the justification, explanation and communication of executive politics. National parliaments could provide the missing link between a national electorate and ever more supranationally acting executives. But the communication and information function can also be hampered, with parliamentary communication being perceived along the lines of government and opposition, or Europe being considered to be outside the area of national parliamentary responsibility. Focusing on the Austrian parliament, this study investigates the communication strategies of three different sets of actors: the parliament as an institution; parliamentary party groups; and individual MPs, and shows how these strategies have changed over time, notably in the context of the EU Treaty ratification debates.

Keywords:

• Austria
• parliament
• European Union
• communication
• information
• debates

Note on Authors

Johannes Pollak* is Professor of Political Science at Webster University Vienna and Head of the Political Science Department at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) in Vienna, Austria, email: [email protected] and [email protected]; Peter Slominski is Assistant Professor in the Institute for European Integration Research, University of Vienna, Austria, email: [email protected]

Notes

1. Quantitative data were provided by the administration of the Austrian parliament. In addition, interviews were conducted with eight representatives from the parliamentary administration, the Social Democratic Party, People's Party, and the Green Party in February and March 2011. The right-wing Freedom Party FPÖ refused to grant any interviews, pointing to the confidential character of any information concerning communication structures.

2. See http://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/PR/

3. See http://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/EU/

4. Roughly speaking, almost 50 per cent of all visitors are Austrian pupils who visit the parliament during school excursions.

5. It has to be noted that the exceptionally high number of visitors in 2008 and 2009 can be explained partly by the fact that between November 2008 and April 2009 the parliament also organised an exhibition on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the Austrian Republic. Similarly, the fact that the European Championship UEFA Euro 2008 took place in Vienna also led to a sharp increase of visitors.

6. See http://www.demokratiewebstatt.at/

7. All parliamentary parties allow their MEPs to participate in meetings of the party group.

8. Press releases of the various parliamentary factions have been published by the APA-OTS Original text-Service GmbH since 1999 and can be accessed via http://www.ots.at/

9. Prior to 2010, EU-related issues could be debated within the general Aktuelle Stunde, which usually takes place before every plenary session. However, this opportunity was not used often by the MPs (for example, 2009: one out of 10; 2008: one out of eight; 2007: zero out of seven; 2006: one out of 10; 2005: one out of 11; 2004: one out of 10; 2003: one out of 10; 2002: zero out of eight).

10. For a topical overview and debates of all Aktuelle Stunden sessions, see http://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/SW/index.shtml?jsMode=&xdocumentUri=&GP=XXIV&SW=29619&SUCH=&listeId=119&LISTE=Anzeigen&FBEZ=FP_019

11. While nearly all of the respondents from the Greens (seven out of nine) wanted the EU representation in Austria to play a bigger role in communication of EU issues, the other three parliamentary groups were less enthusiastic in this respect (SPÖ: eight out of 17; ÖVP: seven out of 12; FPÖ: two out of five).

12. Coding was done by assigning ‘0′ to ‘never’ and ‘5′ to ‘frequently’. The bars show the average of each media/age category. The same applies to Figure 5.