Caroline Bhattacharya
Biographic Data
| ID | 4384357 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Caroline Bhattacharya |
| GIVEN NAMES | Caroline |
| FAMILY NAME | Bhattacharya |
| SIGNATURE | BHATTACHARYA C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Helsinki |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2488-1119 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 24 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 8 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Backbench roles in the twenty-first century UK House of Commons
Parliamentary roles are central to the functioning of legislatures, but the common starting point for their analysis contains methodological and conceptual flaws and is based on now-50-year-old interviews. We seek to update our understanding by using a new method within parliamentary roles scholarship—Latent Class Analysis—and a newly-curated dataset of parliamentary activity of all House of Commons backbenchers (2001–19). We find seven backbench…
Policy specialisation in the twenty-first century UK House of Commons
Which MPs get elevated to the UK House of Lords
Using logistic regression and a dataset of 816 MPs who sat in the UK House of Commons between 1997 and 2019, we analyse which MPs get elevated to the upper chamber. Drawing on literatures concerning progressive political ambition, the UK Parliament and the wider nature of the British state, we test hypotheses concerning loyalty, expertise and nepotism. We find evidence to support all three but expertise in the form of frontbench experience and, f…
Restrictive rules of speechmaking as a tool to maintain party unity
In parliaments with party-centred rules of speechmaking, like the German Bundestag, we observe an overrepresentation of loyal frontbenchers on the speakers’ list. Previous research shows that party-controlled access to the plenary floor limits opportunities to voice dissent, but we lack empirical investigation of the overall impact on the contestation in debates. This article presents a case study of Bundestag debates on the euro crisis, which es…
The past, Present and Future of Parliamentary and Legislative Studies
This special section emanates from the roundtable on the past, present and future of parliamentary and legislative studies, held as part of the PSA Parliaments specialist group’s 2020 annual conference
The State of the Sub-discipline
We map the current state of parliamentary and legislative studies through a survey of 218 scholars and a bibliometric analysis of 25 years of publications in three prominent sub-field journals. We identify two groupings of researchers, a quantitative methods, rational choice-favouring grouping and a qualitative methods, interpretivism-favouring grouping with a UK focus. Upon closer examination, these groupings share similar views about the challe…
Gatekeeping the Plenary Floor
In the German parliament, the Bundestag, floor time is a scarce resource and is allocated to MPs by leaders of their respective parliamentary party groups. Previous research indicates that highly salient plenary debates tend to be dominated by party leaders and other loyal frontbenchers. Plenary speeches can therefore offer only limited insights into party unity. Any MP can give a so-called ‘explanation of vote’ (EoVs) to justify their voting dec…
Are Backbenchers Fighting Back? Intra-Party Contestation in German Parliament Debates on the Greek Crisis
Over the course of the Eurozone crisis, we have witnessed a disintegration of the pro-European consensus in the German Bundestag. This study focuses on patterns of intra-party contestation by examining individual-level determinants of the growing party disunity. Party leaders constrain the room of manoeuvre of individual legislators, but the degree of party control they face varies depending on their position within the party, and we expect this …
Are Backbenchers Fighting Back? Intra-Party Contestation in German Parliament Debates on the Greek Crisis
Over the course of the Eurozone crisis, we have witnessed a disintegration of the pro-European consensus in the German Bundestag. This study focuses on patterns of intra-party contestation by examining individual-level determinants of the growing party disunity. Party leaders constrain the room of manoeuvre of individual legislators, but the degree of party control they face varies depending on their position within the party, and we expect this …
Gatekeeping the Plenary Floor
In the German parliament, the Bundestag, floor time is a scarce resource and is allocated to MPs by leaders of their respective parliamentary party groups. Previous research indicates that highly salient plenary debates tend to be dominated by party leaders and other loyal frontbenchers. Plenary speeches can therefore offer only limited insights into party unity. Any MP can give a so-called ‘explanation of vote’ (EoVs) to justify their voting dec…
Restrictive rules of speechmaking as a tool to maintain party unity
In parliaments with party-centred rules of speechmaking, like the German Bundestag, we observe an overrepresentation of loyal frontbenchers on the speakers’ list. Previous research shows that party-controlled access to the plenary floor limits opportunities to voice dissent, but we lack empirical investigation of the overall impact on the contestation in debates. This article presents a case study of Bundestag debates on the euro crisis, which es…
The State of the Sub-discipline
We map the current state of parliamentary and legislative studies through a survey of 218 scholars and a bibliometric analysis of 25 years of publications in three prominent sub-field journals. We identify two groupings of researchers, a quantitative methods, rational choice-favouring grouping and a qualitative methods, interpretivism-favouring grouping with a UK focus. Upon closer examination, these groupings share similar views about the challe…
The past, Present and Future of Parliamentary and Legislative Studies
This special section emanates from the roundtable on the past, present and future of parliamentary and legislative studies, held as part of the PSA Parliaments specialist group’s 2020 annual conference
Are Backbenchers Fighting Back? Intra-Party Contestation in German Parliament Debates on the Greek Crisis
Over the course of the Eurozone crisis, we have witnessed a disintegration of the pro-European consensus in the German Bundestag. This study focuses on patterns of intra-party contestation by examining individual-level determinants of the growing party disunity. Party leaders constrain the room of manoeuvre of individual legislators, but the degree of party control they face varies depending on their position within the party, and we expect this …
Gatekeeping the Plenary Floor
In the German parliament, the Bundestag, floor time is a scarce resource and is allocated to MPs by leaders of their respective parliamentary party groups. Previous research indicates that highly salient plenary debates tend to be dominated by party leaders and other loyal frontbenchers. Plenary speeches can therefore offer only limited insights into party unity. Any MP can give a so-called ‘explanation of vote’ (EoVs) to justify their voting dec…
The past, Present and Future of Parliamentary and Legislative Studies
This special section emanates from the roundtable on the past, present and future of parliamentary and legislative studies, held as part of the PSA Parliaments specialist group’s 2020 annual conference
The State of the Sub-discipline
We map the current state of parliamentary and legislative studies through a survey of 218 scholars and a bibliometric analysis of 25 years of publications in three prominent sub-field journals. We identify two groupings of researchers, a quantitative methods, rational choice-favouring grouping and a qualitative methods, interpretivism-favouring grouping with a UK focus. Upon closer examination, these groupings share similar views about the challe…
Restrictive rules of speechmaking as a tool to maintain party unity
In parliaments with party-centred rules of speechmaking, like the German Bundestag, we observe an overrepresentation of loyal frontbenchers on the speakers’ list. Previous research shows that party-controlled access to the plenary floor limits opportunities to voice dissent, but we lack empirical investigation of the overall impact on the contestation in debates. This article presents a case study of Bundestag debates on the euro crisis, which es…
Policy specialisation in the twenty-first century UK House of Commons
Which MPs get elevated to the UK House of Lords
Using logistic regression and a dataset of 816 MPs who sat in the UK House of Commons between 1997 and 2019, we analyse which MPs get elevated to the upper chamber. Drawing on literatures concerning progressive political ambition, the UK Parliament and the wider nature of the British state, we test hypotheses concerning loyalty, expertise and nepotism. We find evidence to support all three but expertise in the form of frontbench experience and, f…
Backbench roles in the twenty-first century UK House of Commons
Parliamentary roles are central to the functioning of legislatures, but the common starting point for their analysis contains methodological and conceptual flaws and is based on now-50-year-old interviews. We seek to update our understanding by using a new method within parliamentary roles scholarship—Latent Class Analysis—and a newly-curated dataset of parliamentary activity of all House of Commons backbenchers (2001–19). We find seven backbench…
Electoral Systems and Political Participation (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Legislature (4 works) · Politics (4 works) · Public Administration (4 works) · Public Administration (4 works) · Law and economics (3 works)