Soviet parliamentary committees after Khrushchev

Obstacles and opportunities

Dados Bibliográficos

ID11601677
AutoresD Richard Little, Deandra Little (0000-0003-2680-6726, Northern Illinois University, autor correspondente)
Ano1972
Volume24
Fascículo1
Páginas41-60
Data de publicação1972-07-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSoviet Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0038-5859
EditoraRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09668137208410843
OpenAlexW2005297106
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas7
Referências citadas4

MODERN parliamentary assemblies typically delegate most of their legislative functions to standing and ad hoc committees, reserving for themselves only limited debating and voting powers. Whether the voting function itself is significant depends on the basic sources of power in the political system. In the case of the Soviet Union, where political power is centralized in the party leadership structure, parliamentary votes have always expressed unanimous approval of every proposal submitted by the party leadership. This fact seems to justify Merle Fainsod's description of the Supreme Soviet as 'strictly ornamental'.1 It would be erroneous, however, to conclude from this that parliamentary government is in all respects merely a symbolic facade in the USSR. On the contrary, the Soviet political system has traditionally provided limited means whereby parliamentary agencies, public organizations and even the masses of Soviet citizens can participate in the discussion of major policy proposals prior to their enactment into law. Such participation has been carried out within the limits of two important conditions, persistently imposed by the leadership: I) that it should serve primarily as a means of generating wide support for party proposals and only secondarily for the articulation of unorganized interests; and 2) that it should not contribute to the development of an interest group structure which would tend to give non-party interests a framework in which to exert continuous and organized pressure on the policy-making process. Under these conditions, participation in the policy-making process on the national level has been conducted on a largely ad hoc basis. An announcement by a party leader or government minister of a new proposal concerning, say, pensions or education typically initiates a complex process of consultation, including regional and national conferences of interested organizations, intensive study by academic specialists, deliberations by legislative committees and sub-committees, public hearings involving legislators as well as outside experts and ordinary citizens, special investigative committees created by the

Delegate · Government (linguistics · Law and economics · Legislature · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Voting · European and International Law Studies · Law · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Public Administration · Russia and Soviet political economy