Deliberative Accountability in Parliamentary Committees

Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey is Professor in the Government Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science and is a Fellow of the British Academy. Her research interests are in political economy, legislatures, deliberation, accountability, and mixed methods research. She is author and editor of many books on trade policy, monetary policy, legislative committees, and recently, on the history of the LSE Government Department.

Few issues are as complicated as the relationship between technocratic policy-making and democratic politics. Schonhardt-Bailey does not only walk us through the challenges of monitoring the decisions of both elected and unelected public officials; she also provides a compelling analytical framework and a wealth of empirical evidence to explain patterns of "deliberative accountability". The book is undoubtedly a must-read for all those interested in democratic governance, the quality of accountability, and deliberation in contemporary societies.

• 1: Introduction 2: Deliberation as Words, Arguments, and Themes 3: Nonverbal Behaviour in Parliamentary Hearings on Economic Policy 4: A View from the Inside 5: Conclusion Appendix 1: List of 37 Hearings Over 2010-15 Parliament Appendix 2: Details of Committee Members Appendix 3: Members and Witnesses Attending Hearings Appendix 4: Keywords and Phrases Joined for Lemmatization Appendix 5: Coding Scheme Appendix 6: Detailed Codes Appendix 7: Example of Questions for Experiment (Pre-Group Discussion) Appendix 8: Video Content for Hearings and Topics Covered in Each Hearing Appendix 9: Group Discussion Results from Nonverbal Appendix 10: Analysis of Exchange Dynamic Dichotomous Variable for Questioner by Nonverbal Behaviour Response Variable