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Институциональные свойства парламентских комитетов в странах постсоветского пространства
The article examines the institutional features of committees functioning in the legislative bodies of post-Soviet countries at the present stage. Based on the thesis that parliamentary committees are unique organizations where politics intersects with expertise, the author compares their role in lawmaking between countries with different political trajectories but a common institutional past. The current rules of the regulations and laws governing the activities of parliamentary committees in 13 countries are used as an empirical basis.
The features of the committees were analysed with three blocks of indicators: organizational properties and mechanisms of interaction with other structures of the chamber; features of the work at the reading stage; powers in the field of relations with the executive branch and external actors. The comparison showed that the basic functionality in the form of examination of draft laws and reports at the plenary session is identical, and the key differences are seen in issues of accountability to the governing bodies of the Chamber, participation in collegial management structures and the timing of initiatives’ consideration. It is noteworthy that these differences are not determined by the number of committees.
The current configurations of features of the post–Soviet committees show that they function not as independent political actors, but as platforms for coordinating the interests of other actors, and in some cases as an object of struggle for control over formal levers of influence in lawmaking. The result of such a struggle may be expressed in the distribution of new committee-specific powers in parliament, for example, in the establishment of a system for involving non-parliamentary actors in the examination. The revealed status of the structure differs significantly from ones of the European experience, where committees have a wide range of powers between countries and often act as independent players in the legislative process.
The results obtained complement the existing discussion about the institutional features of post-Soviet political systems. It can be concluded that the ideas about the work of parliamentary bodies, laid down at the stage of institutional transplantation thirty-five years ago, can still be preserved in the regulatory rules of the game and determine the properties of the decision-making process.