and Balkan Europe
by IECOB & AIS Università di Bologna
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Parliament Watch! | Strengthening the political debate and deliberative discourse
How lawmakers debate? Are sound arguments and respect of opposing views the main weapons in parliamentary battles or they fall under the shade of party monologs, fall speech, personal attacks and accusations?
The Institute for Democracy SOCIETAS CIVILIS Skopje (IDSCS) and the Institute for Central, Eastern Europe and the Balkans - (IECOB) began a project for monitoring the quality of debate in the Macedonian Parliament. The goal is to calculate the "Index of quality of debate " - (DQI) and to conclude about the quality of MPs argumentation, level of respect of different views and how they contribute in the process of law discussions and policy making during the parliament sessions in the period June 2014 – May 2015. The project will also analyze how the media report the MPs discussions. Does reporting focus is placed on the core of the discussions or information about scandals , tussle and indecent speech captures central place in media reports.
The results from the monitoring of the Parliament and the media are published and disseminated to media, the Parliament, political parties, civil society organizations, the academic community and the general public through monthly reports with the basic findings. After conducting 10 month monitoring the data will be used for conducting broader analysis and a study which will determine the level of deliberation in the decision making process in the Macedonian Parliament.
Within the project, trainings for the political parties youth organizations are organized in terms of how to debate with arguments and respect to conflicting views in order to create better policies for the society.
The project activities are conducted during the period March 2014 to June 2015, a total period of 16 months.
The ultimate goal of the activities is to improve the quality of political debate and argumentation in the creation and development of countries policies. Moreover, by creating a culture of debate based on arguments and encouraging party youths to cultivate such expression , the goal is to increase public involvement in public policies creation.
The " Parliament watch. Strengthening political debate and deliberative discourse in the Republic of Macedonia Macedonia" project is financed by the 'European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights' - EIDHR
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December 2014 | Fourth report on monitoring of media reporting on the work of the Parliament
(published in: Jul, 2015)
The key finding from the fourth report on monitoring the media reporting is that during the monitored period, from 1 to 31 December, the media increased the reporting on the parliamentary debates, compared to November and October. -
December 2014 | Fifth Monitoring Report on the Quality of the Debate in the Parliament
(published in: Apr, 2015)
The key-findings from the Fifth Monitoring Report (monitoring period 1-31 December, total 11 sessions) are that the discussion on the legal proposals remains weak, with somewhat bigger interaction among the MPs compared to the previous monitoring periods (19 June-1 August, 25 August- 30 September and November). -
November 2014 | Fourth Monitoring Report on the Quality of the Debate in the Parliament
(published in: Apr, 2015)
This report covers the monitoring period 1 -30 November 2014 and it includes 10 parliamentary sessions. The main conclusions of this Fourth report are that the discussion about legislation remains weak and that MPs had less interactions compared to the previous monitoring periods (19 June – 1 August, 25 August – 30 September and October). -
November 2014 | Third report on monitoring of media reporting on the work of the Parliament
(published in: Mar, 2015)
Sources for most of the published information recorded in the third report of monitoring of media’s coverage in the period from 1 to 30 November were MPs from only one political party. Information comes most of times from active and elected MPs from the opposition who did not accept the mandates, compared to MPs from the leading coalition. -
October 2014 | Third Monitoring Report on the Quality of the Debate in the Parliament
(published in: Feb, 2015)
This report covers the monitoring period 1 -31 October 2014 and it includes 11 parliamentary sessions. The main conclusions in this Third report are that the discussion about the legislation remains weak, but the MPs had little more interaction compared to the previous monitoring periods 19 June – 31 July and 25 August – 30 September. -
October 2014 | Second report on monitoring of media reporting on the work of the Parliament
(published in: Feb, 2015)
In the period 1 – 31 October, newspapers and televisions dominantly mentioned the Assembly in the context of broader political events, the termination of the boycott by members of the Parliament from the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA), and the ongoing boycott of the Assembly by the coalition led by the Social-Democratic Union for Macedonia (SDSM). -
August - September 2014 | Second Monitoring Report on the Quality of the Debate in the Parliament | August - September 2014
(published in: Feb, 2015)
The monitoring period of this report is 25 August-30 September. It includes 21 parliamentary sessions. The main conclusions are that the discussion about the legislation remains weak, but the MPs had little more interaction compared to the first monitoring period 19 June – 31 July. -
June - September 2014 | First report on monitoring of media reporting on the work of the Parliament
(published in: Feb, 2015)
In the period 19 June – 30 September, newspapers and televisions mostly mentioned the Assembly in the context of broader political events. Much less they informed specifically about the content of debates and the arguments brought about by MPs during plenary sessions and sessions of the committees in the Assembly. -
Index for monitoring the quality of debate in the Assembly
(published in: Jan, 2015)
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June - July 2014 | Monitoring Report of the Quality of the Parliament’s Debate | June-July 2014
(published in: Jan, 2015)
The main findings in the first report of the monitoring are that in the monitoring period 19 June – 3 August, which includes 20 parliamentary sessions, the speeches of the members of the Parliament (MPs) were mostly supported with arguments. -
May - June 2014 | Citizens’ perceptions of the work of the Assembly
(published in: Jan, 2015)
PECOB: Portal on Central Eastern and Balkan Europe - University of Bologna - 117, c.so della Repubblica - Italy
