Questioning Scrutiny: The Effect of Question Time on Citizen Efficacy and Trust in Government

• In Event: Holding the Executive to Account in the 21st Century: lessons from the US Congress and the UK House of Commons

Abstract

Does complex legislative procedure undermine public support for legislatures? The work of Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (1995) suggest that the very conflict and compromise generated by legislatures itself is the blame for citizen distrust in and disgust with Congress, while Davidson (1999) claims that the public hates Congress in large part because its inter-workings are little understood by the general public. In a similar vein, Prime Minister’s Question Time, the primary vehicle for scrutinizing the government in the British system, may also undermine public support in Parliament. Despite the popularity of Question Time among MSPs, public attitudes are at best mixed (Parker, Munson, and Richter, 2018). Both FMQs and PMQs often feature packed public galleries with tickets difficult to secure. Yet the public expresses frustration with PMQs at Westminster, which they view as more about political point scoring, attracting media attention, and criticizing the government than genuine, substantive attempts to make government work better. When asked about perceptions of PMQs, 67% agreed that ‘there is too much party political point-scoring instead of answering the question’ (Hansard, 2014). Using an innovative experiment, we examine whether exposure to Prime Minister’s Questions is associated with lower levels of support for the UK Parliament, government generally, and lower levels of citizen efficacy. If so, it suggests one of the most important functions of legislatures—executive oversight—may yield negative externalities undermining public support for representative government.

Authors

• Alan Convery, University of Edinburgh

• David CW Parker, Montana State University, Bozeman

• Pavielle Haines, University of Denver