Open Parliaments: The Reality of Public Engagement in European Democracies

Democratic institutions are under strain. The bond between citizens and political institutions has significantly frayed, and parliaments, long positioned as the institutional heart of representative democracy, find themselves at the center of this legitimacy crisis. This book asks whether they can be part of the solution. Can parliaments deliver on their commitments to openness and public engagement? Do their efforts live up to their promises, or do they amount to symbolic transformation without structural change?

Open Parliaments makes no prior assumption that they can. Instead, it asks how, where, when, and to what extent parliaments deliver on their promise to open up, and who can access and participate in these newly opened spaces. To answer these questions, the analysis draws on a comparative study of twenty-one European parliaments and two in-depth case studies, Austria and France, where novel institutional engagement practices have been embedded in parliamentary life.

This book reveals empirically how legislative institutions have achieved only a narrow openness: doors technically unlocked but never truly open, information formally disclosed, participation nominally possible. Yet this openness proves neither accessible nor inclusive. Content remains difficult to read and navigate for ordinary citizens, participatory instruments are not designed nor equipped to make participation consequential, and engagement consistently skews toward those already proximate to power. Caught between the temptations of engagement myopia and magical thinking, parliaments offer citizens a performance of openness rather than its substance.