Legislative assemblies and legislative roles

Legislatures are the cornerstone of representative democracy. They make laws, provide oversight of the executive, and, in parliamentary systems of government, determine who governs. In democratic societies, legislatures are populated by parliamentarians who are accountable to citizens. The roles adopted by individual legislators are complex, but they can be understood as strategies for allocating scarce resources to achieve specific goals. In this chapter, we suggest that legislative roles are influenced by the legislative assembly’s type, as identified by the objectives and relative influences of three key actors: (1) ordinary members of the assembly, (2) party leaders, and (3) voters. Using the UK House of Commons as an example, we suggest that legislators’ roles are conditioned and affected by the type of legislative assembly: the members’ assembly, the leaders’ assembly, or the voters’ assembly.