A research Chair in Democracy and Parliamentary Institutions.

• Author: Bissonnet, Michel

In connection with celebrations for the 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec City, the National Assembly of Quebec and Laval University have undertaken to create a Research Chair in Democracy and Parliamentary Institutions. This article looks at how the new institution will improve knowledge about our democratic institutions.

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Parliamentary assemblies are houses of democracy. No other place possesses the democratic legitimacy, which derives from election by universal suffrage. Nevertheless, perhaps because our democratic institutions are now taken for granted, too few citizens truly know them. This ignorance, which can be observed in all Western democracies, is an issue of fundamental importance for all those in public life, for it engenders indifference, mistrust, sometimes even suspicion towards the representative system.

Academic Objectives

The majority of modern parliaments face identical challenges and issues.

* What consequences does a more global society have for the way democratic institutions work?

* How do we ensure a fairer representation of citizens and of the diversity of society?

* How do we reconcile traditional means of political expression with a society in which the media play an ever more prominent role?

* How do we reinforce the role of parliament vis-a-vis the executive?

Although these questions drive public debate, the parliamentary institutions and the problems associated with them paradoxically remain marginal as a specific object of research in the university sphere, both in Canada and in Europe.

The creation of a university research chair must be envisaged first and foremost from a scientific and academic perspective. Thus the promoters of the Research Chair in Democracy and Parliamentary Institutions set forth a certain number of objectives:

* The study of legislatures within traditional legal, political science, and social science disciplines create a need to train the teachers themselves and to upgrade their knowledge;

* Problems relating to the workings of our democratic societies and their interweaving with other social phenomena warrant a multidisciplinary approach that cannot be realized within a single faculty;

* Questions within our modern societies about the workings of democratic systems and the appearance of what some call a crisis in representation provide incentives to develop specific university research;

* Globalization and access to a greater wealth of information, in particular thanks to new technologies, offer an exceptional opportunity to promote the study of democratic institutions;

* Quebec City is...