New article on parliamentary committee witnesses

Hugh Bochel and Anouk Berthier have a new article that consider the witnesses that appear before parliamentary committees in their scrutiny of government actions and legislation. The work draws on Pitkin and Saward’s conceptions of representation, drawing on the case of witnesses who provide oral evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s committees. The article suggests that the application of such ideas to the selection and characteristics of witnesses, and in particular to the views expressed by MSPs and parliamentary officials, is helpful in highlighting the different understandings of and aspirations for ‘representation’, including the variety of perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of these.