ABSTRACT

Legislative scholars are very good at explaining and analysing what legislatures do and how they do it. But the why question – why legislatures do what they do and why they matter – is often taken for granted or not raised at all. Our objective in this paper is to focus attention back onto the ‘why’ question and to explore the grounds upon which legislative scholars, and others, might be encouraged to reconsider this basic question. In seeking to coax a reconsideration of the importance of legislatures, we direct attention towards processes of legitimation and why legislatures are invested in such processes across the world in the modern era. If, as we argue, an answer to the question of why legislatures matter is to be grounded in processes of legitimation, then deficiencies in those processes or the questionability of those processes also expose the contingent nature of such an answer.

摘要

立法学者非常善于解释和分析立法机关的工作以及他们如何做。但是为什么问题——为什么立法机构做他们所做的以及为什么重要——通常被认为是理所当然的，或者根本没有提出。我们在本文中的目标是将注意力重新集中在“为什么”问题上，并探索可能鼓励立法学者和其他人重新考虑这个基本问题的依据。在试图重新考虑立法机构的重要性时，我们将注意力集中在合法化过程上，以及为什么在现代世界各地对立法机构进行投资。如果，正如我们所争论的，对立法机构为何重要的问题的答案是基于合法化过程，