ABSTRACT

This article examines Greece and North Macedonia’s parliamentary ratifications of the Prespa Agreement. Given the decisive role of national parliaments in the process of the agreement’s success, the article investigates to what extent this specific institutional setting influenced the dispute concerning the bilateral agreement. The article poses the following question: which factors explain support and opposition towards the agreement within the two national parliaments? We found that two conflicting models of parliamentary representation characterized the type of support for or opposition to the agreement: the trustee and the representative models. Drawing on an analysis of the vote outcomes and a qualitative discourse analysis of the plenary debates, the article demonstrates that whereas the governing parties in both states adhered to the trustee model – prioritizing their international responsibility and the state’s collective interests – opposition parties acted as representatives of specific sub-groups of voters and their particularistic interests or identities.

摘要

本文研究了希腊和北马其顿对《普雷斯帕协定》的议会批准。考虑到各国议会在协议成功过程中的决定性作用，本文探讨了这种特定的机构设置在多大程度上影响了有关双边协议的争端。文章提出了以下问题：哪些因素解释了两国议会对协定的支持和反对？我们发现，议会代表制的两种相互矛盾的模式代表了支持或反对协议的类型：受托人和代议制模式。借助对投票结果的分析和对全会辩论的定性话语分析，