Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Opposition is a core component of any democracy, yet it is scarcely studied. Leaning on research prescribing blurred lines between government and opposition in parliamentary democracies, we use word embeddings in tandem with sentiment analysis on written parliamentary questions in the Norwegian parliament to study conflict patterns between the government and opposition. Our findings consistently show that MPs of governing parties are more negative than MPs of the opposition. However, the effect is reduced considerably when the topical content of the question is included in the analysis. We attribute our finding to the existence of a participation threshold in parliamentary questions; MPs of governing parties will only ask questions whenever a given issue is sufficiently contentious.
Source: Legislative Studies Quarterly
DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12474
Authors: Solveig Bjørkholt, Martin Søyland
Institution: University of Oslo
Language: English
Subfield: General Social Sciences
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,190
OpenAlex ID: W4401551768