Why Should Parliaments Continue to Debate?: The Intertwined Virtues of Parliamentary Debates

Parliamentary debates may seem as anachronistic today given their limited role in forging majorities within parliaments. Yet, this paper seeks to demonstrate that they still play a diversity of other roles. They contribute to frame ideologically a debate and therefore to link policy proposal to electoral politics. They can also be regarded as ways of both controlling and motivating members. They bring credibility to the view that parliaments are representative – feeding people mimetic relations to politics. Last, they help implementing the accountability process forcing ministers to speak, to listen to criticisms and to answer them. Those four aspects, based on a variety of literature, are considered to be still relevant in the contemporary period.