Breaking barriers to engagement with parliaments

Research overview

Millions of people regularly engage with petitions, using them to make their voices heard in parliaments. To facilitate this, many parliaments have developed new processes to make petitions more effective. However, these tend to be used by a limited group of people.

This research project worked with community organisations in Leeds and across Wales to investigate how people from seldom-heard groups envisaged political engagement and petitioning. We undertook focus groups with petitioners and non-petitioners, supplemented by interviews with parliamentary officials and representatives of community organisations. 

The project was co-designed with parliamentary officials from the UK and Welsh parliaments to meet the key strategic aim of making political engagement through petitioning more inclusive of citizens from seldom-heard groups.

Our findings showed that to expand the use of petitioning beyond the usual suspects and to enhance the petitioning experience, parliamentary processes need to adopt more citizen-focused communications, consider procedures in place from a citizen’s perspective and be more proactive in disseminating the value of petitioning. Critically, a participatory tool such as petitions needs to be scaffolded with appropriate education and information support, for its full value to be fulfilled and a more equitable use by citizens. 

This research is unique because it:

• adopts an in-depth qualitative approach
• focuses on seldom-heard groups
• works with community organisations to study seldom-heard groups, which is innovative in politics studies
• is co-produced with parliamentary officials
• approaches petitioning from both sides: the citizen’s perspective and the institution’s

Key research message

Through 6 focus groups and 18 interviews, we identified key aspects that can enhance political engagement and petitioning:

• clear communications and accessible visuals
• collaboration with other citizen centred services (e.g. education, engagement)
• working with community organisations
• scaffolding participatory tools with appropriate information and education resources

Impact

This project has raised awareness amongst the two parliaments involved in the project of the importance of considering seldom-heard communities specifically.

Publications and outputs

Visual summary

In line with our research recommendations, we captured our findings in a short and engaging visual summary. We hope it gives a good insight into how people perceive politics, how they experience petitioning, and what parliaments can do to make their petitioning processes and practices more suitable to wider groups of people, beyond the usual suspects.

Download the ‘Breaking Barriers to Engagement with Parliament’ visual summary here.

Following this research, we also worked with Didier Caluwaerts and Daan Vermassen from Brussels Free University on a chapter about reimagining engagement between citizens and parliament, from which we also produced a visual summary.  

Download the ‘Reimagining Engagement between Citizens and Parliament’ visual summary here.

Leaflets

As part of this project, we co-produced leaflets on petitioning in partnership with the community organisations involved in the research. The leaflets aim to raise awareness of the value of petitioning parliament and how to get a petition noticed. Feel free to download the leaflets through the links below and use them in your own practice. If you need printed versions of the leaflet, please contact Cristina directly at c.leston-bandeira@leeds.ac.uk.

Download the ‘Petitioning the UK Parliament leaflet’ here.

Download the ‘Petitioning the Welsh Parliament leaflet’ here.

Download the ‘Petitioning the Welsh Parliament Welsh Language leaflet’ here.

Blog

Petition platforms must reach beyond the usual suspects, LSE, Cristina Leston-Bandeira and Blagovesta Tacheva, 7 February 2024

Podcast

What happens to Parliamentary Petitions?' featuring Professor Leston-Bandeira, released by the UK Parliament as part of their Committee Corridor podcast series.

Articles

The development of public engagement as a core institutional role for parliaments, with S Siefken, Journal of Legislative Studies (2023) 29(3)

Why it matters keep asking why legislatures matter, with D. Judge, Journal of Legislative Studies, (2021) 27(2)

Parliamentary petitions and public engagement: an empirical analysis of the role of e-petitions. Policy & Politics, (2019) 47 (3). pp. 415-436

Books

Reimagining Parliament, BUP, 2024 (ed with D. Judge); Exploring Parliament, OUP, 2018 (ed with L. Thompson)