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Institutional Partnerships for Legislative Exchange
In addition to its programs in the field, NDI also has two Washington D.C.-based programs dedicated to exchanges for legislators and their staff. Legislative exchanges allow our partners to interact and learn from their counterparts in the United States, both in the U.S. Congress and at the state legislative level.
Institute for Representative Government
The Institute for Representative Government (IRG) is a nonprofit, bipartisan, educational organization established by former members of Congress in 1988 for the purpose of providing visiting legislators from developing democracies greater exposure to the American federal political system at the national and state levels. IRG's Board of Directors is comprised of six former members of Congress, equally representing both the Democratic and Republican parties, and the Institute receives its annual funding through a congressional earmark in the budget of the Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. In its 17 years of service, IRG has conducted more than 50 programs for over 520 foreign legislators and officials from all over the world.
In 2003, IRG entered into a strategic partnership with the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute to leverage the extensive worldwide presence and expertise of the two political party institutes. This partnership helps to ensure that IRG's study missions are carefully conceptualized, with a nuanced understanding of the local political context. To date, NDI has organized and conducted eight IRG study missions, selecting participants from Turkey, Indonesia, Jordan, Nigeria, Morocco, the Andean region, and Montenegro, and ensuring that participants have access to appropriate programmatic support through NDI country offices after the completion of their study tours.
U.S. House Democracy Assistance Commission
The U.S. House Democracy Assistance Commission (HDAC) is comprised of 20 members of the House of Representatives who directly participate in the critical work of promoting and supporting the development of democratic governments around the world. Specifically, HDAC works through peer-to-peer partnerships with emerging democratic legislatures to assist in the development of the fundamental building blocks of legislative government: oversight, transparency, accountability, effective legislation, and responsiveness to constituents.
NDI has provided support and expertise for the commission’s Washington, D.C., study missions for legislators from their partner parliaments. In December 2007, NDI conducted HDAC’s first Parliamentary Staff Institute, a two-week exchange program for legislative researchers and administrative staff. The Institute is conducting a second Parliamentary Staff Institute, as well as a study mission for members of parliament, in late 2008.
Key publications
In response to legislators’ requests for specific, comparative information, NDI has published a series of papers, called the Legislative Research Series (funded by a grant from the National Endowment for Democracy). To date, the Institute has published five papers:
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Presiding Officers: Speakers and Presidents of Legislatures compares the characteristics and functions of the speaker in various legislative systems in the context of three models, Westminster U.S. Congress and the French Bureau.
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Committees in Legislatures: A Division of Labor explores the structure and function of legislative committees. It includes charts with detailed information on specific committee related issues collected from 20 legislatures around the world.
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One Chamber or Two? Deciding Between a Unicameral or Bicameral Legislature reviews the attributes of bicameral and unicameral legislatures, their differences and the benefits and repercussions of implementing either model, using examples and case studies from 18 countries.
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Published in 1999, Ethics in Legislatures: A Comparative Analysis, outlines the key issues of legislative ethics, including codes of conduct, ethics rules and financial disclosure mechanisms, and institutional designs of education and enforcement systems. It compares ethics rules for legislators in 20 countries, with detailed description of rules and laws in 20 pages of comprehensive tables.
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In 2000, NDI published Strengthening Legislative Capacity in Legislative-Executive Relations, which examines the complex relationship between the legislative and executive branches, and offers strategies to assist legislators in asserting their legislative authority. It includes discussions of legislative-executive relations in presidential, parliamentary and hybrid government models and an overview of techniques for legislative oversight of the executive, i.e., oversight and public accounts committees, parliamentary questions and interpellations and confidence votes.
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More recently (2007), NDI published Toward the Development of International Standards for Democratic Legislatures. The publication makes recommendations for democratic legislatures with regard to the election of legislators, legislative organization and functions, and legislative values. The “Legislative Standards” publication, as it has become known, is meant to encourage and provide suggestions for legislators and others wishing to strengthen legislative institutions. NDI drew on the expertise of several international organizations in developing this publication, among them the Commonwealth Parliamentary Forum (CPA), the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), and the Association of Secretaries General of Parliament (ASGP).
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The "Legislative Standards" publication is a work in progress, and the Institute continues to engage with partner organizations such as the World Bank Institute (WBI) and the CPA in the further development and testing of these standards, and to encourage legislatures and legislative associations to consider, adapt, and possibly adopt such principles.
For more information about these programs, use our contact form or dial our main telephone number: 1-202-728-5500.
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