Resumen de Employing the parliamentary committee of inquiryas an oversight tool: Israel as a case study

Chen Friedberg, Assaf Shapira

• A parliamentary committee of inquiry (PCI) is one of the tools with which aparliament carries out its oversight function. It enables the parliament toconduct in-depth investigations of particular issues, uncover failures andcorruption, and increase accountability and transparency of the government.Surprisingly, despite its value, the PCI has received little scholarly attention.This research focuses on PCIs in Israel’s parliament (the Knesset) from aninstitutional perspective. Our analysis – which draws on studies onparliamentary committees in general and on cross-national and other single-country studies on PCIs – highlights the institutional weaknesses of PCIs inIsrael; yet at the same time, it shows how even weak PCIs can leave a mark iftheir limited powers are used skilfully. Based on our findings, we propose aninstitutional framework to evaluate the PCI as a parliamentary oversight toolthat can be developed in future studies and other countries.