Resumen de "Turning public engagement into standard practice": institutionalisation in the work of the South African Parliament

Temitayo Isaac Odeyemi, Damilola Temitope Olorunshola, Boluwatife Solomon Ajibola

• Previous research and observed practices demonstrate that as hubs of publicparticipation in governance, parliaments are devising means and prioritisingresources that promote more public-facing initiatives to reach out todifferent segments of society. The diverse means through which thesehappen, across contexts, pose the‘danger’of randomness and spontaneitywhich ultimately limits institutional memory and consistency. This articleexplores how parliaments can enhance content and outcomes through theinstitutionalisation of public engagement. It demonstrates how legal andinstitutional frameworks–as a system of rules and formalised standards–arecombined to set clearly defined templates, and how these align withprocesses for enhanced public engagement practices. In using South Africato frame its analysis, the article draws on the 2022 IPU-UNDPGlobalParliamentaryReportinterviews and document analysis of relevantframeworks and reports. We show how leveraging historical, geographic,social-linguistics, and demographic contexts help to strengthen parliament-public interface through institutionalisation