Description
We know little about how legislators engage with post-conflict justice in contrast to our grasp of the role of domestic and international civil society groups in policy deliberation. We study how politicians ask questions in parliament about transitional justice. Parliamentary questions, that can be oral and written, are an important tool to hold a government to account. We argue that the publicness of parliamentary questions matters. When a politician ask a question in parliament, they are concerned about reputational costs to themselves and to their party. In post-conflict societies, the costs are determined by the degree of dissent from dominant nationalist norms. We analyze 738 parliamentary questions about transitional justice in the Croatian Parliament (2004-2018). We find differences between oral and written questions. Legislators belonging to nationalist parties use oral questions more than liberals, and more than written questions. Overall, the share of oral question about war veterans, the most privileged stakeholder, is larger than their share in written questions. Lastly, oral questions are used to demonstrate partisanship, while written questions are used for policy deliberation across party lines. We identify the limitations of public policy deliberation on post-conflict justice, where parliamentary questions are used for nationalist grand-standing.
