Questions to the First Minister of Scotland.

Abstract

Political communication research traditionally has focussed on media coverage of politics. At the same time, a rhetorical perspective has informed most scholarship on the subject of direct politician discourse. The present study crosses the epistemological divide by applying quantitative content analysis to the subject of parliamentary discourse: specifically the Scottish Parliament's weekly forum known as First Minister's Questions. The present research is grounded in opposition theory and argumentation theory, resulting in 17 hypotheses concerning the communication of Parliament.

Results suggest that despite the efforts of the Parliament's framers, communication by both the Coalition and Opposition may have reflected a resigned acceptance of the historically-limited role of the Opposition in debating the merits of future government policies. These patterns of communication infer an inadvertent arrogance by the Government and a lack of argument sophistication by the Opposition. The study concludes: (1) opposition theory should be expanded to account for factors of parliamentary communication that may reveal an opposition's functionality, (2) this study's system of coding parliamentary content provides an empirical method to test the communication implications of political theories, and (3) content analysis is a valuable tool in unlocking patterns of political discourse that would remain inaccessible via qualitative methods of research.

Three independent coders applied a quantitative content analysis to the first 96 sessions of First Minister's Questions, from 1999 to 2002. Results suggested, among other inferences, that: (1) coalition membership explains more variation in communication content than does political party, (2) the Labour-Liberal Democratic coalition remained relatively cohesive, despite the ambivalent communication of regional-list members, (3) while argumentative, Opposition questions took few opportunities to advance its own policies, question the Scottish Executive's future proposals, or exploit differences between the coalition members, (4) First Ministers discussed the topic of independence more than the Scottish National Party, (5) negative communication was arbitrary rather than merely reciprocated, suggesting a vigorous but collegial argument environment, (6) First Ministers spent more time responding to Opposition constituency members than either party leaders or list members, and (7) the tone of communication became more amiable over the passage of time.