Traditionally, governments enjoyed exclusive competence over foreign affairs and parliaments were reduced to holding them to account ‘after-the-fact’. However, one of the consequences of the increasingly globalised world of the 21st century is that decisions made in the international context impact far more on a country’s domestic. This challenges the classic dichotomy of ‘domestic’ versus ‘foreign’ affairs which leads to a parliament losing its traditional role as the key forum for debate and decision-making. With its decisions on the European Stability Mechanism, the German Constitutional Court seemed to have tried to halt that trend by using the Parliament’s budgetary control powers to limit the Government’s foreign policy prerogative. However, this paper will argue that the cases illustrate precisely why the traditional theoretical framework is flawed and will explore how a more radical change could result in greater accountability and thus decrease popular distrust of government.

Our 2020 Annual Conference was scheduled to be held at the University of Wrocław in Poland on July 9-11, 2020.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ICON·S Executive Committee has decided to postpone our 2020 Conference to 2021. Our next Annual Conference will take place from July 8-10, 2021, in Wrocław, Poland.
Procedural details regarding the organization of the 2021 Conference will follow in the months ahead.
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