Demirkaya, Betul. "Whistleblower in the Parliament."

The government in a parliamentary system generally enjoys exceptional power over legislation. The legislative opposition uses procedural prerogatives at its disposal such as proposing amendments - usually without a successful outcome. In this paper, I consider whether the use of these procedures - even when they are unsuccessful - can alter the government's behavior in a way that enhances responsiveness to voters. Specifically, I develop a formal model that examines the conditions under which the opposition's objections to policy proposals help voters to monitor the government. The model assumes that the opposition needs to exert effort to attract the attention of voters, who face nontrivial costs to evaluate the opposition's messages. I show that an electorally strong opposition with moderate activists may fail to warn voters against policy proposals that diverge from voters' preferences. On the other hand, if the opposition is electorally weak or has extreme activists, its messages lose credibility.