Deploymentvotewatch collects and shares data on parliamentary votes on the deployment of armed forces.
Since the end of the Cold War, democracies have been participating in military missions of various kinds, ranging from peacekeeping to war. These deployments have raised questions about their democratic legitimacy and parliamentary control in particular. In many democracies, deployments decisions are the exclusive competence of the government, and parliament is only informed. In a growing number of cases, however, such decisions have been put to a vote in parliament. Deploymentvotewatch documents and analyzes these votes.
Deploymentvotewatch serves a dual purpose: As scholars of political science, we are interested in an analysis of deployment votes. By sharing the data we collected, we hope to stimulate further analyses. As citizens of countries that have participated in military missions, we consider the publication of deployment votes to be a contribution to the democratic control of security and defense policy.
At the moment, deploymentvotewatch documents 183 votes in plenaries for the period between 1991 and August 2016 in France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom.
Our ambition is to regularly update the data on the countries already covered and to extend the remit of deploymentvotewatch to further countries in the future.