Getting to the soul of parliaments: Using multi-methods to understand the parliamentary ecosystem

This chapter tracks my journey of just over 30 years studying parliaments, to explore the challenges arising with the study of this institution and the myriad of approaches that I have used. It shows that in order to understand this institution of power, one needs to view it as an ecosystem and adopt varied and supplementary methods. It also explores some of the paradoxes inherent to the institution and how these shape its study. As my journey spans the time before and after the rise of the internet, this is a core element of this reflection: how what we know and can access of the institution shapes the study of parliaments and how this has changed. My reflections are based on my journey developing research about a range of parliaments, from Portugal to the United Kingdom, with stops in Brazil, France, Europe and Scotland.