Protesters,Parliamentarians, Policymakers: The Experiences of Australian Green MPs

This article details the distinctive style and political commitments that Green members of parliament (MPs) bring to representative democracy in Australia. Based on in-depth interviews with 16 sitting federal and state Green MPs, it examines the extent to which the political culture, grassroots organisation and values of this left-libertarian party influence the parliamentary role orientations and legislative behaviour of its MPs, and how this fits with existing research on parliamentary representatives. The analysis reveals mixed results: while the legislative priorities and representative focus of MPs appear to be influenced more by previous social movement and parliamentary experience rather than overarching party orientations, the party's culture has had a strong impact on MPs' views regarding issues of conscience and their style of representation. Drawing on the comparative experience of Green parties throughout Western Europe, this article utilises the prism of role orientations to assess the conflicting imperatives Australian Green MPs face in staying true to their movement origins while their party becomes increasingly professional and influential in the parliamentary arena.     

Pre-parliamentary backgrounds of Australian major party MPs: effects on representation

Legislative recruitment patterns are an important study in the field of political science, given their consequences for the practice of parliamentary government. The Australian parliament is a bicameral legislature, including a powerful elected upper chamber. This article details the pre-parliamentary party backgrounds of Australia's two major parties, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Liberal/National Party coalition (LNP) in the 39th Australian Parliament (1998–2001). It is hypothesised that the pre-parliamentary backgrounds of Upper House major party MPs are dominated by central party experience, while the party experience of Lower House MPs is more significantly localised. It is further hypothesised that these differences in pre-parliamentary backgrounds will remain constant when the respective parties are evaluated individually. This appears something of a paradox given that one would expect central party activists to prefer a legislative career in the lower house, affording them greater ministerial opportunities. The causes of such deviations from expected background distributions amongst legislators is explored. Contrary to traditional findings, upper house MPs are highly partisan, performing functionary roles to assist their lower house colleagues secure re-election. Strong senator partisanship is reflected in the non-parliamentary practice of major party senators. Such partisanship is a consequence of party selection methods, the electoral system and pre-parliamentary party backgrounds, not necessarily the uniquely powerful Australian Senate. It is therefore significant in the Australian polity and may have consequences for less powerful and/or unelected upper chambers in other bicameral parliaments.     

Mixed Rules,Different Roles? An Analysis of the Typical Pathways into the Bundestag and of MPs' Parliamentary Behaviour

Does the German mixed electoral system produce two types of representatives – MPs elected in the district who aim primarily to represent the interests of their constituencies and list MPs who are primarily loyal to their party or seek to serve ‘functional’ interest groups? The paper addresses this controversial question in two steps. It first uses sequence analysis in order to discover empirically just how prominent the exclusive ‘path into the Bundestag’ actually was by way of either the party list or the electoral district. The empirical basis is a data set covering all 3581 members of parliament from 1949 to 2009. Secondly, after having identified MPs with clear district or list careers, the paper replicates a study on committee membership asking whether district MPs sat more often in committees that are of relevance for their districts while list MPs more often sit in so-called ‘policy’ committees. The paper finds no evidence for a clear ‘mandate divide’ between MPs elected in a district and those numerous MPs entering parliament via the party list but also contesting a district.     

The electoral connection of ministerial selection in the UK

Many studies have examined the determinants of ministerial selection. However, the effect of electoral incentives on government post allocation has so far not been studied in the literature. Drawing on data from the United Kingdom over the period 1992–2015, this article investigates the relationship between the selection of ministers and the electoral interests of the actors in this selection process – party leaders and members of parliament (MPs). The findings demonstrate that the greater the electoral safety of constituencies, the more likely are MPs to have a higher office. The results reveal a broader conception of party strategy in government formation than previously documented. The paper thus suggests that electorates can affect the allocation of ministerial positions in the UK.     

Legislative recruitment to upper houses: The Australian senate and house of representatives compared

Although a majority of liberal democracies are bicameral, only four – Australia, the United States, Germany and Switzerland – have upper houses which have any significant legislative authority. However, it is unclear to what extent upper house members differ – in their backgrounds and beliefs – from their lower house counterparts. This article applies multivariate methods to survey data collected among 1993 Australian federal election candidates to examine patterns of legislative recruitment and political attitudes among Australian Senate and House of Representatives candidates. The results show that Senate candidates differ significantly in their personal : and political backgrounds when compared to House of Representatives candidates, although there are few, if any, differences in political views. The findings confirm the strong discipline that the major parties exercise over the Senate, particularly by selecting candidates who are more party – oriented than their lower house counterparts. This is anomalous given that the original purpose of the upper house was to defend the interests of the smaller states and territories. Finally, the article discusses the implications of this increasing partisan control of upper houses for responsible party government.     

Differences and Changes in Danish Party Organisations: Central Party Organisation versus Parliamentary Party Group Power

The subject of this article is the relationship between the central party organisation and the parliamentary party group. The article investigates whether Danish political parties are changing into parties dominated by their parliamentary party groups, as has been hypothesised. In contrast to most of the literature on party change, which is based on ideas of convergence caused by external changes, this article argues that party organisation is basically a party decision and therefore influenced by party preferences and characteristics. The analyses are based on data from the statutes of 16 Danish parties in over 50 years. One noteworthy finding is that Danish parties do not converge. Party ideology proves to be very important for the power structure of a party. Even though political parties are exposed to changing political circumstances they still organise according to their basic ideas about democracy and representation.     

Choosing your own Boss: Variations of Representation Foci in Mixed Electoral Systems

Members of parliament are privileged agents. They can choose who to regard as their principal: the entire nation, a particular electoral district or a political party. Focusing on two countries with mixed electoral systems, Romania and Hungary, the article documents the dominance of the electoral logic of role-formation over the constraints of legislative organisation and the influence of socialisation. The focus of representation is found to be only modestly influenced by the degree of the embeddedness of MPs in political structures and hierarchies. The association of the seat with a particular territorial unit, on the other hand, has a robust effect even when this association originates in the political environment and not in formal rules. Finally, the psychological effect of losing a Single Member District is also found to influence how MPs perceive their representative role.     

Electoral Security as a Determinant of Legislator Activity, 1832–1918: New Data and Methods for Analyzing British Political Development

We consider the relationship between a Member of Parliament's electoral environment and his strategic choice of legislative activities between the First and Fourth Reform Acts in Britain. We argue that voters and party institutions put cross‐cutting pressures on members during this time, and that legislators calibrated their behavior in accordance with the marginality of their seat. We gather a massive new dataset documenting MPs’ biographical information, electoral records, roll calls, and speeches. The extent of MPs’ speech making and voting (our measures of legislative activity) vary with electoral security in ways consistent with our theoretical priors for Westminster systems.     

Four Models of Political Representation: British MPs and the Use of ICT

This paper tests four models of political representation in the UK Parliament: the traditional, party, representative and tribune. Each involves a different usage of the Internet in order to fulfil a particular role. A rational choice approach emphasises the utility of the party model, utilising information and communication technologies to reinforce existing patterns within the political system. An empirical study suggests that the party model is the most applicable to the UK Parliament. Few MPs utilise the Internet in a way consistent with the other three models. If innovative use is to be made of the Internet, it may be at the institutional level rather than at the level of the individual MP.     

The Time Path of Legislative Party Switching and the Dynamics of Political Competition: The Italian Case (1996–2011)

Political competition is more realistically described as a dynamic process rather than as a series of static stages in which parties compete over policy and government formation. This paper focuses on legislative party switching as the main manifestation of this endogenously evolving process, linking individual switching behaviour to policy and office incentives that are assumed to evolve throughout the life of the entire legislature. Using a new data set tracking the timing of MPs’ changes in party affiliations between 1996 and 2011 in Italy, it is found that switching is mainly motivated by policy reasons and that it is more likely during government formation periods and budget negotiations. These results are a consequence of the interplay between MPs’ ambition and the alternation of key phases in the legislative cycle.     

Party Legacies and Institutional Gravity: The Dynamic between Members of Parliament and Assembly Members in Wales

What does the creation of sub-national legislatures entail for the work of parliamentary representatives, and by what guidelines does the cross-level relationship evolve? This article considers the issue in the context of British devolution, relating the analysis of parliamentarians to the question of how parties adapt. The empirical analysis, drawing on a series of interviews with Assembly Members (AMs) and Members of Parliament (MPs) from Labour, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats, shows that the infrastructure for communication between AMs and MPs differs considerably between the parties. Moreover, there are also key differences between parties with regard to how relations between individual representatives are resolved. Drawing upon insights from the institutionalist literature, the paper argues, first, that the creation of sub-national legislatures challenges party cohesiveness and, secondly, that how this challenge is met by the parties is guided by their distinct ideational and organisational legacies with regard to devolution.     

MPs' Role Orientations in Newly Emerged Democratic Legislatures

Understanding the behaviour of the elected representatives at the beginning of the transition period in former Communist countries provides an insight into some of the first freely elected parliaments after decades of authoritarianism. The role perception grasps the essence of how MPs position themselves in their decision-making process in a fuzzy institutional setting. By relying on the sole established institutions for that period (that is, political parties), this article tests to what extent the party type and size explain role orientations of the MPs in terms of delegates (from the party), trustees, and politicos. Using a dataset that includes over 600 MPs from four parliaments, this cross-national analysis reveals that MPs belonging to newly emerged and rather small parties are more likely to be party delegates compared with their colleagues.     

Party Cohesion in the Danish Parliament

This article formulates a comprehensive and systematic taxonomy of micro level explanations of party cohesion; party cohesion being understood as party group members acting in unity externally. This apparatus is used in an analysis of party cohesion in the final divisions in the Danish Parliament, where cohesion figures are among the highest in the liberal democratic world. The investigation is based on interviews, survey data and data on voting behaviour. The main explanations of the high level of cohesion are the absence of disagreement in the party groups and a moral commitment to the party. Variation among MPs, parties and topics is also documented and discussed. The cohesion of each party and the compliant behaviour of individual MPs are related to the importance MPs ascribe to representing their party. Furthermore, divisions on moral issues, EU integration and local matters show lower than normal degrees of cohesion.     

The selection of committee leadership in the Brazilian chamber of deputies

This article contributes to the study of legislative organisation by contrasting the process of committee chair selection in two distinct institutional environments. The goal is to verify how party loyalty affects the distribution of committee chairmanship in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, focusing on two distinct historical periods. The main hypotheses are tested using a data set that contains information about federal deputies' career characteristics, both inside and outside the Chamber, measured on an annual basis, in two distinct democratic periods – 1946 to 1964 and 1989 to 1998. The article's main conclusions are: first, in a situation where parties are oriented by a factional logic and where power distribution between party leaders and committee chairs is more equal, party loyalty is a crucial factor in the allocation of committee chairmanships. Second, in a broader perspective, the interaction between committees and parties cannot only be explained by incentives emanating from the electoral connection, for it also suffers from the influence of executive–legislative relations.     

The Sound of Rebellion: Voting Dissent and Legislative Speech in the UK House of Commons

Using data on the content of debate associated with votes in the UK House of Commons from 1992–2015, this article examines how government party MPs employ language in legislative speech when they vote against the party line. We find a robust statistical association between dissent on votes and the use of first-person pronouns, simpler language, and giving longer speeches. Using a random forest algorithm for classification, we find that these language covariates are predictive of rebellion. The use of simpler, first-person language has implications for political representation and offers new insight into how MPs use votes to distinguish themselves from their party, perhaps reflecting attempts to connect with constituents.     

The Impact of Federalism on National Party Cohesion in Brazil

This article explores the impact of federalism on national party cohesion. Although credited with increasing economic growth and managing conflict in countries with diverse electorates, federal forms of government have also been blamed for weak party systems because national coalitions may be divided by interstate conflicts. This latter notion has been widely asserted, but there is virtually no empirical evidence of the relationship or even an effort to isolate and identify the specific features of federal systems that might weaken parties. In this article, I build and test a model of federal effects in national legislatures. I apply my framework to Brazil, whose weak party system is attributed, in part, to that country's federal form of government. I find that federalism does significantly reduce party cohesion and that this effect can be tied to multiple state‐level interests but that state‐level actors' impact on national party cohesion is surprisingly small.     

Do Ideological Preferences Explain Parliamentary Behaviour? Evidence from Great Britain and Canada

Are parliamentary parties cohesive because leaders successfully impose discipline on their MPs or because MPs prefer - hence support - the same policies as their leaders do? If the latter is correct, and party cohesion is produced largely by members' concordant preferences, then models that explain cohesion as a function of the disciplinary mechanisms available to parties once the MP is in Parliament (for example, the distribution of patronage or the threat of de-selection) are not useful. This article uses British and Canadian MPs' responses to candidate surveys to estimate MPs' positions on a variety of ideological dimensions and then shows that MPs' preferences on these ideological dimensions only partially explain how often they vote against their parties. Indeed, even after one controls for an MP's ideological preferences, party affiliation remains a powerful predictor of the MP's loyalty or dissent - suggesting that party discipline does, in fact, contribute to cohesion. Additional tests indicate that these results are not spurious.     

When Territory Matters: Parliamentary Profiles and Legislative Behaviour in Italy (1987–2008)

This paper ponders the question of whether Members of Parliaments' (MPs) previous experiences and personal attributes may have any impact on the way they behave once elected. In agreement with a recent stream of literature, the authors hypothesise that MPs with strong territorial roots might behave as agents of the local community, promoting its interests and demands in their parliamentary activity. The assertion that individual biographies influence legislative activity in parliamentary democracies runs counter to the commonly held view that in this kind of institutional setting, legislative assemblies are dominated by parties, leaving little room for individually oriented behaviour and little incentive to do anything that is not coordinated by party organisations. The article builds an original ‘index of localness’, the main independent variable, based on the place of birth and previous political experience at local level of MPs. Then, taking into account territorially targeted Private Members' Bills as a proxy for the territorial behaviour of each legislator, the hypothesis is tested by looking at both aggregate evidence and individual-level data. Aggregate data support the hypothesis, as they show a monotonically increasing relationship between the two variables: the more a legislator is linked to his/her territory, the more (on average) he/she will sponsor bills concerning the local area. Individual-level data confirm this finding, as the correlation between the two variables also holds when entering a number of control variables.     

The Impact of Parliamentary Specialisation on Cosponsorship

This study seeks to establish the effect of parliamentary specialisation on cosponsorship of parliamentary proposals in parliamentary systems with high levels of party unity. Existing studies on presidential systems suggest that cosponsorship is mainly related to legislators’ policy preferences. It is proposed that in parliamentary systems cosponsorship is, in the first place, structured by the division of labour in parliamentary party groups: MPs who do not have overlapping policy portfolios will not cosponsor proposals. Other explanations, such as policy distance and the government–opposition divide, only come into play when MPs are specialised in the same field. This expectation is tested using data from the Netherlands, a parliamentary system with a clear division of labour between MPs. It is found that specialisation has a very large impact on cosponsorship.     

Is Personal Vote‐Seeking Behavior Effective?

Does representatives' legislative activity have any effect on their electoral performance? A broad theoretical literature suggests so, but real‐world evidence is scarce as empirically, personal and party votes are hard to separate. In this article, we examine whether bill initiation actually helps MPs to attract preference votes under flexible list electoral systems. In these systems, voters can accept the party‐provided rank order or vote for specific candidates, which allows a clear distinction between personal and party votes. The empirical analysis uses data on bill initiation by Belgian MPs in the period 2003–2007 to explain their personal vote in the 2007 elections. We find that particularly single‐authored proposals initiated shortly before the upcoming elections are associated with a larger personal vote.