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Black and white photo of Hanna Bäck. Photo.

Hanna Bäck

Professor

Black and white photo of Hanna Bäck. Photo.

Representing the Region on the Floor : Socioeconomic Characteristics of Electoral Districts and Legislative Speechmaking

Author

  • Hanna Bäck
  • Marc Debus

Summary, in English

Does it matter which electoral districts Members of Parliament (MPs) represent when participating in parliamentary debates? We suggest that the party leadership, in particular in governing parties, will try to keep MPs off the floor if they come from regions with economic problems, because such MPs are more likely to deviate from the party line. This should be especially likely when MPs are directly elected and have incentives to create a personal platform. The characteristics of the German electoral system allow for evaluating this argument. By analysing 9824 speeches in Bundestag debates focusing on economic issues and 8357 speeches held in debates on societal, foreign and education policy, we find support for our hypotheses that directly elected MPs deliver significantly fewer speeches in economic debates the worse the economic situation is in the district they represent. However, there is no clear pattern when differentiating between MPs from the government or opposition camp in terms of the number of delivered speeches in parliamentary debates.

Department/s

  • Department of Political Science

Publishing year

2018-01-01

Language

English

Pages

73-102

Publication/Series

Parliamentary Affairs

Volume

71

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Topic

  • Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalization Studies)

Keywords

  • Electoral system
  • German Bundestag
  • Parliamentary speeches
  • Principal-agent framework
  • Representation

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0031-2290