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Marginal effect of interest groups on defection by referendum margin of victory. (a) sectional groups and (b) cause groups.
Source publication
Delegate conceptions of representation require activities of legislators to reflect their constituents’ preferences. Recent research has examined the distortionary effects of lobbying activities on this representational linkage. Here, I argue that the effect of interest groups on legislators’ behavior depends on the clarity of the majority’s prefer...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... illustrate the conditional effects of interest group ties, Figure 1 reports the marginal effects of the number of sec- tional groups tied to an MP on the MP's defection from his or her electorate at different values of margin of victory of the referendum. Panel (a) in Figure 1 shows that the most striking finding from GK's original research piece, the pos- itive association between MP's ties with sectional groups and MP's defection, is statistically significant in the expected direction for referendums with a margin of vic- tory of 63.1%/36.9% ...
Context 2
... illustrate the conditional effects of interest group ties, Figure 1 reports the marginal effects of the number of sec- tional groups tied to an MP on the MP's defection from his or her electorate at different values of margin of victory of the referendum. Panel (a) in Figure 1 shows that the most striking finding from GK's original research piece, the pos- itive association between MP's ties with sectional groups and MP's defection, is statistically significant in the expected direction for referendums with a margin of vic- tory of 63.1%/36.9% or less. ...
Context 3
... less. Referendums with margins of victory this narrow constitute 37.9% of the observations (those observations with an estimated effect above the dashed line in Figure 1, Panel (a)). Even for the referen- dums for which the association is positive, the effect of lobbying on defection consistently decreases with the lop- sidedness of the referendums. ...
Context 4
... the electo- rate becomes more unequivocally in favor of one side of the issue, the referendum becomes more lopsided, the effect of cause interest groups vanishes. Panel (b) in Figure 1 shows the decline of the effect of cause groups on defection. More precisely, the negative association between MP's ties with cause groups, and MP's defection is statistically significant in this direction for referendums with a margin of victory of 74.2%/25.8% ...
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This article investigates whether linkages between members of parliament (MPs) and interest groups matter for MPs' activities of co-sponsoring legislative proposals. Based on statistical models for network data, the study builds on classical explanations of co-sponsorships highlighting the role of similar ties between MPs, such as party membership,...
Citations
... In order to overcome these problems, combining roll call votes and referendum decisions on identical issues is gaining growing interest in the literature (see, e.g., Gerber and Lewis 2004, Matsusaka 2010, Portmann et al. 2012, Hug and Martin 2012, Carey and Hix 2013, Brunner et al. 2013, Potrafke 2013, Giger and Klüver 2016, Barceló 2018, Stadelmann et al. 2017. Following this approach, we combine roll call votes and referendum decisions in Switzerland to empirically investigate the role of electoral rules on the way politicians represent their constituents' preferences. ...
... Hence, congruence between politicians' decisions and constituents' preferences can be the result of voters' influencemediated by the electoral system -on politicians as well as politicians' influence on voters.The advantage of our setting is that we analyze politicians elected under both electoral systems regarding identical parliamentary decisions and compare them to the same voter decisions.Thus, everything that impacts voters' decisions such as party cues or campaigning does not void comparisons between the two Houses such that differences in political representation due to electoral systems can be identified.Finally, referendum decisions present measures of revealed preferences for policies as they permit voters to judge legislative proposals and rank them against the status quo (see, among others,Noam 1980, Schneider et al. 1981, Frey 1994, Matsusaka 2010. Combining referendum decisions with those of MPs is a natural way of evaluating politicians' behavior relative to their voters' preferences (seeBrunner et al. 2013, Giger and Klüver 2016, Barceló 2018, Matsusaka 2017. While in other countries, voters' preferences are not directly observable, our setting obtains some external validity because representatives do not know in advance what their voters want. ...
We combine roll call votes and referendum decisions on identically worded legislative proposals to identify the effect of electoral rules on the way Swiss Members of Parliament (MPs) represent their constituents’ preferences. We exploit the fact that MPs in both Houses of Parliament are elected in the same electoral districts (the cantons). Yet, in the Lower House, MPs are elected using a proportional rule, while in the Upper House they are elected employing a majoritarian rule. We find that electoral rules matter strongly for political representation. The voting patterns of MPs are fully in line with three theoretical predictions regarding the influence of electoral rules on representation of constituents’ preferences: 1) The probability that a proportional-elected MP accepts a legislative proposal closely follows the share of voters that accept the proposal in the referendum. 2) In contrast, for majority-elected MPs the probability of acceptance is strongly increasing in the share of voter acceptance if the latter is close to the 50% threshold. 3) The estimated probability that an Upper House MP votes “yes” as a function of the share of voters voting “yes” in the referendum has an S-shape form with an inflection point close to 50%.
The role of electoral incentives vs. selection is ideally analyzed in a setting where individual legislators are selected to decide on policies under different electoral rules and where voter preferences on policies can be precisely measured. This is the first paper to look at such a situation. The institutional setting of Switzerland allows us to observe the behavior of legislators who change from a proportionally-elected chamber to a majority-elected chamber of parliament with their electorate being the same in both chambers. Voter preferences are revealed in referenda. We identify behavioral changes of legislators who are chamber-changers in comparison to other legislators due to the respective electoral rules along three dimensions, all measured at the level of individual legislators: representation of revealed voter preferences for policies, party loyalty, and interest group affiliations. The evidence suggests that electoral incentives explain the behavioral response of chamber-changers towards voter preferences to such an extent that there remains no relevant role for selection. After having changed from a proportionally-elected chamber to a majority-elected chamber, chamber-changers cater more intensely for the preferences of the voter majority (including the median voter), become less loyal towards their party and adapt their lobby group affiliations towards more district-oriented interests.
How do politicians with past military service decide on societal issues? We explore the voting behavior of parliamentarians in the informative institutional setting of Switzerland with a conscription army. Our setting allows controlling for voter preferences and party ideology. Results show that politicians who have served in the military do not differ from those who have not served when comparing their voting behavior on issues related to female welfare and welfare of the weak and disabled. However, politicians who have served in the military tend to have a higher probability to accept proposals on neutrality and a lower probability to accept proposals linked to international human rights and the environment. We explore differences with respect to military ranks and ideological positions within parties and find that having chosen to serve in higher military ranks is associated with a differential voting pattern. This suggests that motivation for the military affects voting in parliament. (JEL codes: D72, F52, H56)
