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Personalized versus partisan representation in the speeches of migrant members of parliament in the German Bundestag
Ethnic and Racial Studies
Abstract
Given the increasingly polarized debates in many modern democracies over migration and integration, the behaviour of members of parliament (MPs) with a migrant background has important implications for patterns of representation. Drawing on role congruity theory, we hypothesize that MPs with a migrant background deliver more legislative speeches in debates that are of interest for citizens with a migrant background. The findings, which are based on speeches delivered in the German Bundestag between 2009 and 2013, indicate that MPs of immigrant origin, in particular those MPs who have a "visible" migrant background, deliver significantly more speeches in debates focusing on civil rights. We also find that migrant MPs who are elected via the party list, as opposed to MPs who are directly elected in a district, are more likely to speak in debates on citizen and minority rights, suggesting that the parliamentary party leadership strategically selects migrant MPs as speakers in certain parliamentary debates.
... While parties "claim to delegate MPs based on their knowledge and expertise on the specific legislation or policy area" (Müller et al. 2021), the exact selection process is unknown to individuals outside of the parties. There is evidence for patterns in the assignment of MPs to policy areas, based on demographic characteristics such as sex (Bäck et al. 2014;, age (Debus and Himmelrath 2022), or ethnicity/migration background (Bäck and Debus 2020). Being a party's expert on a topic heavily influences MPs' parliamentary behavior. ...
Why do politicians interrupt each other? Previous research has studied how personal characteristics of politicians, especially their gender, influence interruption behavior. However, we lack knowledge regarding how strategic incentives arising from political competition influence whether two politicians will interrupt each other. I argue that interruptions are a tool to disrupt the communication of other politicians, attack their public image, and boost one’s own reputation. Based on strategic incentives, I expected three groups of factors to drive interruptions. First, politicians who are experts on the same topic should be more likely to interrupt each other. Second, career status could influence how likely new parliamentarians are to interrupt and how likely frontbenchers are to be interrupted. Third, opposition parties may use interruptions to attack members of government parties, whereas members of government parties should be least likely to interrupt their coalition partners. I used data on interruptions in the German Bundestag from 2017 to 2021, employing logistic and network regression models, and found support for shared topic expertise and government-opposition dynamics driving interruptions. New parliamentarians seem to be less likely to interrupt, but I found no robust evidence for an effect of frontbencher status. These findings enrich knowledge about the strategic role of interruptions in parliamentary communication and legislative behavior, demonstrating the roles of topic expertise and government-opposition dynamics in interruptions, which should not be disregarded in future studies.
... In other words, the presence of representatives who closely resemble their constituents leads to a shift in policy outcomes toward the desired direction of their supporters [24]. In the empirical literature, the gender [25][26][27], racial [28][29][30], socioeconomic [31,32], and disability [33] composition of parliament members has been examined as instances of descriptive representation of specific societal groups, influencing policy outcomes. ...
Utilizing panel quantile regression on an unbalanced dataset for 30 European countries from 2008 to 2018, this article seeks to investigate how the age of cabinet members influences e-waste recycling rates in European countries, alongside other relevant factors. Prior research has overlooked the age of cabinet members as a determinant of e-waste recycling. By addressing this gap, this study introduces a novel factor that could impact e-waste recycling rates. Thus, this study provides insights into how the demographic characteristics of parliament members, particularly the age of cabinet members, impact environmental improvement, as indicated by e-waste recycling rates. Estimation results indicate the existence of a nonlinear relationship (i.e., an inverted U-shaped environmental Kuznets curve) between the age of cabinet members and the e-waste recycling rate, rather than a linear relationship. The calculated average turning point age is 49.087, indicating that the e-waste recycling rate increases as the age of cabinet members rises until reaching 49.087, after which the e-waste recycling rate declines. Overall, this study underscores the importance of the demographic characteristics of parliament members, particularly the age of cabinet members, in shaping e-waste recycling policies and environmental sustainability efforts. It emphasizes that the age of cabinet members and generational perspectives can influence their awareness, understanding, and commitment to addressing contemporary challenges such as e-waste.
... This information is not covered in the 2021 Candidate Nomination Study. We therefore collected further data on the aspirants for a district candidacy that provide information on whether the aspirants who sought the nomination by their party belonged to a 'visible' ethnic minority, that is, if they have a physical appearance in terms of, for instance, darker skin tone, or foreign-sounding name (see also Bäck and Debus, 2020;Blätte and Wüst, 2017). In so doing, we follow Auer et al. (2023) who show that candidates with a 'foreign-sounding' name are discriminated against by both voters and their parties. ...
Candidate selection within parties is a key stage in the political process and provides an important frame for the degree of representation of social groups in parliaments. We seek to develop a better understanding of the effect of intersectionality on candidate selection processes. We do so by examining the effect of candidates' key socio-demographic characteristics, like their gender and ethnic background, on their chances of getting nominated by their party. We argue that features of the ideological background of the respective nominating party matter for the chances that women and aspirants with an ethnic background win the nomination as their party's district candidate. We make use of novel data from the 2021 German federal election that provides detailed information on the candidate selection processes of all major parties in the 299 election districts. By doing so, we apply existing theoretical expectations to an untested case and find that female competitors and aspirants with an ethnic background face difficulties being nominated, in particular in the case of parties with rather traditionalist societal policy positions. We also find that intersectionality matters: female aspirants of ethnic minorities are even less likely to be nominated by ideologically traditional parties.
... Recent research analyzing the decisions of individual MPs has theoretically argued and empirically shown that the legislative behavior of MPs is shaped not only by pressure from their constituents and party, but also by their own personal background like gender, family status, religious denomination, or professional background (e.g., Baumann 2018; Burden 2000Burden , 2007Searing 1994). For instance, MPs with a migrant background are more active in legislative debates if the topic of the debate focuses on issues related to the interests of migrants (Bäck and Debus 2020;Saalfeld and Bischof 2013). Likewise, female MPs give more speeches in policy domains that reflect stereotype women's interests (e.g., Bäck and Debus 2019;Blumenau 2021;Hargrave and Blumenau 2021), either because of the strategic interests of the respective MPs or because their party forces those MPs with a particular personal background to be more active in related policy areas for vote-seeking reasons. ...
Parliamentary debates are an important stage in the process of designing new policies and play an important role for discussing the policy reactions to exogenous events like the COVID-19 pandemic or long-term developments like climate change. We combine theories on vote-seeking strategies of political actors with theoretical accounts that highlight the impact of personal characteristics of politicians and argue that in particular younger Members of Parliament (MPs) should put more emphasis on issues related to climate change and its consequences than older MPs. We test our hypotheses on the basis of an original dataset covering all parliamentary debates that focus on issues related to climate change in the German Bundestag from 2013 until 2021, thus concentrating on a time period when climate change became a highly salient issue among the German public. We find that the age of MPs matters: the younger MPs are, the more speeches they contribute to parliamentary debates related to climate policy.
Graphical Abstract
... At the same time, while we control for a number of individual-level characteristics of parliamentarians, such as their gender, age, education, and whether the person has an immigrant background, our study does not give enough theoretical and empirical justice to those characteristics when investigating legislative speech-making on immigration. Existing research shows that these and other individual-level characteristics, such as parental status or religious denomination, play an important role in determining how frequently individual parliamentarians make particular issues salient in their speeches (Back et al. 2021;Bäck and Debus 2020;Baumann, Debus, and Müller 2015). We also do not delve into the issue of structural characteristics of the electoral districts that the parliamentarians represent. ...
The research on the party politicization of immigration almost exclusively focuses on West European countries. To address the lack of studies of party politicization (hereafter understood as salience) of immigration in Central and East European countries, we investigate all the parliamentary speeches in Czechia and Slovakia between 2013 and 2017. Descriptively, we show that immigration was almost invisible before the 2015 refugee crisis. On the explanatory level, we show that party placement toward the TAN-pole of the GAL–TAN dimension, Eurosceptic positions, and government participation make it more likely for parliamentarians to politicize immigration.
... While the party affiliation provides only a weak impact on the usage of words in parliamentary debates, the authors show that it is decisive whether the MP has a "visible" migrant background (Blätte and Wüst 2017, 228). In another study of legislative debates in the German Bundestag, Bäck and Debus (2020) find that MPs of immigrant origin, particularly those who have a "visible" migrant background, deliver more speeches in debates on civil and minority rights. In contrast, they give fewer speeches in debates on highly salient general policy issues like economic and financial policy. ...
The contribution of this chapter to our volume is fourfold. First, we look at why we should study legislative debates and how scholars may benefit from representation, legislative politics, party politics, and electoral studies by incorporating debates in their analysis. In so doing, we unpack their functions in liberal democracies. Second, the chapter offers a state of the art of the burgeoning field of legislative debates. We focus on the normative scholarly discussion about legislative debates and their importance for deliberation and democratic outputs. In addition, we dwell on Proksch and Slapin’s model as a watershed in the empirical study of legislative debates, particularly due to its capacity to travel and its usefulness in understanding how different institutional settings have an impact of speechmaking. Third, the chapter presents the theoretical framework, the key hypotheses guiding the volume, and our empirical approach to legislative debates. Fourth, the chapter concludes with the plan of the book.
... As the results revealed, in a majority of the cases under study, female representatives give fewer speeches than male representatives, and previous studies show that this effect also exists when differentiating between the topics that are discussed in the respective debate Bäck et al. 2014). Furthermore, there is evidence that the migrant background of a representative matters for taking the floor: at least in the case of the German parliament, members of the Bundestag with a migrant background speak more often in debates focusing on issues that are relevant for migrants like citizen and minority rights, whereas migrant MPs speak less in debates on economic issues (Bäck and Debus 2020). What we do not know is the theoretical rationale for this observable pattern: do female representatives speak less in "masculine" debates and more in debates focusing on "feminine" topics because they are pressured to do so by the party leadership or because of their interests in such topics? ...
This chapter examines the empirical patterns of the politics of legislative debates in thirty-three liberal democracies. There are three take-home messages in this chapter. First, twenty out of the thirty-three legislatures analyzed experience some sort of gender imbalance. Even controlling for potential confounders such as seniority, position in the legislative party, and committee chairs, empirical evidence suggests that women tend to have less access to the floor than men. Second, we find that seniority plays a role in determining floor access. More senior legislators tend to speak more often. Third, against our expectations, comparative results suggest that roughly half of the countries analyzed in this volume do not privilege party leaders in floor access. In addition to discussing comparative empirical patterns, the chapter discusses the road ahead in research on legislative debates.
... 2. Increasing polarization in presidential democracies contributes to a decline in the use of debates as an instrument for coalition building on the floor. 3. See, however, Bäck and Debus (2020) for an exception. ...
Legislative debates are a thriving field in comparative politics. They make representation work by offering legislators the opportunity to take the floor and represent their constituents. In this paper, we review the key theoretical concepts and empirical findings in a maturing field. We begin by addressing what legislative debates are and why we should study them to learn about inter‐ and intra‐party politics. Next, we look at the contributions springing from Proksch and Slapin's groundbreaking model. In so doing, our review suggests that recent work extends the original model to include further dimensions of legislative debates. Third, we examine the role of legislative debates as mechanisms of representation, focusing on gender. Four, we examine the challenges of the comparative analysis of legislative debates. Finally, we map the road ahead by discussing four avenues of future research and some key questions that remain unanswered. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
Who speaks for marginalised communities in dominant-party parliaments, where electoral accountability is weak? While existing work demonstrates the persistent salience of a legislator’s personal identity in such settings, we build on recent ‘critical actor’ theory to argue for factors beyond identity-based selection to explain why representatives might speak for marginalised communities. To this end, we use a mixed-methods approach to analyse the representation of six marginal communities in Singapore’s dominant-party system. A quantitative content analysis of all 8246 parliamentary questions filed from 2011 to 2020 shows that in addition to representative gender and ethnics identities, prior careers and political tenure also influence marginal community representation. In-depth interviews with seven Member of Parliament help identify precise mechanisms for such representation, including shared experience, career-derived awareness, political freshness and representative philosophies. That said, not all marginalised communities are well-represented, reflecting constraints on individual legislator-driven representation amidst broader party electoral strategies in non-competitive systems.
Political representation in European democracies is widely considered partisan and collectivist. This article, however, stresses that there is more to the representative process in European democracies than just its textbook version. It emphasizes the role of geographic representation as a complementary strategy in party‐dominated legislatures that is characterized by two distinct features. First, legislators employ distinct opportunities to participate in legislative contexts to signal attention to geographic constituents without disrupting party unity. Second, these activities are motivated by individual‐ and district‐level characteristics that supplement electoral‐system‐level sources of geographic representation. We empirically test and corroborate this argument for the German case on the basis of a content analysis of parliamentary questions in the 17th German Bundestag (2009–13). In this analysis, we show that higher levels of localness among legislators and higher levels of electoral volatility in districts result in increased geographic representation.
A role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders proposes that perceived incongruity between the female gender role and leadership roles leads to 2 forms of prejudice: (a) perceiving women less favorably than men as potential occupants of leadership roles and (b) evaluating behavior that fulfills the prescriptions of a leader role less favorably when it is enacted by a woman. One consequence is that attitudes are less positive toward female than male leaders and potential leaders. Other consequences are that it is more difficult for women to become leaders and to achieve success in leadership roles. Evidence from varied research paradigms substantiates that these consequences occur, especially in situations that heighten perceptions of incongruity between the female gender role and leadership roles.
What influences parties’ issue attention towards immigration and integration? This study provides answers to this question by focusing on the party competition at the regional level in Germany, a country that has been strongly affected by the refugee crisis. Building on a novel data set which covers altogether 510 electoral manifestos during 108 federal and regional elections between 1990 and 2016, we assess the influence of party-specific, situational as well as structural factors on issue attention towards immigration and integration policies. Using descriptive statistics and regression analysis, we find that parties’ attention is significantly associated with citizens’ attention towards these issues. Furthermore, ideologically conflicting parties differ considerably in the share of their manifestos they devote to the issue. Interestingly, the electoral threat by populist radical right parties has no effect on the issue attention of mainstream competitors.
This article focuses on how often and in what ways ‘minority representatives’ address cultural and/or religious rights and
freedoms by analysing parliamentary questions between 2002 and 2012. The research first analysed to what extent, if any, Member
of Parliaments of minority origin highlight minority-related issues in their parliamentary questions. Thereafter, it analysed
the content of those questions in more detail. Unlike much previous research, we did not take a favourable content for granted.
The idea of ‘suppressive representation’ was introduced to describe those cases in which ‘minority representatives’ were restrictive
towards cultural and/or religious freedoms of ‘immigrant minorities’. Representation patterns show differences across group-
and individual-level identities.
Multiplicative interaction models are common in the quantitative political science literature. This is so for good reason.
Institutional arguments frequently imply that the relationship between political inputs and outcomes varies depending on the
institutional context. Models of strategic interaction typically produce conditional hypotheses as well. Although conditional
hypotheses are ubiquitous in political science and multiplicative interaction models have been found to capture their intuition
quite well, a survey of the top three political science journals from 1998 to 2002 suggests that the execution of these models
is often flawed and inferential errors are common. We believe that considerable progress in our understanding of the political
world can occur if scholars follow the simple checklist of dos and don'ts for using multiplicative interaction models presented
in this article. Only 10% of the articles in our survey followed the checklist.
In applying social role theory to account for the content of a wide range of stereotypes, this research tests the proposition that observations of groups' roles determine stereotype content (Eagly & Wood, 2012). In a novel test of how stereotypes can develop from observations, preliminary research collected participants' beliefs about the occupational roles (e.g., lawyer, teacher, fast food worker, chief executive officer, store clerk, manager) in which members of social groups (e.g., Black women, Hispanics, White men, the rich, senior citizens, high school dropouts) are overrepresented relative to their numbers in the general population. These beliefs about groups' typical occupational roles proved to be generally accurate when evaluated in relation to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Then, correlational studies predicted participants' stereotypes of social groups from the attributes ascribed to group members' typical occupational roles (Studies 1a, 1b, and 1c), the behaviors associated with those roles (Study 2), and the occupational interest profile of the roles (Study 3). As predicted by social role theory, beliefs about the attributes of groups' typical roles were strongly related to group stereotypes on both communion and agency/competence. In addition, an experimental study (Study 4) demonstrated that when social groups were described with changes to their typical social roles in the future, their projected stereotypes were more influenced by these future roles than by their current group stereotypes, thus supporting social role theory's predictions about stereotype change. Discussion considers the implications of these findings for stereotype change and the relation of social role theory to other theories of stereotype content. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
The well-noted decline in the participation of Americans in presidential elections since the early sixties reversed in the 1984 election, although only slightly. An improved national mood appears to have contributed little to increasing turnout. However, the gap in participation between the wealthier and poorer widened, while that between men and women narrowed and reversed direction, and belonging to a group associated with an identity affected participation more powerfully. Taken together, these findings indicate shifts in patterns of turnout corresponding to shifts in the lines of politicized interests. Analysis of the participation of blacks finds little evidence for electoral mobilization by the Rainbow Coalition in 1984.
A burgeoning literature on minority representation asks whether immigrant-origin voters are more likely to vote for candidates of immigrant-origin (CIOs) than for native candidates, thus giving parties incentives to nominate CIOs. At present, however, evidence of such a link comes exclusively from candidate-centred electoral systems. The present study intends to narrow this gap by examining the influence of CIOs on the voting behaviour of immigrant-origin citizens in Germany, a more party-centred electoral environment. An empirical analysis of opinion survey and candidate data from the 2013 Bundestag election suggests that the electoral link between voters and CIOs is considerable. This paper is thus the first one to show that CIOs are a significant factor for the electoral mobilisation of immigrant-origin citizens in a party-centred electoral system.
Does the geographical concentration of ethnic minorities influence their descriptive representation in closed-list systems? Counterintuitive to the idea that single-member district electoral rules are necessary for minorities’ geographical representation, we argue that, in closed-list systems, parties are incentivised to allocate promising list positions to those minority candidates who are based in geographical areas where minorities concentrate. Empirically, we provide a case study of the list positions of dual candidates of immigrant origin running in the German mixed-member system in 2013. Results show a relationship between the list positions of candidates of immigrant origin and geographical concentrations of immigrant-origin residents.
Do female representatives participate less often in legislative debates, and does it matter which topic is debated? Drawing on the role incongruity theory, we hypothesise that women take the parliamentary floor less often because of the gender stereotypes that are likely to guide the behaviour of party representatives. Such underrepresentation is less likely to be present when debates are dealing with policy areas that can be characterised as feminine. By referring to critical mass theory, we expect women to participate less in debates if they are members of parties with fewer female representatives. The results of an analysis of speechmaking among members of parliament in seven European countries show that female members of parliament are less represented in legislative debates, especially when debates deal with topics that can be characterised as masculine. Furthermore, the effect of gender on speechmaking clearly varies across parties. However, the pattern does not follow the logic derived from critical mass theory. Instead, female members of parliament take the floor less often when they are members of parties with many female representatives.
A large set of research argues that policy responsiveness towards excluded societal factions such as minorities of immigrant origin improves through the presence of group members in parliaments because they bring forward different perspectives during parliamentary debates. This article challenges the straightforwardness of this relationship by demonstrating that the ability of legislators with immigrant backgrounds to shift the parliamentary agenda closer to the ideal points of citizens of foreign descent is conditional on two factors. First, representatives of immigrant origin need incentives to cultivate a personal vote, and second, their overall proportion of parliamentary seats has to remain rather marginal to influence the policy positions of the majority of representatives. The article's findings thus stress the importance of studying the contextual factors that moderate the relationship between group belonging and the capacity to promote group interests. Empirical evidence from nine European Democracies between 2002 and 2014 substantiates this argument – so that the analysis constitutes the first cross-country comparison in a research field that has so far been dominated by single country studies. By using policy congruence as a measure for responsiveness, this article shifts the focal point from individual representatives’ attempts to promote the interests of citizens with immigrant backgrounds towards effectiveness of these endeavours.
Mixed-member electoral systems are supposed to simultaneously produce coherent parties and ensure the representation of local interests. Whether these goals are achieved depends on the ability of parties and districts to control members of parliament (MPs). We regard the competitiveness of MPs’ bids for renomination as a crucial indicator of the degree to which MPs are punished when deviating from the interests of their principals. The theoretical account we develop makes the competitiveness of MP renomination conditional on the characteristics of the electoral system, the candidate selection regime, an MP’s parliamentary behavior, government status, and district characteristics. Corroborating our expectations, the analysis of the candidate selection processes in the run-up to the 2013 German Bundestag election shows that an increasing degree of ideological deviation from the party line—as expressed in parliamentary speeches—results in a worse position on the party list for opposition MPs but does not affect the renomination of list candidates from the government camp or district candidates.
Following Brunsson’s [1989. The Organization of Hypocrisy: Talk, Decisions, and Actions in Organizations. Chichester: Wiley] neo-institutional approach to differentiate between talk, decision and action, this article analyses discourses on and related practices of diversity incorporation within political parties in Germany. In the light of demographic change political parties in Germany have begun to step up to immigrants and propagate diversity as potential. While still underrepresented as a whole, politicians with migration background are becoming more prominent and visible in leading positions. However, their roles appear manifold: They are expected to function as “bridge-builders” between the immigrant population and the supposed “majority”. Ethnicization takes place in various contexts. Discourses on diversity within parties are contradictory and reflect contested concepts of homogeneity and diversity. How do parties and their members negotiate these various discourses? Can parties actively open themselves to diversity, and how do they deal with the ensuing power struggles and issues of representation?
In this article we assess the electoral effects of the nomination of ethnic minority candidates. We argue that descriptive representation is an important factor in how parties in SMD systems establish their coalitions over multiple elections. We demonstrate this by showing that descriptive representation has a consistent effect on voting behavior, and thus that parties can rely on descriptive representation to win over specific segments of the voting population. Previous studies have been limited to single election years and single countries, but we collect original data from multiple election cycles in Australia and the UK to test our argument. We find that descriptive representation is consistently associated with a 10-percentage point bump in support from ethnic minority independents and Labour supporters. We conclude by highlighting the importance of this finding for party competition.
This chapter discusses the politics of multiculturalism as a kind of identity politics. It argues the concept of structural difference, as distinct from cultural group. Analysing structural difference and structural inequality, then, helps to show why these movements are not properly interpreted as identity politics. The chapter defines social structure, and more specifically structural inequality, by rebuilding elements from different accounts. Norms of inclusive communicative democracy require that claims directed at a public with the aim of persuading members of that public that injustices occur must be given a hearing, and require criticism of those who refuse to listen. Common good theorists no doubt fear that attending to group differences in public discussion endangers commitment to co-operative decision-making. Only explicit and differentiated forms of inclusion can diminish the occurrence of such refusals, especially when members of some groups are more privileged in some or many respects.
In analysing speeches made by legislators, this book provides theoretical and empirical answers to questions such as: Why do some Members of Parliament (MPs) take the parliamentary floor and speak more than others, and why do some MPs deviate more than others from the ideological position of their party? The authors evaluate their hypotheses on legislative speechmaking by considering parliamentary debates in seven European democracies: Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway and Sweden. Assuming that MPs are concerned with policy-making, career advancement, and re-election, the book discusses various incentives to taking the floor, and elaborates on the role of gender and psychological incentives in speechmaking. The authors test our expectations on a novel dataset that covers information on the number of speeches held by MPs and on the ideological positions MPs adopted when delivering a speech.
Parliamentary debate is a fundamental aspect of democratic law-making. While law makers everywhere seek to express their views in parliament, there are large discrepancies in who has access to the floor across political systems. This book explains how parties and their members of parliament (MPs) structure parliamentary debate. Parties may actively seek to prevent some members from taking the floor while promoting opportunities for others. In doing so, they attempt to control the message that their partisans convey in parliament. The authors provide a theoretical model to explain the design of procedural rules in parliament, how the party leadership interacts with rebel backbenchers, and how MPs represent voters. The book explores political institutions, intra-party politics, electoral politics and legislative behavior. It develops and tests a new theory of parliamentary debate, using data from the UK, Germany, New Zealand and the European Parliament.
Party leaders are the main actors controlling campaign strategies, policy agendas, and government formation in advanced parliamentary democracies. Little is known, however, about gender and party leadership. This article examines gendered leadership patterns across 71 political parties in 11 parliamentary democracies between 1965 and 2013. It shows that men and women have different access to, and experiences in, party leadership and that these gendered political opportunity structures are shaped by parties' political performances. Women are more likely to initially come to power in minor opposition parties and those that are losing seat share. Once selected for the position, female leaders are more likely to retain office when their parties gain seats, but they are also more likely to leave the post when faced with an unfavorable trajectory. Together, these results demonstrate that prospective female leaders are playing by a different (and often more demanding) set of rules than their male counterparts.
Parties are not unitary actors, and legislators within the same party may have divergent interests, which complicates the understanding of parties’ motivations and behaviour. This article argues that holding a ministerial portfolio confers an electoral advantage, and so, in contrast to their co-partisans, politicians who are ministers simultaneously maximize policy, office and votes. New data on Irish elections over a thirty-year period show that ministers are insulated from the electoral cost of governing compared with their co-partisans. Differentiating between ministers and their co-partisans helps to resolve the puzzle of political parties’ choosing to enter government despite the evident electoral costs they will encounter. Moreover, previously overlooked electoral benefits of ministerial office help explain their desirability, and thus their ability to incentivize legislative behaviour in parliamentary regimes.
Why are politicians more likely to advance the interests of those of their race? I present a field experiment demonstrating that black politicians are more intrinsically motivated to advance blacks’ interests than are their counterparts. Guided by elite interviews, I emailed 6,928 U.S. state legislators from a putatively black alias asking for help signing up for state unemployment benefits. Crucially, I varied the legislators’ political incentive to respond by randomizing whether the sender purported to live within or far from each legislator's district. While nonblack legislators were markedly less likely to respond when their political incentives to do so were diminished, black legislators typically continued to respond even when doing so promised little political reward. Black legislators thus appear substantially more intrinsically motivated to advance blacks’ interests. As political decision making is often difficult for voters to observe, intrinsically motivated descriptive representatives play a crucial role in advancing minorities’ political interests.
This controversial new look at democracy in a multicultural society considers the ideals of political inclusion and exclusion, and recommends ways to engage in democratic politics in a more inclusive way. Processes of debate and decision making often marginalize individuals and groups because the norms of political discussion are biased against some forms of expression. Inclusion and Democracy broadens our understanding of democratic communication by reflecting on the positive political functions of narrative, rhetorically situated appeals, and public protest. It reconstructs concepts of civil society and public sphere as enacting such plural forms of communication among debating citizens in large-scale societies. Iris Marion Young thoroughly discusses class, race, and gender bias in democratic processes, and argues that the scope of a polity should extend as wide as the scope of social and economic interactions that raise issues of justice. Today this implies the need for global democratic institutions. Young also contends that due to processes of residential segregation and the design of municipal jurisdictions, metropolitan governments which preserve significant local autonomy may be necessary to promote political equality. This latest work from one of the world's leading political philosophers will appeal to audiences from a variety of fields, including philosophy, political science, women's studies, ethnic studies, sociology, and communications studies.
This article is about immigrant-origin politicians running for a Bundestag mandate in the 2013 election. Patterns of candidacy, electoral success and failure of the respective candidates and parliamentarians are systematically analyzed. The main finding is that politicians of immigrant
origin are serious contenders for seats in the Bundestag, and political parties seem to have quite some interest in their election. It is increasingly the second immigrant generation that is involved politically, and, as the career patterns indicate, it is likely that many of them are going
to stay longer in politics. Consequently, a closer look at immigrant-origin candidates and parliamentarians is of merit for both the study of parliamentary representation and of the political integration of immigrants and their descendants.
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Electoral rules should affect parliamentary behavior. In particular, deputies elected from single-member districts should be more likely to deviate from the party line than deputies elected under proportional representation. This paper suggests a framework for conceptualizing and modeling the effect of the type of mandate on deputies’ propensity to cast deviating votes in mixed electoral systems. The proposed modeling strategy uses disaggregated voting data and integrates dependencies among observations in a multi-level design. Empirically, the paper analyses voting behavior in the 16th German Bundestag (2005–2009) and shows that the odds of district MPs to deviate are significantly higher despite frequent claims that the two types of MPs behave alike. However, the behavioral differences cannot be attributed to attempts by district MPs to follow their local constituents as competing principals.
Black, Asian and minority-ethnic (BAME) citizens are under-represented in the House of Commons. Nevertheless, the Chamber’s ethnic composition has become more reflective of the general population as a result of the 2005 and 2010 parliamentary elections. The article seeks to map and explain variations in the extent to which BAME Members of Parliament (MPs) use the Chamber to ar- ticulate issues relevant to minority constituents. We compare the content of all parliamentary questions for written answer asked by BAME MPs between May 2005 and December 2011 to the questions asked by a matching sample of non-minority legislators. We find that BAME MPs ask more questions relating to the problems and rights of ethnic minorities in, and immigration to, the UK. However, we also find that all British MPs are responsive to the interests of minor- ity constituents where these are geographically concentrated. Building on theor- etical predictions derived from (1) models focusing on MPs’ political socialisation and (2) on the electoral incentives they are facing, we discover that the MPs in our sample respond systematically to electoral incentives, especially in the politically salient area of immigration policy. While these findings are in line with an ‘elect- oral-incentives model’, a ‘socialisation model’ is better suited to explain the larger number of questions on the interests of ethnic minorities asked by Labour MPs.
This article examines political representation among visible ethnic minorities in France, Denmark and Canada. Drawing from these cases, it proposes a general model for comparing patterns of visible minority representation. Three sets of factors—citizenship regimes, institutional features and interest constellations—interact to shape the political opportunity structure for ethnic minority representation. Because these factors vary across and within countries, the result is very different levels of representation from one country to another, as well as important local differences within each country. Configurations across these three factors also have an important impact on the electoral strategies of individual ethnic candidates, and determine the style and substance of ethnic representation in each country.
Do politicians advance the interests of those of their race even when they expect few political rewards for doing so? I use a field experiment to examine how politicians change their behavior towards a black individual when their political incentives are attenuated. Guided by elite interviews, I emailed 6,928 state legislators from a putatively black alias asking for help signing up for unemployment benefits. Crucially, I varied legislators’ political incentives to respond by randomizing whether the sender purported to live within or far from each legislator’s district. While non-black legislators were markedly less responsive once their political incentives were diminished, most black legislators continued to respond even when they had little political reason to do so. Black legislators thus appear substantially more intrinsically motivated to advance black interests, while non-black legislators seem even less responsive to black interests when their political incentives are weak than existing evidence appreciates.
When determining whether or not legislators are representing their constituents' interests, scholars using voting studies may overstate the role of strategic factors, such as reelection goals and constituent influence, while understating the effect of descriptive characteristics. I argue that race and ethnicity matter in congressional oversight of bureaucratic policymaking. My examination of hearing transcripts from the 107th Congress indicates that minority legislators are more likely than white legislators to participate in racial-oversight hearings but not more likely than whites to participate in social welfare hearings. The results show that descriptive representation contributes to substantive representation, even if the costs of participating outweigh the electoral benefits.
This article is an exploratory analysis of the efficacy of parliamentary representation as a means to moderate ethnic conflict in new democracies. The authors agree with many others that the interests of a minority ethnic group are better protected when the group has access to decision makers, can block harmful government policies and veto potentially damaging decisions. Parliamentary representation, however, does not always allow for an effective representation of those who are not in government. Seats in the legislature may be of little use in a parliament where the executive dominates the policy process at all stages. This article focuses on the new democracies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union between 1990 and 2000. The authors use the number of parliamentary seats obtained by minority ethnic parties as their main independent variable and the MAR ethnic protest and rebellion scores as their dependent variables. In addition, they employ the system of government (i.e., parliamentary versus presidential) as a proxy indicator of the degree of influence that parliamentary parties have over decision making. A cross-section-time-series regression analysis shows that the ameliorative effect of parliamentary representation over ethnic conflict is stronger in those legislatures where the ethnic group has effective influence over decision making. It is also shown that representation within national parliaments has no ameliorative effects over violent secessionist conflicts. When the ethnic minority's demands are too radical, parliamentary representation is simply an inadequate instrument.
According to the minority empowerment thesis, minority representation strengthens representational links, fosters more positive attitudes toward government, and encourages political participation. We examine this theory from a cross-national perspective, making use of surveys that sampled minorities in the United States and New Zealand. Both countries incorporate structures into their electoral systems that make it possible for minority groups to elect representatives of their choice. We find that in both countries descriptive representation matters: it increases knowledge about and contact with representatives in the U.S. and leads to more positive evaluations of governmental responsiveness and increased electoral participation in New Zealand. These findings have broad implications for debates about minority representation.
This paper compares the levels of ethnic group representation in parliament in 95 democracies. The analyses are comparative in nature, breaking with the literature where single country studies are the norm. Considering both electoral and cultural variables, the results cast doubt on whether the role of the electoral system in shaping political representation is dominant. In contrast to what much of the literature suggests, once controlling for the ethnic make-up of society and cultural attitudes, electoral aspects seem of little significance. Levels of ethnic group representation are best explained with cultural variables, in particular liberal attitudes towards marginalised groups in society.
This article reports the results of a survey of women in legislatures and executives around the world as they were constituted in 1998 (N = 180). The chief hypotheses regarding the factors hindering or facilitating women's access to political representation were tested by multivariate regression models. The regression models juxtaposed a cocktail of institutional, political, cultural, and socioeconomic variables with the following dependent variables: (1) the percentage of MPs who are women and (2) the percentage of cabinet ministers who are women.
A number, although not all, of the cited hypotheses were statistically confirmed and more finely quantified. The socioeconomic development of women in society has an effect on the number of women in parliament but not in the cabinet. A country's length of experience with multipartyism and women's enfranchisement correlates with both the legislative and the executive percentage. Certain electoral systems are more women friendly than others. The ideological nature of the party system affects the number of women elected and chosen for cabinet posts. And last, the state's dominant religion, taken as a proxy for culture, also statistically relates to the number of women who will make it to high political office. However, other long-held hypotheses were not proved. The degree of democracy is not a good indicator of the percentage of women who will make it into the legislature or the cabinet, nor is the dichotomy between a presidential or parliamentary system.
Theory: This article poses and examines theories concerning substantive representation of Latinos in the U.S. House of Representatives. Hypothesis: With increasing numbers of Latinos in the United States and in the U.S. House during the 1980s, an increase in direct (dyadic) substantive representation of Latinos might be anticipated. Method: Regression analysis is used to analyze scores of congressional voting patterns from Southwest Voter Research Institute (SWVRI) relative to (a) the ethnic background of representatives, and (b) the percent of Latino constituents in House districts. Results: As with previous studies of Representatives' voting patterns in the 1970s, this study finds little direct, substantive representation of Latinos. Representatives who are of Latino origin have somewhat distinct voting patterns, and Latino constituencies have little impact on how representatives vote. But during the period studied, legislation deemed salient to Latinos was enacted, indicating that collective or partisan substantive representation does occur. The empirical and normative implications of these findings are considered.
See for the identification of immigrant-origin candidates for the
See
http://www.migazin.de/2009/09/29/20-bundestagsabgeordnete-mitmigrationshintergrund/11/ (accessed on 9 April 2019; see also Markard and
Dähnke 2017). See for the identification of immigrant-origin candidates for
the 2013 Bundestag election Wüst (2014).
To the category of non-visible migrants belong
- Sevim Sarai
- Sebastian Dagdelen
- Memet Edathy
- Niema Kilic
- Omid Movassat
- Raju Nouripour
- Serkan Sharma
- Aydan Tören
- Josef Özoguz
- Winkler
The following MPs belong to the category of Bundestag members with a visible
migrant background: Bijan Djir-Sarai, Sevim Dagdelen, Sebastian Edathy, Memet
Kilic, Niema Movassat, Omid Nouripour, Raju Sharma, Serkan Tören, Aydan
Özoguz and Josef Winkler. To the category of non-visible migrants belong
Josip Juratovic, Pascal Kober, Jerzy Montag, Michaela Noll, Richard Pitterle,
Swen Schulz, Andrej Hunko, Oliver Luksic, Hartmut Koschyk, Ute Koczy, Wolfgang Neškovic and Sarah Wagenknecht.
Mixed Rules, Mixed Strategies -Parties and Candidates in Germany's Electoral System
- P Manow
Manow, P. 2015. Mixed Rules, Mixed Strategies -Parties and Candidates in Germany's
Electoral System. Essex: ECPR Press.