Institutional Foundations of Legislative Speech

Participation in legislative debates is among the most visible activities of members of parliament (MPs), yet debates remain an understudied form of legislative behavior. This study introduces a comparative theory of legislative speech with two major implications. First, party rules for debates are...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of political science 2012-07, Vol.56 (3), p.520-537
Main Authors: Proksch, Sven-Oliver, Slapin, Jonathan B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Debates
Electoral systems
Federal Republic of Germany
Germany
Leadership
Legislative behaviour
Legislators
Members of the lower chamber
Modeling
Parliamentary debate
Parliamentary system
Parliaments
Participation
Party leadership
Political leaders
Political Parties
Political speech
Political speeches
Political Systems
Political theory
Reelection
Reputation
Single member districts
Speech
Speeches
United Kingdom
Voting
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Summary:Participation in legislative debates is among the most visible activities of members of parliament (MPs), yet debates remain an understudied form of legislative behavior. This study introduces a comparative theory of legislative speech with two major implications. First, party rules for debates are endogenous to strategic considerations and will favor either party leadership control or backbencher MP exposure. Second, in some systems, backbenchers will receive less time on the floor as their ideological distance to the party leadership increases. This leads to speeches that do not reflect true party cohesion. Where party reputation matters less for reelection, leaders allow dissidents to express their views on the floor. We demonstrate the implications of our model for different political systems and present evidence using speech data from Germany and the United Kingdom.
ISSN:0092-5853
1540-5907
DOI:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2011.00565.x