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Sponsoring Private Member's Bills in F inland and E stonia: The Electoral Context of Legislative Behaviour
Author(s) -
Solvak Mihkel,
Pajala Antti
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
scandinavian political studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.65
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-9477
pISSN - 0080-6757
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9477.12054
Subject(s) - parliament , reputation , legislature , context (archaeology) , incentive , order (exchange) , political science , legislation , business , public administration , law , economics , politics , microeconomics , finance , geography , archaeology
This article examines the degree to which sponsored private member's bills ( PMB s) in parliament can be explained by electoral incentives. Such bills are a peculiar piece of draft legislation – technically simple, topically unimportant and with negligible passage rates. Yet members of parliament ( MP s) sponsor them in large numbers. One possible explanation for this behaviour is the electoral context arising out of the variance in electoral district size and electoral list types, which makes a strong personal reputation comparatively more important for some MP s. Sponsoring bills that have no realistic chance of becoming actual regulations could be a form of personal reputation‐building and/or vote‐seeking behaviour. Evidence is examined on the sponsoring of such bills in F inland between 2003 and 2007 and in E stonia between 1999 and 2007 in order to determine if the electoral context explains why some MP s do this more frequently. The results suggest that the electoral system does have an effect. MP s who have been elected under rules where personal reputation is not central in getting elected are less likely to sponsor such bills the larger their electoral district becomes.