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Elections in W estern E uropean parliaments
Author(s) -
Sieberer Ulrich
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
european journal of political research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.267
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1475-6765
pISSN - 0304-4130
DOI - 10.1111/1475-6765.12007
Subject(s) - lawmaking , context (archaeology) , outcome (game theory) , political science , competition (biology) , audit , principal (computer security) , economics , law , legislature , microeconomics , accounting , computer science , paleontology , ecology , biology , operating system
Parliaments often elect holders of important extra‐parliamentary offices such as heads of state, constitutional judges, heads of audit institutions and ombudsmen. What drives the behaviour of parliamentary actors and the outcome of such elections? This article explains actor behaviour theoretically, drawing on spatial factors, principal‐agent arguments about the importance of nonspatial candidate characteristics and signaling arguments about competitive considerations beyond the specific election. Empirically, it provides the first comparative analysis of such elections outside the U nited S tates S enate using original data on 100 elections for four external offices in 14 W estern E uropean parliaments. The findings show that spatial variables, nonspatial candidate characteristics and features of the competitive context systematically affect the election outcome. The article contributes to comparative parliamentary research in general by demonstrating how parliamentary activities, other than lawmaking, can be analysed using established theories and by showing that consensual aggregate outcomes can be explained within a competition‐based rational choice model.