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Electoral Security as a Determinant of Legislator Activity, 1832–1918: New Data and Methods for Analyzing British Political Development
Author(s) -
Eggers Andrew C.,
Spirling Arthur
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
legislative studies quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.728
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1939-9162
pISSN - 0362-9805
DOI - 10.1111/lsq.12059
Subject(s) - legislator , legislature , parliament , voting , politics , political science , public administration , electoral system , political economy , house of representatives , law , law and economics , sociology , democracy , legislation
We consider the relationship between a Member of Parliament's electoral environment and his strategic choice of legislative activities between the First and Fourth Reform Acts in B ritain. We argue that voters and party institutions put cross‐cutting pressures on members during this time, and that legislators calibrated their behavior in accordance with the marginality of their seat. We gather a massive new dataset documenting MP s’ biographical information, electoral records, roll calls, and speeches. The extent of MP s’ speech making and voting (our measures of legislative activity) vary with electoral security in ways consistent with our theoretical priors for Westminster systems.