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Multiple Principals and Legislative Cohesion
Author(s) -
Meserve Stephen,
Robbins Joseph,
Thames Frank
Publication year - 2017
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.12165
Subject(s) - parliament , operationalization , legislature , cohesion (chemistry) , political science , public administration , proportional representation , electoral system , volatility (finance) , political economy , economics , law , politics , econometrics , philosophy , chemistry , organic chemistry , epistemology , democracy
In many systems, legislators find themselves accountable to multiple principals. This article seeks to further answer how legislators decide between their principals and what factors condition legislators to choose one over the other. We argue that electoral uncertainty, operationalized as electoral volatility, pushes legislators towards the principal that has the greatest influence over their re‐election. Using European Parliament electoral results and roll‐call data from the second to the sixth European Parliaments (1984–2009), we show that increases in electoral volatility decreased European group cohesion and pushed legislators to side more with the positions of their national parties over their European group when the two disagreed.