The European Parliament (EP) is often referred to as a ‘working parliament’, as much of its legislative capacity is distilled within a highly developed committee structure. In such an environment, plenary debates and written questions are more about public appeals to constituents or credit-claiming and less about shaping the actual course of legislation. Therefore, if the committee system is the true locus of power for EP legislation, to what extent do committee members dialogue with the public during the ‘actual’ legislative process?
Using a novel source of data collected from the official Twitter accounts of all current MEPs, we conduct a multivariate regression analysis to explore whether MEPs that are actively involved in the legislative process are more likely to engage publicly on legislative issues via social media than are MEPs who are not. We then examine the content of a select subset of MEP policy-related tweets from current committee leaders and rapporteurs, in order to identify the extent to which Twitter has become an interactive and constructive part of the EU legislating process and a signal for the outward broadcasting of positions. In so doing, the paper contributes to the broader literature on internal legislative behavior, as well as to debates on the role of social media in representation and politics.
