Parliamentarians’ Appeal to Interest Groups: Patterns and Timing of Signalling

Parliamentarians represent the interests of their principals – be it the party, voters, or also interest groups. Interest groups offer information, money, positions and post-parliamentary employment to MPs and are thus attractive partners that are likely to have legislative wishes. While the influence of parties and the voters is often studied, much less is known about the influence of interest groups on representation behavior and the signals MPs send to interest groups by using legislative instruments. Whereas we know that interest groups impact voting behavior (Giger/Klüver 2014), we still have little insights not only into its underlying dynamics but also about the extent to which interest group ties impact other kinds of legislative behavior (e.g. parliamentary questions, interpellations, postulates, motions, and parliamentary initiatives). Based on a new detailed longitudinal dataset with 7’271 interest groups positions and 29’356 legislative instruments from 579 Swiss parliamentarians (1999-2016) this paper aims to shed a uniquely detailed light on how interest groups ties affect the patterns and timing of individual MPs’ legislative activities.