Constituency Representation in Comparative Perspective

This paper studies the determinants of legislators engaging in constituency representation. Legislators must split their scarce time and resources into different parliamentary activities to secure re-election and career advancement. Current research explains legislators’ involvement in constituency representation as function of their electoral vulnerability and the geographical concentration of their electorate and selectorate. We engage in an alternative explanation based on politicians’ career patterns. Our baseline argument is that legislators that formerly served in local or regional political offices will be more likely to engage in constituency representation. Alternatively, given that the national parliament is not the final destination of many political careers, politicians could use their parliamentary behaviour to redirect their career towards a different political arena, although it will be conditional on the possibilities of career-advancement in the national arena. For testing our argument, we use a comprehensive dataset of written parliamentary questions in Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom.