Lobbying for Grants in Parliament: an Inquiry into the Causation of Legislative Careers

Research on the political careers of members of parliament (MP) shows the importance of constituency service they need to deliver in order to get re-elected. Legislator’s constituency service behaviour exists in different forms of legislative and non-legislative actions. The paradigm of distributive theory and pork barrel politics asserts that MP will try to maximize their re-election probability by directing grants to their electoral district. This paper contributes to the literature by examining the role MPs claim to play in the allocation process of government subsidies towards their constituencies. Our qualitative study offers an in-depth analysis of MPs behaviour. By interviewing 25 members of the Flemish Parliament (Regional Parliament in Belgium) we investigated whether legislators indeed deploy lobbying efforts to target public funding strategically. We question how MPs influence grant programs in benefit of their constituencies by focussing on their legislative work and extra parliamentarian activities like party meetings and close encounters with members of the cabinet. The lobbying behaviour is specifically related to the type of the political career. We assume that different political career patterns will lead to different lobbying behaviour. By using the classification of career patterns by Ohumara, Bailer, Meiẞner and Selb (2018) (party animals, local heroes, late bloomers, land legislators, career changers and high-flyers) we deepened our understanding about the impact career characteristics have in the power struggle and political jockeying in the decision making dynamics of public budgeting. MPs follow different paths leading to parliamentarian office which can have a deviating impact on their lobbying efforts. The career pattern of local hero, meaning one that is characterized by a pronounced bond with local roots, is expected to have higher probability of constituency service behaviour in the form of pork barrelling than career changers or land legislators who don’t have strong ties with their constituencies. Furthermore, the paper contributes to the literature by examining the specific effect of dual mandate holding. Belgian parliaments contain a lot of dual mandate holders (MPs being mayors, aldermen or municipal councillors as well). Although dual mandate holding does not seem to yield additional electoral rewards compared to single mandate holding, the presumed prospect of electoral benefits might stimulate MPs to seek epistemic and network advantages that are useful for obtaining competitive grants. Following Blanco’s epistemic governance approach (2017) we presuppose the involvement of a political and administrative community of different epistemic agents in the distribution of grants. These epistemic agents include civil servants, politically appointed officials, external experts or consultants, cabinet employees and many other public administration practitioners who might play a role in the subsidy allocation process. The clarification of this epistemic governance network is useful to reveal the lobbying behaviour of MPs. The career pattern might again offer explanatory grounds. Party animals for example are assumed to fall back on their network of party affiliates more easily than their counterparts. Our qualitative research unveils the epistemic network patterns that are intertwined with career patterns, which offers new insights into the behaviour of MPs.