The Effect of Legislative Misalignment on the Representation of Constituency Interests

How do elected representatives respond when they learn that they are misaligned with their constituencies? While existing research has documented various mechanisms promoting alignment between public opinion and legislative behavior, including electoral turnover, candidate self-selection, and elite influence on public opinion, less is known about how politicians handle misalignment. Previous studies suggest two primary responses: updating positions to match constituent preferences or discounting opposing views. We propose and investigate a third response: strategic issue avoidance. Using the 2016 Brexit referendum as an information treatment that creates within-issue, within-election period, within-MP variation in alignment, we study how MPs responded to sudden, measurable incongruence with their constituencies. We find that MPs who learn that they are misaligned with their districts avoid issues on which they are misaligned, relative to their aligned counterparts. When speaking about the misaligned issue, they avoid stance-taking on the issue. They also avoid mentioning their constituency. Our results show how misaligned MPs abstain from controversial issues to avoid drawing attention to topics where there is a mismatch between the legislature and the constituency.