Abstract
Different parliamentary activities allow Members of Parliament (MPs) varying amounts of autonomy. Previous studies have shown that, in parliamentary systems with strong parties and party-centered electoral rules, MPs have limited room for crossing the party line in the legislature both in voting and speech. Further, party-centered systems limit MP’s ability to address electoral concerns of their constituency; they are less responsive. In this paper, I combine these findings by showing that even within system variation in party control over institutions affects the levels of responsiveness in parliamentary questions. By linking MP’s constituency mentions with different types of questions, my results show that the institutional design in the Norwegian Storting affects the level of MP constituency signaling. Specifically, I show that questions with low levels of party control and public attention (written questions and question time) give MPs far more opportunity to raise constituency specific issues than the more party controlled activities (interpellations and question hours). Consequently, I argue that responsiveness does not disappear in party-centered systems; it is located at lower-level institutions. Particularly, some types of questions, where shirking from the party line is less consequential and the party organizations have less control over its members, allow for constituency signaling.
Party Control and Responsiveness: How MPs Use Variation in Lower-Level Institutional Design as an Electoral Responsiveness Mechanism