Determinants and consequences of constituency service in Europe

Corentin Poyetin ja Mihail Chirun järjestämä workshop. Lisätietoja: Corentin Poyet, corentin.poyet [at] tuni.fi.

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Starting in the 2000s, the European scholarship on legislators' personal vote seeking efforts and constituency service (what legislators do to serve and represent the interests of their constituents) in particular has expanded considerably, following research agendas developed by scholars of the United-States Congress and state legislatures. In the context of the decline of parties as the main vehicles of interest aggregation and substantive representation in Europe, the importance of dyadic linkages between citizens and Members of Parliaments (MPs) is growing. Constituency service has become a key aspect of accountability not only as a means through which the MPs communicate to constituents about their work but also as a dimension on which citizens evaluate their representatives.

The conference takes stock of the research of scholars working on constituency service in their respective country in order to facilitate the development of a more robust and up-to-date body of knowledge on the topic. The workshop is organized around eight cases studies covering a large spectrum of institutional designs, geographical areas and MPs practices. Both national legislatures and the European Parliament are covered in the workshop. Some of the most important scholars in the field including Shane Martin (University of Essex) and Lieven De Winter (UC Louvain) will present their work. The workshop will also benefit from an opening lecture by David Arter (Tampere University).

Conference program

9.30 Welcome, Corentin Poyet / Mihail Chiru

10.00 Session 1

• 10.00 Zsófia Papp: Does congruence matter? The electoral reward of agricultural representation in urban and rural areas
• 10.45 Lieven De Winter (skype): The vanishing case work of Belgian MPs: myth or reality?

11.15 Coffee break

11.45 Session 2

• 11.45 David Arter: “When your worst opponents are MPs in your own party in your own district”: Intra-party competition and the personal vote in a non-transferable preferential electoral system

12.30 Lunch break

13.45 Session 3

• 13.45 Anne-Sophie Behm: MEPs and their linkage to the ground – exploring the MEPs’ territorial focus in parliament
• 14.30 Mihail Chiru: Changing MPs’ Behavior through Institutional Engineering? Constituency Questions Under Two Electoral Systems

15.15 Coffee break

15.30 Session 4

• 15.30 Corentin Poyet: The “incomplete” constituency service cycle: incentives to offer constituency service and French citizens’ expectations on MPs work
• 16.15 Resul Umit: Parliamentary Communication Allowances:
• Good for Nothing

17.00 Closing remarks, Mihail Chiru / Corentin Poyet