Constituency Influence in Parliament
Constituency Influence in Parliament STUART SOROKA McGill University ERIN PENNER University of British Columbia KELLY BLIDOOK Memorial University of Newfoundland This paper examines relationships between constituency characteristics and individual legislators’ behaviour in a parliamentary system. This kind of “dyadic” representation has received considerable attention in the US, particularly with the study of roll call voting. Outside the US, however, the study of individual representatives’ behaviour has been more diffi- cult. In many cases, information on individuals’ behaviour has been dif- ficult to attain; moreover, in many countries there are relatively few observable policy venues in which individual legislators have an oppor- tunity for anything other than toeing the party line. Acknowledgments: Previous versions of this paper were presented at the 2006 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia PA, and at the 2006 annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Toronto ON. This research was funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Can- ada Standard Research Grant. We are very grateful to Denise Ledoux, Peter Niemc- zak, and others at the Library of Parliament, who provided much of the necessary data on MPs and electoral outcomes as well as valuable commentary at an early pre- sentation of these data. We are also indebted to Lori Young, Iris Simixhiu, Marie- Josée Bouffard, Michelle Meyer, and Zach Finkelstein, the principal coders on the project; to Keith Banting, Jenny Hunt, Jim Kelly, Jack Sandberg, and Arthur Sweet- man for comments on previous versions; and to the Hons. Warren Allmand, Bill Blaikie, Ed Broadbent, Joe Clark, Peter Milliken, and Senator Gerald Comeau, each of whom was kind enough to share with us some of their knowledge of Parliament and Question Period.
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