Competing Principals in a Multinational State: Legislative Behavior in Imperial Austria, 1907–1914

Abstract

This article examines legislative behavior in the lower house of the Imperial Austrian Reichsrat, a historical legislature representing a multinational society. The coincidence of economic and center-periphery cleavages in that democratizing state presents an excellent opportunity to examine the influence of multiple competing principals on representatives' legislative behavior. Drawing on an original dataset, we test under which conditions representatives voted against their parliamentary party group between 1907 and 1914. We find relatively high levels of unity, especially for the transnational Social Democrats. Where deviations occur, they are associated with the ethno-national and economic composition of representatives' electoral districts and initially with membership in parliamentary professional associations. The findings highlight the importance of the center-periphery (respectively transnational) cleavage as an additional driver of legislative behavior in parliaments, like the European Parliament or the parliaments of Spain or the United Kingdom, that represent multiple nations.