Geographical Representation on the Floor: Parliamentary Rules and Legislative Speeches in Party-Centered Contexts

The degree of party control of parliamentary debates influences which MPs take the floor. However, we do not know whether floor access rules matter also for the content of speeches. Drawing on a corpus of speeches delivered in bill debates in the Italian lower house over 10 years, I investigate how variation in floor access rules across comparable debates shapes MPs' geographical representation in their legislative speeches. The findings reveal that open-access rules increase the intensity of geographical representation compared to when parties allocate speaking time, pointing to a tension between party control and dyadic representation. Additionally, this study demonstrates that the effect of open rules on geographical representation is consistent across MPs with different electoral incentives and degrees of alignment with party leadership, as well as across topics varying in their potential for geographical representation.