{"title":"做好你的工作,保住你的席位:国会议员立法对连任的因果效应","authors":"Serika Atsumi","doi":"10.1111/lsq.70037","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Distinguishing between personal and party votes is inherently challenging, and it remains unclear to what extent they function in each country. This study employs the ballot of a private member's bill as an instrumental variable to examine whether legislative behavior influences electoral outcomes in the United Kingdom, which has a highly institutionalized party system. The findings reveal that legislative behavior increases the vote share of Conservative MPs by 2.6 percentage points compared to the previous election. However, given the high prominence of the party vote, this increase is only large enough to change the electoral winner in just under 10% of the constituencies. Furthermore, for opposition MPs, legislative behavior had no effect in any respect. Nevertheless, this result suggests that personal votes exist even in an unlikely case—when party competition is intense and MPs have limited autonomy in Parliament.</p>","PeriodicalId":47672,"journal":{"name":"Legislative Studies Quarterly","volume":"50 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/lsq.70037","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Do Your Job, Keep Your Seat: The Causal Effect of MPs' Legislation on Reelection\",\"authors\":\"Serika Atsumi\",\"doi\":\"10.1111/lsq.70037\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<p>Distinguishing between personal and party votes is inherently challenging, and it remains unclear to what extent they function in each country. This study employs the ballot of a private member's bill as an instrumental variable to examine whether legislative behavior influences electoral outcomes in the United Kingdom, which has a highly institutionalized party system. The findings reveal that legislative behavior increases the vote share of Conservative MPs by 2.6 percentage points compared to the previous election. However, given the high prominence of the party vote, this increase is only large enough to change the electoral winner in just under 10% of the constituencies. Furthermore, for opposition MPs, legislative behavior had no effect in any respect. Nevertheless, this result suggests that personal votes exist even in an unlikely case—when party competition is intense and MPs have limited autonomy in Parliament.</p>\",\"PeriodicalId\":47672,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Legislative Studies Quarterly\",\"volume\":\"50 4\",\"pages\":\"\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":2.4000,\"publicationDate\":\"2025-10-02\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/lsq.70037\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Legislative Studies Quarterly\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"90\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/lsq.70037\",\"RegionNum\":3,\"RegionCategory\":\"社会学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"POLITICAL SCIENCE\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Legislative Studies Quarterly","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/lsq.70037","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
Do Your Job, Keep Your Seat: The Causal Effect of MPs' Legislation on Reelection
Distinguishing between personal and party votes is inherently challenging, and it remains unclear to what extent they function in each country. This study employs the ballot of a private member's bill as an instrumental variable to examine whether legislative behavior influences electoral outcomes in the United Kingdom, which has a highly institutionalized party system. The findings reveal that legislative behavior increases the vote share of Conservative MPs by 2.6 percentage points compared to the previous election. However, given the high prominence of the party vote, this increase is only large enough to change the electoral winner in just under 10% of the constituencies. Furthermore, for opposition MPs, legislative behavior had no effect in any respect. Nevertheless, this result suggests that personal votes exist even in an unlikely case—when party competition is intense and MPs have limited autonomy in Parliament.
期刊介绍:
The Legislative Studies Quarterly is an international journal devoted to the publication of research on representative assemblies. Its purpose is to disseminate scholarly work on parliaments and legislatures, their relations to other political institutions, their functions in the political system, and the activities of their members both within the institution and outside. Contributions are invited from scholars in all countries. The pages of the Quarterly are open to all research approaches consistent with the normal canons of scholarship, and to work on representative assemblies in all settings and all time periods. The aim of the journal is to contribute to the formulation and verification of general theories about legislative systems, processes, and behavior.