Institutional Foundations of Legislative Speech

Abstract

(MPs) dedicate a significant amount of their time to preparing speeches and participating in legislative debates. Yet, political scientists know surprisingly little about the role of political parties in debate, the institutions that govern access to the floor, and the strategic nature of the messages legislators try to convey. We put forward a comparative institutional theory of legislative debate in which we view speeches as the result of strategic choices made by party leaders and backbenchers. As a consequence of this strategic interaction, observed floor speeches may not reflect the true distribution of preferences within a party group. Party leaders must decide whether and to whom to delegate floor time. They have an incentive to present voters with a coherent party message, but some MPs may prefer to give a speech at odds with their party leadership, especially if doing so might help their own reelection bid. These strategic cal- The authors are listed alphabetically. Both authors have contributed equally to all work. We thank Kira Killermann, Linh Nguyen, and Sander Ensink for excellent research assistance and Serra Boranbay, Thomas Bräuninger, Thomas Gschwend, Christopher Kam, Thomas König, Elisabeth Schulte, Georg Vanberg, Jonathan Woon, and seminar participants at the University of Mannheim, Rice University, EITM Europe, and the DVPW Working Group on Behavioral Decision Making for helpful comments and suggestions. We especially thank Thomas Gschwend, Hermann Schmitt, Andreas Wüst, and Thomas Zittel for sharing the German candidate survey data. Sven-Oliver Proksch acknowledges that the research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007(FP7/ -2013 under grant agreement number 239268 (Marie Curie International Reintegration Grant).culations can lead to substantial selection effects in the choice of speaker and the content of the speech.This study proceeds by introducing our comparative theory of legislative debate and by discussing the empirical implications of our model for a variety of political systems. In scenarios where party unity matters for running successful election campaigns, party leaders should be reluctant to delegate speaking time to ideologically extreme members. Instead, as a party becomes ideologically more polarized, party leaders are likely to give more speeches representing the party line and delegate less often to members. In political systems where party unity matters less, but developing a personal reputation in parliament is essential for reelection, parties develop rules that make it easier for members of parliament with dissident views to take the floor. As a result, partisan rules governing legislative debate are endogenous to electoral considerations.We test the most important implications of the model using newly collected legislative speech data from two

Measuring Political Positions from Legislative Speech

“…Political scientists have only recently started to examine what factors explain speaker selection in legislative debates (Proksch and Slapin 2012;Proksch and Slapin 2015;. Proksch and Slapin (2015) have shown that the degree to which party leaders exercise control over who speaks and what legislators say depends on the electoral system.…”

Who Takes the Parliamentary Floor? The Role of Gender in Speech-making in the Swedish Riksdag

“…It is therefore important to consider whether the party leadership is likely to allow a MP to speak in a debate when explaining floor time of individual MPs. Proksch and Slapin (2012) argue that in systems where parties play an important role (e.g., in Germany or Sweden), party groups have established rules providing their leaders with means to prevent certain MPs from taking the floor. Thus, we should expect parties to strategically decide who is "allowed" to take the floor, even though MPs have some sort of "freedom of speech," and should in general be allowed to participate in debates.…”

“…Last, party leaders may use their ability to steer the agenda, to avoid that proposals that would divide the party come to a vote in the legislature. Hence, when aiming to explain speechmaking and legislative behavior in general, we should keep in mind that we need to consider both the preferences and incentives of individual MPs, as well as the party leadership's incentives and ability to steer the agenda and punish and reward MPs (see also Proksch and Slapin 2012).…”

Using MP statements to explain voting behaviour in the German Bundestag

“…Plenary speeches can also be used to identify dissenting MPs in national parliaments. However, this approach may introduce bias because speakers are often selected by party leaders based on their ideological proximity to the leadership (Proksch and Slapin, 2012). Second, research on Westminster democracies demonstrates that dissent pays off electorally while progressive career ambitions give MPs incentives to follow the party line.…”