Moving up or down: parliamentary activity and candidate selection

Political ambition and opposition legislative review: Bill scrutiny as an intra‐party signalling device

“…For instance, some legislative instruments are useful for increasing the visibility of parties or legislators. The most obvious examples are plenary speeches (Louwerse and van Vonno, 2021), and, to a lesser extent, parliamentary questions. Green‐Pedersen (2010) has argued that the increasing importance of parties' ‘issue competition’ has prompted more parliamentary questions, as parties compete by drawing attention to issues that are beneficial to them.…”

The good, the loyal or the active? MPs’ parliamentary performance and the achievement of static and progressive career ambitions in parliament

“…Parties, in other words, 'constrain MPs' actions, but also offer the context in which their behaviour will be evaluated' (Louwerse and Otjes, 2016: 791). By productively engaging in many parliamentary activities instead of portraying 'slacking behaviour' (Frech et al, 2020), legislators show to party leaders their eagerness and willingness to contribute to the party's policy goals by actively developing and defending detailed bill proposals and scrutinizing governmental policies within their designated area of issue specialization (Louwerse and Van Vonno, 2021). Furthermore, parliamentary tools may not only serve policy-seeking goals but can also be used following a personal vote-seeking strategy by legislators who wish to increase their visibility and name recognition among the public (Bräuninger et al, 2012;Däubler et al, 2016).…”

“…Bowler, 2010;François and Navarro, 2019), but since parties may reward politicians with a strong personal electoral reputation, party leaders might also valorise efforts by individual MPs to gain public prominence through their activity by satisfying their career ambitions (Yildirim et al, 2019). Empirical research has indeed established links between MPs' parliamentary efforts and their re-selection chances (Däubler et al, 2018;Papp, 2019;Yildirim et al, 2019;Louwerse and Van Vonno, 2021). Evidence from Chili (Dockendorff, 2019) and the European Parliament (Treib and Schlipphak, 2019) furthermore shows that increased activity might also lead to promotion to higher parliamentary office.…”

“…Although often theoretically assumed, empirical research on the link between political behaviour and the fulfilment of static and progressive career ambitions is relatively limited. Many studies have examined the consequences of legislators' behaviour for their re-(s)election in one way or another (Bowler, 2010;Martin, 2010;Bräuninger et al, 2012;François and Navarro, 2019;Yildirim et al, 2019;Louwerse and Van Vonno, 2021). But studies on the consequences for promotion to higher officelet alone studies that examine both the achievement of static and progressive ambitionsare more scarce (see however : Martin, 2014;Dockendorff, 2019;Treib and Schlipphak, 2019).…”

Geographical Representation Under a Single Nationwide District: The Case of the Netherlands

“…Therefore, although the electoral system itself does not create a strong incentive to cultivate a personal vote, it still might be advantageous for some candidates to pay attention to the region in order to attract local preference votes. High preference vote numbers might also benefit candidates in other ways than only obtaining a seat in parliament, for example, by being able to obtain a more important position and policy portfolio within their parliamentary party group (André et al 2017; Louwerse and van Vonno 2021; Nagtzaam 2019). We therefore expect that preference votes are mainly associated with regional geographical representation in the regions an MP has ties with.…”