Responsiveness and Democratic Accountability: Observational Evidence from an Experiment in a Mixed‐Member Proportional System

Abstract

Electoral systems provide distinctive accountability mechanisms in democratic polities and thereby affect government responsiveness to citizens. In this article, we concentrate on the effects of proportional vis‐à‐vis majoritarian electoral rules. We expect members of parliament to be more responsive under majoritarian rule, because these MPs have a direct mandate from their local constituency, are less dependent on their party, and can be held directly accountable by voters. We exploit Germany's mixed‐member system and test MP’s responsiveness using behavioral data generated within a two‐round field experiment. The experiment observes concrete interactions between voters and representatives. In the experiment, real voters sent emails about a policy issue to their MPs. We show that MPs who were elected via the majoritarian tier are almost twice as likely to respond to a voter request than MPs elected via PR. Our results deliver novel evidence that electoral institutions cause distinct behavioral responses from elected officials.

Who Represents the Constituency? Online Political Communication by Members of Parliament in the German Mixed‐Member Electoral System

“…MPs should allocate their available time, money, or personnel according to the primary goal to stay in parliament. Yet since all German legislators receive the same budget, resources are only a secondary factor when it comes to explaining differences in their behavior (Breunig, Grossman, and Hänni 2020). As social media are relatively cheap tools that can be managed by the staff allocated to each MP, they can be useful instruments for MPs on both electoral tiers.…”

Electoral incentives make politicians respond to voter preferences: Evidence from a survey experiment with members of Parliament in Belgium

“…After all, we force politicians in this experiment to inform themselves about their party electorate's opinion before responding to questions about their intentional behavior. This is different from field experiments where for instance, politicians effectively react to constituent e-mails (e.g., Breunig, Grossman, and Hänni 2020). We at least partially respond to this external validity critique by making the decision-making scenarios presented to politicians as realistic as possible, and we present them with real public opinion information in a format that politicians are familiar with.…”

“…Others compare levels of (policy) responsiveness across electoral systems and, depending on how competitive these systems are, deduce that electoral motivation affects voter responsiveness. Binzer Hobolt and Klemmensen (2008), for example, find that the more governments have to compete for votes, the more likely they are to incorporate the public will in their decision‐making (see also Breunig, Grossman, and Hänni 2020, on communicative responsiveness in different electoral systems; or Wlezien and Soroka 2012). However, most studies exploring the electoral connection look at district competitiveness as a predictor of responsiveness (Fiorina 1974).…”

Ethics Audits in Cross-National Research: Experiences from Correspondence Study Field Experiments with National Politicians in Four European Democracies

“…Compared to laboratory or survey experiments, they can be conducted with high external validity because they do not suffer from low response rates or self-selection bias as non-responses also count as an observation, and artificiality is less of a problem as they take place in a natural context. As such, field experiments provide important insights into the input legitimacy of democracy, such as racial discrimination (Broockman, 2013; Dinesen et al, 2021; Gell-Redman et al, 2018), gender bias (Magni and de Leon, 2020; Thomsen and Sanders, 2020; Wiener, 2020), the electoral prerequisites of geographic representation (Bol et al, 2021; Breunig et al, 2021; Giger et al, 2020), and responsiveness to public-policy preferences (Butler and Nickerson, 2011; Butler et al, 2012). In this vein, field experiments help us to critically assess the quality of democracy and identify needs for reform as well as unsubstantiated fears.…”