The effects of proposal power on incumbents' vote share: updated results from a naturally occurring experiment

Abstract

A pioneering study by Loewen et al. made use of the Canadian legislature's newly instituted lottery, which enabled non-cabinet Members of Parliament (MPs) to propose a bill or motion. Their study used this lottery in order to identify the causal effect of proposal power on incumbents' vote share in the next election. Analyzing the first two parliaments to use the lottery, Loewen et al. found that proposal power benefits incumbents, but only incumbents who belong to the governing party. Our study builds on these initial results by adding data from four subsequent parliaments. The pooled results no longer support the hypothesis that MPs—even those who belong to the governing party—benefit appreciably from proposal power. These updated findings resolve a theoretical puzzle noted by Loewen et al., as proposal power would not ordinarily be expected to confer electoral benefits in strong party systems, such as Canada's.