Voters reward hard-working MPs: empirical evidence from the French legislative elections

Abstract

This paper studies the relationship between incumbent MPs’ activities and their electoral fortune. We address this question in the context of the French political system characterized by an executive domination, a candidate-centered electoral system, and an electoral schedule maximizing the impact of the presidential elections. Given the contradictory influence of these three institutional features on the relationship between MPs’ activities and electoral results, the overall link can only be assessed empirically. We test the effects of several measurements of MPs’ activities on both their vote share and reelection probability in the 2007 legislative election. We show that MPs’ activities are differently correlated to both the incumbents’ vote shares in the first round and their reelection. Despite the weakness of the French National Assembly, several parliamentary activities, especially bill initiation, have a significant effect on MPs’ electoral prospects.

Productivity-based retrospective voting: Legislative productivity and voting in the 2019 European Parliament elections

“…It seems that ‘valence’ productivity – engaging in activities that are universally considered ‘good’ – is more important than engaging in either technical, obscure activities or ‘show-horse’/ theatrical ones. This is in line with what was theorised by Ferejohn (1986) and with the empirical findings from the literature on the activity-vote link (François and Navarro, 2019, 2020; Papp and Russo, 2018). Future research should investigate the mechanism behind the association found between different activities and voting behaviour more in detail.…”

“…In particular, it is important to further explore the conditions under which different legislative records can shape voting behaviour (François and Navarro 2019).…”

“…But do EP elections serve to pass judgement specifically on the performance and productivity of parties serving in the EP, thus working as EP-specific accountability devices? If that is the case, we can conclude that EP elections meet important democratic desiderata (Carey and Shugart, 1995; François and Navarro 2019; McDermott and Jones, 2003; Papp and Russo, 2018).…”

“…Sponsoring and initiating bills, for example, is associated with larger vote shares (Bowler, 2010; Däubler et al, 2016; Loewen et al, 2014; Marangoni and Russo, 2018). Legislative reports and oral questions/interpellations or motions also carry an electoral advantage for more productive politicians (Däubler et al, 2018; François and Navarro, 2019; Kellermann, 2013; Marangoni and Russo, 2018). Receiving leadership positions (prestigious committees and influential roles within the legislature) also leads to higher re-election chances, though this appears driven by party leaderships’ selection processes (Frech, 2016; Hermansen, 2018).…”

Voters’ Knowledge of Their Representatives: The Direct and Conditioned Effects of Parliamentary Work

“…By initiating legislation and asking written questions to the government, MPs can, for instance, raise their personal profile and become better known to their voters. There is thus a direct link between what MPs do during their term and their reputation, which may in turn contribute to explain the positive relationship between MPs’ activities and their chances of re‐election (François and Navarro ). On the other hand and as hypothesised, not all activities matter: leadership positions within the assembly, oral questions and the drafting of legislative reports, in particular, do not provide the benefits which could be expected.…”