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Explaining roll call vote request in the European Parliament
Die Beantragung namentlicher Abstimmungen im Europäischen Parlament
[working paper]
Corporate Editor
Universität Mannheim, Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung (MZES)
Abstract This paper investigates determinants of roll call vote (RCV) request in the European Parliament (EP) since studies on voting behaviour based on the RCV sample have proved to be vulnerable to selection bias. At first I argue that party group leaders, who mainly initiate RCVs, cannot be regarded as pa... view more
This paper investigates determinants of roll call vote (RCV) request in the European Parliament (EP) since studies on voting behaviour based on the RCV sample have proved to be vulnerable to selection bias. At first I argue that party group leaders, who mainly initiate RCVs, cannot be regarded as parliamentary principals of MEPs who use the RCV to discipline their parliamentarians. Owing to the organisational structure of the board of political groups which mainly consists of leaders of (larger) national delegations, it is impossible to clearly differentiate between the party group leader and the leaders of national delegations. As the former do not possess instruments to enforce party group discipline they should not be considered as principals of MEPs but rather as their agents. Party group leaders, I argue, will therefore use RCVs only if they anticipate cohesion to express their group's policy position. Based on this assumption I develop and test a theoretical model of RCV request. Therefore I gathered data that comprise all votes from the first year of the sixth EP election period. The findings are in line with the theoretical expectations: RCV request is likely if the national delegations are united along the group line and group cohesion can be ensured. Moreover, the misconceptualisation of party group leaders as principals of MEPs and the structure of the RCV sample has led to overestimating the power of political groups in existing studies. My findings suggest that studies based on RCVs need to be interpreted with caution as they do not seem to represent the EP legislative process adequately.' (author's abstract)... view less
Keywords
political decision; voting; political power; political culture; political leadership; political attitude; party discipline; legislative; political opinion; EU policy; political behavior; political group; European Parliament; politician; political strategy
Classification
Political Process, Elections, Political Sociology, Political Culture
European Politics
Method
descriptive study
Document language
English
Publication Year
2006
City
Mannheim
Page/Pages
21 p.
Series
Arbeitspapiere / Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung, 90
Licence
Deposit Licence - No Redistribution, No Modifications
Data providerThis metadata entry was indexed by the Special Subject Collection Social Sciences, USB Cologne