Blurred lines between electoral and parliamentary representation: The use of constituency staff among Members of the European Parliament
| Author | Silje Synnøve Lyder Hermansen,Andreja Pegan |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14651165221149900 |
| Published date | 01 June 2023 |
| Date | 01 June 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Blurred lines between
electoral and parliamentary
representation: The use of
constituency staff among
Members of the European
Parliament
Silje Synnøve Lyder Hermansen
Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen,
Denmark
Andreja Pegan
Faculty of Managment, University of Primorska, Slovenia
Abstract
Parliamentarians receive public funding to employ local staff in the constituency. Local
staff help members of parliament to execute their representative duties, but can also
become an electoral asset. Drawing on theories of personal vote-seeking we study
local staff as an example of constituency service. Modelling within-individual changes
in local staff size among 1174 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), we find
that the number of local staff increases before both European and national elections,
and more so in candidate-centred than party-centred systems. Despite a single
European Parliament (EP) staff system, EU citizens are represented differently depending
on where they elect their members and the electoral system that applies. Attempts to
mend the EU’s democratic deficit by strengthening MEPs’contacts with citizens through
local staff potentially means that European public money is used to fund EP incumbents’
electoral campaigns. We discuss the implications of our findings for the democratic func-
tioning of the European multi-level system.
Corresponding author:
Andreja Pegan, Faculty of Managment, University of Primorska, Izolska vrata 2, SI-6101 Koper, Slovenia.
Email: andreja.pegan@fm-kp.si
Article
European Union Politics
2023, Vol. 24(2) 239–263
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14651165221149900
journals.sagepub.com/home/eup
Keywords
Constituency work, electoral systems, European Parliament, personal-vote seeking,
local staff, representation
Introduction
Parliamentary allowances for members of parliament (MPs) have grown over the last
decades to meet the rising complexity of legislation and constituency work (Poguntke
et al., 2016: 665). While allowances are meant for citizen representation, they are fre-
quently spent for electoral campaigning too (Bolleyer and Gauja, 2015: 334;
Nassmacher, 2006: 466–450). For example, travel allowances are spent for campaign
travel, office space is used for party meetings, telephone and other communication tech-
nologies are used for political advertising, and MPs’staff are involved in campaigning
activities (Nassmacher, 2006: 450).
Such behaviour is normatively problematic because funding for representing citizens
in parliament obeys different principles than funding for electoral representation.
Parliamentary representation is when those who are elected speak, advocate and act
on behalf of citizens (substantive representation; Pitkin, 1967). Electoral representation,
in the context of this article, are activities that present candidates to voters (formalistic
representation). When resources for parliamentary representation are used for electoral
representation (e.g. campaigns), voters get a lopsided menu of choice. Electoral compe-
tition is under pressure creating inequality among candidates, which public funding for
electoral representation seeks to equalise (van Biezen, 2008: 348). As a result, financing
for parliamentary and electoral representation ought to be separated, as reflected in elect-
oral financing laws across Europe (Muñoz, 2018).
Parliamentary allowances are nevertheless key to an effective democracy. They endow
legislators with resources to monitor the executive and facilitate representation. District
work, financed through parliamentary allowances and performed by MPs and their
constituency-based (local) staff, is a means for legislators to voice citizens’grievances,
cultivate their trust and link them with representative institutions.
Considering the blurred lines between parliamentary and electoral representation, we
investigate the electoral determinants of parliamentarians’investment in local staff in the
European Parliament (EP). We model the spending of Members of the European
Parliament (MEPs) on local staff as a function of the electoral calendar and MEPs’incen-
tives to cultivate a personal vote. Observing the hiring of local staff among MEPs offers
an opportunity to empirically assess parliamentary allowances as electoral resources and
explore the effect of diverse (European and domestic) career ambitions on MEPs’behav-
iour (local staff spending). This is one of the least researched fields in the study of pol-
itical public finance because politicians are reluctant to share information on public
spending (Poguntke et al., 2016: 665). Data on the EP is nonetheless available due to
commitments to transparency.
We make a theoretical contribution by casting legislators’spending on local staff as an
example of constituency work and applying insights from the literature on personal vote-
240 European Union Politics 24(2)
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