Explaining MPs’ communication to their constituents: Evidence from the UK House of Commons
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148118762280 |
| Author | Katrin Auel,Resul Umit |
| Date | 01 August 2018 |
| Published date | 01 August 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148118762280
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2018, Vol. 20(3) 731 –752
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1369148118762280
journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi
Explaining MPs’ communication
to their constituents: Evidence
from the UK House of
Commons
Katrin Auel and Resul Umit
Abstract
Everyone agrees that members of parliaments (MPs) should keep in touch with the people they
represent. Yet some MPs invest more in communication with their constituency than others.
We approach this problem with data from the parliamentary communication allowance in the
United Kingdom, where all MPs had the same amount of budget to reach out proactively to their
electors. We base our analysis on two fundamental assumptions: that re-election is the main goal
of legislators and that communication to signal trustworthiness is one way of securing their re-
election. We then examine the impact of electoral prospects, constituency characteristics, and
parliamentary behaviour on communication to constituents. We find evidence that, even in the
absence of budgetary constraints, MPs’ constituency communication depends on challenges to
their re-election.
Keywords
communication allowance, House of Commons, members of parliament, parliamentary
communication, re-election, representation
Rarely is there so broad a consensus in politics as the understanding that members of par-
liaments (MPs) should keep in touch with the people they represent (Leston-Bandeira,
2012). It was not always this way and, until the mid-twentieth century, people in the United
Kingdom hardly ever had a visit to their constituency—let alone a personal correspond-
ence—from their MP (Mitchell, 1982). Since then, both the demand for and supply of
constituency communication have soared. On one hand, constituents demand increasingly
more of their MPs’ attention (Norton, 2014), expecting them to be available at all times.
On the other, parliament’s connection with the public has become a major issue for policy-
makers especially due to growing political apathy among voters (Leston-Bandeira, 2012).
Katrin Auel: Research Group European Governance and Public Finance, Institute for Advanced Studies,
Vienna, Austria
Resul Umit: Department of Political Science, University of Lucerne, Switzerland
Corresponding author:
Resul Umit, University of Lucerne, Frohburgstrasse 3, Postfach 4466, 6002 Lucerne, Switzerland.
Email: resul.umit@unilu.ch
762280BPI0010.1177/1369148118762280The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsAuel and Umit
research-article2018
Original Article
732 The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 20(3)
Both trends have led parliaments to invest considerably in the development of opportuni-
ties for access by and direct contacts with citizens, including an increase in the resources
available for MPs to communicate with their constituents (Norton, 2007). Parties and par-
liaments alike encourage their members with additional means to reach out to the people
because MPs can pass on party political messages while engaging the public with parlia-
mentary democracy. As a result, MPs are involved in supplying more and more communi-
cation to their constituents themselves (Leston-Bandeira, 2012; Norton, 2007; Williamson,
2009; Zittel, 2003).
Yet despite the general consensus on its importance, some MPs invest more in com-
munication with their constituency than others. We approach this puzzle by examining
one of the most comprehensive resources ever provided to MPs—the parliamentary com-
munication allowance in the United Kingdom. Established in 2007 ‘to help Members
inform their constituents about what they have been doing and to consult them on issues
of importance to them locally’ (House of Commons, 2007a: 13) and covering a wide
variety of communication expenses, its design and application make it ideal as an indica-
tor of MPs’ investments in communication with their constituents. For the analysis, we
draw on two basic assumptions—namely that re-election is the main goal of legislators
and that communication to signal trustworthiness is one way of securing that re-election—
and examine the impact of electoral prospects, constituency characteristics, and parlia-
mentary behaviour.
The aim is to contribute to our understanding of constituency communication in three
ways. First, much of what we know about the communication between legislators and
their constituents originates from studies on the US Congress. The advent of the Internet
and social media has also generated a broader literature on digital communication efforts
of parliamentarians in Europe, but non-digital means of communication have rarely been
the object of studies on European legislatures due to difficulties of data access. Although
based on a single case, which makes it more difficult to generalise our findings, our study
thus adds to our understanding of overall communication efforts within a European legis-
lature. Second, most studies test explanations for a single means of communicating with
citizens. Yet single means may tell us little about the overall communication activities of
individual legislators given the variety of communication means at their disposal. In addi-
tion, MPs may have preferences for different ways of communication due to not only
personal inclination (Marcinkowski and Metag, 2014) but also the variation in costs asso-
ciated with different communication instruments. Here, the theoretical contribution of our
analysis lies in testing explanations for the overall investment in communication in the
absence of budgetary constraints. Finally, and with regard to the period under investiga-
tion, much of the literature focuses on legislators’ communication during election cam-
paigns while our study adds crucial information on MPs’ constituency communication in
non-election periods. This also allows us to distinguish constituency communication
from (party) political campaigning.
Explaining communication
Much of the literature on the relationship between legislators and citizens focuses on the
electoral connection, yet decades ago Fenno (1978: 141) urged political scientists ‘to
spend a little less of our time explaining votes and a little more of our time explaining
explanations’ (italics original). And scholars have heeded his call: A number of studies
have analysed the constituency communication by members of the US Congress,
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