Party pressure in the European Parliament
| Date | 01 June 2016 |
| Author | Simon Hug |
| DOI | 10.1177/1465116515624166 |
| Published date | 01 June 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
European Union Politics
2016, Vol. 17(2) 201–218
!The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1465116515624166
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Article
Party pressure in the
European Parliament
Simon Hug
De
´partement de science politique et relations internationales,
Universite
´de Gene
`ve
Abstract
At the end of its sixth legislative term the European Parliament adopted a rule change
subjecting all final passage votes on legislative matters to roll call votes. Some studies
use this rule change to assess whether roll call votes are characterized by more or less
party discipline. Cautioning against such simple comparisons I propose to estimate in
this article the extent to which members of the European Parliament are subject to
party pressure. Comparing the results from the beginning of the sixth and seventh
legislative term shows that in final passage votes the average party pressure has
decreased considerably after the rule change.
Keywords
European Parliament, party pressure, party discipline, party cohesion, roll call votes
Introduction
In the final part of the European Parliament’s (EP) sixth term this body adopted
new rules of procedure for the seventh term (EP 7). Since the election of the EP 7
(i.e. the first EP being subject to these new rules) the members of the new parlia-
ment vote on all final passage votes on legislative proposals by roll call vote. As a
consequence, citizens, interest groups, etc., now have a more systematic way to
monitor members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and gain knowledge about
who supports or opposes particular legislative proposals.
As the recent literature on legislatures surmises, transparency and monitoring
possibilities are central elements in establishing accountability relationships (Carey,
2009). With the new rules of procedure, the EP in one single step increased these
possibilities for improved accountability relationships quite substantially. More
information on MEPs’ voting behaviour is now available to all their principals
Corresponding author:
Simon Hug, De
´partement de science politique et relations internationales, Faculte
´des sciences de la socie
´te
´,
Universite
´de Gene
`ve, 40 Bd du Pont d’Arve, 1211 Gene
`ve 4, Switzerland.
Email: simon.hug@unige.ch
in the long chain of delegation, from their party groups, their national parties, their
voters and even interest groups. It will probably take some time until all these
principals use this newly available information in their decisions. It is likely,
however, that party groups in the EP will be the first to adapt to these new
rules. This may affect the way in which MEPs follow the recommendation for
specific votes given by their respective party groups. Thus, the parliamentary
voting data available from the seventh EP allows to explore how MEPs are affected
by this rule change (see also Hix et al., 2012; Mu
¨hlbo
¨ck and Yordanova, 2015).
It also allows assessing to what extent MEPs are subject to pressure from their
respective party groups in voting decisions.
Consequently, the present article offers an analysis of the effect of these rule
changes by focusing on how party pressure differs between final passage votes on
legislative proposals, the remainder of the legislative votes and non-legislative ones.
As the rule changes from the sixth to the seventh EP affect these differences, I study
comparable periods in these two parliaments. The results suggest that MEPs
behave on average quite differently in final passage votes in EP 7 than they did
in those votes requested as roll call votes in EP 6. More specifically, the average
party pressure exerted on MEPs seems to be lower in the former votes than in the
latter. These results cast an even darker shadow on research on parliamentary
voting, as it is an additional illustration that the process leading to roll call votes
affects the results we obtain from analyses of such votes.
Voting in the EP and beyond
Voting records from parliaments allow for important insights into many different
research questions (for recent reviews see Carroll and Poole, 2014; Clinton, 2012;
Collie, 1984; Hug, 2013; Uslaner and Zittel, 2006). Recently, scholars have empha-
sized the important principal-agent relationships in which members of parliaments
(MPs) find themselves (Carey, 2009; Kam, 2008; Strøm, 2000). These relationships
depend, however, on transparency and information available on the behaviour of
MPs and (in most parliamentary democracies) of political parties. Moreover, the
level of transparency across parliaments varies quite considerably. Following up on
earlier systematic assessments by the Interparliamentary Union (1986) (see also
Union Interparlementaire, 1966; Middlebrook, 2003), previous studies have all
documented considerable variations in the voting procedures used in parliaments
(Carey, 2007; Carey, 2009; Crisp and Driscoll, 2012; Hug, 2010; Hug et al., 2015;
Saalfeld, 1995). Quite clearly, roll call votes,
1
where each MP has to unambiguously
state her vote in favour or against a proposal, are far from being the rule in most
parliaments.
Many parliaments envision, however, that either some specific votes are system-
atically voted upon as roll call votes or that some actor(s) may request such a vote.
In both of these cases, obviously, the transparency is limited to those votes where a
roll call vote has occurred. Consequently, we must expect variations in the rela-
tionship between the agent (MP) and her principals (parties, interest groups,
202 European Union Politics 17(2)
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