Using Parliamentary Questions to Measure Constituency Focus: An Application to the Irish Case
| Date | 01 June 2011 |
| Published date | 01 June 2011 |
| Author | Shane Martin |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2011.00885.x |
| Subject Matter | Research Note |
P O L I T I C A L S T U D I E S : 2 0 1 1 VO L 5 9 , 4 7 2 – 4 8 8
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2011.00885.x
RESEARCH NOTE
Using Parliamentary Questions to Measure
Constituency Focus: An Application to
the Irish Casepost_885472..488
Shane Martin
Dublin City University
Individual legislators differ in the degree to which they work to cultivate personal votes.While conventional wisdom
declares that the electoral system typically motivates the choice of legislative role, researchers have found difficulty
assessing empirically the role behaviour of legislators. This study suggests using the content analysis of parliamentary
questions as a mechanism to measure variations in personal vote-earning strategies. To demonstrate the usefulness of
this approach, and the constituency focus of Irish parliamentarians, 123,762 questions tabled by Dáil Deputies between
1997 and 2002 are analysed. While evidence of some orientation toward localism is apparent, the data suggest
significant variations in role orientation among legislators. Competing electoral system and non-electoral system
explanations of intra-system variation in personal vote-earning effort are hypothesised and tested. Characteristics such
as district magnitude, intra-party competition, electoral vulnerability, geography, education, gender and career incen-
tives only partially explain the variation. The results highlight the need to move beyond using electoral rules as a
general proxy for role orientation and behaviour.
Keywords: representation; parliament; Ireland; personal vote; constituency service
Individual legislators differ in the degree to which they expend effort to cultivate personal
votes. Some assign considerable time and resources to local affairs and parochial interests,
thereby cultivating a personal reputation among constituents. Other legislators apparently
focus more attention on national politics, as policy maker, scrutiniser of the executive or
international statesperson. Conventionally, candidate-centred electoral systems motivate
incumbents to cultivate and retain personal votes from constituents, while party-centred
electoral systems provide less incentive for legislators to focus on personal vote gathering
(Carey and Shugart, 1995).1 The relationship appears imperfect, with indications that
considerable variation in role orientation and actual role behaviour exists within the same
electoral environment (Ashworth and Bueno de Mesquita, 2006; Cain et al., 1987; Norton
and Wood, 1993). Despite the growing theoretical significance assigned to legislators’
orientation, researchers have had difficulty measuring, empirically, the role behaviour of
individual legislators. Instead, increasing reliance accrues to the electoral system as a proxy
for local versus party-centred interests (see, for example, Persson and Tabellini, 2003).
This study offers two important contributions to the literature on legislative role behaviour.
First, the content analysis of parliamentary questions, introduced as a novel method for
© 2011 The Author. Political Studies © 2011 Political Studies Association
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measuring legislators’ focus on personal vote-earning and parochial interests at the expense
of other legislative roles, provides distinct advantages over existing measures of role activity.
The advantage arises from the fact that an analysis of parliamentary questions can provide
a quantitative indicator of roles legislators perform that is free from many of the measure-
ment problems associated with other methods of uncovering legislative behaviour.2
A second contribution of this research is the assessment of the common assumption that
Irish parliamentarians are constituency focused. Analysis of each of the 123,762 content-
analysed parliamentary questions tabled during the lifetime of the 28th Dáil (1997–2002)
reveal the degree of parochial interest among parliamentarians. The evidence suggests
slightly lower levels of constituency orientation than conventionally believed, with signifi-
cant variation in localism within the same parliament. To address the reasons motivating
some Dáil Deputies to be more focused on personal vote-earning strategies, regression
analysis tests explanations of variation in role behaviour at the individual level. The results
call into question many assumptions in the comparative literature which posit an electoral
and institutional origin to constituency orientation.
The next section reviews existing research on constituency-centred behaviour in Ireland.
The third section explains how an analysis of parliamentary questions can provide a
quantitative measure of constituency-centred behaviour. The fourth section presents the
descriptive data. The fifth section presents a number of hypotheses and employs the original
data to test theories of legislative motivation. The note concludes with a discussion of
the results and the usefulness of parliamentary questions as a tool for measuring role
orientation.
Existing Measures of Constituency-Centred Behaviour
Cultural and institutional variables emphasise that Irish parliamentarians ought to be
focused on cultivating personal votes to the detriment of policy advocacy at the national
level. A political culture that emphasises brokerage, the small size of Irish society and the
administrative structure apparently contribute to a heavy constituent-oriented workload for
Irish parliamentarians (Gallagher and Komito, 2010). The Single Transferable Vote (STV)
electoral system, where candidates from the same party compete against each other for
votes, motivates incumbents to differentiate themselves from co-partisans (Sinnott, 2010) at
least in part through the cultivation of personal votes (Marsh, 2007; Swindle, 2002). Besides
these theoretical expectations, little is known about what Dáil Deputies actually do. Both
the number and penetration of studies in terms of the sample size is surprisingly limited.
Two comparative studies employed interviews to measure the role orientation of Irish
parliamentarians. In one, David Wood and Garry Young (1997) interviewed 40 Irish junior
deputies, revealing, on average, that those interviewed spent 2.5 days per week in their
constituencies and devoted just less than 50 hours per week to constituency affairs, which
accounted for 58.9 per cent of their working week. Wood andYoung (1997) also found that
22.5 per cent of those interviewed would prefer to do more constituency service as
compared to 40 per cent who would prefer to do less. Although only junior deputies were
interviewees, the results provide a significant insight into the working life and role of an
Irish legislator.
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S H A N E M A RT I N
In the second comparative study,Valerie Heitshusen et al. (2005) interviewed 245 legislators
from six legislative chambers including 41 Irish parliamentarians between 1998 and 1999.
The interviews attempted to uncover the relative significance of, and engagement with,
constituency, party and policy activities. Of Dáil Deputies interviewed, 39 per cent ranked
constituency affairs as their sole primary focus; 19 per cent ranked constituency as their
primary focus along with another priority; and 42 per cent of Dáil Deputies interviewed
ranked constituency below some other priority. The result of both sets of interviews
suggests the level of importance of constituency work in Irish parliamentary life.
Martin (2010) surveyed Irish legislators to discover role orientation in the Oireachtas (Irish
Parliament). The average proportion of the working week spent attending to constituency-
related activities among those Dáil Deputies who responded to the survey was just over 60
per cent. Of course, surveys, as with elite interviews, suffer from significant methodological
problems, endangering the validity and reliability of findings. To verify the role behaviour
of legislators more independently, the current research suggests a new method which has
significantly fewer disadvantages when compared to conventional methods.
PQs: A Measure of Constituency Focus
Parliamentary questions are a feature of almost all national legislatures (Norton, 1993, p. 1).
Typically, a member tables a question to a minister of the government; this action requires
the minister to provide an answer. While questions can take many forms, the public tends
to be most familiar with oral questions posed to the head of government (Russo and
Wiberg, 2010; Salmond, 2010). Yet most queries and answers assume a written form.While
some observers question the benefit of questions in terms of the general and vague nature
of answers provided (MacCarthaigh, 2005), the propensity of parliamentarians to ask
questions indicates that the interrogatories could be an important tool for measuring an
individual legislator’s job (Franklin and Norton, 1993; Wiberg, 1994).
This discussion suggests that a content analysis of parliamentary questions can uncover the
role orientation of individual legislators. The personal vote-earning strategy, if any, of a
parliamentarian should be evident in the content of questions asked. Parliamentary ques-
tions offer a tool both for questions of policy and questions of a more parochial,
constituency-oriented nature. How a legislator chooses to use the questioning tool provides
a unique insight into legislative behaviour and role orientation. To illustrate...
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