Sponsoring Early Day Motions in the British House of Commons as a Response to Electoral Vulnerability*

Michael Kellermann

Political Science Research and Methods, 2013, vol. 1, issue 2, 263-280

Abstract: While the importance of individual candidates in British elections has long been minimized, this article argues that early day motions (EDMs)—formal, non-binding expressions of opinion—allow backbench MPs to cultivate reputations with constituents. First, this article demonstrates that greater sponsorship of EDMs is associated with better electoral outcomes, which suggests that EDMs could help vulnerable MPs improve their electoral prospects. Secondly, a Bayesian hierarchical negative binomial hurdle model, which accounts for specific features of EDM sponsorship and is novel in political science, shows that members from electorally competitive constituencies are more likely to introduce EDMs, and introduce them more often, than members from less competitive constituencies. Moreover, this relationship has increased over the past 20 years.

Date: 2013
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