Incentives for non-participation: absence in the United Kingdom House of Commons, 1997–2015

Zoltán Fazekas () and Martin Ejnar Hansen ()
Additional contact information
Zoltán Fazekas: Copenhagen Business School
Martin Ejnar Hansen: Brunel University London

Public Choice, 2022, vol. 191, issue 1, No 4, 73 pages

Abstract: Abstract The ability to hold MPs accountable for their actions is one of the cornerstones of modern representative democracy. While it is important for MPs to send signals to both their constituents and to their party, a large number of MPs remain absent from votes. Those absences are an important part of the MP’s toolbox, but absences carry limitations, rooted in electoral and political constraints. We investigate how—conditional on the electoral cycle—some well-established political constraints along the government and opposition lines vary in strength. We examine the absence probabilities of MPs in the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2015, and find that as the next elections are approaching, political constraints somewhat weaken and electoral ones take over, but marked differences emerge between parliamentary sessions.

Keywords: Political constraints; Electoral constraints; Absence; Legislative behavior; House of Commons (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11127-021-00950-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:191:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s11127-021-00950-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11127/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11127-021-00950-6

Access Statistics for this article

Public Choice is currently edited by WIlliam F. Shughart II

More articles in Public Choice from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().