Candidate Selection and Parliamentary Activity in the EU’s Multi-Level System
Opening a Black-Box
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13053675 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Eva-Maria Euchner (0000-0002-4928-9023, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, corresponding author), Elena Frech (0000-0002-7974-2976, University of Geneva) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 72-84 |
| Publication date | 2020-02-13 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Politics and Governance (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2183-2463 • E-ISSN: 2183-2463 |
| Publisher | Cogitatio (PUBLISHER • PT) |
| DOI | 10.17645/pag.v8i1.2553 |
| OpenAlex | W3005733427 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
| References cited | 28 |
Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have a multitude of parliamentary duties and, accordingly, have to prioritize some parliamentary activities over others. So far, we know comparably little about this prioritization process. Based on principal–agent theory, we argue first, that MEPs’ parliamentary activities are systematically determined by the “visibility” and usefulness of parliamentary instruments for their key principal; second, we expect the exclusiveness of candidate selection procedures of an MEP’s national party—the nomination and the final list placement—to determine her/his key principal (i.e., elites or members of national parties). Combining multi-level mixed effects linear regression models and expert interviews, we show that MEPs who are nominated and whose final list placement is decided by an exclusive circle of national party elites prioritize speeches, whereas MEPs who are nominated or whose final list placement is decided by more inclusive procedures prioritize written questions and opinions or reports. In other words, speeches seem particularly useful to communicate with national party elites, while other activities are used to serve larger groups of party members. These findings open up the black-box of the “national party principal” and illustrate how a complex principal–agent relationship stimulates very specific parliamentary activity patterns in the EU’s multi-level system
Economics · Key (lock · Management science · Multitude · Nomination · Parliament · Political science · Politics · Principal (computer security · Prioritization · Process (computing · Public relations · Selection (genetic algorithm · Computer Science · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Gender Politics and Representation · Law · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Public Administration
Political Behavior in the EU Multi-Level System
Competition in the European Arena
Vertical inroads of religion into European parliamentary politics
Dancing Around the Issue? Public Opinion and Strategic Vagueness in Parliamentary Speech
Living Apart Together? The Organization of Political Parties beyond the Nation-State
Living up to expectations? EU politicization and party Europeanization in Flanders and the Netherlands
Mandated Representation
Reconsidering the Electoral Connection of Speeches
Candidate selection and its behavioral consequences
Political Parties, Parliaments and Legislative Speechmaking
The EU Multi-Level System and the Europeanization of Domestic Blame Games
Living Apart Together? The Organization of Political Parties beyond the Nation-State
Political Behavior in the EU Multi-Level System
Competition in the European Arena
Explaining the salience of anti-elitism and reducing political corruption for political parties in Europe with the 2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey data
Electoral Institutions and Legislative Behavior
Balancing Competing Demands
The European Parliament oversight of EU agencies through written questions
Look who’s talking
The Rationale behind Committee Assignment in the European Parliament
Parliamentary questions and oversight in the European Union
When politics prevails
To defect or not to defect? National, institutional and party group pressures on MEPs and their consequences for party group cohesion in the European Parliament
Empowerment of the European Parliament
Nominating women for E urope
The Ties that Bind? Intra-party Information Exchanges of German MPs in EU Multi-level Politics
An Integrated Model of Women's Representation
Bringing salience back in
Parliamentary Questions, Oversight, and National Opposition Status intheEuropeanParliament
Multiple Principals and Legislative Cohesion
Parliamentary Questions, the Behaviour of Legislators, and the Function of Legislatures
Questioning Parliamentary Questions
The Committee System
Speechmaking and the Selectorate
| Unique citing works | 9 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,5 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2025 (6) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 9 |