2005/12/06 by Scott Ashworth, Ethan Bueno de Mesquita · 5 citations
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Business, Management and Accounting · #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Fiscal Policies and Political Economy #Political Influence and Corporate Strategies
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1468-2508.2006.00378.x
We analyze a model of legislative particularism to understand how the provision of constituency service responds to variations in institutional and electoral environments. We show that increased partisan balance in the electorate, single-member districts, and independent executives all increase incentives for legislators to provide constituency service. The results of the model are consistent with existing comparative-institutional empirical observations. Moreover, the model addresses over time trends in the United States that are not explained by existing models and yields novel hypotheses that are amenable to empirical evaluation. There is substantial variation in the amount of constituency service legislators provide across different political environments. Comparisons of the U.S. Congress and the U.K. Parliament show that representatives in single-member district, presidential systems do more constituency service than those in single-member district, parliamentary