A new approach to measuring legislators’ activity

Abstract

How do we measure the activity of legislators? I argue that, in addition to using measures such as how many bills they pass, we must also consider activities such as parliamentary questions, early day motions, motions for the agenda and one-minute speeches. One means for doing so is Akirav’s activity scale developed in Israel. I use this scale to measure legislators’ activity in two additional political systems – the United States and the United Kingdom. I also identify the characteristics shared by the most active legislators and the least active. The findings indicate that opposition, junior and committee chair legislators are more active than other representatives. While previous studies have investigated the cost–benefit analysis in which legislators engage regarding where and how to invest their time in their legislative work, this study is the first to conduct such an analysis about both their legislative and non-legislative activities. This more complete picture reveals their incentives for engaging fully in parliamentary work.