Explaining Final Term Changes in US Congressional Foreign Travel

The Limits of Electoral Control: Evidence from Last‐Term Politicians

“…This may arise because MPs aiming to work in the private sector could view outside interests as an instrument to gain knowledge and networks that hopefully bear fruit in their postparliamentary career. Studying the postelective careers of large samples of former US Congress members, recent empirical evidence appears largely consistent with this line of argument (Dabros 2015;Parker 2008;Parker and Dabros 2012). Moreover, MPs who have already made arrangements with their future employers (and thus know their future career path during their last year(s) in office) might perceive an important benefit from changing their behavior to get a "jump start" into their new career.…”

“…The first part of this result is in line with findings by, for instance, Lott (), Herrick, Moore, and Hibbing (), Rothenberg and Sanders (), and Besley and Larcinese () and is consistent with the idea that such MPs no longer face electoral constraints (see Hypothesis H1a). The second part, however, suggests that retiring MPs perceive no need to invest in human capital, connections and so on that could be helpful to get postparliamentary jobs or to prepare a postparliamentary career via outside interests (see Hypothesis 1b; see also Dabros ; Parker ; Parker and Dabros ). The size of the effects is substantively meaningful.…”

“…In this article, we directly engage with this question by focusing on one limitation of electoral control as a disciplining mechanism: Members of Parliament (MPs) in their final term by definition cannot be held to account in the next election. At least from a rational choice perspective, this would imply that such last‐term MPs will exert less effort to satisfy their citizen‐principals (Besley and Larcinese ; Dabros ; Herrick, Moore, and Hibbing ; Lott ; Parker and Dabros ). In line with such a so‐called shirking proposition, final‐term MPs have repeatedly been found to record lower parliamentary activity (e.g., attendance in meetings and roll‐call votes) than MPs facing re‐election constraints (Besley and Larcinese ; Lott )…”

“…Second, unlike most previous research on the last‐term question (for partial exceptions, see Dabros ; Lott ; Parker and Dabros ), we explicitly differentiate between various motives for leaving parliament (i.e., retirement, career change, or electoral defeat). We argue that such differentiation is essential for two related reasons.…”

“…This theoretical extension builds on the fact that politicians—like all of us—have a binding time constraint, such that time and energy devoted to intraparliamentary work is no longer available for outside interests, and vice versa (Arnold, Kauder, and Potrafke ; Eggers and Hainmueller ; Gagliarducci, Nannicini, and Naticchioni ; Geys and Mause ). However, this trade‐off might change during one's final term, leading last‐term MPs to strategically reposition their intra‐/extraparliamentary work balance (e.g., as an investment in a postparliamentary career) (Dabros ; Parker ). This line of argument innovatively connects the literatures on (1) politicians' parliamentary activity (see above) and (2) their extraparliamentary activities (for a review, see Geys and Mause ) to obtain a more comprehensive assessment of the final‐term question.…”