Party, Constituency, and Representation: Votes on Abortion in the British House of Commons

Baughman, John J.

doi:10.1023/b:puch.0000035857.24104.15

Cited by 27 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Within this we assume that incumbents will think (correctly or incorrectly) that their individual policy preferences will matter to their constituents in terms of their likelihood to vote for them (or not). This assumption is made on the basis of prior academic research which suggests that parliamentarians base their positions in light of the assumed preferences of their constituents -for example, Baughman (2004) found that parliamentarians with a higher Catholic vote base showed a stronger tendency towards holding socially conservative positions on abortion and sexuality. Therefore, given the above and the persistence of the media campaigning against the 0.7 percent commitment (Cawley, 2015), our constituency marginality hypotheses was as follows:…”

Section: Data Collection and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The UK government and the 0.7% international aid target: Opinion among Conservative parliamentarians

Heppell

Crines

Jeffery

2017

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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Section: Data Collection and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The UK government and the 0.7% international aid target: Opinion among Conservative parliamentarians

Heppell

Crines

Jeffery

2017

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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“…Any model of voting and rebellion in Westminster must account for two empirical regularities: very high levels of party unity and a government vs. opposition divide (Baughman 2004;Kam 2009;Spirling and Quinn 2010;Dewan and Spirling 2011). Indeed, partisan politics dominates so much of the decision-making calculus of MPs that ideological voting is, at best, a secondary motivation (Hix and Noury 2015).…”

Section: Voting In the Westminster Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ideology, Grandstanding, and Strategic Party Disloyalty in the British Parliament

et al. 2017

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Strong party discipline is a core feature of Westminster parliamentary systems. Parties typically compel Members of Parliament (MPs) to support the party position regardless of MPs' individual preferences. Rebellion, however, does occur. Using an original dataset of MP votes and speeches in the British House of Commons from 1992 to 2015, coupled with new estimations of MPs' ideological positions within their party, we find evidence that MPs use rebellion to strategically differentiate themselves from their party. The strategy that MPs employ is contingent upon an interaction of ideological extremity with party control of government. Extremists are loyal when their party is in the opposition, but these same extremists become more likely to rebel when their party controls government. Additionally, they emphasize their rebellion through speeches. Existing models of rebellion and party discipline do not account for government agenda control and do not explain these patterns.

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“…division lists offer a vivid insight into their attitudes' (see also Jones, 1995). Research on moral policy-making in the UK also concludes that in free votes not only are partisan and constituency influences at work (Baughman, 2004), but that personal characteristics also have a decisive impact on the voting behaviour of MPs (Hibbing & Marsh, 1987). In the context of moral policy-making it is therefore an unusual procedural feature of the Irish debate on abortion that some parties insisted on a party line.…”

Section: The Debates On Abortion In the Irish Dáilmentioning

confidence: 94%

Convictions and Signals in Parliamentary Speeches: Dáil Éireann Debates on Abortion in 2001 and 2013

Baumann

Debus

Müller

2015

Irish Political Studies

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While party unity in legislative voting is generally high in parliamentary democracies, debates provide MPs with the opportunity to express political views even if they deviate from the party line. Using the extensive parliamentary debates on the reform of the Irish abortion legislation in 2001 and 2013, we assess whether Teachtaí Dála (TD) send signals to their constituents. In doing so, we take into account literature on the individual preference formation of political actors as well as institutional accounts that stress vote-seeking resulting from the electoral system. We also argue that personal characteristics like gender and family status should affect the positions of TDs on the abortion issue. In addition, we argue that the preferences of the constituents should particularly be taken into account by those TDs who only narrowly won a seat in the Dáil. Our analysis, which is based on a content analysis of all speeches held during the abortion reform debates in the Dáil in 2001 and 2013, provides support for our expectations.

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Party, Constituency, and Representation: Votes on Abortion in the British House of Commons

Cited by 27 publications

References 42 publications

The UK government and the 0.7% international aid target: Opinion among Conservative parliamentarians

The UK government and the 0.7% international aid target: Opinion among Conservative parliamentarians

Ideology, Grandstanding, and Strategic Party Disloyalty in the British Parliament

Convictions and Signals in Parliamentary Speeches: Dáil Éireann Debates on Abortion in 2001 and 2013

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