Virtual icon From Constituency to Continent? Measuring the Evolving Territorial Focus in MEPs' Parliamentary Questions (1994-2024)

Abstract

Speakers: Elena Frech Jérémy Dodeigne Nelson Santos Discussant: William Daniel Abstract: Balancing “self-rule” with “shared rule,” federal systems and multi-level governance present parliamentarians with a classical representational dilemma: advocating for their specific constituency versus addressing the broader interests of the entire polity. This paper introduces a novel conceptualization of territorial representational focus, operationalizing it as a spectrum ranging from localized (constituency-focused) to polity-wide (supranational or national) representation. Using the European Parliament (EP) as a particularly interesting case study, we investigate this concept through the lens of parliamentary questions, an understudied but revealing dimension of legislative behaviour. Drawing on a comprehensive dataset spanning three decades (1994–2024) and encompassing the careers of 3,654 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and over 164,000 parliamentary questions, we present the first systematic measurement of geographic focus in parliamentary activity using advanced natural language processing (NLP) techniques and large language models (LLMs). Our findings reveal how territoriality in legislators’ questions varies across policy domains and evolves over time, offering new insights into the dynamics of geographic representation.