Career Orientation and Legislative Behaviour in the European Parliament: How Institutional and Political Transformations Re-Shape MEPs’ Behaviour (1979-2024)

Abstract

Speakers: Elena Frech Jérémy Dodeigne Nelson Santos This proposal builds upon the foundational work of Hoyland, Hix and Hobolt on the European Parliament (EP), explaining MEPs’ legislative behaviour in multilevel systems. Our paper introduces three key innovations. First, we extend the longitudinal scope of analysis covering the entire history of the EP (1979-2024). This longitudinal approach allows us to capture the dynamics of distinction political and institutional transformations over time (i.e. institutional empowerment of the EP, increase of party fragmentation, and electoral breakthrough of Eurosceptic parties over the last 45 years). Second, we extend the scope of legislative behaviour by adding a broader set of parliamentary activities to the classic analysis of MEPs’ voting patterns (i.e. content analysis of MEPs’ parliamentary questions). For that goal, we rely on innovative deep learning techniques to study multiple content dimensions of parliamentary behaviour (i.e. MEPs’ focus on policies, domestic/European territories, organisations, and persons). Third, we use a refined measurement of political ambition thanks to a new typology of MEPs’ career orientation across electoral arenas. Our approach fully covers the multilevel nature of the EU, from regional to national and European politics. Drawing upon a rich dataset from the Evolv’EP project (3,634 MEPs and 164,000 parliamentary questions), we assess how the political and institutional changes in the EU have been (re-)shaping the legislative behavior of MEPs over time. Overall, our analysis seeks to shed light on the varying impacts of career orientation on different facets of legislative work, emphasizing the need for a comprehensive understanding of political motivations in multilevel systems.