Heterotemporal Parliamentarism: Does Staggered Membership Renewal Matter?

In parliamentary studies, the effects of staggered membership renewal have been neglected. Staggered mandates desynchronize parliamentary time, as different groups of legislators have different time budgets and are likely to adopt different time horizons. Staggering introduces a decisive element of heterotemporality in the operation of parliaments. Against this background, our paper asks: In what ways does the desynchronization caused by staggered parliamentary terms affect the parliamentary behaviour of (groups of) legislators? At least two basic effects of staggering are plausible. It can be expected to have stabilising effect on parliamentary activity, by reducing the chances of wholesale change in the legislature’s composition. However, there is also the possibility that the legislature will exist in permanent election mode, as the next election is always closer for at least one group of legislators than the other. This election mode can manifest itself in procedural behaviour, where parliamentary activities are focussed on those legislators nearest to an election, as well as leading to cross-party alliances of those facing re-election sooner (Shepsle et al., 2009). Second, it can manifest itself in substantive behaviour, where the time horizons of initiatives become more short-termist overall due to the increased number of electoral events. This paper constitutes a first attempt towards addressing these two possibilities. With a focus on the procedural aspects of parliamentary staggering, the paper analyses the case of the German Bundesrat, which is composed of representatives of governments of the federal states and wields significant legislative power. As the Bundesrat’s composition is determined by staggered Land elections, the time budgets and likely time horizons of Bundesrat members vary greatly. Analysing different dimensions of parliamentary activity, including speeches, amendments, and resolutions of Bundesrat members, we show that staggering indeed has a significant impact on the parliamentary behaviour of (groups of) members and the Bundesrat overall.